Lifat's page

I understand this is a holy necro, but I needed it to be said:

Evil Subtype

This subtype is usually applied to Outsiders native to the evil-aligned Outer Planes. Evil Outsiders are also called fiends. Most creatures that have this subtype also have evil alignments; however, if their alignments change, they still retain the subtype. Any effect that depends on alignment affects a creature with this subtype as if the creature has an evil alignment, no matter what its alignment actually is. The creature also suffers effects according to its actual alignment. A creature with the evil subtype overcomes damage reduction as if its natural weapons and any weapons it wields are evil-aligned.

This text implies that an evil subtype can attain a different alignment. However it spells out in no uncertain terms that you will be considered both evil and whatever alignment you have for all abilities.

That means even if you are LG with evil subtype, then holy word will affect you as if you were evil, so will smite. And unholy word will ALSO affect you due to your alignment.

Now. Getting the Half-Fiend template does not grant you evil subtype

Bigtuna wrote:

how about a swift action?

Can players that act in the surprise round take a standard action AND a swift action?

You cannot take a swift action during a surprise round, though you can perform as many free actions as your GM allows.

I know this is a horrible necro, but this is factually incorrect. Look up swift actions and when you can take them. They specifically state that they can be taken if you are allowed to take free actions. And you are specifically allowed a free action in a surprise round.

Hi all. I've been running my head against the proverbial wall in coming up with an answer to my rules question(s)...
Could I Dimension Door to the inside/other side of a Prismatic Sphere and/or wall.

Here is what I've come up with so far:

Dimension Door is Conjuration (Teleportation), meaning that teleportation is instantaneous travel through the Astral Plane. Anything that blocks astral travel also blocks teleportation.

From this I infer that Dimension Door would skip into the astral plane and make you pop up in designated target area.

Prismatic Wall is an abjuration spell that is not a force effect. It does not exist in or effect the ethereal or astral plane. That means that as long as you are on the astral plane you should be able to move through the wall as though it does not exist, including all its effects that stop spells, and pop up on the other side with no issue, as far as I can tell. I'm open to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I want it to be rules based and not opinion based.

Prismatic Sphere has the same limitation as the Prismatic Wall, however Prismatic Sphere is a solid sphere and not a shell and thus also exists in the area that you would presumably want to arrive at. My question then becomes, what happens? Did the Prismatic Sphere that stops all spells prevent the reentry into the material plane from the Astral plane and thus you would get shunted to the outside of the Prismatic Sphere or did you pop up inside the sphere and now get subjected to each layer in order?

Thank you in advance.
PS. I know that there is another discussion about it but it was in 2012 and would thus be a necro. Besides, the discussion devolved into opinions that was not rooted in rules.

Agreed with the above for 1).

2) is a bit problematic, did you make a typo and say "Bloodline Arcanas" when you meant "Bloodline Powers"? As your question is currently written I would have to disagree with the above responses and say the answer is no - a Bloodline Arcana is a separate feature of a Bloodline (possessed by Sorcerer Bloodlines but not Bloodrager Bloodlines) that is not mentioned in either the general Bloodline Mutations rules you have presented or the specific Blood Intensity rules. You can not trade a Bloodline Arcana for a Mutation. You can trade either a Bloodline Power or Bloodline Feat, as per the text.

My question was unclear, and I apologize for the confusion. What I was trying to ask is this: The general text of bloodline mutations mentions that I can "purchase" the individual mutations for the bloodline powers they mention OR a bloodline feat of an appropriate level. The individual mutations does not mention being "purchasable" for bloodline feats though. Does that mean the general text for bloodline mutation was incorrect or not?

Hi there paizo forum. I was looking into blood intensity.

My situation is this:
I am a lvl 16 sorcerer who has magical lineage trait for fireball and spell perfection for fireball

This is what I want to do:
I want to cast an intensified, empowered, quickened fireball and then I want to use a metamagic rod of daze on it.

These are the questions I have:
I assume that since magical lineage lowers the metamagic increase by one that I can still use spell perfection to lower the quickened cost away as well despite the 9th lvl slot limitation. Is this assumption correct?

