Matt Beatty's page

I'm not going to make a value judgement, but I personally don't think there is an OP problem with the extra DR power stacking with invulnerable like it does for the DR class ability. Like anything else, it's subject to misuse by an over-eager player. There are many other class features much more "broken" than this one so not sure why a stand needed to be taken in this particular case. It is what it is. I'm just wondering what I need to do with my now illegal PC. The simplest thing to do is a free retrain on the rage power, but I'm sure some will argue that their entire character concept is based on stacking DR and want a full rebuild.

I agree with you on the obvious fix.

While someone may claim they need a full rebuild, I would love to hear how their build is somehow completely broken and not functional by not gaining an extra 3 DR (if maxed out).

Moral of the story. It's a fun build and loosing a couple of points of DR is not that big a deal. A lot of Invulnerable Rager Build, including mine, never even take it as there are way better things to do with a rage power/feat.

Elemental blood is another power that I think is a waste. 3 rage powers spent just to get the ability to fly. Meh. Any number of magic items will give you the same thing. It might have been worth it if you sproited actual wing that were Ex rather than Su. That way you could still fly in an anti-magic field.

I love things like unexpected strike, knockdown. knockback, inspire ferocity (if you have some Cha), smasher (you can not be detained ever), savage intuition (if allowed).

Sweet. Hopefully this will kill the 'invulnerable rager is default barbarian' thing that comes up all the time.

It may be the default everyone looks at first but it's not the only viable and fun path for a barbarian. Secondly, I never thought that taking increased DR was worth it for the Invulnerable rager build. When we were helping Trinam with his guide, I argued with him that there were much better powers to take and fit in.

In the classic test of the C/M D, the barbarian is probably the best candidate for proving it doesn't exist. I absolutely love the versatility and survivability of the class.

You can build a Barbarian that is
1) 99.75% immune to spells with saves. Massive Saves plus free rerolls on a failed save with a side of free temp hp (Eater of Magic). My Barb has a ring of evasion making him basically immune to reflex saves and all the dazing cheese attached to them. You will not be the guy who get's dominated and kills your party...unless you roll two 1's in a row (that other .25%).
2) Massive DR and HP make them hard to kill physically.
3) Top of the game in melee combat. Not bad at ranged though most combat will take place within pounce distances.
4) Can fly. Not that special since you can buy items to fly as well.
5) Strength Surge. Nice for preventing grapples, busting down doors, shredding jail cells with your bare hands, etc. Not much can withstand a lvl 15 barb with a Strength check bonus of 25.
6) Spell Sunder + Strength Surge....nuff said. No magic in the game can survive the combo.
7) Battle field control. Reach is great with a ridiculous number of AoO's per round from Come and Get Me, surprise attack, and a fortuitous weapon. Surprise attack also makes the Barb the only class that can interrupt spells cast defensively with out spending a readied action. No other class get's close to the number of AoOs.
8) Party Buffing. For Barbs with Cha you can give your entire party the Reckless Abandon bonus as a move action. Who doesn't like a Barb that can hand out a big + Hit bonus that stacks with everything.
9) Ability to gain immunity to a variety of conditions

Not all melee are created equal. Of the melee classes, I find that the barbarian is by far the closest to parity. Most of the issues that people bring up in the parity fight can be solved with a combination of magic items and rage powers. The biggest issue is that the barbarian does not have much pro-party buffing / negating abilities. The closest I have gotten to fully filling in all the gaps is UMD and scroll usage.

It really depends on the build.

My Barbarian has Come and Get Me. This let's me generate A LOT of AoO's. In addition, surprise attack and the fortuitous enchant bump up my AoO even more. On a round that I don't get attacked I can take 2 AoOs every round. This is great for casters who pass the defensive casting check as I can still interrupt the spell. When I get attacked I add in another AoO for every attack against me. In a good round I can get in my 4 normal attacks plus 6 additional AoOs.

Depends on what the GM does. If the encounter entails just as much work / strategy / interaction to avoid the encounter, then yes I give them experience. If the party just says we avoid the looming army at the horizon and the GM hand waves the army away, then no XP.

My favorite combo for a nice luck bonus:
Fate's Favor (trait, +1 to all luck bonuses)
Silver Spindle Ioun Stone (24,000gp, any 1st lvl spell as SLA 3xday, CHA must be 11 or higher, Char lvl=Caster lvl) + Divine Favor
Now you have 3x per day an SLA of divine favor that grant's you a +4/+4 (@ 9 lvl) for 1 minute.

It's a little costly but also a very large bonus for the cost

About 10 years ago I joined Facebook to play Farmville so I could help a friend with requests. I used the name Goth Guru and there was no problem. The beginning of this year they locked me out demanding a scan of my ID.

