Magyc's page

I also love the concept of the Mystic Theurge. View the thread below for links to some theories about early entry in the class which your DM may find compelling.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pe7x&page=2?Mystic-Theurge#58

Unfortunately you can't use both at the same time.

"Trait bonuses do not stack—they're intended to give player characters a slight edge, not a secret backdoor way to focus all of a character's traits on one type of bonus and thus gain an unseemly advantage"

Spell Perfection at level 15 is another possibility.

Take a look at the Arsinoitherium- massive damage die for a large animal, you can get it 6th level.

In a world of 45-point builds dwarven monks can be hard to stop :).

In seriousness, monks are typically all about survivability. High ACs and High Saves = difficult to kill. Let it be for now; their AC doesn't really keep going up much beyond this... at higher levels 30s won't be hard to beat out.

His damage output should be good (largely because 20 strength with all of these other things) but not overpowering. Consider having stronger enemies move past him in favor of squishier targets; this probably will have the residual effect of giving him only 1 attack for the round.

If the rest of the party is also a 45-point build you'll need to up difficulty encounters.

I was hoping someone would point that out... I counted it was a 47 point build myself.

So in a campaign I play in, one of the Big Bads is a Dwarven monk with Steel Soul and crazy high saves. With high wisdom, high dexterity and bracers of armor he has really, really high AC and nice CMD too. He can use Fly on himself and favors tactics like swooping down, flurrying and getting AoOs. He has some levels in Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager / Hurler) and often trips our martial characters. The character appears to have some racial variant that affords him spell resistance we cannot dispel.

The character seems really overpowered. Since he took out my character last time, I want to build a real munchkin character geared at just absolutely crushing this monk.

One idea I have is trying to use stone-shape to create foot manacles and trap the monk. The DM has decked this villain out with permanency of haste, longstrider, heroism and enlarge person. I am not sure how to plan to kill this villain, because he has crazy high defenses, can grab arrows, moves insanely fast and can drop even our party Barbarian pretty quickly.

What level are you? Some of the things you describe (spell resistance AND Steel Soul) cannot be taken together, others are flat out disallowed (permanent haste). My guess is you will be able to kill this monk when the GM decides it is time for him to die.

Probably. It's a complicated game. What if you take one swing then drop your sword, can you not draw a potion with your remaining move action because your hands are still full? :p

Good point. Last thing we need is more rule complexity. I think a specific line in Crane Wing (maybe other style feats too) denying use of the feat while using a weapon 2 handed would be the most elegant way to destroy the loophole.

Magyc wrote:

Aelryinth wrote:

you can 2h any weapon on your turn, releasing it at the end of the round; gain a +5 dodge bonus to ac with a -1 to hit; completely neutralize one attack that actually does manage to hit you; and gain an AoO against any melee attack you do neutralize, effectively doubling your damage output.

==Aelryinth

How about closing that awful loophole that lets characters get all the benefits of fighting two handed and having a free hand at the same time. Is there even RAW support for such a glaring violation of the spirit of the rules?

There is, yes. It can be difficult to avoid some issues when you break theoretically contemporaneous actions up into turns and adjudicate them in strict order.

In real time, what would be happening of course is that player A and monster B are battling each other at the same time, trading blows.

In turn-based time, it's difficult to work in nods to simultaneity, so you do all six of your attacks two handed, then meet all six of his attacks with one hand off your weapon, as if they were happening at different times.

Not much to be done about it, really, it would be much more complicated than it's worth to address these sorts of things on a system wide level.

Hm. Would there be unintended consequences to saying that if you attack 2 handed at any point during your turn, you do not have a free hand until the start of your next turn?

you can 2h any weapon on your turn, releasing it at the end of the round; gain a +5 dodge bonus to ac with a -1 to hit; completely neutralize one attack that actually does manage to hit you; and gain an AoO against any melee attack you do neutralize, effectively doubling your damage output.