What metamagic daze rod do I need? I would assume that I would need the normal version since the spell slot used is 5th after all modifiers are in.

This faq answer at least seem to indicate that it would not be the lesser rod:

Metamagic: At what spell level does the spell count for concentration DCs, magus spell recall, or a pearl of power?

The spell counts as the level of the spell slot necessary to cast it.

For example, an empowered burning hands uses a 3rd-level spell slot, counts as a 3rd-level spell for making concentration checks, counts as a 3rd-level spell for a magus's spell recall or a pearl of power.

In general, use the (normal, lower) spell level or the (higher) spell slot level, whichever is more of a disadvantage for the caster. The advantages of the metamagic feat are spelled out in the Benefits section of the feat, and the increased spell slot level is a disadvantage.

Heighten Spell is really the only metamagic feat that makes using a higher-level spell slot an advantage instead of a disadvantage.

EDIT 1: Formatting

Erh...
In the magic section under duration it states: " If a spell’s duration is variable, the duration is rolled secretly so the caster doesn’t know how long the spell will last."
Time stop does not mention that you know how long it lasts and thus the general rule stands, which means that the only way to know how long a time stop lasts is to maximize it through wands of metamagic other such methods.
If you don't know the duration then how do you time the delayed blast fireballs?
EDIT: I'm such a moron! Sorry for the necro!

Definitely interested. Will be submitting a character for this.
EDIT: Knew I forgot to ask something. Which format would you rather we use for our character sheet? Myth-weavers?

The year is left fluid so it can be changed as needed, but the current year in Golarion is 4716 (because in real life it's 2016). If you want to stick to when it was published (2012-2013) the start year would be 4712.

Both years are viable I guess. I didn't know that it was how they handled Golarion years. I think that is an exceptionally good way of handling it because it is so simple. Thank you.

Hmm, can't find anything in the Player Guide. But according to Inner Sea World Guide the standard start year is 4711.

Thanks for the try. I had read the player's guide to try and find the date as that is supposedly reasonably spoiler free.

Hi ppl.
I'm going to be a player in a Shattered Star campaign, and as such I want no spoilers on it. I'm sitting around trying to create a background story for my character but I have been unable to find out what in game year the campaign is supposed to start. Can anyone please answer that?

If a spell or power doesn't mention that you need to stay within a certain range, then you don't need to. Take Shield Other fx.

As far as I can see your calculation on DC is off.
+2 Spell Focus (Enchantment)
+2 G. Spell Focus (Enchantment)
+4 Spell lvl
+1 Kitsune Magic (racial)
+1 Perfect Voice (Maestro Bloodline ability)
+2 Kitsune FC bonus
+5 Charisma bonus
+10 Base DC
=
27 total DC.

And Because you are a Maestro you count as 1 lvl higher when casting the spell.
Furthermore, if you started with 20 charisma and used both stat increases in it, and wore a +2 or +4 charisma item your DC would be even more rockstar.

chuffster, why? This is not reality. If a flying creature had a speed of 1,000 he still wouldn't have to make any kind of special check to land. No more than people stopping on a dime when running.

That kind of realism simply is not part of this game. Heck, there are any number of rules and game elements that violate reality (and I don't mean the magical elements).

But what if his speed was over 9000???.... /trollface hides :D

Mark of Justice is also a cleric spell.

I see it's quite tempting to view everything one doesn't like as a designer's mistake.
Mark of justice has been around for 15 years now. Don't you think that, in the various incarnations of D&D and Pathfinder, someone would have noticed and said "Oh wait, Mark of Justice makes no sense, lets drop it"? No, because it makes sense, and fills a niche that Bestow Curse doesn't.

Want an example of a useless spell that has been around for a long time without being errataed? Take a look at the spells Damp Powder and Weaken Powder...

