Melkiador's page

For future reference, it’s preferred that you start a new thread in cases like this. Especially since this thread has very little to do with your question.

I don’t want to rain on your parade, but officially those archetypes don’t stack because they both change the eidolon. You could ask your GM to allow it, but it’s not the default assumption. To continue the rain, neither summoner or sorcerer multiclass very well with each other, because their individual advancement is so based on their own levels.

What even is this necro? I can't tell what you are asking or adding. It almost feels like AI

Automatic Failures and Successes: A natural 1 (the d20 comes up 1) on a saving throw is always a failure (and may cause damage to exposed items; see Items Surviving after a Saving Throw). A natural 20 (the d20 comes up 20) is always a success.

...
Items Surviving after a Saving Throw: Unless the descriptive text for the spell specifies otherwise, all items carried or worn by a creature are assumed to survive a magical attack. If a creature rolls a natural 1 on its saving throw against the effect, however, an exposed item is harmed (if the attack can harm objects). Refer to Table: Items Affected by Magical Attacks. Determine which four objects carried or worn by the creature are most likely to be affected and roll randomly among them. The randomly determined item must make a saving throw against the attack form and take whatever damage the attack dealt.

If the selected item is not carried or worn and is not magical, it does not get a saving throw. It simply is dealt the appropriate damage.

So, not only do saves fail on a nat1, but they are subject to additional penalties when doing so. But also this is one of those official rules almost everyone just assumes is ignored, like 30% of all magical weapons glow.

There seems to be a theme of double letters in what you have presented.

Sharding handwraps then? Although, in that case it may just be the wraps flying off to hit someone.

Classic of amulet of mighty fists with throwing and, hopefully, returning abilities. [/jk]

Probably not quite what you are looking for, but there is also the penanggalen or manananggal if you don't mind being undead.

Along those lines, a sharding amulet of mighty fists

Tumor familiar, besides what you already listed. Though you can argue if a tumor is a body part.

The accuracy and damage are the same. Unchained actually does a tiny bit more damage with two weapon fighting since that bonus doesn’t take the off hand modifier adjustment. Urban does have better AC, but unchained has better hit points and will saves. Urban having more skill options in combat isn’t nothing, but it probably won’t come up very often, unless you build for that.

You may also want to consider unchained barbarian instead of urban. The differences are pretty minor and unchained is more forgiving.

If you're playing on a VTT you will probably need to be looser with this interpretation. It is very possible for an entire attack to be rolled and resolved before the player could have time to respond to what they were going to do about it.

Basically, all attack rolls can "crit", unless they specify otherwise.

Critical Hits: When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20 (the d20 shows 20), you hit regardless of your target's Armor Class, and you have scored a "threat," meaning the hit might be a critical hit (or "crit"). To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to "confirm" the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made. If the confirmation roll also results in a hit against the target's AC, your original hit is a critical hit. (The critical roll just needs to hit to give you a crit, it doesn't need to come up 20 again.) If the confirmation roll is a miss, then your hit is just a regular hit.

A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.

Exception: Precision damage (such as from a rogue's sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon abilities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit.

Increased Threat Range: Sometimes your threat range is greater than 20. That is, you can score a threat on a lower number. In such cases, a roll of lower than 20 is not an automatic hit. Any attack roll that doesn't result in a hit is not a threat.

Increased Critical Multiplier: Some weapons deal better than double damage on a critical hit (see Equipment).

Spells and Critical Hits: A spell that requires an attack roll can score a critical hit. A spell attack that requires no attack roll cannot score a critical hit. If a spell causes ability damage or drain (see Special Abilities), the damage or drain is doubled on a critical hit.

If the last part about spells wasn't there, spell damage would still be able to crit, but ability damage or drain would be an open question. So that's just clarifying text instead of a limitation on non-spell/non-weapon damage.

Action: None. A Fly check doesn’t require an action; it is made as part of another action or as a reaction to a situation.

So, I guess hover can't take an action because there is no action to attach it to. It's just a reaction to the situation of being in the air.

