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When I GM, I love giving my players extra stuff to customize their characters with. Recently, I've been toying with the idea of letting them choose between gaining one of the following bonuses: Either they can use the Ancestry Paragon variant rule for extra ancestry feats, or they get a free Relic (or Soul Seed) that auto levels with them.

I think both of these options can add a lot of flavor to a character, but I wanted to get some opinions about how balanced these two choices are compared to each other. Relic gifts seem individually more powerful than ancestry feats. However, I'm only planning to let players give me input about how their relics develop rather than having free reign, and they would get a larger number of abilities overall with the Ancestry Paragon rules.

I'd appreciate any advice on this that a more experienced PF2e gm (or player) is willing to give!


I have been building a new homebrew Pathfinder campaign, and I'm currently nailing down what the allowed races will be. So far all of my allowed races have been humanoid. However, I'm toying with the idea of allowing a playable dragon race in the campaign. These would be actual dragons, not half dragons, but of course would have to be weak enough to be on par with the rest of the party. Has anyone had any success with this, or is it a bad idea?

Admittedly, I was inspired a bit by the Dragonkin in Starfinder, though I am aware that this could be harder to balance in Pathfinder.

I'm currently toying with the idea of simply using the "Taninim" from "In The Company of Dragons Expanded". However, even though these dragons are designed to be around the same power level as standard humanoids they still look like they would play *very* differently. Does anyone have any experience with using the Taninim in a mixed party?

Sovereign Court

It has been a long time since I last played in PFS, and a lot of new rules have come out. I've recently begun playing high level games with an old character of mine, and I would like to do some retraining to update him.

Specifically, I want to retrain the character's Fey Sorcerer Bloodline so that his 1st bloodline power is replaced with an Arcane Familiar and his 3rd level bloodline power is replaced with the Bloodline Mutation "Blood Intensity". However, since it isn't clear whether or not these abilities are really bloodline powers, I wanted to make sure that this type of retraining is allowed in PFS.

I would think that since I'm retraining the bloodline (and basically replacing it with itself) that I would be able to make all of the same choices about the bloodline that I would get to make while I was leveling up, such as replacing the bloodline abilities with alternate abilities.


Hey there, I have been starting to run a Kineticist in PFS, and I will be posting my thoughts and experiences on it here.

Here is the build at level 1.

Natsu
Human Kineticist 1

Ability Scores: Str 10, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 7

AC 16, Touch 13, Flat 13 (Studded Leather)
Saves: Fort 6, Ref 5, Will 2

Skills: Know(nature) 5, Perception 5, Stealth 7, Use Magical Device 2

Element: Fire
Wild Talent: Burning Infusion
Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
Traits: Reactionary, Indomitable Faith

Gear:
Studded Leather
Light Crossbow

Thoughts:
I used this ability score spread because I figured it would be good to first get my damage up to 1d6+2 with a con of 18, and then focus on increasing my Dex from there. Though, having a Dex of only 16 may have been a mistake and I am thinking of using a 1st level rebuild. I like having a character with skills, so I was unwilling to dump Int down to 7 like many other people have.

I felt forced to choose to play a human so that I could have Precise Shot before level 3. I would really recommend that there be a Wild Talent or something that lets the character gain Precise Shot at level 1 without having to play a human. I also felt like I had to pick a trait for a will save bonus.


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As soon as I saw the Eldritch Scion archetype for the magus, I knew that I wanted to build one. The magus class feels much more 'natural' as a spontanious caster.

The issue is that the Eldritch Scion cannot use any of the traditionally good options for the Magus. They cannot use metamagic because spontanious casters use it too slowly. They cannot use Arcana that cost arcane pool points because they need to save those points for activating their bloodline and spellstrikes.

Because this kind of magus is so different from most magus builds, I figured it would be good to come here for advice. The character is about to hit level 3, so I can still make build choices for level 3 and higher.

I choose to go with the arcane bloodrager bloodline for its sweet sweet buffs. Because the very first bloodline power increases the concentration check DCs of nearby casters by 2, I am thinking of going with the following anti-caster build. By having the Arcane Bloodline, Disruptive, and a Distracting (lesser) weapon, I can force casters near me to have a -11 penalty to their concentration checks to cast defensively.

I'm not selecting the Arcana to get Swashbuckler's Precise Strike because there is some question of whether or not it actually works with spell combat.

Kitsune Eldritch Scion
Str 11, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 16 (Using Boon for exta +2 stat bonus to Dex)

lvl 1: Weapon Finesse, Disruptive Bloodrage
lvl 3: Dervish Dance, Familliar (+4 Init)
lvl 4: +1 dex, Arcane Bloodrage
lvl 5: Step up, Combat Reflexes
lvl 6: Disruptive Arcana
lvl 7: Following Step
lvl 8: +1 dex, Greater Arcane Bloodrage
lvl 9: Spellbreaker Arcana, Step Up and Strike
lvl 11: Improved Critical (Scimitar), Improved Initiative

So yea... very heavily anti spellcaster build, but thanks to the arcane bloodrage abilities which can give him Displacement and Resist Energy this character should be very effective as a melee combatant as well.

Any thoughts on ways to improve this build, or builds that may be superior for the eldritch scion? I am aware that certain other races (such as humans) might be better for this than a kitsune, but that aspect of the character is already set ;)


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

So, I have been seeing a lot of people on the boards talking about how Arcane Deed can give a Magus a huge damage boost by picking up Precise Strike. However, part of the wording of Arcane Deed makes me wonder if it really works that way.

Arcane Deed wrote:

Arcane Deed (Ex): When a magus takes this arcana, he can

pick any one deed from the swashbuckler class feature as long as that deed can be used by a swashbuckler of his magus level. The magus can use that deed by using points from his arcane pool as the panache points required for that deed. A magus can take this arcana multiple times, each time gaining a new deed. The magus must have the flamboyant arcana (see below) to select this arcana.

Arcane Deed doesn't say anything about gaining the passive effects of a Swashbucker Deed. It doesn't even say that the Magus really gains the dead. All it says is that you can use a point from your arcane pool in place of a panache point to use the deed. Maybe this was intended to place a limit on what deeds a magus could really benefit from?

Yea, I may just be reading into the rules too much, but I figured I should draw attention to this to see if it needs to be put in the FAQ.

EDIT: I just thought of something else. There is nothing in either Arcane Deed or Flamboyant Arcana that gives the Magus a swashbuckler level when using the deeds. So presice strike would give the magus a +0 damage bonus as written anyway....

Another Edit: Just so you know, I am asking this partly because I play in PFS. We often have to follow the rules as written regardless of the intent until the FAQ says otherwise. Because of that, the writting is a bit problematic here.


So, I am running a Mythic Dragon Disciple, and this character is extremely dependent upon buffs in order to function. I am getting worried about the possibility that he could be hit by a Mage's Disjunction and lose all of his defense and offense in a single stroke. Does anyone know of any contingencies that would protect a character from a disjunction?

The only thing that I've been able to think of so far is a teleport or plane shift, but unless I am mistaken I would have to choose the target area in advance. This means I would basically be evacuating the battle, and that isn't the best solution. I could try a contingency+antimagic field, but in a way that could be even worse than the disjunction itself, and it isn't even fullproof.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Just in case it matters, This character is a Sorcerer 7/Paladin 2/Oracle 1/ Dragon Disciple 4, 7th tier Guardian/Archmage.


My basic question is this: when a character is under the effects of a Form of the Dragon spell, does he only gain 'generic' natural attacks or does he gain natural attacks with the same properties as those of an actual dragon? Specifically, does he gain reach and 1.5x Strength on the bite attack? The Form of the Dragon spell seems to say that the character just gains basic natural attacks. However, the wording of the polymorph rules and the 'True Dragon' type description suggests otherwise.