I think most people that I've played with ruled that you do it in fractions, so that if you move 1/3 your movement on the ground, you lose 1/3 your flying speed for that move action. Mostly people tend to round up the fractions so that it takes away more movement

I like using fractions and I don't care whether it rounds up or down, as long as it stays consistent within the campaign.

say that you have a +1 keen, vorpal longsword, then you apply greater magic weapon from a 12th lvl caster (which is +3) now your weapon is a +3 keen, vorpal longsword, for the duration of the greater magic weapon spell. Once the duration expires, the weapon returns to being +1 keen, vorpal.
Same process can be used for armors (and shields) using magic vestment spell.
The only thing to remember is that the spell "greater magic weapon" doesn't allow the weapon to act like a special material or alignment, like a permanent enhancement would (+3 counts as silver/cold iron, +4 counts as adamantine, +5 counts as all alignments)

As a Librarian I would love this power (order one extra copy of every book in the library. Eat the extra copy.

You now can perfectly recommend a book for someone. You know exactly what every book is like. You can also help people find books they read but no longer remember fully

You'd be a wonderful librarian.

also the divination stuff means no one could steal your books, and you'd always know who damaged a book.

fixing would be easy too.

Oh yes! It would be immensely useful as a librarian if you were the only one who had that power. But imagine if you had to order a new copy every time someone "borrowed" a book, because they would eat it... Annoying!

CampinCarl9127 wrote:

I've always done permanency in a case-by-case basis, leaving it up to GM discretion. I don't think long arm is an unreasonable spell to allow permanencied.

I see. It might not be unreasonable, but it sure could be freaky.

ARRRRGH!!!!! WHY? WHYYYYYY?!? The HUMANITY! MY EYES, MY POOR EYES!

Yes.

gnoams wrote:

So no, unfortunately you can't read books by eating them.

Pity. College students everywhere would be ecstatic.

Publishers would be extatic to. The only ones that would have a sad face would be libraries (and librarians) :P

You assume correctly!

So, if I remember correctly, Undead use their Charisma scores to calculate their HP, right?

Most don't, but there are types and specific undeads that do.

Regardless, we have actual ruletext that tells us how to handle stat penalties, damage and drain. There are actually differences (otherwise, why have different types at all?) and using a specific exception to the general rule as evidence of the general rule being wrong is a slippery slope and should be avoided.

Pathfinder SRD, Spells, applicable rules wrote:

Saving Throws
(object)

The spell can be cast on objects, which receive saving throws only if they are magical or if they are attended (held, worn, grasped, or the like) by a creature resisting the spell, in which case the object uses the creature's saving throw bonus unless its own bonus is greater. This notation does not mean that a spell can be cast only on objects. Some spells of this sort can be cast on creatures or objects. A magic item's saving throw bonuses are each equal to 2 + 1/2 the item's caster level.

(harmless)

The spell is usually beneficial, not harmful, but a targeted creature can attempt a saving throw if it desires.

So here is proof that there is no saving throw if you cast it on your own weapon (unless you want to resist the spell). Likewise if you cast it on an ally's weapon (he probably won't want to resist either).

Once the spell has been cast and you touch the target weapon, it either saves, right then, or doesn't. If the spell succeeds (no save or failed save) then it is in place and now that weapon has a +1 enhancement bonus for the duration of the spell. There are no more saves. Hitting someone with this weapon is exactly like hitting him with real magic weapon (he can't save against those, either).

Minor correction: It is ALMOST like using a real magic weapon. Real magic weapons also get to count as silver/cold-iron, adamantine & alignment specific weapons depending on their enhancement bonus. A weapon with a "magic weapon" spell upon it doesn't.

Well the scrimshaw scroll in Carrion Crown actually had roughly 5 spells carved on it. You can always place more than one spell on a single scroll but you can only activate one spell at a time from my understanding. (if this is wrong, I would love for someone to correct me.) So as far as carrying "10 or 15 scrolls worth of bone" turns into like maybe, a single deer skull with 10 or 15 spells carved on it.

You can indeed have more than one spell per scroll, but that is by adding length to the scroll. And you are correct that only one such spell can be activated at a time barring some kind of special ability (I doubt one such exist though).

Lifat wrote:

LazarX is correct that by RAW and RAI the paper crumbles and you have to get new paper.

I don't think it actually crumbles:

"The writing vanishes from the scroll when the spell is activated."