==Aelryinth

How about closing that awful loophole that lets characters get all the benefits of fighting two handed and having a free hand at the same time. Is there even RAW support for such a glaring violation of the spirit of the rules?

Looks like a good change to me. The complaints about 'Crane Wing now being useless' don't hold up to examination IMO.

.....

There might have been other ways to re-balance the feat (e.g. still allow one deflection on fighting defensively if the attack missed by 10 or more), but it obviously needed adjustment and this update isn't bad overall. Crane style is still very useful, and no longer blatantly unbalancing...

I didn't understand or recognize where you were getting your figures from, but why would you need to deflect an attack that missed?

Lemmy wrote:

That's already been answered though, it's working as intended. "Water balloons", realistically speaking, are just going to be inferior to bows.

Sean K Reynolds Designer, RPG Superstar Judge wrote:

"I want my water-balloon-throwing fighter to be able to deal the same damage as a longbow-shooting fighter. Why does Pathfinder have trap options for some ranged characters?"

Replace "water-balloon-throwing" with any of the following

axe-throwing
blowgun-firing
dagger-throwing
dart-throwing
javelin-throwing
sling-using
spear-throwing

and the complaint is no less ridiculous.

Some options are worse than others because the game actually tries to model that some options in life are worse than others. And by "worse" I mean "does less damage per round."
.
.
.
And the dagger fighter can take two extra feats and still deal less damage than a greatsword fighter. Because daggers can't deal as much damage as greatswords. There's a reason why soldiers used swords instead of daggers as their primary weapon.
.
.
.
Game stats for dogs are more powerful than game stats for cats. Why? Because in real life dogs are more dangerous than housecats. Is this "gimping" the "I have a guard cat" character compared to the "I

...

I agree with your point that weapon and combat style choices do not have to be equal. But what we have here is that some choices have been exclusively catered to. Why not some version of Rapid Shot with the sling, or feats that enable/buff poison darts? Instead we have a half dozen longbow feats.

Marthkus wrote:

I suggest taking 10 on your craft(errata) check. Also by using the craft skill it will make it more understandable why errata takes so long to make :P

Ha.. ok. that made me laugh. In all seriousness though, these take a while because we are busy working on three different upcoming books, the ACG, XXX, and XXX, not to mention planning XXX, XXX, XXX, and XXX.

This is just one component of our job, in addition to FAQs, playtests, reviews of other paizo rules content, brainstorms, approvals, scheduling meetings, team lead meetings, and about 50 other minor tasks. There is a lot of to do, which is why I am always hesitant to add yet another step to any of our processes (like a public pre-review of errata). We barely have the time for the things we have on our plate as it is.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Were you surprised by the depth of reaction regarding the change to Crane Wing?

[b]1On a tangent, my player has actually been using a lot of total defense lately. He'll set himself up between the enemy and the rest of the party and total defense (provided it makes sense with the terrain and the foe, which in the AP so far it often has). If the enemy wants to attack the party, he's got to move up next to the CSer (and get his single attack deflected) or try to move past and put himself in danger of getting flanked. So much for total defense being useless!

I don't believe characters using Total Defense can serve as flank buddies.

I do think think that there should be a process where we see the errata beforehand. As long as the majority (80%) or more like the rule or dislike the rule it either stays the same. Or gets errata. As well as a good friend pointed out when it comes to System Design 101. Check the downstream effects of what you implement. Before releasing it not after.

While I can respect Jason position I do think that the mistakes with errata are happening too often. Once or twice even three times. Except it keeps happening too often. Six years into the design process on PF. These types of errors should not be happening. Or as little as possible. While I'm not as frustrated as Lemmy. I'm getting close. I know the devs are human yet at the same time I would like them to learn from their mistakes.

There should be a process or preview to obtain feedback before these changes are finalized. It is such a big step to errata newly made errata...there is a huge bar to getting CW back to something usable at this point. I can't believe this awful, cumbersome, game-slowing change would have gone forward if the forum reaction was previewed.