If you are not paying for a product then you are the product. Facebook needs your real name so that they can sell you to other companies. Other companies need that info so that they can cross-reference your name / address / email-address with their consumer data, web trafficking, and the purchasing habits of your credit cards that they purchased from another company. All that just so that you get an ad for a new ninja blender 5 seconds after you told google you were interested in one. The internet gets REALLY CREEPY once you know how you are able to get all those fun google apps, social media sites, and news services without paying money.

Nope. This is what it does:
It can bypass DR #/Magic
It can bypass DR #/Adamantine
and it can bypass DR <2*Level>/<any>.

Something with hardness 20 that is not Adamantine, like a +5 Sword*, is not bypassed until they reach 10th level.

/cevah

** spoiler omitted **

Not exactly. DR and Hardness are two completely seperate mechanisms. DR is for creatures, Hardness is for objects. The stone lord ability allows you to bypass DR /magic and /admanatine (creatures. NOT objects made of adamantine) as you said. However, it does not allow you to bypass DR/<any>.

It allows you to ignore Hardness equal or less than your level*2. So at lvl 10 you can ignore the hardness of adamantine objects or a steel +5 sword. At lvl 15 you can ignore the hardness of a +5 adamantine weapon. Very powerful ability for a sunderbot.

Yes it does cause confusion. As long as both sources are legal, then the player can pick which one they want to use. As long as they can back that up with their source material and the most recent copy of the additional resources doc.

However, what usually happens is that the additional resources document is updated to make one of those items illegal.

Charon's Little Helper wrote:

Lab_Rat wrote:

My barbarian, who currently has 10 ioun stones has them embedded in strategic locations on his body so that they enhance the look of his tattoos (ie his dragon tattoo on his back has ioun stones for eyes).

In that case none of them are working.

SRD wrote:

An ioun stone must be able to orbit freely around a creature’s head (or placed in a specialized matrix like a wayfinder) for its power to be active.

I just buy a wayfinder for each ioun stone I have.

I think embedded ioun stones are covered in rules in Seeker of Secrets...

Yep. Bedazzled Barbarian's are legal.

and isn't there some rule about having more than one wayfinder with Ioun Stones - something about only one of them working?

We had talked about having someone slip an "extra" Wayfinder with a slotted stone onto the big fighter with the "Stone of Preventing Evil Mind Control" - to shut down his protection...

Quote from Seeker of Secrets

Not yet, though there is a really cool Aspis Item that allows you to snag an ioun stone out of midair and either use it's powers or drain it to cast magic missile. I am really hoping that the writers start using that tactic this season.

My barbarian, who currently has 10 ioun stones has them embedded in strategic locations on his body so that they enhance the look of his tattoos (ie his dragon tattoo on his back has ioun stones for eyes).

Arachnofiend wrote:

Yeah, the UBarb should see at most a minimal difference in damage compared to the old Barb, the primary change is lack of access to the best utility rage powers. Spell Sunder doesn't increase your DPR, it's way better than that.

Spell Sunder alone almost pushed the Barbarian to tier 3 (a very balanced tier)!

Spell Sunder is great because not only because it's very useful and unique, it's also really freaking cool and theme-fitting!

Agreed. My level 13 Barb is as powerful and has as much utility as other Tier 3 classes. He can kill stuff like know ones business, he can survive almost anything (200+ HP, DR 6/-, super high saves plus ring of evasion), he can crowd control with dazing assault, he can bypass spell effects with spell sunder. The few other things that he can't do can be solved with some potions (invis, fly, etc).

It is extremely hard to keep him down and out. His only issue is if you catch him off guard and hit him with something nasty before he can rage.

Path of the Seekers

Here is the spreadsheet I made regarding all the available options at each level. So when drafting a path to lvl 20 it is probably best to start at 20 and work backwards. This way you don't plan to play an adventure early and then find out you needed that adventure to progress from lvl 18 to 19.

I make it a habit to have non-detection running if I'm going to make it a habit of going invisible a lot. That way some shmuck with detect invisibility doesn't just automatically see me.

Yeah. My bloatmage, who has a ring of invis, has non-detection up at all times. It works about 50% of the time vs a full caster.

Anyone still have a Spirit of the Shadowlodge boon?

In our Eot10 PbP, after my Shadowlodge Barbarian left a subtle hint to the Decemverate that we were still watching, another character had an in character RP moment explaining the core tenants of the Shoadowlodge to a character that joined the society post disbandment. It was a very long, thought out, and awesome post.