Form of the Dragon I:
FORM OF THE DRAGON I
School transmutation (polymorph); Level sorcerer/wizard 6
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a scale of the dragon type you plan to assume)
Range personal
Target you
Duration 1 min./level (D)
Save see text; Spell Resistance no
You become a Medium chromatic or metallic dragon. You gain a +4 size bonus to Strength, a +2 size bonus to Constitution, a +4 natural armor bonus, fly 60 feet (poor), darkvision 60 feet, a breath weapon, and resistance to one element. You also gain one bite (1d8), two claws (1d6), and two wing attacks (1d4). Your breath weapon and resistance depend on the type of dragon. You can only use the breath weapon once per casting of this spell. All breath weapons deal 6d8 points of damage and allow a Reflex save for half damage.

Polymorph Rules Excerpt:
a polymorph spell transforms your physical body to take on the shape of another creature. While these spells make you appear to be the creature, granting you a +10 bonus on Disguise skill checks, they do not grant you all of the abilities and powers of the creature. Each polymorph spell allows you to assume the form of a creature of a specific type, granting you a number of bonuses to your ability scores and a bonus to your natural armor. In addition, each polymorph spell can grant you a number of other benefits, including movement types, resistances, and senses. If the form you choose grants these benefits, or a greater ability of the same type, you gain the listed benefit. If the form grants a lesser ability of the same type, you gain the lesser ability instead. Your base speed changes to match that of the form you assume. If the form grants a swim or burrow speed, you maintain the ability to breathe if you are swimming or burrowing. The DC for any of these abilities equals your DC for the polymorph spell used to change you into that form.

In addition to these benefits, you gain any of the natural attacks of the base creature, including proficiency in those attacks. These attacks are based on your base attack bonus, modified by your Strength or Dexterity as appropriate, and use your Strength modifier for determining damage bonuses.

....

True Dragon Natural Attacks:
Bite: This is a primary attack that deals the indicated damage plus 1-1/2 times the dragon's Strength bonus (even though it has more than one attack). A dragon's bite attack has reach as if the creature were one size category larger (+10 feet for Colossal dragons).

Claws: These primary attacks deal the indicated damage plus the dragon's Strength bonus.

Wings: The dragon can slam foes with its wings, even when flying. Wing attacks are secondary attacks that deal the indicated damage plus 1/2 the dragon's Strength bonus.

Tail Slap: The dragon can slap one foe each round with its tail. A tail slap is a secondary attack that deals the indicated damage plus 1-1/2 times the dragon's Strength bonus (this is an exception to the normal secondary attack rules).

As you can see in the above spoilers, the polymorph rules say that "you gain any of the natural attacks of the base creature". When you look up the rules for a dragon's natural attack, it flat out says that a dragon's bite "has reach as if the creature were one size category larger". This is not an extraordinary or supernatural ability. This is simply a property of the natural attack that dragons have, and is listed as an integral part of their Bite natural attack.

Soo... then logically, doesn't this mean that a person who is under the effects of Form of the Dragon would also gain reach and 1.5x Strength damage on their bite attacks? Or am I stretching the rules too far?


Nuuu, only a week remaining! I kind of wish that there was enough time for another round of playtest updates, but we'll have to make due with what we have.

I do have to say though, please make sure you seriously consider some of the latest suggestions in the class discussion for the Bloodrager and Swashbuckler. I really do feel that these classes need some more tweaks in order to truly be in tune with the flavor and play style that they're trying to achieve. The last batch of changes helped a lot, but I don't feel like they're quite there yet.

Anyway, thanks for the increased updates and communication in this playtest!


43 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ. 5 people marked this as a favorite.

When I was reading the mythic rules, I found that there is an inconsistency between the powers that the Archmage and Hierophant mythic paths can choose from. Specifically: it takes the Archmage an extra action to use their archmage arcana.

The Archmage can gain the Arcane Surge or Wild Arcana powers. These are very nice abilities, but require the Archmage to use his swift action to activate them . However, the Hierophant powers Inspired Spell and Recalled blessing don't require a swift action to use even though they are otherwise mechanically identical to the Archmage powers (unless I am mistaken).

I find it hard to believe that this difference was intentional, so I'm assuming that one ability is worded incorrectly. I mean, why would the arcane casters specifically be required to use an additional action to use an ability that doesn't require an extra action for a divine caster? Should these abilities require swift actions to activate, or should they not?

Sorry for not formatting these spoilers, it would take a while to deal with all this text ;)

Archmage Arcana:
Arcane Surge (Su): As a swift action, you can expend
one use of mythic power to cast any one arcane spell
without expending a prepared spell or spell slot. If you
prepare spells, this spell must be one you prepared today
(even if you have already cast it); if you’re a spontaneous
caster, this spell must be one of your spells known. If the
spell requires a saving throw, any non-mythic creatures
affected by the spell roll twice and take the lower result.
If you must attempt a caster level check for the spell to
overcome a creature’s spell resistance, you can roll your
caster level check twice (adding your tier to each) and take
the higher result. You can’t add a metamagic feat to a
spell you cast using this ability.

Wild Arcana (Su): As a swift action, you can expend one
use of mythic power to cast any one arcane spell without
expending a prepared spell or spell slot. The spell must
be on one of your arcane class spell lists and must be of a
level that you can cast with that arcane spellcasting class.
You don’t need to have the spell prepared, nor does it need
to be on your list of spells known. When casting a spell in
this way, you treat your caster level as 2 levels higher for
the purpose of any effect dependent on level. You can apply
any metamagic feats you know to this spell, but its total
adjusted level can’t be greater than that of the highest-level
arcane spell you can cast from that spellcasting class.

Hierophant Divine Surges:
Inspired Spell (Su): You can expend one use of mythic
power to cast any one divine spell, treating your caster
level as 2 levels higher. This spell must be on your divine
spell list (or your domain or mystery spell list) and must
be of a spell level that you can cast using that divine
spellcasting class. If you are a spontaneous spellcaster,
you don’t need to have the spell prepared, nor does it need
to be on your list of spells known. Using this ability does
not expend a prepared spell or available spell slot. You
can apply any metamagic feats you know to this spell,
but its total spell slot level must be a slot level you can
normally cast.

Recalled Blessing (Su): You can expend one use of mythic
power to cast any one divine spell without expending
a prepared spell or spell slot. If you prepare spells,
this spell must be one you prepared today; if you’re a
spontaneous caster, this spell must be one of your spells
known. You can’t apply metamagic feats to this spell. If
the spell requires a saving throw, non-mythic creatures
roll twice and take the lower result. If the spell heals
damage or requires you to attempt a caster level check to
cure an aff liction or remove a condition, roll twice and
take the higher result.


Wow, these are all really fun looking abilities. Especially Class Mimic, it seems like clever players can get a lot of mileage out of that one.


So, the 1st level Fey Bloodline Power, Laughing Touch, is labeled as a spell-like ability. This means that 'casting' it will provoke an attack of opportunity.

However, as far as I can tell there it isn't actually spelled out as being based on any specific spell. Since it isn't based on a spell like most spell-like abilities, how am I supposed to calculate the DC of casting it defensively? Shouldn't this thing be a supernatural ability instead of a spell-like ability?


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

I'm going to be using this spell in PFS soon, so I would really appreciate seeing an official ruling on how it works. Its wording is unclear on whether or not the target immediately loses its next action when it fails the initial save, or if it gets a second save to completely avoid being affected by the spell.

Oppressive Boredom:
School enchantment (compulsion) [emotion, mind-affecting]; Level bard 2, sorcerer/wizard 2

Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Target one creature
Duration 1 round/level or until broken (see text)
Saving Throw Will negates (see text); Spell Resistance yes

You fill your target with boredom. The target loses all interest in its current task and must make a Will save against the spell's effect in order to perform its next action. If the target fails, it takes no action that round. The boredom lasts until the duration expires or the target breaks the spell's effect with a successful Will save.