Cerberus Seven wrote:

If I make ask a question / make a suggestion: why is this being applied universally instead of just to PFS? You said it yourself, it was the PFS people who listed it as their #1 complaint. In contrast, I've seen it mentioned here on the general forums once, where a LOT of people jumped to defend it. Why not just modify the PFS house-rules to ban this feat chain like you guys did Synthesist? If it's that huge a complaint for them, well, it seems like that'd give BOTH camps what they want.

I'm going to try to correct a misconception here.

The change was not for PFS. The change was made because data from PFS proved to the designers that it was not appropriately balanced.

If people had a different experience with the Feat, they should post playtest data similar to Rogue Eidolon's, along with any house rules or adjustments they make in their campaign. That's the kind of data that would be instrumental in reversing or altering this decision, not anecdotal evidence and "we use it and it's fine."

I don't think your suggestion is worthwhile.

This change literally only affects people playing PFS. If you can't be bothered to change a rule you don't like or talk to your GM about it, that's not Paizo's problem.

"Crane wing wasn't overpowered, any good GM would just change the tactics or monsters to avoid single attacks."

and

"I'm not going to use the pre-errata version because I keep my house-rules to a bare minimum and simple."

How do you reckon those two with any sort of intellectual honesty? "If it's a problem I'll just change things to fix it." "YOU CHANGED THIS AND I REFUSE TO FIX IT BACK TO THE WAY I LIKED IT."

It should be obvious by the volume of responses that the Official rules matter a great deal, for all the reasons he cited. Why shouldn't PFS be the ones to put into place custom changes?

Terrible decision. It even slows down game management- now Crane Wing users have to tell the GM which attack they were blocking, make sure that the GM is rolling against the right situational AC....wow, I can't believe any thought was put into this.

It is the responsibility of the DM to draw the line, but it is also the responsibility of the players to not always be trying to redraw and bend the line every chance they get.

Spells do what they say they do. Spellcasters are plenty powerful enough without rewriting every spell into a list of 400 things they can do that they don't say they do.
Every spell has an intended use given what it says its for and given its level and its cost and casting time.

Is grease flammable?
Well. lets just say it is.
How flammable? Does it explode? Does it just burn? How much damage? For how long? If you grease someone's weapon and then Fireball the owner does the weapon catch on fire? How much damage?

Does burning grease still operate as a Grease spell?
Does the fact that its burning decrease the duration at all? If so, by how much?
If not- why? burning grease depletes the grease. If its going to burn (since logically grease burns) then shouldn't it also decrease from burning? (since that also follows the logic).

If I grease someone's armor and Fireball them do they roast in their own armor? Why not?

Do we have to do this for every single spell in the game?
Lets look at it from every angle to see what other things the spell SHOULD be doing but the designers just decided not to add to the page count.

I'm willing to bet that very nearly every single damaging elemental spell can be "added to" in some fashion because "logic" says that X Y Z should go well beyond what the spell says.

It isn't about Grease. Its about spells doing what spells say they do.
If you don't like that- then please by all means houserule it. But here on the boards in Rules discussions- spells do what they say they do. They don't do what they don't say they do unless it directly relates to some other applicable rule. (like a fireball dropping you to -54 HP when your con is 12. You are dead even though Fireball doesn't discuss death.)

If grease is flammable then the players have every logical right to super examine every...

Great post. This perfectly lays out the problems with spell power creep.

I also love the concept of the Mystic Theurge. View the thread below for links to some theories about early entry in the class which your DM may find compelling.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pe7x&page=2?Mystic-Theurge#58

" my void school lets me debuff people without a save before i blastem, so im leaning towards evocation"

I don't think you can benefit from your own use of Reveal Weakness unless you use Quicken metamagic. Only lasts 1 round.