But is does say, "All writing implements and materials used to scribe a scroll must be fresh and unused."

I think most GMs would allow it as long as you're not trying to get scrolls cheap somehow.

Fair enough, I stand corrected. The paper could technically be reused for other things than scrolls by RAW. And yeah, as you say, I can't see any GM disallowing using the paper again for scrolls unless you are trying to reduce price.

Lifat, that's only because incompletely changed the ages for Aasimar and Tiefling, they dropped the base age and the age points without dropping the dice.

According to the Devs the Aasimar and Tieflings are supposed to have approximately human ages.

Frankly, it seems they didn't put a lot of thought into it. They should either have an adult age of 15 or they should have longer life spans like every other race that starts at 20.

Assuming a "trained" class here is the list of races that can start out as middle-age or above:

Aasimar/Tiefling: 20+8d6= 48, middle-age 35, old 53. Averagely middle-aged, potentially old-age.

Dhampir: 20+10d6= 55, middle-age 35, old 53, venerable 70. Averagely old-aged, potentially venerable.

Goblin/Kobold/Orc/Ratfolk/Grippli/Strix: 12+2d6= 19, middle-age 20. Averagely adult, potentially middle-aged.

I've now shown 3 different age categories that can randomly reach middle-age or more following the normal rules. These could all be mistakes, but it is a rather long list.
I'm not saying that you should allow people to start of with age modifiers to stats. I'm simply stating that you shouldn't hide behind "you can't do it because the rules say you can't", because clearly you can given the right races. Personally I would instead tell the player that it is a way to gain to much power that you aren't comfortable with and that you will allow any age, but it will be without modifiers.

LazarX is correct that by RAW and RAI the paper crumbles and you have to get new paper.

That said, what you are describing is just awesome flavor for your druid and if I was your GM, I'd happily be saying YES all the way to all that you had said. I would even let you reuse the bones for new scrolls and I'd even let it be slightly more durable because of the materials used. On the time to craft with subpar tools... You are already getting divine help, so stop overthinking it. You are on some seriously awesome flavor so it works! :D

As a GM, when I see a player doing stuff that is only adding flavor I tend to get very open to suggestions. But if you try to use that to get more power the openess tends to dry up pretty fast.

When a wizard casts a prepared spell, it disappears from memory, so unless you've prepared the spell twice (or more) you would indeed be unable to cast it again.
There are ways to get around that, one easy way is to have a bonded item. That item will allow you to cast a spell once per day that you have in your spellbook without preparing it.

Ronnie K wrote:

Theconiel wrote:

A cleric (invisible) and a rogue are flanking a fighter, as depicted below. The fighter, having failed his Perception check, is unaware of the cleric. Does the rogue get sneak attack? After all, the fighter will not be responding to the cleric's presence.

(C)FR

I imagine the fighter would be reacting to the cleric even more than to the rogue! Just because he can't see the cleric doesn't mean he is ignorant of invisible foes! has he never heard of invisibility? Did he not see the cleric go invisible? A lot of questions? But in the end the rule is not meant to be 'realistic' in every situation. It is meant to facilitate game play.

If i were aware of a visible rogue to one side, and an invisible foe to the other, guess which one I' be paranoid about! Even if I was naive and had never heard of invisibility, or had no idea that an invisible foe was threatening me, I'm still being threatened! When that invisible cleric taps me with his hammer, or coughs, you bet your codpiece I'm looking both ways.

But then we have schrodinger's cleric.

If a cleric gets behind the fighter, but the fighter doesn't have the perception bonus to notice (lets say it is an invisible, silenced cleric), does he get flanked?

If he does get flanked because he THINKS there might be a cleric, what happens if the cleric in the same situation moves AWAY instead, and ther is no cleric? From the fighter's perspective, he can sense the exact same amount of information about a cleric in the square behind him.

And what if no one knows there is a cleric at all? What if the cleric of a ninja god had just happened to be doing surveilance, and decided to help the rogue since it gets the fighter assassinated in a way that can be written off? But what if the cleric never touches ANYONE, or make their prescence appearant at all? Does it still count?