Hex activations are usually “used” instead of “cast” The witch fly hex is really weird for giving you the supernatural ability to cast an actual spell, levitate. That was probably an oversight. But that is how it is worded.

I don’t think fast movement is a good example because it’s an unlimited ability. You can activate it once and it then lasts forever.

For an su version of that we have wings of air from the kineticist.

The air bends to your will, allowing you to soar to great heights. You are constantly under the effects of fly. If this effect is dispelled, you can call it forth again as a standard action.

The kineticist doesn’t usually need to activate the flight because it is always on already. It’s not limited by uses or time.

Activating a supernatural ability takes a standard action by default, unless it specifies otherwise.

But the extraordinary ability is more vague.

Extraordinary Abilities (Ex): Using an extraordinary ability is usually not an action because most extraordinary abilities automatically happen in a reactive fashion. Those extraordinary abilities that are actions are usually standard actions that cannot be disrupted, do not require concentration, and do not provoke attacks of opportunity.

I would say that since the flying doesn’t seem to be reactive, you have to activate it as a standard action too. But there’s some wiggle room for arguing that.

I suspect it would be classed as "not an action" since it is done as part of another action

Good idea. Well known doesn’t necessarily mean universally accepted.

This is a fairly well known combo. It's not that much crazier than a witch who can slumber from range. "Save or nearly die" is pretty common in Pathfinder.

For each kineticist element to which you have access, you treat all spells associated with that element (see below) as utility wild talents of the listed level, which you can select as normal

Those are still treated as spell like abilities and not spells. Really that feat is just a convoluted way of adding extra wild talents to your kineticist.

I've never done it, but I don't think it would be incredibly game breaking. Almost every build wants for more feats. It does cheapen fighter bonus feats a bit, but even with fighter builds I have wanted for more feats.

If applying to NPCs too, it should be fairly balanced, but unless you are choosing super basic feats, that's a lot of extra work on the game master to give the monsters a powerful selection of new feats.

Let’s be careful to not confuse the diffrence between light armor and no armor. A finesse base magus is getting 2 to 4 extra armor over the kensai at early levels where that AC will be most needed.

The kensai loses the 1 spell per level but also loses spell recall. That combination leaves them with meaningfully less spells per day than the base magus through their entire career.

Azothath wrote:

I did a Rogue 2 Wiz(trans) 9, it was okay. I prefer spellcasting but it worked well for the character concept. Shadow projection with a +1 ghost touch rapier, casting spells (eschew materials), a certain ring of speaking, regen 1/hr, etc. IMO Arcane Trickster isn't worth it.

Keep in mind that with the Accomplished Sneak Attacker feat you can enter Arcane Trickster with only a single level of Rogue.

Yeah, if you want to be more caster than rogue, that’s a really good option.

There are a ton of pre-existing archetypes that do a lot of niche things. If the OP has any more class ideas, they could just ask the community beforehand if there is anything like that. Of course, just making classes can be a lot of fun, regardless. I enjoy making them too.

This was my experiment to do something very new but also very simple.

By mid levels the armor isn’t as much of an issue. But you need to survive the early levels too, unless you are just starting high. And at low level the lack of armor really hurts.

Really, by mid levels the AC isn’t the main defense anyway. You can benefit from mirror image and blur.

If you just want to lower the importance of wealth, use the unchained rules for automatic bonus progression. And you could delay that progression by a level or two if you want to add more of a struggle

Abilities can be much more valuable to PCs than monsters, so there aren’t always direct comparisons. For instance, fast healing 1 wouldn’t do much to help a monster survive even an extra round of its encounter. But a PC with fast healing 1 starts almost every fight with full hp, which is a pretty big boon

Just judging by the typical power of traits, I'd assume it is just those 6 skills if you meet the other two criteria of class skill and double time.

The most reliable way to increase the difficulty for a large party is to increase the number of enemies too. But unfortunately, that also makes combats last a lot longer.