I would like to in game invite said character to come to our secret Shadowlodge meetings and make it official by giving him said boon.

Yep. Once you spend the time to learn their archaic system and code in all your options....you will gladly pay Hero Lab the extra money to do it for you.

Ah. I read "exactly like a feather fall spell" and read into that that you had to actually spend an immediate action.

Now a must own ring for any flyer.

Lab_Rat wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Huh. So that superman pose doesn't just look cool, its actually required....

Wait, DAZED while flying will get you killed?

Yeah. Flight just got A LOT easier to combat. Your also totally screwed if your dazed or stunned because there will be NO feather fall from the fly spell and no actions to cast / activate feather fall from a spell or ring.

Meaning that the question of which pre-req for flight an Aerokineticist should take is now "definitely Air's Cushion".

I think the only way to counter this as a spell caster is with a contingency spell set to cast feather fall.

Huh. So that superman pose doesn't just look cool, its actually required....

Wait, DAZED while flying will get you killed?

Yeah. Flight just got A LOT easier to combat. Your also totally screwed if your dazed or stunned because there will be NO feather fall from the fly spell and no actions to cast / activate feather fall from a spell or ring.

Sweet! What a whirlwind of encounters.

Huh, immune to stun, but not daze...

It's why in my opinion daze is better than stun. You can get it earlier / cheaper and the only monster type immune to daze is a behemoth. All those other types that are immune to stun can be dazed (constructs, oozes, plant, undead, elementals)

Also, which tiger? The celestial (red) or the resolute (green).

It's non-magical

Cool! I have really enjoyed this scenario. I feel like the Jim outdid himself on this one. Lot's of thought into the encounter composition.

Did the elder elemental just move again?

Prescience: 1d20 ⇒ 3
Knowledge (planes): 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (4) + 17 = 21

What the...no clue...need reinforcements...elementals were chaotic, maybe a little more chaotic than normally...

I got a fever, and the only prescription is more TIGER!

Angrid invisibly moves the heck away from this chaos (move action)

He the standard action summons a new tiger, a Resolute Dire Tiger. My last one. Hope it helps.

Fort: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (10) + 9 = 19 Fail. I am fatigued

Lawful dire tiger arrives, activates smite chaos, and full attacks

Claw 1: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (20) + 19 = 39 DMG: 2d4 + 23 ⇒ (4, 3) + 23 = 30
Claw 2: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (17) + 19 = 36 DMG: 2d4 + 23 ⇒ (3, 2) + 23 = 28
Bite: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (3) + 19 = 22 DMG: 2d6 + 23 ⇒ (5, 4) + 23 = 32

Crit confirm: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (16) + 19 = 35 DMG: 2d4 + 23 ⇒ (2, 3) + 23 = 28

AC 17 / HP 119/119 / Rnd 1/13

This special has been absolutely brutal on the number of spells I have used. Usually a PFS scenario gets know where near tapping me out, but this one is getting close.

"They are chaotic and can smite law!"

Anyone got a dismissal spell for the huge one?

Angrid tries to cut through the unexpected resistance to his spell:
[dice=V White]d20+11
[dice=V Blue]d20+11
[dice=V black]d20+11
And his spell goes through and attacks them all! It nabs the smaller elementals. The tiger mauls the lightning monster, but the teeth and claws don't do as much damage as normal. Is Angrid now visible?

Darn right it gets through spell resistance, SR does nothing against BT.

And yes, I am visible now.

Ride that tiger!

Fishing for hags in a barrel

This is what happens when every mission begins with a Venture-Captain giving Pathfinders a mission brief and answering all their innane questions about how they should dress and should they take a horse or a boat.

Shadow Lodge: Venture-Captain Mash (14th level, 65 fame, and yes, he's still in the Shadow Lodge)

I can add another high Fame character to the OFFICIAL Shadow Lodge. Not so lonely in the shadows after all. I wonder how many of us there are.

Shadow Lodge: Roakar Witchslayer (12th level, 63 fame)

I also take offense to the whole Shadow Lodge being retired thing. We are small and elite, not retired.

Agreed. Having a blast so far. Probably checking the gameplay thread too much.

AM MISS AM!!

See what I mean? Just mention Trinam and AmBarbarian and all the Am clones from 2011 pop out of the woodwork.

I wouldn't necessarily call the previous and current VC of Minneapolis trolls.

If anything I blame Trinam for making loud rambunctious barbarian avatars popular. And for some reason that seems to spawn uptight overconfident spellcaster avatars in response. Probably some long term effect of the lets kill AmBarbarian thread we had many years ago.