Overall...there is a reason why I argue for a descrease in stealth check. I would just want the invisible cleric to play SOME...

I also like the idea of granting a circumstance penalty to stealth if you want to grant flanking.

To answer the OP's question: As others have said, age modifiers are applied after point buy. In fact, I don't know of any stat modifiers that are applied before point buy.

@Gauss. You are correct that none of the CRB races can randomly start out as middle-age even if you roll max. But for aasimars with a "trained" class the average random age is actually middle age, and if you roll high enough you can get into the old category aswell. So technically speaking using that as a defense isn't good enough.

Personally speaking I would as a GM smack any player that tried to pull off getting age modifiers at playstart, unless we started at a reasonably high lvl.

Once the rogue has used the flanking bonus I think the fighter should be aware that they were flanked, as they would be of other conditions which have affected them. The fighter could then reason where the flanker must be, possibly incorrectly if there's something like reach or the gang up feat involved.

Without a perception check - or an attack from the rogue which doesn't get the flank bonus - the fighter isn't going to know if the cleric has moved and the flanking has ended though.

I think that is a very fair way to handle that. It always bugged me how powerful invisibility was (before you get the counters up and running) and this one would reduce it's power somewhat. Of course if the cleric and the rogue were teammates and they were clever they would have a system of movement up, where the cleric made a 5-foot step every now and then and then the rogue could do that aswell to continue the flank without the fighter knowing where the invisible person is. That or the cleric could live with possibly taking damage, afterall the invisibility is essentially a 50% damage reduction (over time).

Lifat wrote:

As far as I can tell there are no rules that disallow the cleric from flanking with the rogue. So for RAW we have to say that yes the cleric grants flanking.

Looking at RAI, I understand the people who are saying that it doesn't make sense, but ruling that the cleric doesn't grant flanking because the fighter hasn't percieved him introduces a lot more headaches. As others have mentioned, what about illusions? Take the OP's example and replace the cleric with an illusion that the fighter failed his will save against? Is the rogue now flanking with the illusion? Because according to the rules that I've read that doesn't appear to be so. What can we take away from this? Well it appears that flanking ISN'T based off percieved threats, and now I ask, if that is true then why shouldn't the invisible cleric grant flanking?

Personally speaking I to find it a bit weird, but given that I don't see any easy solution that won't introduce new problems, I'm inclined to just go with it and not try to houserule it.

Allow the illusion to flank; it's not that powerful of a bluff to an illusion spell, and connected with not being threatened by something you don't perceive will make things more logical.

So being blind would mean that you are essentially immune to being flanked? Because that is logically what would follow if you made those rule changes.

Gisher wrote:

Qaianna wrote:

I'd say that to be threatening, the target has to be aware of you.

Could you please cite the section of the rules that says this? I can't seem to find anything that says the target needs to be aware of you.

Have you seen A Few Good Men with Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore?

None of those are paizo "pathfinder" products, so they are unusable for deciding RAW :P

As far as I can tell there are no rules that disallow the cleric from flanking with the rogue. So for RAW we have to say that yes the cleric grants flanking.

Looking at RAI, I understand the people who are saying that it doesn't make sense, but ruling that the cleric doesn't grant flanking because the fighter hasn't percieved him introduces a lot more headaches. As others have mentioned, what about illusions? Take the OP's example and replace the cleric with an illusion that the fighter failed his will save against? Is the rogue now flanking with the illusion? Because according to the rules that I've read that doesn't appear to be so. What can we take away from this? Well it appears that flanking ISN'T based off percieved threats, and now I ask, if that is true then why shouldn't the invisible cleric grant flanking?

Personally speaking I to find it a bit weird, but given that I don't see any easy solution that won't introduce new problems, I'm inclined to just go with it and not try to houserule it.

Lifat wrote:

Granted, to date I don't know a way to circumvent "bludgeoning" other than using a bludgeoning weapon.

Weapon Versatility does it.

Okay that is an awesome feat.

There are definitely creatures that have the "Or" label and there are creatures that have the "and" label.
If a creature is labeled with "and" it means that you have to qualify for both to pierce the damage reduction!
If they disagree with that, ask them to show where in the rules it says that "and" means "or". Or ask them to find a quote in the rules that says to pierce a damage reduction with "and" in the wording, that you only need one of the types. Hint: They can't because they are wrong.