Ultimately, my advice would be to just let the PCs steamroll the encounters against regular enemies, but boost any “boss fights” with additional enemies. Basically, if they have a name, they have friends.

basically you are trying to do two opposite things. one is hit him as lightly as you can to not kill him and another to hit a vital point for extra lethal attack. the rules state that the sneak attack would overrule the non lethal attempt in this case.

You could power attack and deal non lethal damage though. So, it's not like there aren't other ways to hurt someone a little by a lot.

With a weapon that deals nonlethal damage (like a sap, whip, or an unarmed strike), a rogue can make a sneak attack that deals nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage. She cannot use a weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage in a sneak attack, not even with the usual –4 penalty.

If I am using a sword to deal nonlethal damage and I have sneak attack, is the sneak attack damage lethal or is there no sneak attack damage?

If the sneak attack damage is lethal, while the weapon damage is nonlethal, how does this apply to damage reduction?

It’s unclear if monks have the once per round limitation.

You may attempt an elemental fist attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (see Special), and no more than once per round.

That comma means that that statement is linked. And then the special for monk doesn’t include it, so it is implied to no longer be used.

A monk may attempt an Elemental Fist attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk.

So since the monk doesn’t have the round limit listed and since that limit was part of the sentence for the whole limit. You could infer that monks don’t have the once per round limit.

Elemental monk swaps being Lawful for being True Neutral. That could be an upgrade for some.

I guess the Elemental Monk could hit with a multiple elements in a single round. Not a great benefit, but it could be useful sometime and might just "look cool"

Flavor wise it doesn’t fit ambidextrous, but the hand’s autonomy feat basically goes a step beyond ambidexterity

A good feat to mix this with is summon guardian spirit. The cassisian’s breath weapon scales nicely with that one and gives your cleric a decent standard action summon that lasts minutes per level.

The herald caller gets enough bonus feats that taking both sacred summons and summon guardian spirit are pretty easy to fit in your build.

That’s some 3rd party stuff so answers may be mixed but the ability says this:

The whip remains in existence as long as the pyrokineticist holds it and is treated for mechanical purposes as a whip.

So mechanically, it should threaten the same as an actual whip.

Myrmidarch may be a better fit for what you want. At least it leaves more room for interpretation.

As I quoted above, Dispel Magic can't counter spell-like effects either. It can only dispel them after they are cast.

Dispel magic can dispel (but not counter) spell-like effects just as it does spells.

Considering undead or draconic. Draconic tends to go more damage oriented, and has some compatible options like dragon disciple. I've never tried the undead bloodline, but reading it just makes me think the bones oracle would do this better.

I noticed something odd today, and I was wondering about opinions. Flaming Sphere talks a lot about where the sphere can go, but not where it can start. Can I start the flaming sphere on enemies? If so, does it immediately do damage or does it need to be moved first?

Range medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)

Effect 5-ft.-diameter sphere
Duration 1 round/level
Saving Throw Reflex negates; Spell Resistance yes
A burning globe of fire rolls in whichever direction you point and burns those it strikes. It moves 30 feet per round. As part of this movement, it can ascend or jump up to 30 feet to strike a target. If it enters a space with a creature, it stops moving for the round and deals 3d6 points of fire damage to that creature, though a successful Reflex save negates that damage. A flaming sphere rolls over barriers less than 4 feet tall. It ignites flammable substances it touches and illuminates the same area as a torch would.

The sphere moves as long as you actively direct it (a move action for you); otherwise, it merely stays at rest and burns. It can be extinguished by any means that would put out a normal fire of its size. The surface of the sphere has a spongy, yielding consistency and so does not cause damage except by its flame. It cannot push aside unwilling creatures or batter down large obstacles. A flaming sphere winks out if it exceeds the spell's range.

Mark Moreland probably knows and is still active on the boards. You may try to PM him as he is more focused on 2E, and less likely to see this.

But I do have to wonder why you would want to know.

I'm not sure if that's technically an error. The usual text saying that an ability is altered is just reminder text and makes it easier for humans to process. If an ability is changed in some way, then it's altered.

