Lvl1Druid's page

Quote:

Each plant targeted acts as a light catapult until the end of the spell’s duration ...

Part of acting like a light catapult is being able to move as a siege engine at a rate of 10 feet. This normally requires a move action from the engine's entire crew, but as far as I read it the spell is intended to substitute the "limited mobility" imparted by the spell for said crew--hence the ability for the "catapults" to automatically load themselves.

They still aren't treants, though. : )

Yeah, I'm not sure why he was referencing the treant stats, but that makes sense. Thanks.

So, I asked the Druid how he interpreted it, since the DM is pretty much taking our word for things on most of our abilities. This is what the druid had to say:

So, 15th level, 5 "trees".

Limited mobility is not numerically spec'd. Spell states they are equivalent to light catapult which is spec'd for 10' movement.

Spell states a standard action to command an individual tree to start firing, so the firing rate is ramping up for 5 rounds and then full barrage.

A full on treant can operate on its own, and has a move rate of 30'.

Due to the fact that assaulting walls is basically un-timed, I do not believe anything has been broken. I can admit to attributing 180' range from treant and I should have used 150' range for light catapult

The biggest thing that was confusing me was how they were getting up and moving around, since nothing says that they can do so. Now that I've asked him about it, though, I can kinda see where he's coming from:

1) the trees act as light catapults, and light catapults have a move speed of 10 ft
2) nothing says that the trees are still stuck in place, therefore they should take all the stats of a light catapult - damage, hp, movement speed, etc
How do you guys feel about that? Cause, if we accept that they can move, the rest stops feeling less like "OMG, I need to bring this up to the GM because it's way above par for the course" and starts feeling like we're just handwaving a few things for the sake of simplicity. (Aside from the part where they had their own pool of actions last combat, and took out a few mooks on their own, but a few extra 2d6 rocks aren't going to make much difference when we're routinely rocking CR 17+ encounters.)

Could someone explain how the spell Siege of Trees works? Because I'm pretty sure that the Druid in my party has been playing it very wrong. The way our GM has been letting the 15th level druid play it, he's literally making 5 Treants for 15 hours.
Yeah, their damage and to-hit are less than normal light catapults, but the fact that they're considered Treants means that they are
1) Sentient and get their own pool of actions, instead of him spending standard actions to aim each one.
2) Mobile; they literally follow us into the dungeon to smash the walls down for us
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that seems way over the top for what a 7th level should be able to do. Could someone can give me a good rundown of how it's actually supposed to work?

about #1 remember that unlike 3.5, in pathfinder when you channel energy you need to decide if you wish to heal or damage. even negative energy won't heal undead if it was channeled to damage the living. this show that not every negative energy would heal undead. so as mentioned above by Aldrakan, unless specifically called out to do so, undead won't heal even when they face negative energy (they just won't be damaged like living things would.).

as for #2 there is a magical item that give +2d6 to channel energy damage that mean 2 more rounds per use. there is also magical item that allow 2 more channel per day (or was it 1 more for clerics and 2 more touch for paladins\the like. not sure)

#1) Good point, I forgot that part. Damage only it is.

#2) I do see the Phylactery of Negative Channeling but I don't see one that gives you more channels/day.
The main reason I asked if ToC would work is because I built a Soradin that only took 2 levels of Antipaladin, so he doesn't have the Channel Negative Energy class feature. Probably pretty badly built, to be honest, but he's still strong and fun.

for #2 id go with a no. reason is... while you do deal damage to the other targets, and even damage of the same kind of your weapons, you never did attack them...

Seems perfectly reasonable. I could that getting a little silly if the gloves allowed you to debuff creatures you didn't attack. For example, you have a weak creature standing right next to a boss who has amazing saves, get the Eldritch Scrapper to wail on the weakling and suddenly the bosses saves aren't so great.

This makes me think of something really gross for high level play: An arcane caster with Arcane and Riving Strike, and either the TWF feat chain or polymorphing into something with a lot of natural attacks. Full attack to give the enemy a ton of penalties on saves, then Quickened Ill Omen. Then have your other casting friend cast a Save-or-Suck/Die spell like Suffocate, Psychic Crush, etc.