"When you activate this school power as a standard action, you select a foe within 30 feet. That creature takes a penalty to its AC and on saving throws equal to 1/2 your caster level (minimum –1) for 1 round."

Near the end of Serpent Skull my wizard made a spell that would deafen friendly party members so they would be unaffected by Wail of the Banshee. I think it came out as a first level spell as it could be auto resisted and lasted such a short time. Given that, it cost much more than I expected and took much longer to research.

Magyc wrote:

There are RAW (IMO) ways to get into Theurge earlier than level 7, which makes it much more viable. I subscribe to the interpretation it is possible at level 5, possibly even level 4.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mja6?Early-Entry-Mystics-Theurge#1

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2nye3?Entrance-into-Mystic-Theurge#29

The Heighten Spell/Magical Lineage trick does not work:

** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **
Magical Lineage causes the spell to be treated as 1 lower, so a 1st level spell Heightened to 2nd level with Magical Lineage reverts back to a 1st level spell. Heighten and Magical Lineage cancel each other out, they don't improve each other.

The Candle of Invocation could possibly work, but only if your GM allows you to level up during the 4 hours when it is active.

That is a good argument, but I think the term "adjusted" means what Omelite discusses here:

I don't think Magical Lineage can "cancel out" Heightened spell, but I do concede that the majority of thread participants have gone with your interpretation in earlier threads.

There are RAW (IMO) ways to get into Theurge earlier than level 7, which makes it much more viable. I subscribe to the interpretation it is possible at level 5, possibly even level 4.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mja6?Early-Entry-Mystics-Theurge#1

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2nye3?Entrance-into-Mystic-Theurge#29

SPOILER

Derp. Reading is hard, yo.

In that case, it probably is definitely as Nefreet suggested (though it would be 1150 for masterwork + magic, for a total of 1900g).

When I hit that declarative statement I stopped and had the same conclusion you did. Poorly written text.

Let me relate the story of my first experience with character death...

Thanks for sharing that story, I completely agree.

Lluks4 wrote:

I don't think they need to say it outright, though I'm pretty sure they've delineated the rules for convincing people of things somewhere. But really, it's a no-brainer: you want to convince an NPC to do something. You ask the DM. He's almost guaranteed to ask you to make a Diplomacy check or Charisma check.
That's the same thing here. If you want mr. mcMinion to do something, you try to convince him as one would try to convince a friend to do something THEY wouldn't normally do. The DM can, and should, set the DC as high as he feels is necessary for this action. So yes, you charm an assassin and ask him, as his friend (Cha-check) if he can sign away his home to you, but the GM can and should make that a check so high that it's probably...

Nope

Perhaps you glossed over where I quoted Piazo lead designer earlier; you are unequivocally wrong. When clarifying the faq someone asked him what happens if he charmed a person and told them to kill their family. Jason Bulman said "killing loved ones is probably always going to require a check, and might not even work (the creature might take its own life instead, its not your puppet after all)." Nowhere does he, or anything printed by Piazo talking about this spell, say that their is some scaling DC or that it is the same type of DC as convincing a friend. Outside of charm, what kind of diplomacy do you think you would have to have to convince someone they needed to kill their family or they must kill themselves to prevent themselves from killing their family? Probably it would be high enough for Jason to have not brought it up.

Lluks discussion on Charm Person as a first level spell makes perfect sense and is what I would have expected from the developers, especially given the discussions in Ultimate Magic. Jason's drive by comments in the FAQ make me think perhaps he should not be answering those questions that is the kind of off the cuff response he is going to provide.

Let me get this straight, he has access to shield and mage armor and you are asking how he gets AC? That's +8 to AC there and then. High Dex will do the rest.

Overall, either will work, in fact the unarmoured kensai will probably attract less attention in the city than the other concept.