The spell doesn't really specify whether or not the save mentioned in its second sentence includes all saving throws (including the initial one) or just subsequent saves after the initial saving throw. If it is the former, then the target immediately loses its action if it fails a save. If it is the latter, then it effectively gets two saves to avoid being affected at all.

I'm leaning towards the "one save" interpretation because otherwise this spell becomes somewhat weak compared to hold person since hold person's effect is better and always causes its target to lose at least one round if it fails the initial save. Though, I suppose oppressive boredom would still have the advantage of working on non-humanoids...

I'd also love to get some clarification on what "it takes no action that round" means. For example: if you cast this on a flying creature and it fails the saves, can it no longer even take move actions to stay in the air?

So... yea. I'd like to remove any temptation for me to argue with a GM about this spell. I'd love to get some official ruling on how this spell is supposed to work from Paizo, whether their ruling ends up giving the spell one save or two saves. :)


I just wanted to verify this before trying to do it in an actual PFS game.

I know that in Pathfinder Society "Alternate racial traits, racial archetypes, racial evolutions, racial feats, and racial spells are only available for characters of the associated race." This means that normally my Kitsune Sorcerer could not learn the Slyph spell windy escape.

However, "Racial equipment and magic items can be purchased and used by any race as long as the specific item permits it." I'm assuming that this means that I can buy a racial spell in scroll form since this is a magical item that can be used by any race, right? Or does a scroll with a racial spell not count for this?

I'll be completely honest: I'm asking this because I want to get a scroll of windy escape and then start using it via a Ring of Spell Knowledge and/or Mnemonic Vestment. The ability to burn a spell slot as an immediate action to negate sneak attacks and critical hits sounds handy ;)


So, let's say you are playing a Barbarian with Spell Sunder and that one of your allies fails a save vs a harmful spell with a duration. Is there anything to keep the victim from intentionally allowing a Barbarian to autosucceed at a Spell Sunder to dispel the spell?

After all, when spell sunder is aimed at a spell on a person, the CMB is opposed by the target's CMD+5. If the target is willing, then it isn't like the barbarian should be opposed by the target's STR, DEX, or BAB. So, technically as long as the barbarian can get at least a 15 on the sunder check the spell should be dispelled.

Here's a similar question. Let's say the barbarian is the one who fails the saving throw. Can he spell sunder *himself* to break the spell? Can he choose to automatically succeed at the CMB check vs his own CMD when he does this?

Yes, I know this is probably an exploit of how the spell sunder rules work. I'm just curious if this is the correct RAW interpretation.

Spell Sunder:
Once per rage, the barbarian can attempt to sunder an ongoing spell effect by succeeding at a combat maneuver check. For any effect other than one on a creature, the barbarian must make her combat maneuver check against a CMD of 15 plus the effect’s caster level. To sunder an effect on a creature, the barbarian must succeed at a normal sunder combat maneuver against the creature’s CMD + 5, ignoring any miss chance caused by a spell or spell-like ability. If successful, the barbarian suppresses the effect for 1 round, or 2 rounds if she exceeded the CMD by 5 to 9. If she exceeds the CMD by 10 or more, the effect is dispelled.


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I just wanted to post my thoughts on the current mythic rules now that I've run a good number of fights involving mythic enemies against a non-mythic party. I hope that these aren't too late to be of any help.

If you want some details about the type of campaign that I was running, feel free to take a look at my Mythic Serpent's Skull topic. I will update it with notes on the final boss fight at some point.

1. Monsters with mythic templates need more things to do with their mythic power points.

This issue may be fixed when the mythic feats are finalized, but I figured I should mention it. I found that monsters that I added mythic templates to often had nothing useful to do with their mythic power. At least, nothing nearly as useful as what a player could gain from a mythic tier. Perhaps the templates should come with one or two options for ways that they can use their powers?

2. Mythic power attack is overpowered

I specifically avoided using this feat against my non mythic players because I knew it would lead to them dying too fast. After running the fights, I'm pretty sure that I was right. This combined with having two full round attacks (from agile template) every round would have wiped my party. Please don't include things like this in the final product: high level characters and monsters do too much damage per round as it is.

The final boss that I threw at the players would have gained +8 damage per hit from this one feat. He would have been killing two players per round between this and his agile template.

3. The invincible template doesn't work as advertised

This template could use some work. Right now Agile is a far more powerful (and useful) template. The main issue that I noticed was that its deflect blows ability wasn't very reliable. It is basically just a wasted ability against opponents who have a very high attack bonus.

You may want to also think about allowing it to negate secondary effects that happen even when the monster makes a saving throw, perhaps at the cost of a mythic point. My 'Invincible' final boss spent two or three rounds being staggered because of the staggering critical feat. He always made the save, but was still staggered due to the ability's secondary effect.

I also find it odd that this template allows him to automatically break out of effects that last for more than one round (by re-rolling the save), but he can't do the same against effects that last only one round. Basically, effects that last only one round are more reliable against invincible bosses since they can't be re-saved against.

4. Having multiple turns in a round is amazing, but also confusing.

I have run several monsters with the Agile template. This is an amazing template for making a creature into a much bigger threat against the party, but it also leads to some confusion. There are many things about how having multiple turns in a single round works that need to be clarified. For example: what happens when the creature delays its action?

5. Having a limit on the number of spells that can be cast per round is a very good idea.

I'm using the updated rules for Amazing Initiative (extra standard action instead of extra turn) and the suggestion of allowing only one spell + one quickened spell per round no matter how many actions a character has.

I threw a mythic hierophant (tier 2) at my players. One of his spells was Stormbolts, and since he was at tier 2 he had Amazing Initiative. If he had been able to cast Stormbolts twice per round by using amazing initiative he would have annihilated the party. 34d8 damage with two chances of stunning is no joke.

Sure, it can break the suspension of disbelief a bit, but preventing spellcasters from casting too many spells per round keeps them from novaing their enemies into oblivion. At the very least it makes them be a bit more creative about how they case multiple spells by using staves and spell-like-abilities.


My Serpent's Skull Campaign is nearing its climax, and in an effort to make sure it is appropriately difficult (and epic) I decided to give mythic power to several of enemies in the final dungeon in the book "Sanctum of the Serpent God".

Obviously, there will be spoilers here. Also, I am using the updates to the mythic rules that were posted on 12/21/12.

My players do not have mythic power, but they are a bit better equipped than they should be at this point in the game. I'm having to give the advanced template to most of the enemies just to make things a challenge. Certain enemies are getting mythic power instead of (or in addition to) the advanced template. I'll post the results of each mythic encounter here so you can see how this affected the fights.

Here is the makeup of the party (most are around level 15-16):
Human Stormborn Sorcerer (uses word of power, blaster)
- Cohort: Sasha (Ranger/ninja)
Half-Elf Paladin (has the sword Eroeme)
Human Mobile Fighter (uses two weapons)
Human Barbarian (uses a Greatsword)
Ratfolk Ranger (Bow focused)
Human Hedge Witch (healing patron)

First Mythic Encounter:

So far my players have only encountered one mythic enemy: The Emperor of Scales. I gave him and both of his golem allies the advanced template, and I also gave the Emperor the Agile Mythic template. An important thing to note about the Agile template is that unless I am mistaken creatures with this template still receive two full turns. They were not affected by the changes to Amazing Initiative. The emperor also had the Mythic Combat Reflexes feat, and I had him spend a mythic point on this ability every round.

The party's Sorcerer, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger were present.

Here is how the combat went:

Round 1: Emperor went first, and his second turn in the initiative was after the initiative of two of the players. He used his two actions to buff himself and attempt to dominate the party fighter (the fighter succeeded at his save).

The sorcerer flooded the room with summoned elementals, preventing the golems from effectively reaching the players due to their size. The fighter and paladin moved in and nearly destroyed one golem. The Ranger failed her save vs insanity and became confused (beat herself over the head).

