Malcar Arcanus's page

@JDLPF

1) First, let me thank you for your answers. You have been a HUGE help!

A1) "Since you can only spend 25 points of Goods, Influence, or Labor per day however, you need to spend two days recruiting enough manpower to begin construction, but these two extra days and 720 gp save you 30 days of time in constructing the Gatehouse overall." Huh? <stupid look on my face> To clarify, using the Downtime rules, how would you go about recruiting extra manpower? I was just going to have the player mark off the purchased gp of the building that he wanted to build.

"Repeat this process for each room until you've paid for all the rooms in the building, and presto! You've got your very own castle in about a month of downtime."

So I would count up all the rooms ... and...? I am trying to keep the process from being more complicated than it already is... 2 extra days per room? Per 1,000 gp?

A4) Soo... short answer, a Wish can't really be used for that as written but it could be used to transport materials etc. If I understand your explanation then, a Wish would provide for 2,000 purchased gp of the structure? Doesn't seem like a very good return on a 25k investment. lol.

A5) Hmm... I meant the expansion of the population of an existing village. Say to upgrade a Hamlet to a Village. Is that 2 BP? I hate to look like an idiot but I did look and didn't see anything in UC about that.

2) When doing design work for my campaign, I use my desktop PC. Is there a decent program besides Excel for managing downtime buildings, kingdoms, settlements, etc.? Currently I am using both MS Office 2010 and Open Office. I like using Excel for managing many things but Open Office for docs, since it doesn't auto-format my docs, auto-correct, etc. MS Word simply drives me crazy and Open Office is based on MS Office 2007, the last version that didn't take control of your doc from you.

Thanks again!

I have some questions with regards to settlements and buildings:

1) Ultimate Campaign (UC) says that you can build a building 4X faster by spending 4X the cost but near as I can tell, that's not possible to do due to the restriction on how much you can spend due to settlement size.

In my campaign, I have a character that originally wanted to build this *HUGE* eight story pyramid that would have housed about 100 people. While the cost to do was enormous when we calculated that it would take 6 YEARS at 4x the build rate to build... well.. it was back to the drawing board. Now the most recent pyramid is only four stories, houses less than 20 people and at 4x would take a little over four months to build. Until we learn that since he wanted to build it in a hamlet it would instead take several years to build. About 160 if I recall correctly.

So which one takes precedence? 4x build speed or settlement build limits? Near as I can tell, even with a metropolis, you can never actually hit the 4x build speed.

2) I keep seeing references to hexes with regards to a settlement. How big of a hex are we talking about here? 20 miles? 6 miles?

3) How many districts are in a hex?

4) Just in case someone asks me, I would LIKE to be prepared instead of being caught off guard. If a player wants to use a Wish spell to help build his building, how much help can he get? 25,000 gp of purchased gp? 12,500? 20,000? If there are no rules could someone give me some advice in this regard?

5) With regards to settlements, is recruitment the only way for a settlement to grow? No one has any kids?

Thanks for any answers or advice.

Spell Perfection
You are unequaled at the casting of one particular spell.
Prerequisites: Spellcraft 15 ranks, at least three metamagic feats.
Benefit: Pick one spell which you have the ability to cast. Whenever you cast that spell you may apply any one metamagic feat you have to that spell without affecting its level or casting time, as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level. In addition, if you have other feats which allow you to apply
a set numerical bonus to any aspect of this spell (such as Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, Weapon Focus [ray], and so on), double the bonus granted by that feat when applied to this spell.

Okay... gonna take my best shot at this one... <ques Perry Mason music>

"without affecting its level or casting time"
Seems like most people are agreeing on this one. One feat is just that one feat. Therefore since it does NOT affect the level, you could cast a Quickened Fireball as a 3rd level spell. If you also had Intensify Spell and Magical Lineage, then you could cast a 20d6 Fireball as a swift action and still use only that 3rd level spell slot.

"as long as the total modified level of the spell does not use a spell slot above 9th level."
My above example seems to satisfy everyone's above criteria as the TOTAL level, no matter how you look at it, never goes above 8th. Now for the part everyone seems to be ignoring:

"does not use a spell slot"
There are the key words to this entire agreement. "Does not use". So, by a strict interpretation of what Paizo printed, you could cast an Intensified (+0 made free by Magical Lineage), Quickened (made free by Spell Perfection, Empowered (+2 Levels), Maximized (+3 Levels) and Reach (+1 Level) and use up a ninth level spell slot. That would seem to be a "total modified level" to me.

Is it worth it? That is FIVE feats in metamagic feats alone plus one for Spell Perfection makes that six feats. Is it gross? It should be after taking that many feats AND getting to a min. of 17th level for this priviledge. Oh... want to be able to use it on creatures that are immune to fire? Gonna have to take Elemental Spell. Even if you don't take Reach Spell, its still going to take a TON of work to get all that stacked up just so you can do it 4 times (seriously doubtful most characters get a bonus 9th level spell slot) in one day.

Got high level characters that start doing this a lot? Do what I do... give it to the bad guys. What part of Mwahahaha don't your players understand? :D (inspired by a t-shirt at GenCon). Come on guys... if your players find something good and juicy like this, thank them and use it against them.

Katina you ROCK! Thanks so much. Your tinkering allowed me to change my email address. :) Again, thank you so much. Having ICQMail go down unexpectedly like that has caused me no end of problems. I literally had over 100 accounts tied to that email address, maybe more. With many websites I have to start all over again. I *really* did not want to lose all of my downloads!