Mage Armor is not on the Magus spell list. Nevertheless Kensai get an AC Boost with Canny Defense (if they have an intel bonus). Canny defense also lets them walk around in light armor- just use one of the very light ones with no spell failure chance.

james maissen wrote:

STR Ranger wrote:

The CMB doesn't scale well and by level 13 trip is rarely possible. Good for low levels. High level? Not so much.

I hear people say this, but I simply don't believe them.

What's the CMD against trip for a level 13 encounter?

I picked one at random: Storm Giant (42), he might have freedom of movement but that doesn't protect him against trips. At 13th level a trip build will have higher than that in bonuses, and can likely succeed on iteratives.

-James

See this thread for what I believe is the correct answer:

.

Hobbun said:
"No, it isn't a max enchantment bonus of +5, but enhancement bonus. There is a difference. Enhancement bonus is a specific type of bonus. The max of +5, is bonus to hit and damage (for weapons).

Now on top of the max +5 enhancement bonus, you can give an additional +5 of special qualities. In your example, +5 for a Vorpal sword, giving a total of +10 enchantment bonus. +5 for the enhancement bonus and +5 for special qualities."

Ah, that was supposed to be in response to the dialogue about how much of a enhancement bonus you could use on the weapon, not in response to the storm giant/cmb discussion. Ooops.

STR Ranger wrote:

The CMB doesn't scale well and by level 13 trip is rarely possible. Good for low levels. High level? Not so much.

I hear people say this, but I simply don't believe them.

What's the CMD against trip for a level 13 encounter?

I picked one at random: Storm Giant (42), he might have freedom of movement but that doesn't protect him against trips. At 13th level a trip build will have higher than that in bonuses, and can likely succeed on iteratives.

-James

See this thread for what I believe is the correct answer:

Hobbun said:
"No, it isn't a max enchantment bonus of +5, but enhancement bonus. There is a difference. Enhancement bonus is a specific type of bonus. The max of +5, is bonus to hit and damage (for weapons).

Now on top of the max +5 enhancement bonus, you can give an additional +5 of special qualities. In your example, +5 for a Vorpal sword, giving a total of +10 enchantment bonus. +5 for the enhancement bonus and +5 for special qualities."

"Um, magical compulsion? It's planar binding. Ever read about King Solomon and his Seal? The whole reason summoning and binding outsiders to your will exists in fantasy is because of the stories of King Solomon binding Demons and forcing them to do stuff like build the Temple of Jerusalem. The demons were not happy with him though, and said that they would torment his people for centuries to come. If an outsider fails the opposed Charisma check, they have to do what you ask of them. It's not a matter of popping an outsider into your circle and then using Diplomacy to make them agree (which you totally can if you want them to agree completely of their own free will), it's binding them to your will."

Ultimate Magic has an extensive section on how to best bargain and negotiate with all sorts of called creatures. Why would this exist if you had complete control over them? I read it that section as implying you have their undivided attention, but still need to convince them to get on board. You supply the carrots and sticks, but it is still not domination.

Helpful halfing doubles Aid Another. You must be a halfing, or you must also take the adopted trait.

I read that you cannot have traits from the same source, and traits selected cannot affect the same thing..ie you can't have two traits from different sources to raise your Fort save, and you can't have two traits reducing spell levels.

From the APG:
"Many traits grant a new type of bonus: a “trait” bonus. Trait bonuses do not stack—they're intended to give player characters a slight edge, not a secret backdoor way to focus all of a character's traits on one type of bonus and thus gain an unseemly advantage. It's certainly possible, for example, that somewhere down the line, a “Courageous” trait might be on the list of dwarf race traits, but just because this trait is on both the dwarf race traits list and the basic combat traits list doesn't mean you're any more brave if you choose both versions than if you choose only one."

dunelord3001 wrote:

@ Fozbek - The point I'm trying to convey is that a 2nd level spell should do what it says it does without requiring a multiclass build that goes up to at least 14th level.

I don't see a problem with these specific instances. They work as described. It's difficult to actually use them in a few circumstances where they could be useful, but that doesn't make them badly designed or require them to be made significantly more powerful.