The golems went last, and smashed one of the elementals into the floor.

Round 2: The emperor five foot stepped up and full attacked the Paladin with his reach, and also grappled her with his first action.

With his second action I noticed something odd. Technically, with Swallow Whole, you can only swallow someone if you're grappling him/her at the START of your turn. Did his second action count as a new turn? It probably wasn't supposed to... but it didn't make sense that he had to waste his extra action maintaining the grapple. After all, if he had instead grappled on his second action, he would not have had to wait. I decided that it would make the most sense if he could use his 2nd action to immediately us swallow whole. He succeeded.

The hilarious thing is, this was the Emperor's undoing. The players realized that Eroeme could re-size itself into a small sized weapon, allowing the paladin to wield it *inside* the Emperor's stomach. She was already using smite, haste, and divine bond (for holy and axomatic). On top of that, all the attacks auto-hit because of the low AC of the stomach. The paladin proceeded to tear the Emperor apart from the inside, doing 150+ points of damage in a single round. She would have done more if she wasn't limited to using it one handed. She actually wanted to stay inside the stomach because it was safer (and more effective), but I didn't see any way she wouldn't ether fall out or be coughed up after doing all that damage. I'll have to look for specific rulings later.

The ranger also attempted to attack the emperor, but had trouble hitting him due to his AC of 36. The fighter finished off the golem he was fighting. The sorcerer hit the emperor with a blasting spell, but rolled badly on damage (I forgot to apply evasion from the agile template).

The remaining golem tried to kill another elemental since that was the only thing in his reach.

The elementals had become ineffective and only basically prevented the enemy from maneuvering. The emperor's insanity effect started causing several of them to lose their actions, and they weren't able to hit the emperor's AC of 36.

Round 3: The emperor tried to kill the paladin that had just ripped him apart from the inside. He full attacked her, but she stayed alive by using a paladin spell to heal herself as an immediate action.

The party sorcerer used one of his WoP spells to teleport the paladin away from the fight before the emperor got a second full round attack on her. If this had not happened, the emperor would have killed the paladin (with a total of 18 attack rolls!) before she even got another round.

The emperor instead tried full attacking the party's fighter, but had trouble hitting him due to his high AC of 35. He did some damage, but couldn't get a grapple off.

The rest of the party began whittling the emperor down. They had trouble doing much damage due to his high AC of 36 and his DR 15/good and silver, but the paladin had ripped him up so much it didn't matter. He had very little time left to live. The fighter barely managed to get an acrobatics check of around 53 to avoid attacks of opportunity from the emperor's Mythic Combat reflexes. Yes, he managed to do this due to a combination of high Dex, Greater Heroism, Skill Focus, and being able to take a 20 due to his mobile archetype.

Round 4: After attempting another full attack, the emperor's final action was to try to dominate the party's fighter. The fighter failed the initial save, but broke out when he was ordered to hunt down and kill the party's paladin before she finished healing. The party managed to kill the emperor soon afterwards.

Thoughts so far:
I believe the agile template made the fight much more interesting than it would have been. Giving the boss two full sets of actions per round made him a much more effective (and frightening) threat to the party. The only issue I had was trying to figure out whether or not he should have had to wait longer before using swallow whole, but it just seemed silly to me that he would not have had to wait if he had instead grappled on his second action.

I do think that the Agile template probably should give a CR 2 increase on high level monsters. The emperor had a potential of getting off two full round attacks per round. This can be incredibly devastating, and would have killed off the party paladin if the sorcerer hadn't saved her.

Mythic Combat Reflexes seemed like it could have been deadly, but went to waste since the only person who provoked attacks actually managed to dodge them with his insane acrobatics. The emperor actually wasted several mythic points on rounds where he prepared for people to move in, but they never came. Maybe this feat would be more effective if its mythic effect could be activated as an immediate action instead of a swift action.

In any case, I really love this template and I am looking forward to using it in future games.

I expect my players to have to deal with two Archmages and a Champion/Guardian in their next battles.


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I think it is very important that all mythic spells should remain useful all all levels of play. Otherwise, you'll have situations where characters who gain their mythic tiers late in the game will have better mythic spells than characters who gained their tiers at low levels since they had a wider variety of choices. Either that, or you should allow casters to replace their mythic spells with new ones as they gain tiers, similarly to how sorcerers can replace their spells as they gain levels.

It is important to make sure that mythic spells are always in some way better than non-mythic spells when they are cast at the same level. Or at least they should be useful in some unique (and mythic) way. Otherwise, the caster will ignore the useless mythic spells in favor of recasting his better spells with Divine Surge or Arcane Surge.

For example: why would a high level Hierophant Cleric ever cast mythic cure light wounds or cure critical wounds when he could simply use either Recalled Blessing or Inspired Spell to cast Heal? Heal is better in every way when compared to the Mythic Cure spells, and by using Recalled Blessing or Inspired Spell, he didn't even have to expend a spell slot.

Think if it this way: Using a mythic point to cast a mythic spell should always be at least as effective as using Recalled Blessing or Inspired spell (or the equivalent arcane versions) to recast one of your most powerful spells. This means that with the current way things are set up a 1st level mythic spell has to compete with 9th level non-mythic spells.


Like the title says, if a creature (without a swim speed) were to gain the aquatic subtype, what swim speed should it gain? After all, the aquatic subtype states that "These creatures always have swim speeds".

I'm asking this because I'm building a character who is a human with Racial Heritage (Undine). With that, he qualifies for the feat Aquatic Ancestry, which gives him the Amphibious special quality, which then gives him the aquatic subtype.

I suppose one solution would be to give him a swim speed of 10, since the Aquatic Ancestry feat specifically increases your swim speed by +10... but I figured first I should figure out if the character would gain a swim speed just from the aquatic subtype.


This issue is probably going to come up in one of my games soon, so I need to figure this out: Does the Freedom of Movement spell protect against Reverse Gravity?

The purpose of Freedom of Movement seems to be to make the person it is cast upon immune to movement affecting spells. However, one of my players believes that gravity spells work around effects of Freedom of Movement.

I'm leaning towards saying FoM does NOT protect against gravity spells since it doesn't protect against bull rushes, and you can sort of picture gravity as simply pulling/pushing the character rather than trying to hold or slow him. Still, has there been any official word on this?


According to the descriptive text about the Hierophant, the character no longer gains power directly from his diety. He instead gains power from directly from 'the source of his devotion' instead of relying upon an 'intermediary deity'.

This brings up a question. Assuming the character's powers aren't alignment based (such as having the good/evil/law/chaos domain, or paladin/antipaladin powers), does this mean that the character no longer needs to pay any attention to alignment restrictions as long as he remains a mythic character? After all, Hierophants are no longer necessarily linked to any specific diety...


I just thought I should point this out just in case none of the devs are noticed it already. For the most part, the ability score increases that mythic is doing will handle increasing the DCs of all abilities appropriately. However, Critical Feat DCs (Such as Stunning Critical) will not scale with Mythic because mythic tiers do not grant increased BAB.

Assuming I haven't missed some ability that resolves this issue, I guess my recommended fix would be a mythic feat that adds 1/2 of the character's mythic tier to the DC of all his Critical Feats.


Right now Mythic characters receive a lot of offensive power, but aside from Unstoppable and a few other things they get relatively little defensive power. How about we see if we can come up with some ideas that could be used to keep fights between Mythic characters from ending too quickly?

