Magnus Arcadian's page

Just from reading them, I can see that they extremely quickly get you to insane power levels (at least starting at Tier 3) that mostly circumvent the leveling up process, so that you pretty much auto-win against anything non-Mythic unless it is way over your head. [...] And for practical purposes, they effectively multiply your powers from standard leveling.

Exactly. That's why we need a mythic AP. Mythic characters are so powerful compared to everything else that they're hardly worth playing in a non-mythic AP.

I would love to, Brother Fen, but I am the last guy to do that! I log on here maybe twice a year.

UnArcaneElection and captain yesterday, what do you think is broken about the rules? We're having a great time with them, and they bring something to the table that no other edition of the game has done. That's pretty amazing given the long history of these rules.

Well, hello there. :)

I'll respectfully disagree with one thing you said, Darksol:

"With that being said, the problem with your experience is that you've played two of the most known weakest classes in the game."

I think the fighter and the rogue are both terrific. They _used to_ suck, back in 3.5 days, but now they're two of the best in the book. They're infinitely flexible, and that by itself makes them more survivable: you can play the character you understand best. They're also the simplest, most straightforward classes, and for beginners that makes them more survivable: you only have to focus on a couple of things, instead of keeping track of spells and all the rest.

Obviously everything comes down to what you build and how you play. But Doppleman, I think you shouldn't give up on fighters and rogues. They're fun, they're time-tested, and every adventure ever published has a place for them.

Intelligence wins wars. (I mean gathering information, not a high Int score.) If you're playing a rogue, max out stealth and perception, then stay on high alert. Peek around corners, listen at doors, all that good stuff. You're _always_ better off knowing as much as you can about the enemy before you engage.

Fighting at range wins wars. The bow and arrow achieved tactical dominance pretty much everywhere in the world that it was developed. The same holds for Pathfinder: archers can own this game. High Dex boosts your to-hit while at the same time boosting your initiative, reflex saves, AC, and a bunch of life-saving skills.

I say try playing a stealthy archer. You can make some really solid builds as a rogue or a fighter, or multiclassing between them. Maybe even play-test character concepts with some friends out of game. Just run a little mock battle, experimenting with different tactics.

I just love the mythic adventure rules. Wrath of the Righteous is one of the best APs I've ever played, going all the way back to the red D&D box set in 5th grade. Is there any word on whether Paizo will publish another AP for mythic characters?

I'd make it an even 5k and call it a day. I'd also make a greater version for 10k if it made the teleport automatically successful and allowed a caster level check to overcome teleport traps/anti-teleport zones.

This is much closer to the price range I had in mind.

I had given some thought to just creating a new spell to get done what I wanted to get done, but Dastis, looks like you found something close to it. Signifier's Rally seems to duplicate the bracelet of friends pretty well, without resorting to 9th level magic.

If you select a Roc as your companion yes. They even appear to be legal in PFS (although I might be misreading the entry). So any Small Druid or Hunter can be Air-Calvary at 1st level.

Sorry, I forgot that was an option. In my circles DMs never allow that sort of thing. (I'm stunned that PFS allows it.)

The summoner is the easiest* path to air cav. This is one of the (many) reasons people think the class is overpowered: by fifth level you can make an airborne charge and fly right by so the enemy can't retaliate. (Or better still, by sixth level, with one level of fighter to pick up your lance proficiency and a bunch of other handy benefits.) Your shabby BAB is offset by the +2 to-hit on the charge and +1 to-hit for having the high ground.

*This is assuming your DM doesn't allow you to just buy a griffon or pegasus.

Riding a quadruped eidolon seems like the best bet. Grab lance proficiency and Spirited Charge and you're basically good on damage; bonus, you can negate attacks against your Eidolon with Ride checks which is a neat defensive ability. And pick up Improved Share Spells to efficiently split buffs starting at level 11 (or 10 with retraining).

Seconded.

GM Rednal wrote:

[...] For example, training a bird to fly into an otherwise-secure area with the bracelet and teleporting to sneak in.

If the bird is your familiar you don't need a magic bracelet to do this.

I don't think anything about the bird _or_ the bracelet would be necessary here. If you know where to send the bird, you know where you want to teleport. If the location is dimensionally locked or otherwise teleport-proofed, then you can't 'port in bird or no bird.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy, how would you design this item? How would you calculate a cost?