Lab_Rat wrote:

AC is definitely not the measure of I win character brokenness. Its just one of many defenses. If you have a high AC then you are probably susceptible to something else. I have a lvl 12 barbarian who actually bumps every other form of defense but AC. When going all out has an AC of 12. Sure, you can hit him anytime you want but he will hit you first every time. A lot of GMs find it hard to play lets trade HP with a 200HP Barbarian.

12? 12!

THAT ARMOR CLASS IS WAY TOO HIGH. TRUE WARRIORS WEAR NOTHING BUT MAGIC SILK THONGS INTO BATTLE!

Sorry to disappoint you. The 18 Dex gets in the way. I also needed some form of armor to hang my moderate fortification on. But that's it...I swear.

It was pretty fun to run him through EotT part 1 and see the look of glee on my GMs face when I said that was my AC. That didn't last long once he saw the character in play.

I dont think that works.

From Anti-Magic Field:

Snowball is an instantaneous conjuration spell.

EDIT: In my OP I did not mention that the caster must be outside the field.

vonFiedler wrote:

First of all, I'm well aware that I can do whatever I want when I'm the GM for a home game. There are three reasons I'm bringing this issue up;

1. I can find no official answer.

Official answers aren't to the questions "should be", but are.

In the various books they and asasimars appear in they ARE specifically identified by type.... Outsider, Native.

That IS what the rules say they are.

It is also specified that they do not have racial HD so that items such as skills, weapon proficiencies et. al are determined solely by class levels. Since they do not have Outsider HD, they do not get Outsider weapon or skill proficiencies. If you want a Tiefling that can be affected by spells that target humanoids, the "Scion of Humanity" feat is what you need.

I think you failed a perception checks.

watches as the undead ninjas surround you

That may be but the title is not really aimed at them. It's aimed at the players on this board. That's why the original post is addressed to other members and is requesting votes for these questions and NOT addressing paizo staff, requesting answers.

One of the issues of the past with some particular FAQ questions is not that they were bad questions or that enough people didn't feel that it needed answered. It was that people didn't know the thread existed and was trying to get an FAQ. The bardic masterpiece question has been asked multiple times and only ever racked up 15 or less votes per thread. Obviously enough people care about the question, it was just that most people never even knew the question was being asked. If the title didn't reference that it was aiming for an FAQ, every bard loving player who knows the issue would just go " Ugh! Another player who can't use the search function and is asking if Masterpieces and performances can work together." SKIP!

FAQ threads live and die by their visibility.

That's a new argument.

1st argument: "Actually the rules don't state that a bard actually performs anything while using an inspire courage."
Actually, the rules DO state that.

New argument: 'James Jacobs says that rule is a holdover and in his opinion should not count.'
Eh, not exactly. The passages cited certainly say that you don't need to roll a perform skill check to use bardic performance (with a few specific exceptions)... but that isn't the same as saying there is no sort performance involved. Indeed, he says, "It's more likely that you're singing or bragging or taunting or dancing or otherwise just showboating to raise your allies' morale." All of those examples are some form of 'performance'. The character is performing, the player just doesn't have to roll any dice for it. Maybe you can make a better case for it being humanly possible to simultaneously enact multiple generic 'performances' (i.e. not tied to specific skills) of this type, within the bounds of the continuing requirements for 'audible' and 'visual' performance components, but that still runs aground of the statement that; "A bard cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time."

I may have been a little broad in that post. Let me re-iterate what I was saying from what I wasn't.

I am not arguing that a Bard can have multiple performances up. The rules are pretty straight forward and blunt on that point. IF its a performance you can only have 1 up at a time unless you have some other ability to break the generic rule. Done and Done.

I am also not arguing that inspire courage does not have some performance based component. It still requires you to choose either a vocal or visual component.

I am arguing that the bard is not actually doing a performance per say with their perform skill and associated instrument. That would be unfair to any bard character that focused on an instrument based performance rather than a vocal / dance. A bard who focuses on perform (strings) does not have to be holding or even using their lute to inspire courage.

I also think that the idea that a real world inability to combine performances is naive and ignoring quite a lot of artistic performances in a variety of settings. Go watch a musical and see song combined with dance combined with acting. Listen to Weird Al combine comedy and song. Listen to an acoustic guitar player combine a bass, rhythm, and percussion tracks for a song on a single guitar. There is no real world reason to ban using multiple performances or a performance and a masterpiece at the same time. There is only the question of whether it is overpowering and should be banned based on the concept of game balance. That is not a question I have enough game knowledge to answer and thus the FAQ.

Food for thought from James Jacobs, who was heavily involved in the bard text.

Some context for why James Jacobs is a good source for how the Bard works and how it functions.