  • The most surefire way to make sure everyone lives longer would be to have the mythic ability score bonuses affect more than just a single ability. Perhaps a character should be allowed to add +2 to two or three abilities every two tiers? Maybe at some tiers the character should even get a +2 to *all* ability scores. The only issue with this has to do with classes like the paladin which could end up with very high save bonuses.
  • Perhaps the hit points gained per Tier could be increased?
  • Maybe all mythic characters could gain the ability to spend a point of Mythic Power to move up to their speed as an immediate action. This would let them get away from full round attacks, dodge fireballs, and get behind cover to break line of sight for spells. It would greatly increase character mobility in combat.
  • The guardian path could get buffed so that when he spends a power point, he can defend against multiple attacks instead of just one.

Edit: I'm not saying that Mythic characters should get *all* of these. I think any one of these could make a big difference.


I just got a Nintendo Wii U and I am very impressed by the thing. I had thought that the touch screen controller would be a gimmick, but it is actually incredibly useful. The thing functions as a controller, keyboard, TV remote (seriously), and 5th player controller for some multiplayer games.

I have to mention that my mind was blown when I realized that I could take my touch screen controller to bed and play some New Super Mario Brothers U on it before going to sleep as if it was a Gameboy. The console has to be pretty close by to stream the game to the controller, but being able to play some games without even turning the tv on is a really cool feature.

So, who else has gotten one of these, and who is thinking of getting one? I think Nintendo is going to do really well this generation as long as they keep the games coming. :D


So, our GM recently let us get a single mythic Tier in our ongoing campaign, and I would like to share a bit about how that went and what I noticed about the mythic rules so far. I'm not going to focus much on how much this one tier affected combat because we are using a few house rules (such as gestalt). Instead, I'll focus on aspects of the mythic rules that I don't believe were affected by our house rules.

First, I have to say that adding the first tier was relatively painless even though two of the players had not even started to read the playtest when we got the mythic power. The rules were nice and straightforward, so we never had to stop mid game and argue over anything either.

Our Mythic Path Choices

Here's a quick overview of what I remember each player choosing for his mythic powers. We were all at level 7 at the start of this playtest. Try to ignore the fact that we were using gestalt characters and think of us more along the lines of multiclass characters here:

Sorcerer/Oracle (me): Archmage w/Wild Arcana, Dual Path (Hierophant w/ Recalled Blessing), Faith's Reach, Weakness: Cold Iron
Fighter/Rogue: Trickster w/Surprise Strike, Dual Path (Champion w/ Fleet Charge)
Fighter/Paladin: Champion w/Fleet Charge, Weakness: Acid
Barbarian/Druid: Guardian w/Beast Fury, Ally Defense, Mythic Cleave

I have to mention that I had a bit of a dilemma when choosing my Archmage Arcana (and the equivalent Hierophant one), but not the good kind I think. Arcane Surge is very useful for low to mid levels because of the way it forces non-mythic targets to have to roll their saves twice. However, I think at higher levels Wild Arcana would be better in most ways. Wild Arcana lets you cast any spell on your spell list, add free metamagic (up to your max spell level), and increases your caster level by two. If you have persistent spell metamagic you can almost emulate the benefits of Arcane Surge, but even against mythic targets. It may be a good idea to adjust these abilities so that they are roughly equal to eachother at most levels.

I should also mention that you may want to clarify the wording of Surprise Strike so that it states that melee attacks made with it must be within your reach. The player who choose this ability interpreted it as meaning that he could make a melee attack at any target within 30 feet when he used this power.

Performance in game

Most characters seemed to benefit a lot from gaining their Mythic Tier. I used Arcane Surge to great effect, the two fighters made heavy use of Fleet Charge to get full attacks in very often.

The only abilities that I saw which seemed weak were the ones used by the guardian. Beast Fury seemed a bit weaker than Fleet Charge just because an animal companion is by design weaker than a fighter... yet the mythic point cost is the same. Then again, if this was an eidolon instead of an animal companion, I could see this being a bit more even. Also, it seems a bit uneven to me that the fighters were using mythic power to move up to opponents to get full attacks in, while Ally Defense only has a chance of deflecting a single attack. Shouldn't Ally Defense (and Sudden Block as well) protect a person against an entire full round attack, or even protect him for an entire round?

It seems that currently the mythic powers that we can gain lean very heavily towards offence. Spellcasters essentially gain the ability to cast improved versions of their most powerful spells several extra times per day and martial characters can get full round attacks in more often. We each gained a few hit points and got 'Hard to Kill', but also received flaws which could lead to us being killed very quickly if they were used against us. It seems like at Tier 1 a fight between mythic characters is essentially a rush to kill the other person first with defense mattering little since there doesn't seem to be much that mythic gives you that helps with defense.

Thoughts on Lesser Trials

The roughest part of the playtest was the trials in my opinion. All of the Archmage trials seemed impossible for my level (and because we were not fighting mythic creatures). There were also some problems with the Hierophant trials. For example: it was completely impossible for me to heal one of the players to full health with a single spell for the Master Healer trail, but what is to stop us from bashing in the head of some random peasant and then healing him for the trial?

We ran into a few issues with Skull Supremacy. Can it be completed by simply making an opposed check? What is to stop you from simply finding something that requires a DC of 0 (like crafting a very simple item, or seeing someone who is standing next to you)? I also ran into a situation where I used a mythic point on a skill that I absolutely didn't want to fail, and then rolled high on the MP and the d20 and beat the DC by 20 since the check was easier than I thought.. Since I hadn't chosen the trial, this meant that I regained the mythic point that I had just used. That just seems a bit... odd. Basically you can just throw a random mythic point into a skill check, and then gain it back if you happen to roll high.

Overall, the Trials seemed very metagamy since at our level many of the trials were impossible to do 'accidentally'. We started thinking of absurd things we could do like fighting eachother to pass the trials. We then had to make the conscious out of game decision to *not* do this, since we knew that things probably were not supposed to work that way.

I like the idea of the trials, but currently they just seem to bring the wrong feel to the game. I don't think Hercules went around thinking "hey, I have to go defeat five creatures in six seconds to get stronger." Well, maybe some 'mythic' characters set up challenges for themselves like this, but right not it feels forced and doesn't have many guidelines on what a proper 'trial' is.

Closing Thoughts
Yea, a good amount of this was negative, but that's just because I'm trying to make sure some things are brought to dev attention. Overall the party really liked the mythic rules and we had a lot of fun with it. They did a great job of making combat more interesting and making us feel powerful.

I should note that our GM felt that the first mythic tier was giving us more than a single level's worth of power. Personally, I felt that it was just on the high end of a single level's worth of power. Which is scarier, a lvl 7 tier 1 Kitsune Sorcerer casting Hold Person at DC 22 that you have to save twice against, or a level 8 Kitsune Sorcerer casting a DC 25 confusion against an entire room? I think they're pretty even and simply each have their own advantages and disadvantages.


So, mythic characters get a lot of power ups throughout their 10 tiers. However, from what I'm seeing, I don't think animal companions, summons, and eidolons are going to be able to keep up with the power increases.

There are a few abilities that allow you to give your pets mythic power, epic DR, and the ability to move and make an extra attack. However, these powerups, while good, won't let them fight that much more effectively against high CR opponents. They aren't gaining feats, hit points, or the primary stat increases that mythic characters are getting.

Personally, I would recommend that there be a few mythic abilities that give a character's animal companions, summons, eidolons, and any other 'pets' scaling bonus' similar to the ability score boost that Mythic Characters get every two mythic tiers. Additionally, there probably should be a Path Ability that can be chosen to allow eidolons or animal companions to gain Mythic Feats.

I would even go so far as to say that you may want to put in mythic tier tables specifically for pets, and let the pets automatically gain those tiers at the same rate as the characters they belong to.

Yea, this is all theorycrafting, but it does seem to me that 'pets' will fall behind in power with the current system. I apologize if these sorts of things are already planned but just aren't in the current playtest ;)


So, I've been looking at the numbers for a (greater) Mythic Meteor Swarm and I'm wondering how likely it is for anyone to survive being hit with one of these if the caster puts everything he has into it.

