Melargo's page

This is a very good question. I am interested as well in what anybody has to say about this.

Would a Bard with the Arcane Duelist be able to use the Pageant of the Peacock Masterpiece with all knowledge skills? The reason I ask is that the Arcane Duelist loses Bardic Knowledge, so he can't make knowledge skills untrained.

Or would he need to take one rank in every knowledge skill so that they are trained to use that masterpiece?

If a paladin is smiting an evil outsider and has cast Litany of Righteousness, does the creature take 4x the paladin's class level in damage on the first hit assuming that it is the first time the paladin hits the outsider and is already doing level x 2 damage? What happens if the first hit is a critical?

For example:

Let's say the paladin is 10th level. The first time he hits should be 20 points of smite damage against an evil outsider. Does Litany of Righteousness take it to 40, and then does it become 80 if it is a critical assuming a x2 weapon? Or does it stack and go from 20 on the first hit to 30 for Litany of Righteousness and 40 for the critical?

Would a monster with the swallow whole ability and stoneskin cast on it get the benefit of the stoneskin on attacks made against it by creatures cutting their way out of it's stomach?

Seems like a really nasty way to buff a summoned T Rex.

I totally agree that multiple orange ioun stones shouldn't stack.

And I agree with Karui that the extra duration and extra damage isn't really worth 135K either. However, the bonus to spell penetration, concentration checks, and for resisting the effects of dispel magic are all worth probably somewhere in that neighborhood.

I do agree that there are definitely some problems out there, with some spell effects, namely Holy Word, Blasphemy, etc. With a bump in caster level, suddenly your caster level is higher than many of the monster's HD that you will be encountering.

However, clerics can use a strand of prayer beads to add +4 to their caster level for 10 minutes a day, which is plenty of time to put down a ton of buffs for the party especially if you have pearls of power that go with it. The strand isn't anywhere near 4x4x15,000 in cost and it has a number of additional uses.

In any event, I definitely see the possiblily for abuse, but I was curious if anybody had ever seen anything in a FAQ or errata that addressed this.

The cost for a Orange Ioun Stone is 30,000gp. Since this is a no slot item, if you were to make a ring or other magic item that used a body slot that gave +1 Caster level, the cost would be 15,000gp. What is the fomula to determine the cost of the bonus caster level? I would think that it would be either (bonus caster level squared) x 15,000gp OR (caster level bonus) x 15,000. I would believe either, as the bonus to caster level is a pretty nice enchancement for a caster as it affects damage, duration, concentration checks, and bonus to beat SR, amongst other things. But since it doesn't give bonus spells or higher level spell slots as I understand it, I don't know it it would merit the higher cost.

Has anybody seen a ruling on this anywhere? I have looked a bit, but not found much of anything ont he subject.