James stating that the text you quoted regarding the perform skill is vestigial holdover from 3.5 that should have been cut. In his words...its flavor.

James stating that you don't make perform checks when using performances and that only specific types of performances require a check..

One more statement on how the link between Bardic Performance and the perform skill is a lot like the link between spellcasting and the spellcraft skill

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

Lab_Rat wrote:

Lvl 7 Pistolero (Dex 22) FA / rapid / Haste / 1xCaD (4 attacks) with +1 pistol vs touch AC 12: DPR = 67.9 (misfire 1-2)

on vacation camping right now... FA and CaD? drawing a blank... nature is making me lose it... :P

Full Attack with Rapid Shot, Haste and Up Close and Deadly i believe.

Yes.

Hey all! This FAQ is long overdue for those who like to play Bard. I think an FAQ request has been tried before but never mustered enough interest to get on the radar. Let's give this another shot and hopefully we can wrack up enough votes to get attention and fix this issue.

This FAQ request will hopefully get an answer to two questions: If your not sure of the historical / mechanical background for these questions check out the spoilered sections.

Please FAQ this request so that we can solve this issue finally and stop bugging James Jacobs with this.

Leave a post on your thoughts / opinions as this helps keep the thread alive and on the front page. A living FAQ is an FAQ that gets answered. So if you can think of anything else to add feel free to add it. I cannot guarantee that it will be addressed but the developers may see it if this actually goes for an FAQ.

Gloves of recon 2000gp. 10rnds of whats behind door number 1.

Misfire is a very big deal with gunslingers. Remember that on a misfire the WEAPON is broken. So with a db firearm, if you rolled a 1-3 (db pistal w/ alchemical) any time during your routine, you probably stopped after the first attack and quick cleared as a move or stopped and used quick clear next round rather than destroy your weapon. This leads to a big drop in DPR. I actually wrote a formula to calculate the negative DPR that results from a misfire.

That being said: a back of the napkin lvl 11 twf pistolero build can still pull a DPR of ~120 (includes misfire effect and 1 grit for CaD)

I do however agree with you that the class as a whole gets pretty lackluster after lvl 5. As it is now I have no reason yo go past lvl 5. I would love to see that targeting deeds become attack actions rather than full attacks. Once you get up at lvl 15 you get a bunch of stuff. However, I would much rather get stuff during the previous 10 lvls than trudge it out. You could easily grab alot of the bonuses at 15 earlier just by multiclassing after 5.

Pokes head in the room. Scratches head. Tries to figure out what's going on through all the screaming. Gives up and goes to find some cheese.

Lab_Rat wrote:

So another gunslinger problem besides the obvious changes. The errata killed the mysterious stranger's shtick,the dead shot deed. The intent of the deed as far as I can see is to give the gunslinger a scaling, slightly better vital strike. Now while it was never the optimal choice, it could outperform vital strike and had some benefits over a full attack routine. With the change to the double barrel firearm mechanics, I feel that dead shot has moved from non-optimal to complete trap. Vital strike with a double-barrel weapon will yield more damage than a dead shot now and do it for a lesser action. Why take a full attack when you can use a standard and then do something else?

I don't know that I'd ever seen anyone use Dead Shot anyways, so I don't think it's too big a deal.

A lot of people undersold dead shot with a mysterious stranger. Mainly because they saw all the stupid theoretical dpr numbers, and a couple of peoples personal opinions, and bought in. I had a Mysterious stranger 7 / divine hunter 13 build that, while not competitive damage wise with an optimal pistolero, held his own damage wise, could one shot enemies on occasion, and was very hard to kill.

Also, they still have their own merits; Dead Shot doesn't cost you the additional -4 for firing two barrels simultaneously, and you don't have to take any additional feats to use it.

The -4 to hit isn't a big deal. Remember that vital strike does all damage off of full BAB while dead shot uses iterative attacks that get progressively worse.

The feats are a bonus in Dead shots case.

It also doesn't cost you the not-insubstantial cost to purchase a double-barrel weapon and then enchant both barrels.

Its debatable. I have seen opinions on both sides. But yes, there would be an extra cost if they are.

So another gunslinger problem besides the obvious changes. The errata killed the mysterious stranger's shtick,the dead shot deed. The intent of the deed as far as I can see is to give the gunslinger a scaling, slightly better vital strike. Now while it was never the optimal choice, it could outperform vital strike and had some benefits over a full attack routine. With the change to the double barrel firearm mechanics, I feel that dead shot has moved from non-optimal to complete trap. Vital strike with a double-barrel weapon will yield more damage than a dead shot now and do it for a lesser action. Why take a full attack when you can use a standard and then do something else?