Did somebody call my name? : D

I believe the basis of the FAQ is this part of the Magic chapter of the Core Rulebook:

Core Rulebook -> Magic -> Combining Effects wrote:

Stacking Effects: Spells that provide bonuses or penalties on attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and other attributes usually do not stack with themselves. More generally, two bonuses of the same type don't stack even if they come from different spells (or from effects other than spells; see Bonus Types, above).

Now, Riving Strike is not a spell, so there's an argument that the above doesn't apply, and I don't know of any rules text that states that one should treat it the same way. It might be the intent, and the FAQ offers some evidence in that direction, so if you're running the table, use your own judgment.

Yeah, that's the part where I was getting confused.

Stacking Effects specifically calls out that "Spells that provide bonuses or penalties ... usually do not stack with themselves." But the sentence right after only calls out no stacking for bonuses of the same type without making the same explicit reference to penalties.
There's also the issue of the penalty being untyped - say you hit them with Evil Eye hex, Riving Strike, and Bestow Curse, and all of those target saves for some weird reason. Would you only take the worst penalty because they can only have one untyped penalty at a time?
There's also the RAW vs RAI question, like you said, of "does this even apply to things that aren't spells?" It seems RAI, judging by the Evil Eye FAQ you linked, but feels weird. I'll have to ask my GM how he interprets it, but I think he'll lean towards allowing them to stack, since he's been generous with a few other rulings so far.

So, I was looking through combat feats for an Eldritch Scrapper/Dragon Disciple, and I found this feat called Riving Strike
I had a couple questions
1) Do the penalties stack if I damage them multiple times in the same round? Ie, if I make 3 attacks thanks to Haste, are my total penalties -2 or -6? I tried google searching, but I only saw two threads that were both old and didn't seem to be completely decisive. I'm fine if it's only the -2; might not be worth taking using Martial Flexibility as often, but still worth taking note of.
2) aceDiamond on the Paizo thread asked a good question that didn't get an answer -

Another good question would be if Riving Strike stacks with the Gloves of Arcane Striking's second power. Seems like you could spread out some decent debuffs that way.

Call me curious, even if I probably won't use it.

1. Unless it deals negative energy damage, no. Brilliant energy weapons still deal their normal damage type.

Depending on the situation as a GM I might allow the scythe to do so, though probably only while charged, but this is based on "seems cool and makes sense", not the rules.
2. No. The antipaladin would have to expend two uses of Touch of Corruption to use their Channel Energy class feature.

1) That's what I thought, just wanted to be sure. Allowing it to heal undead all the time would probably be a little bit too much.

2) That's what I was worried about. I was looking at the Void Scythe for a Soradin I'm playing (Graveknight Antipaladin2/Sorcerer4/Dragon Disciple7, keeping my caster level up using Prestigious Spellcaster) and it looked really cool, but when my options are to eventually get 9th level spells or to put more levels into Antipaladin just to make better use of single magic weapon...

Had a quick rules question about the Void Scythe
1) It says "the Blade is formed of negative energy..." Obviously a Brilliant Energy weapon can't normally hurt undead, but if this one specifically says the blade is negative energy, does that mean it can heal them?
2) "The wielder can channel negative energy directly into the scythe..." Does the Antipaladin's Touch of Corruption (like Lay on Hands, but negative energy) work for this, or does it specifically have to be the Channel Negative Energy class feature?

Well, Animate Dead is a legal option for Spell Storing weapons.

Having a weapon that can cast (swift action) Animate Dead 1/day when the weapon kills something seem quite reasonable. Be sure to limit the HD that can be created (spell's material component). Per the Table: Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values note 4: If item is continuous or unlimited, not charged, determine cost as if it had 100 charges. If it has some daily limit, determine as if it had 50 charges. So invest 1250 gp (=25*50) per HD max you can create with the weapon. This is on top of the +1 for casting the spell 1/day.

Optionally, have the weapon hold the onyx used when animating. The decorations are consumed as the spells are cast, and if not enough is there, the effect does not occur.

Don't forget, the created undead count against the controlled limit for that character.

/cevah

Honestly, this seemed like the most reasonable way to handle it to me, since it's almost completely RAW and seems cool without being overpowered. (Not that power balance is a big concern in a group with a couple 40RP race builder races and a Graveknight, who all ride around in what's essentially a sky tank...)