I totally get what you're saying. But it just doesn't seem similar to me -- no more similar than a spare key is to a welcome mat.

I had started there too, but that seems like a pretty hefty price tag for something that doesn't actually _do_ anything. The cauldron allows you to scry; this doesn't. The bracelet of friends allows you to teleport people; this doesn't. This is just a magical welcome mat.

Thanks. I hadn't thought of that. What I was mostly thinking of was, "Why isn't this a standard book item? Why don't all wizards want to be able to teleport to where their parties are if they get stranded?"

This thing is _kind of_ like a bracelet of friends, but I don't think it should cost anything close to that much. The bracelet uses the most powerful teleport magic in the CRB. My widget is just a homing device.

(Oh, and as limits, go, I'm debating about how tricksy I want to make this item. Let's say you need to know its command word in order to teleport to it. Then let's say the bad guys let this item slip into enemy hands, so they can unerringly teleport to the PCs whenever they feel like it. Mwa ha ha ha ha....)

Because dex already supports initiative, AC, a saving throw, and a half dozen adventure supporting skills. No games designer in their right mind is eager to increase the supremacy of dexterity more than already exists.

Yup. This was the problem with the otherwise-awesome Star Wars RPG: high Dex was the only stat anyone needed.

Here's the idea for the item: something you can wear (a bracelet or amulet, I figure) that counts as a familiar location for those who want to teleport to you. It provides no teleport effect of its own; you just count as a place your friends have studied carefully, so they can teleport to you.

How do I calculate the cost of such a thing?

Sorry, maybe I should emphasize: I'm looking for items to buy.

I've got a paladin who fights mounted. He can make his saves pretty reliably but when his mount gets dominated, confused, etc., it's a real pain in the keister. Any thoughts about an item he can buy for his horsey to keep it protected?

Surely any spellcaster can do it. After all, the spells for any class have to have come from _somewhere_. Somewhere way back when, there has to have been a Prime Bard creating the first bard spell.

I'm wondering if a blinking archer can hit targets normally.

Obviously if you shoot him while he's blinking, you have to roll your miss chance. But it's not obvious to me that he has to do the same if he shoots you. Here's why:

Most spells that affect your gear (invisibility, enlarge person, reduce person, righteous might, etc.) stop affecting your projectile weapons as soon as you release them. A loosed arrow returns immediately to its original size, to being visible, etc., so why should it continue to benefit from the blink spell?

One answer: it doesn't. As soon as it leaves you, the spell no longer affects it, just like any other spell. No special exception made for blink, and blinking archers are the ultimate warrior.

The other answer: it stays on whatever plane it was loosed on, so you're stuck with the same miss chance you would have been stuck with if you were attacking in melee. Blink _does_ warrant a special exception from the normal rules about spells and ammo, because those other spells don't actually transport you anywhere.

I think the second answer is the right one. I wonder if any of you have encountered PCs who want the ruling to go the other way.

One criteria: if you can use escape artist to avoid being restrained, FoM works.

FoM may also work in other conditions, like movement underwater, but anything that is affected by escape artist is on the list:

nets
grapples
web spell
etc...

since you can't pass through a wall using an escape artist check, that doesn't qualify.

EXACTLY. Simple, commonsensical, straightforward.

Freedom of Movement - as discussed in the thread linked by Matthew.

My favourite FoM quirk is that if followed through consistently, the same example to allow you to move unhindered through water should also stop you from floating on water. So you should sink and take falling damage when you hit the sea floor. Taking that further, the FoM effect should also negate air resistance and thus the 20d6 limit from falling.
PS: I don't apply that logic in the game

Me neither! But I don't think the logic follows. FoM just makes you hydrodynamic, so to speak; it doesn't change your buoyancy.

Magnus Arcadian wrote:

I

Similarly, FoM doesn't let you escape a grapple,

Actually it specifically says that it does.

It doesn't. It says attempts to grapple you automatically fail. It also says you automatically succeed _if_ you try to escape, but it doesn't say you have to do that. Seems to me that if I'd rather not waste my action breaking a grapple I don't need to break, I can cast my spell, stab the grappler, etc. There's no contradiction in the rules and no contradiction in real life.