Remember that there are several ways to get around most special damage reductions: A +3 weapon counts as the material it is made of AND cold iron AND silver. A +4 weapon ALSO counts as adamantine for damage reduction purposes. A +5 weapon ALSO counts as any alignment.

Granted, to date I don't know a way to circumvent "bludgeoning" other than using a bludgeoning weapon.
There is however a feat called "penetrating strike" that will allow you to ignore 5 points of damage reduction, meaning that if the creature has 20 damage reduction, then he'll only have 15 against you.

As I said in my first post, this is a situation where we wont ever get a clear consensus without a FAQ/Errata spelling it out, because the rules are open to interpretation. GM's will therefor have to make up their own minds about it and there will probably be table variance. This is nothing new for FoM. I constantly see new situations come up where something from FoM is brought into questioning.
Personally I don't really care which way you lean as long as you are consistent. If FoM works against Dimensional Anchor, it should ALWAYS work against Dimensional Anchor. But personally I'd rule that Dimensional Anchor trumphs FoM.

This is again an area where the rules are vague enough that it would be GM call, due to the poor wording of FoM.
Personally I'd judge FoM to protect against stuff that inhibits normal movement, not extra-dimensional. In short, I think Dimensional Anchor should trumph FoM.

Theoretically there is no RAW proof that the dust WOULDN'T work, for what OP suggests, but neither is there anything that proves that it DOES work.
Which means it is left up to the GM.
Personally speaking, it would be another way to cheapen dying more than it already is, so I'd say no.

Seconded yes to all.

I agree with Talon Stormwarden on this one, and I'd add that I seriously doubt that it was ever intended to work like OP suggests. It would cheapen dying even more than it already is.

Which would be one expensive light show.

Yeah... I have to agree tbat there doesn't seem to be anything in the rules about either interpretation, but I'd also state that the GM has final say. The players should be the ones showing rules quotes, not you.

Personally speaking I'd rule that spells don't have retroactive higher DC's.

I agree with DM-Blake. On all counts. Even the part he admits will have variance because it isn't covered by the rules.

No I don't mean that she will stay in stealth after casting. I just want her to be able to move there with no one noticing and observe. Once she engages then all bets are off and the PCs will know she is there. I just thought with the PCs engaged with the ghost that they wouldn't notice her on the ceiling. So just need to know if they get a perception vs stealth check every round, or just the first round as long as she doesn't engage.

To be able to stealth you need to qualify for stealth. Normally you cannot stealth while directly observed and you cannot stealth in the open either. This doesn't change because of combat. The characters have 60ft darkvision, so outside that range the vampire can easily stealth with no need for cover or other way to do it. Inside the 60ft range, the vampire either needs some ability like hide in plain sight or invisibility or cover to maintain stealth. Each round the vampire can move from one cover to another without breaking stealth. Being on the ceiling, which granted is an unusual place to be, is not enough to grant stealth. Every time the vampire does something that potentially lets the group spot/hear her (such as moving from cover to cover) they get a reactive perception.

It's really weird playing a super perception character. Having a +18 to perception at level 1 makes it hard on the DM to ever hide anything from the party.

How do you get a +18 to perception at lvl 1?

And then... I can't come up with any more bonuses... Okay fair enough... I did come up with one more. Technically speaking you could be a wizard with a familiar that grants a bonus to perception, but that doesn't mesh well with 20 wisdowm

EDIT: Ninjaed. And as Claxon had a better post than me, I'm just going to delete what I wrote. Essentially I agree with him completely.

Guys, one of the key benefits of using a metamagic rod is that it doesn't adjust the spell's level.

This applies equally to wizards AND sorcerers.

Sure, a sorcerer can apply metamagic feats "on the fly", but if you're a 6th level caster and you want to empower a fireball, you're still going to need to use a rod.

A 6th lvl caster is unlikely to have an empower rod, because it costs 9k gold out of the entire WBL budget of 16k.