I guess my GM's looking for really out of the box ideas though. Which is weird because "make it a special enchantment; not a +GP cost, but something really special" was his original suggestion. I suggested we could do something weird like implanting bits of other undead such as Wights or Vampires into myself to gain some of their abilities, and he seemed down with that. Then I said something about "oh yeah, a plain old spell-storing weapon technically works" and he responded with "Boo... Boring". Guess we might be hunting vampires or something sometime soon, then!

Random ideas;

A morningstar whose 'spikes' are vampire fangs. Those struck by it suffer bleed damage as well, those killed by it rise three days later as vampire spawn.

A weapon made of lazurite, that inflicts ghoul fever on a hit, and cause those slain by the weapon (or the disease) to rise as ghouls.

Arrowheads or bone spikes on a morningstar that are necromantically charged, breaking off in the wounds of those struck and causing them to rise as (juju?) zombies under the control of the bow/morningstar's wielder, unless a called shot is used to remove the bone sliver from the undead created. Strikes by the weapon may inflict additional negative energy damage and the bone shards *may* give fast healing 1 to the undead they are empowering. (The bone slivers could be generated by any sort of weapon, such as a bone sword or spear, growing new ones to replace snapped off spikes, and 'feeding' to fuel said growth on the blood of those injured by the weapon. Arrowheads or morningstar spikes/armor spikes/spiked gauntlet spikes just felt the most on-theme.) Downsides include that the undead created by the weapon serve the wielder of the weapon, which is one successful disarm attempt away from being... not you!

All cool and creative ideas. I also chatted with the DM about maybe a modified form of Necrografts because, if you can implant a human with bits of an undead, then why can't you implant an undead with bits of a different undead? Replacing my fingertips on one hand with Wight claws, for instance.

So, I'm looking for creative suggestions on this one - my current Pathfinder character is a Graveknight Antipaladin/Dragon Disciple, and he wants to make a weapon that will automatically raise victims as undead (ideally under his control) similar to many other undead's Create Spawn ability.
My first thought was something along the lines of just ripping the claws off of a weaker undead like a Wight and literally using those as a weapon. Like affixing them to my armor as built in claws. I really like the idea of making it out of some kind of undead parts like that because it seems really thematic.
Talking with the DM, he's said something about a couple spell requirements (Create Undead and maybe Control Undead), but left the rest to "it won't be cheap, but this is a chance to get creative," so I was hoping that you guys might have a few neat ideas. I'll work out stats with the DM later, I just want some cool suggestions about fluff like what kind of materials and special rituals I might have to go through to make something like this.
Thanks. <3

Update-Errata is a pain in the ass. It devalues the books by making them no longer 100% accurate, encouraging people to just use an online tool. And causes arguments over what version of a feat or spell is "correct".

Plus, no one likes their character being nerfed.

Errata should only be for fixing typos and actual errors. Maybe a clarification line or two.
Once the mechanics have been released, no updates should be made.

Yes, Errata is a pain in the butt, but sometimes an ability is far weaker or stronger than intended and they need to change it to make it balanced.

See the Divine Protection feat (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/divine-protection/) as an example. Gaining your CHA bonus to all saving throws (an ability normally reserved for paladins) was intended to be cool flavor, but they later realized it was so strong that it basically invalidated all the other "get a bonus on your saving throw" feats - Why spend a feat on a +2 to just Will saves when you could spend a few skill points and a feat to get +4 to ALL saves?
Granted I don't think they should have nerfed it quite as hard as they did (Seriously? 1 time per day? At least make it 2 or 3...) but I agree that it was way too strong as published. By the "Errata should only be for fixing typos and actual errors" standard, that wouldn't qualify for Errata because it was correctly spelled and written the way they originally intended it to be.

So how do you know what items you can put on them if they are undefined?

That would be a question for your DM. Generally, I think the rule is whatever the DM would say seems reasonable based on it's body shape. ie, it makes perfect sense that you could hang a necklace on a tiger if you look at them (Neck slot) but I'm not exactly sure how you would go about trying to get them fitted for a ring, shoes, or anything of that nature.