Folks like you are the reason that I like Paizo so much.

Sincerely yours...

Malcar Arcanus

PS
This should give you a good laugh... the word Paizo gets flagged as a spelling error. ;)

Okay... I was good and went through a lot of FAQs, etc. and did not see an answer to this question. Not directly anyway. I have been on the internet a very, very, very long time (since before it went public), so I am not a rookie.

A while back my all time favorite email service went down and out for the count for good. Namely ICQ Mail (@icqmail.com) is no longer available. Having been on the internet so long, I have hundreds of accounts, all linked to that email addy. I have been away from paizo.com for a long time but recently came back. I tried to change my email address and got the message that I needed to submit my birthday to make the change.

I looked and looked and looked and could not find anyplace under My Account to enter my birthday. Nor was there such a place for me to enter it when I tried to change my email address. Thinking this was some random error I tried several times to replicate this error and it happened each and every time.

Now from I can gather from your FAQs, this may be related to your discontinued support for TSL/SSL and/or the fact that I use Internet Explorer 11. Is there anyway that I can fix this this? Would using a different browser help? If so, which browser, and PLEASE don't say Chrome (or some flavor thereof) as I just can't stand that browser.

Is this something that Customer Service could do over the phone if I called them? Or would I have to call Technical Support or some other service? If so, what number can I call? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely yours...

Malcar Arcanus

What's the aversion to just adding the enchantment to the existing weapon?

For my part, it is curiousity. I like the idea about using Break Enchantment. One of the character's is a crafting junkie (the player is in EVERY game we play that allows it... he truly enjoys it) so I know its going to come up.

The method I stated above is more expensive than the one Claxon mentioned ... so does that make me a big meanie? :D (If so, do I get a T-Shirt for that? Or a button? :D)

As to adding... you may or may not have the room. If the weapon has room for only one more +1 and you want +2, then obviously something has to go. I was hopeing that there was something that I had missed in the rules. Just my luck I suppose. Oh well.

Several good ideas here. Thanks!

Malcar Arcanus

Ok... looking for as official an answer as I can get on this one... :)

I know that weapon enhancements can be added... but can they be removed?

For example, a fighter knows that he is going to be fighting a lot of undead in an upcoming adventure. Could he get the Bane - Giants removed and replaced with Ghost Touch? Both are +1 enhancements. Do the rules allow for something like this?

My knee-jerk reaction is that it would be allowed but might be slightly more difficult. Say requiring a caster whose Caster Level (CL) is +2 more than is needed to cast the enchantment that is being removed, adding +5 to the difficulty of doing so and make them pay both the cost of the enchantment being removed and the one being added.

I would greatly appreciate not only any official rule clarification on this but what other GMs would recommend regarding this.

Thanks

Well... I am realitively new to Pathfinder but I am surprised to see what ISN'T in the existing beastiaries so far:

Beholder
========
I loved throwing one in with some Hell Hounds and maybe an ogre or two at players. I really miss seeing Beholders.

Giant Rat
=========
No, not the Rat, not the Dire Rat, the Giant Rat. Almost every TSR AD&D module for character levels 1-3 had these in there somewhere. Call me nostalgic but I would like to see these in Pathfinder.

Mule
====
Of all the creatures that are missing, this one is by farthe most important one that needs to be included in Pathfinder. Players can buy them, use the Handle Animal skill to combat train them so they don't run off with all your camping gear (or simply pay 12 gp for one that is already combat trained) yet not have the important stats, like how many hp does a mule have? What is its AC? You get the idea. For now I am using the stats out of the Monster Manual (v3.5) but, again, it really should be ina Beastiary.

I'm not gonna get greddy, so those are the three that I would like to see added to Pathfinder.

Game on!

I am fairly new to Pathfinder, so I am hopeing that more experienced players may be able to help me. I am looking for an arcane spellcasting (preferably prestige) class thats main focus is crafting magic items. The Advanced Player's Guide in the Trait section meantions Hedge Magicians as experts in crafting magic items. Is there such a class and if so, which Pathfinder product do I need to buy to get the details on it? If no official product meets this description, is there a 3rd party product that has such a class?

Many of the classes let a character take a feat for example that they don't qualify for. The one that spring immediately to my mind is the ranger who can take Improved Two Weapon Fighting without taking Two Weapon Fighting 1st, or meeting any of the other requirements, etc. There seem to be several classes that can bypass "meeting the requirments" along one line or another. These lines of specialization are very specific. Logically, there should be a class that specializes in making magic items, but as of yet I haven't one.

So far, the best solution seems to be a Mystic Theurge (good selection of spells, epspecially if you take Wizard and Cleric, he can put into an item) or a Wizard (not as good a spell selection as the Mystic Theurge but he gets more feats, which is a huge help).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hmmm... Well, Can'tFindthePath is correct about p. 307... it does say "Proficient in no armor unless trained for war." what it doesn't say is how proficient. While I agree with him that its tempting to say ALL armor types, because no GM likes to give bad news to his players, there is a precident for limiting it to Light Armor. Cavalier and Samurair mounts start with Light Armor Proficiency. If anyone would want and use a horse with Heavy Armor you would think it would be a cavalier.

The "safe route" would be to limit it to Light Armor Proficiency. Heavy War Horses with more HD and better Armor Proficiencies would be treated as Exotic Beasts in all probability and fetch MUCh high prices than what is listed in the Core Rulebook (assuming they existed at all).