Yes, I know that this is something that takes about a level 17-18 sorcerer or wizard at tier 10 archmage. I'm just not sure if even someone of the same level/tier can survive it.

So, a Greater Mythic Meteor Swarm costs three mythic power and fires off four meteors. Each meteor explosion will do 10d10 damage, and anyone who is in the line leading to where the meteors explode will take 2d10 bludgening and an additional 4d10 fire per meteor. That's 14d10 x4 + 2d10 to any poor person if you aim the meteors directly behind him so he takes both the line and explosion damage. That's 58d10 damage total. Btw, this spell ignores immunity and resistance to fire.

On top of that, the caster can combine this with the Channeled Power and Metamastery path powers. Channeled power increases the damage by 50%, and you can use metamastery to get a free Maximize on the spell. Suddenly, the poor person being hit by the full force of this spell is going to take 870 damage that ignores fire resistance and immunity, though it did cost the caster an additional 2 points of mythic power (total 5). Btw, just in case the original spell didn't ignore energy immunity, Channel Power just ensured that it does now.

Even assuming that the character manages to save for half damage (435 total), how likely is it that a character will survive this? Keep in mind too that certain sorcerers could boost this damage even higher with their bloodline arcanas, and a metamagic rod could make boost the damage by another 50%. Sure, it cost a huge amount of mythic power to do, but wow. Unless I'm mistaken, having mythic tiers doesn't add on quite that many hit points.

There is a possibility of counterspelling it, but if the caster has Resilient Arcana then good luck with that. I suppose there is a chance that spell resistance will save the day, and rogues are going to be *very* happy with their improved evasion, but is there anything else that will help here? Are there some defensive abilities that mythic characters get that I'm missing?


So, I recently finished painting a mini with my Citadel paints and Testors Dullcote sealer. I decided to go the extra mile with this one by gluing sand and fake grass to its base with gorilla glue.

However, when the glue dried, I found that the mini was ruined. It looked as if the fumes from the glue changed the color of much of the miniature.

I'm going to see if I can salvage this one. However, does anyone know any types of glue that won't have this effect upon paints and sealants?


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

So, I have a game coming up where I'm going to be playing a male Kitsune Sorcerer, and I've been looking everywhere to try and find a suitable miniature. Nothing seems to fit the character. All the actual kitsune minis out there are female modals, and those are all wielding weapons. I've tried looking for various kinds of lycantheropes to see if I could paint one to look like a kitsune, but the males are all too feral and the females are... well, too female. The fact that I want this one to be wearing relatively normal clothes just makes things even harder.

Has anyone seen anything that would be suitable for a male kitsune? I'm willing to try and attempt a slight conversion of a miniature via greenstuff if that's what it would take (maybe by modifying an existing tail to look more fox like).


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

In both 3.5 and Pathfinder I've been bothered by the way certain magical items are practically required in order for a character to survive and be effective in battle. Not only are they boring... the existence of these items means that you can't use anything else that would take the same item slots.

So, I've been starting to work on an optional rule set that would give characters automatic bonuses which would replace the worst offenders: Cloak of Resistance, Amulet of Natural Armor, Ring of Protection, and all the stat boosting belts and headbands.

Here's my current draft of the system on Googledocs.

It isn't complete yet. The main problem that I'm still thinking on is what to do about ability scores enhancement and inherent bonuses. Giving these out without changing the balance of the game has been an interesting problem. I'm currently just saying "here, have whatever you would have with 25% of your WBL" approach for replacing Enhancement and Inherent bonuses to Ability Scores.

Anyway, any feedback is appreciated. Ideally, I would want to be able to let my players use this system without having to make significant adjustments to any adventure path that I put them through, so I'm trying to get the balance right. If anyone feels like looking over the system, I'd like it if you could give me your opinion on a few things:

1. Is this a good set of automatic bonuses to give to all characters?
2. Do you think it is right to use 25% of a character's expected WBL to calculate the amount he would be spending on Ability Score boosting items?
3. Is it better to have the progression of these stat boosts to be linear, or do you think they should reflect what players will usually have at each level of the game when using items?
4. Do you think that it is an issue if players begin getting some bonuses (such as natural armor and resistance) a little early, but then the bonus doesn't max out until near level 20.
5. Should it continue to be 'expensive' for a character to focus entirely his Physical (or Mental) stats?
6. Should Inherent bonuses be removed from the calculations for the automatic Ability Score bonuses? Removing Inherent bonuses would lead to a more linear progression.
7. Should armor and weapon enhancement bonuses be added to the chart? (I'm currently focusing on removing things which take up item slots)


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Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'm looking at making a Watersinger for an upcoming campaign, and I have a few questions about how exactly it works. It doesn't help that I've also never played a bard before...

1. Watersong says says that you need to make a 'successful Perform check' to animate the water, but it doesn't say anything about a DC or if you even need ranks in a specific perform skill to use this ability. Should I just ignore this line?

2. Once a watersong performance has started, I'm assuming that it doesn't take an action to move water around on subsequent rounds?

3. Waterstrike says that I can 'spend 1 round of bardic performance to command any water he is currently manipulating with his watersong'. It doesn't mention an action, so I'm guessing that I could use waterstrike to attack an enemy, and then do my own attacks using my standard/move/swift actions?

4. Waterstrike says 'spend 1 round of bardic performance'. Since I have to also be using Watersong to manipulate the water at the same time, I guess this means I'm using 2 round of bard performance every round that I use waterstrike?

5. Is it possible to use feats to improve Waterstrike? This part really isn't explained. I would think that that Weapon Focus should work, but things like Power Attack wouldn't?

Any help is appreciated!


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Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I was a little sad that the Advanced Race Guide didn't have a sorcerer bloodline for kitsunes, so I decided to put one together to test myself. I'm not quite happy with what I have; I think it is way too large and a few parts (such as the Star Ball bonded item) could be done better. However, it does use a lot of elements of the old kitsune legends that haven't appeared in pathfinder yet.

One of my goals when making this was to make it avalable for both kitsunes and human descendants of kitsunes while allowing both to become "nine tailed foxes" by level 20. I think I succeeded at that at least.

I think my one balance concern at the moment is the "Hidden Spells" ability that allows the sorcerer to start getting still+silent at a very early level (3rd), but I feel that this sort of ability is necessary for a kitsune who is trying to blend in with and manipulate a human population. :D

Anyway, here's the google document. Feel free to comment on any issues you find and I'm open to suggestions for improvement: Kitsune Sorcerer Bloodline

Oh, and if you're wondering where the inspiration for these abilities came from... Wikipedia


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Now that the Advanced Race Guide is shipping the inevitable question must be asked: will we be seeing miniatures (preferably metal ones) for the races in the ARG?

I've been searching everywhere for a (male) kitsune miniature ever since the Dragon Empires books came out, so now I'm hoping that the likelihood of seeing one has increased now that we have the ARG. I'm sure plenty of other people are looking for miniatures that fit their ARG characters as well!


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Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

So, the Qinggong Monk archetype allows monks to switch out their standard abilities for Qinggong Monk powers that they qualify for. The thing is, the Qinggong Monk monk level requirements rarely match up with the levels of an actual monk ability. It seems like this would lead to strange situations like having to wait until 11th level to gain an 8th level Qinggong Monk power (at which point he also can choose 10th level powers).

However, I've noticed one thing about the archetype's writeup: unless I'm mistaken it doesn't state *when* the monk has to trade his abilities. All it says is "A qinggong monk can select a ki power (see below) for which she qualifies in place of the following monk class abilities".

Theoretically, this means at 8th level a monk could give up the 7th level ability 'wholeness of body' for an 8th level power. If this is the case, suddenly the archetype's strange level requirements make more sense.

Does this seem like the correct interpretation? I've seen people suggest this before, but I've never seen a definitive answer.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

The description for the Samsaran race says that after they die they usually reincarnate as a Samsaran child. I'm wondering if this should affect the outcome of having a reincarnate spell cast on a Samsaran.