And make no mistake, allowing them to be cast, as is with no interaction with any other effect, while paralyzed, dazed, or nauseated to remove those afflictions would increase their power level past that of a 2nd level spell.

EDIT: And they don't require multiclass builds to use even for those purposes.

They don't remove the condition, they just suppress it for a number of rounds equal to your caster level. 2nd Level is justified imo.

You will eventually level to be just one level behind them (can easily check the charts to see what that will happen.) In the meantime there a plenty of things you can do to help the party, aid another, ectr. I like the idea of being penalized for dying, though I don't like the idea of being penalized so harshly for retiring. In that respect, you took a hit personally to make the group better...that seems quite unfair.

I also have a question about the doors in this module.

This is the 2nd adventure I have run. When I ran the Fallen Fortress for my group, there were several keyed doors they ran into that they simply bashed open with their weapons. These were generally wood doors and a quick consult of the rules made it sound like while it may take them some time, they would eventually get through.

Bashing through the doors in the Fallen Fortress may not have been a big deal, but in Godsmouth it seems like it was intended that the players have to make a judgement call about when to use their precious charges on the Chime of Opening. If they can chop down the doors it takes away that whole dynamic.

It looks to me that we are now dealing with hewn stone doors with Arcane Lock. Hardness of 8, HP of 540. (There are three doors of this type in the very first chamber.) After consulting the rules it seems like they might be able to chip through these doors again, at least one of them has a weapon that does 1D8 damage (plus a strength bonus).

Right now I'm contemplating an equation to determine how long on average it would take them to chop through the stone door, with fatigue and exhaustion checks. Is there anything I am missing that would make this an impossible task?

Thomas Long 175 wrote:

Wow and I thought I got into big fights with other people :P. You two have been going at it since page 1 if I recall correctly? lol

It is kinda funny. AD thinks I'm rude because advocate for out-of-game solutions rather than in-game responses. Table manners first, RP second.

Oh the horror!

Well, AD and a substantial majority of the other posters.

Some cheesy ways from earlier threads about this topic:

3 Levels in arcane class, 1 level in divine class. With the investment of one feat and one trait (Magical Lineage and Heighten Spell) you can select a 1st level spell from your divine class, Heighten it to level 2, and then reduce the spell slot cost back to level 1. This fulfills the requirement and allows entry to MT at level 5.

Alternately, you take 1 arcane level, 1 divine, then select a spell on both lists for Magical Lineage. This allows entry to MT at level 3.

Also the wording for Candle of Invocation seems pretty promising for the the same reason. Read "spells normally unavailable" below.

Candle of Invocation
Aura strong conjuration; CL 17th
Slot none; Price 8,400 gp; Weight 1/2 lb.

Description

...
A cleric whose alignment matches the candle's operates as if two levels higher for purposes of determining spells per day if he burns the candle during or just prior to his spell preparation time. He can even cast spells normally unavailable to him as if he were of that higher level, but only so long as the candle continues to burn.

In addition, burning a candle also allows the owner to cast a gate spell, the respondent being of the same alignment as the candle, but the taper is immediately consumed in the process.

"Your problems with color spray (like Sleep) should go away once the monster HD increase sufficiently, and if the enemies are reasonably spread out, even that shouldn't be a huge issue.
And don't forget to add in the -4 penalties for firing into melee for ranged touch attacks and another -4 (for soft cover) if there is an interposing person, friendly or otherwise.
Hell, just get them grappled, then pinned. Caster CMDs usualy sucks."

Also any friendlies in the Area of Effect should be susceptible to Color Spray. If he is firing it with a clear line of sight, then any enemies beyond the paltry 15 foot range should be able to make a move action next round to come in and beat him.

Diamond spray looks OP for 3rd level. Does the same damage as Dragon's breath with a 20 foot cone instead of 30. Would also affect any allies in the cone.