Sez me, anyway.

It doesn't _want_ anything. Grey goo is a mindless swarm.

If the player really wants to go looking for loopholes in the rulebook to overrule common sense, I say go for it, but they should know any loophole they find may well become a noose. If the grey goo must express its desire to go, then the same goes for your gut biome and all the other billions of bacteria in your body.

The PC teleports away successfully, then immediately goes insane, then catches hundreds of diseases, then starves, then dies.

The goo goes with him for the same reason his bloodstream goes with him. Not physically attached but it's unquestionable that it's contiguously contained within him.

If he fights it, tell him every time he teleports he has to state which of his bodily humours he'd like to bring along, and if he brings them their weight counts against the weight limit of the gear he can teleport.

Talked to my DM about it and he's got a better answer. The point isn't to benefit from your mount's +20 to jump. You might still get that benefit, but only in rare cases, and they don't matter much.

The real point is to be able to use your own Ride skill even on a wimpy mount. My awesome paladin at 5th tier and 12th level is +18 to Ride, but that's useless if he hops on an average horsey. The standard book horsey only +5 to jump checks, but spend the mythic point and now the horsey is +25, which means I didn't sink all those ranks into Ride for nothing.

Of course once my Ride hits +26, I _would_ get to use the horsey's +25, but that's just a side benefit. There are other side benefits too: I can get my mount +20 to jump even when I'm not on it, and I can get it +10 to any other Acrobatics use, like walking a ledge better suited for a mountain goat.

Anyway, I think this reading is pretty insightful.

I think some of you good people are overthinking it.

Freedom of movement allows you to move, well, _freely_. FoM doesn't get you out of a net, but you can move as if the net weren't entangling you. At the end of your movement, the net is on you. If the FoM effect ends, you're entangled.

Similarly, FoM doesn't let you escape a grapple, but you can move freely while grappled. This might be a bit weird to envision, but picture it this way: the one grappling you gets to maintain the grappled condition, but it can't keep you from moving. So if you want to use a somatic component, suddenly your hand is free to move but the grappler just grabs something else. (This is exactly what happens in Greco-Roman wrestling or BJJ: if you break my grip on your wrist, I grab the other one, or your neck, or your gi, or whatever.)

If you want to walk across the courtyard while grappled, FoM lets you do that too. What it doesn't do is free you from the grapple. In other words, the grappler gets to come with you if s/he wants to, just as if you were suddenly carried off by a roc. Your movement doesn't have to affect the grapple.

I don't see how you could _normally_ walk through a stone wall, so FoM doesn't affect that. You can normally walk through solid fog; you're just impeded, so FoM frees you of the impediment.

Hm. I'm not quite sure. But I love the image of Mr. Fantastic riding a goblin dog, so let's stick with it. :)

It's not the feat that says you see whose modifier is lowest, it's the rule about leaps using the Ride skill. And it's crystal clear: you're to compare whose modifier is lowest, not whose ranks are lowest. But if I understand you, Fernn, you're saying that in using the feat, you'd compare the modifiers to choose who's rolling, and after that, once you've determined it's your mount, you spend the mythic point to give the +20?

Can someone tell me how Valiant Vault is useful? The way it's phrased, it seems like every time you spend a mythic point to use it, you can't get the benefit of the mythic point.

According to the feat, "you can expend one use of mythic power to grant your mount a +10 bonus on an Acrobatics check, or a +20 bonus if the check is made to jump." But in the next paragraph, "You make a Ride check or your mount makes an Acrobatics check (whichever is lower) during the charge, using the rules for the leap task under the Ride skill." Therefore:

If you spend the mythic point, you add +20 to the mount's Acrobatics modifier, almost inevitably making it the higher modifier. (Your average horse gets +11 to jumps just for Str and base speed alone. With the mythic point that's +31, which a PC could theoretically outdo, but s/he'd need 20 ranks in Ride plus 28 Dex to do it.) Thus spending the point forces you to use the rider's Ride check, not the mount's Acrobatics check.

In other words, every time you spend the mythic point, the point makes itself obsolete. Seems to me this feat needs to be rephrased to say you can supersede the normal jump rules, and use whichever skill is _higher_.