You know, normally the race you get from the reincarnate spell is randomized and is always a young adult rather than a child. I'm assuming that the reincarnate spell should always generate a young adult, but would a reincarnated Samsaran generally reincarnate as his previous race? Or should the spell's randomization take precedence?

This question came up when I was trying to give a friend suggestions for his Samsaran Druid. I was thinking that using the 'Reincarnated Druid' archetype would be very flavorful, but if his reincarnation ability won't bring him back as a Samsaran it kind of breaks the flavor. Though, I guess some would argue that taking away the random element from reincarnate would make the spell too good for its level.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'm currently working on building a ninja character, and I've been looking over the different options. There is one feat that I have become particularly interested in:

Moonlight Stalker:

Prerequisite: Int 13, Blind-Fight, Combat Expertise, Bluff 3 ranks, darkvision or low-light vision racial trait.

Benefit: While you have concealment from an opponent, you gain a +2 bonus on attack and damage rolls against that opponent.

+2 attack and damage whenever I'm invisible (or if it is simply dark out) is nice, but having to get two prerequisite feats is annoying. Especially when one of them is Combat Expertise. Has anyone tried this feat out and seen how effective it was? I'm assuming it is very good for ninjas if they use invisibility or smoke bombs a lot.

Then of course there are the other two moonlight stalker feats, but I'm thinking that those aren't worth the investment.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I recently started playing a ninja and I've been thinking about getting the 'bomb' ninja tricks. However, I have a question about the poison bombs.

Poison bombs use inhaled poison, meaning you theoretically can hold your breath to avoid the effects of the poison. So, could my ninja character take a breath and then throw the bomb at his feet and not even have to make a saving throw? Would this take an action?

I'm assuming that other people (such as enemies) would not get to hold their breath unless they either readied an action for it or took a breath before going into the cloud. If you could simply say "I'm holding my breath" every time a poison bomb is thrown at you without warning then the ability is kind of pointless.

Yea, I know that I'm probably entering a gray area in the rules here.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I've noticed that Star Archons have both smite evil and the spell meteor swarm. If the Star Archon REALLY wanted something to die, could it combine smite evil with meteor swarm (via ranged touch attack with the physical meteors)? Of course, only the person hit directly with the meteors would get hit with the smite damage, but it would still be 32d6+80 if all four smite meteors hit.

I wanted to check because while I've heard of rogues getting sneak attack damage with rays I've never heard of paladins doing something similar with rays and their smite.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Simple question. If a summoner grants himself martial weapon proficiency by granting himself the weapon training evolution (with greater aspect) does that allow him to take levels in eldritch knight without having to take levels in say... fighter? The only real issue I see is that the summoner could theoretically change the evolution later, but I would simply rule that since he used it for a prerequisite that he would have to stick with it (similar to the fighter's ability to change his feats).

Of course, I know that in most cases a summoner would never want eldritch knight levels since his eidolon would stop growing, but that's not the question here ;)


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Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I'm letting one of my players change his sorcerer into a Wordcaster, so I'm trying to make sure that I understand all the rules for the system. I believe have most of the rules for how wordcasting works figured out except for metawords. There seems to to a problem in the explanation for the number of metawords that can be applied to a single spell.

The book says "A wordspell can have multiple meta words arranged within it so long as each target word and each effect word are modified by only one meta word apiece." Sounds simple enough. However, it seems as if most meta words don't just modify a single effect word. For example, the careful meta words says "A wordspell with this meta word does not require a somatic component."

So, how is this supposed to work? Do metawords that affect the entire spell rather than the individual words not count towards the limit? Or do they prevent you from using any other meta words on that spell?

It would just seem odd to me if you can use metawords like boost multiple times in a spell to get various effects, but can only use ones like careful or silent by themselves.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Lock Ward:

Lock Ward (Binding)
school abjuration; Level sorcerer/wizard 1
duration permanent
saving Throw Will negates (harmless); spell resistance yes
(harmless)
Target restrictions selected
This effect word causes one unattended object to close, such
as a door, chest, or book. If the object possesses a lock, the
object is also locked. If the wordspell includes other effect
words, the effects of those words are suspended until a
creature other than the wordcaster attempts to unlock or
otherwise open the object. That creature becomes the target
of the other effect words, as if those effect words had the
selected target word. Only consider the other effect words
when determining the duration of this secondary effect.

So, if I'm understanding this effect word correctly, you could use it to enchant an empty potion bottle so that when someone opens it, he would get say... Energy Resistance or Enhance Form cast upon him. From what I can tell, this allows you basically go around enchanting random open-able objects with buff spells that you can hand out to your party so that they can activate the spells on their own.

Here's the real question though. Does having one of these 'enchanted' items sitting around prevent you from regaining your spell normally the next day? It sure doesn't seem like that way... so this spell effectively lets you break the spells per day limitation as long as you prepare the items beforehand. The only downside is that you can't have the Lock Wards cast buffs on yourself.

Anyone disagree with this interpretation? I'm pretty sure that Lock Ward was not intended to be used this way, but it is still a pretty powerful ability for wordcasters.


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Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I've been reading through my PDF for Ultimate Magic, and I noticed that the section for Words of Power says that "there are feats that allow a wordcaster to learn a limited number of spells; see the sidebar on page 166". However, no such feat seems to exist on that page or anywhere else in the book. (If I'm just somehow missing it, please feel free to tell me XD )

In the preview for Words of Power, the feat that did this was called Versatile Wordcaster. My question is, is this feat supposed to be in Ultimate Magic and was lost in the editing, or was it intentionally removed and Paizo simply forgot to remove mentions of it from the rest of the book?

Yea, I could have just posted this in the errata topic, but I figured a question about whether or not a feat was missing warranted getting its own topic.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

The Merge Forms ability that summoners get at level 16 says that a summoner can cast spells while he is merged with his eidolon by controlling its body. So, I'm wondering if doing this causes the eidolon to lose the actions that the summoner is using during the casting?

I can easily see that spells with a casting time of a full round or more would prevent the eidolon from doing anything during the casting. However, what about standard action or swift action casts?

What about Silent+Still spells and spell-like abilities that don't require any movements whatsoever? It would seem silly for a summoner to have to stop his eidolon from attacking so that he can cast a spell when all he has to do is think it.

I'm guessing the answer to all of these is "yes, your eidolon loses the equivalent actions in all cases" simply because that is the simplest way for this to work. However, I still wanted to check, because Merge Forms becomes a lot less useful if it causes you to lose half of your actions. I would only use the ability if my summoner was dieing from something.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

What is the difference between summoning a creature and calling it? Yes, I know that when you call a creature that it is there for real and will die if it is killed. I also know that summoned creatures reform after they die. However, what exactly is different about summoning a creature that allows it to reform?

I've read in a few places that a summon is really just a 'mirror' of the creature that you are summoning, but I haven't been able to find anything official about this in the Pathfinder core rulebook.

I'm asking about this mostly for roleplaying purposes, because I'm wondering about whether or not my good aligned character should worry about curing my summons of diseases and curses before dismissing them. I had always assumed that diseases and stuff would go away when a summoned creature is dismissed because it isn't there for real, but my rp group is giving me a hard time about it ;)


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

My Summoner is going to be gaining the 'Greater Aspect' ability in a few levels. As I was looking over the evolutions that he could gain using these, I noticed the Breath Weapon and Frightful Presence evolutions. When the summoner grants these evolutions to himself, are his stats or his eidolon's stats used to determine how powerful they are?

I'm asking because if they use the eidolon's stats, that makes Breath Weapon potentially a powerful choice. However, if they use the summoner's stats, Frightful Presence suddenly becomes very powerful because of the summoner's higher HD and Cha. Yes, I know that the RAW text says "the eidolon's HD + Stat", but that just seems a little odd, doesn't it?

I suppose this question also applies to the 'Twin Eidolon' ability, since in a way the summoner becomes the eidolon, but keeps his level and mental stats. When the summoner is using Twin Eidolon, is his frightful presence more powerful than the Eidolon's? It would make sense in this case since the summoner has the eidolon's body, but is better able to cause fear with his higher CHA.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Lately there have been people in the games that I've been running/playing trying to cast spells with verbal components either while invisible or while hiding. At first people were being allowed to whisper their spells, but I now realize that casters can't do that because they have to cast in a 'strong voice'.

My question is, what sort of penalty should people get to their stealth checks for trying to cast a spell with verbal components while hiding? Maybe they could try to make a 'sniping' check so their spot isn't found...


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Deflect Arrows wrote:
You must have at least one hand free (holding nothing) to use this feat. Once per round when you would normally be hit with an attack from a ranged weapon, you may deflect it so that you take no damage from it. You must be aware of the attack and not flat-footed. Attempting to deflect a ranged attack doesn't count as an action. Unusually massive ranged weapons (such as boulders or ballista bolts) and ranged attacks generated by natural attacks or spell effects can't be deflected.

Notice that it says 'from a ranged weapon'. According to the raw rules, this means anyone with the Deflect Arrows feat can also deflect bullets.

So, are we going to ignore how impossible this is? Deflecting arrows is one thing, but bullets? I wouldn't mind this if monks couldn't do this until very high levels, but it isn't uncommon for a monk to have this at 2nd level. Though, I suppose this could be a case of "monks need nice things anyway, leave him alone".

Though, the real issue with this in my opinion is that this renders monks immune to gunslingers who haven't found some trick to get off more than one shot per round. There are only two ways around this right now: fire multiple guns per round or lighting reload deed.


Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

One of my friends is playtesting the gunslinger class in the Serpent's Skull campaign that I'm running. We have done three combats so far, and I'll go ahead and describe how the gunslinger did in them. I'll try and avoid spoiling any plot here, but you might want to avoid reading it of you don't want any hints about what the campaign involves.

The other members of the party were an Elf Ranger (Guide) and a Human Sorcerer (Stormborn bloodline). Yea, the party is missing both a healer and a rogue, so things will be interesting.

1st level gunslinger:

Vitruvius
Male Human Gunslinger 1
LG Medium humanoid (human)
Init +6 Senses Perception +3
-Defense---------------------------------
AC 19, touch 15, flat-footed 14
hp 11 (1d10+1)
Fort +1, Ref +6, Will +3
-Offense---------------------------------
Spd 30ft.
Ranged +5Musket (1d12)
-Statistics------------------------------
Str 12 Dex 18 Con 12 Int 12 Wis 16 Cha 10
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 16
Feats Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot
Skills Acrobatics 6, Climb 3, Craft (weaponsmith) 5, Knowledge (engineering) 5, Swim 3
Languages Common, Aklo
Gear Musket, Chain Shirt, Masterwork Backpack
Special Abilities Grid, Deeds

My friend decided that he wanted to build a lightly armored gunslinger. Interestingly, we ran into an issue where he was unable to carry much more than just his gun and his armor without encumbering himself with his strength of 12. He had to spend some of his starting gold on a masterwork backpack so that he could carry more while keeping a speed of 30.

Also, he decided to go with Point Blank Shot and Precise shot so that he would not worry about having a -4 penalty when shooting into melee.

First Combat: 3 Ochre Eurypterids (sea scorpions) (CR 1/3 each)

The party starts off unconscious, and the sorcerer was the first to wake up. He spends his first round waking up the gunslinger, and the ranger wakes up from being nibbled on the next round.

The Gunslinger did alright on this fight. He killed one of the sea scorpions with his first shot (hitting touch AC helped). The rest of the party was rolling incredibly badly for most of the fight, giving the gunslinger time to spend a round reloading and then he hit another sea scorpion for 3 damage (the sorcerer finished it off with a ray of frost). The Ranger finally managed to hit his sea scorpion and one shotted it.

Second Combat: 1 Eurypterid (sea scorpion) (CR 1)
This combat was really fast. The gunslinger went first and basically one shotted this larger sea scorpion for 11 damage (10+point blank shot), reducing it to 0 hp. The party then allowed the npc they brought with them to finish it off. Being able to hit touch AC helped once again.

Third Combat: 3 Dimorphodons (CR 1 each)
This combat did not go as well for the gunslinger and actually showed the problems that can come with gun use right now. He missed with his first shot, spent a round reloading, then misfired with a 2 on his second shot. Then he had to spend 2 rounds getting the weapon ready again (1 standard action using a grit to fix the gun, a full round action to reload it) before he finally fired his third shot and managed to take down the final Dimorphodon (the other party members had been killing the others off during all this time).

Thoughts and Observations so far
When I asked the player what he thought of the class his first words were "waiting two rounds to be able to do anything in combat is not fun". This was of course in reference to when his gun misfired. He basically thinks the class is too swingy right now: it can be amazing when it does its damage, but is painful to play when the weapon misfires. I should mention that this was coming from a player who has been bugging me about wanting to play a gun using class in my pathfinder and 3.5 games for years.

He also mentioned that he thought the class should have perception as a class skill instead of handle animal. Personally, I wish it also had disable device so that I could have him fill in for the party's lack of a rogue. I think it could fit with their engineering knowledge. Or maybe gunslingers could be allowed to get utility shot earlier?

Another interesting thing to note is that the player never used his grit except for the one time that the gun misfired. Muskets have a long range, so he never had to use a grit to get a touch attack off in the opening combat situations. However, I should also note that getting touch attacks at this level don't seem to make a huge difference. This was especially shown with the Dimorphodons because they only have +1 natural armor. I'm not sure if all the penalties that gunslingers get are worth just being able to hit touch AC.

The player seemed upset enough about the problems that he had with the misfire that I told him that if the problems continue for one or two more games that I'll modify the class a bit so that it can be more consistent. First, I'm going to change the 'Quick Clear' deed so that it takes a move action instead of a standard action. That way if he has rapid reload he can reload his musket and clear it on the same round instead of having to spend two rounds doing nothing in the fight.

The other change I'm thinking of implementing is increasing the rate at which he gets bonus feats. This will allow him to get the feats he needs (such as Rapid Reload and Lightning Reload Deed) faster. Either that, or I'm going to make both of those feats be built into the class. In fact, I think that may be the best option since it would give the player more to do with his grit from the start. Plus honestly, I can't imagine trying to play this class without the human bonus feat right now.

I hope that the playtest results don't sound too negative, the issue with the misfire kind of put a damper on things. However, the player is very excited about finally getting to play a gun user and is looking forward to seeing the gunslinger in its final form. Thanks for putting out the playtest document!


2 people marked this as FAQ candidate.
Pathfinder Adventure, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I just want to make sure that I have this right before one of my players starts using a gunslinger this weekend...

I know that Deadly Aim can't be used with touch attacks. So, the question is, when you fire a gun at short range, does it count as a touch attack? Under the Range and Penetration section of guns it says that at close range that the attack "Resolves against touch AC". Under the Deadeye ability for gunslingers, it says that when you use the ability the gunslinger can target touch AC. Neither of these descriptions actually call shooting in this manner a 'touch attack'.

It seems like a lot of people on the boards are assuming that you can't use Deadly Aim while targeting touch AC, but honestly this makes no sense to me. It should be easier for a gunslinger to aim for vital areas if he's piercing the target's armor, not harder! The close range shouldn't be an issue either because archers don't have a problem with it. Is there any rule that actually says that "resolving an attack against touch AC" is technically a "touch attack"?

I was under the impression that touch attacks were usually either spells or special abilities and that the intent of that line in deadly aim was to keep spellcasters from doing good damage with their level 0 rays of frost.

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