It's probably a super common house rule to ignore these kinds of limitations, and many people will never realize it technically works the way we discussed here. And frankly, allowing these to "stack" will likely not break anyone's game, but I personally wouldn't run the combo unless I knew the GM was cool with that kind of rule bending.

This also reminds me that you probably can't take both blood havoc and crossblooded. You certainly can't replace the bloodline power. And for similar reasons, you probably can't replace a bonus feat that was also altered by the archetype.

An ability doesn't have to state that it is altering an ability for the ability to count as altered. Crossblooded is actually involved in an FAQ demonstrating the problem.

https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fz#v5748eaic9rai

Sorcerer, Crossblooded and Wildblooded: Can I take both of these archetypes for the same character?

No, because the archetype rules say none of the alternate class features can replace or alter the same class feature from the class as another alternate class feature. Because the crossblooded and wildblooded sorcerer archetypes both alter the bloodline arcana and bloodline powers, they aren't compatible archetypes.

Note that it is certainly within the GM's purview to allow this combination. However, the character should not be able to use the crossblooded archetype's ability to select a lower-level bloodline power that was replaced by the wildblooded archetype. For example, a wildblooded brutal (abyssal) sorcerer replaces "strength of the abyss" with "wings of the abyss" at 9th level; the character has "paid" for the wildblooded archetype by giving up "strength of the abyss," and can't use the crossblooded bloodline to select "strength of the abyss" as her 15th-level or 20th-level bloodline power.

It doesn't matter if it's an archetype or not. The rules on stacking do start with archetypes, because that's the most common form, but it's really about "alternate class features".

But also, the archetype limitation is triggered from either direction. Bloodline familiar replaces the 1st bloodline power, which prohibits you from taking crossblooded, which alters bloodline powers.

Although the FAQ for crossblooded/wildblooded does bring up that allowing combos like this is up to "GM's purview", meaning house ruling this may not be a bad idea.

That might work, but is questionable for stacking. Crossblooded alters the bloodline power and the bloodline familiar replaces a bloodline power. You can run it by your GM, and many would probably be fine with it, but RAW you can't combine those.

Regardless, you will have to enter homebrew territory for a shapechanger bloodline familiar. I'm not sure if you'd get a better response for ideas in the homebrew section. Hopefully your GM will be open to whatever homebrew you come up with. But keep in mind the bloodline bonus is intended to be fairly minor and focused on the familiar instead of the master.

You'll find a lot of opinions on familiars. They can make fine scouts and some can serve other purposes like using wands, especially if you decide to take improved familiar.

A bonded object is really as much of a potential liability, as it can be taken or destroyed and you are way more impacted than if a familiar dies. You can take precautions to protect either, but also most GMs won't ever go after either.

You can get a bonded object with the arcane bloodline, but it's not that amazing for a sorcerer. One extra spell of your highest spell level, where you will often already be able to cast 4+ of those per day.

At 1st level, a sorcerer, bloodrager, or any other character with one of the following bloodlines can choose to gain a bloodline familiar.

Officially, it's locked to only the listed bloodlines. But this is probably one of the easier things to homebrew.

Shapechanger? My gut reaction is to give them the ability to "change shape(su)" into one other form allowed as a base familiar. Whatever ability is chosen, it's meant to be pretty minor as just getting a familiar is the primary purpose of that option.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/bard-versatile-performance.270621/

Versatile Performance's design goal was to give bards more skill points without artificially increasing their total skill points AND to put an emphasis onto the Perform skill for them after the Perform skill's importance regarding bardic performance lessened from its importance in 3.5's version.

The result isn't perfect, alas. And it's something that I very much would like to see addressed in FAQs or errata or, most likely, in the upcoming Advanced Player's Guide.

The two basic elements: bards should be able to "reschedule" their skill ranks in skills that Versatile Performance duplicates every time the gain a new Versatile Performance; this allows a bard to be good at, say, Fly and Acrobatics until he gets Versatile Performance (dance), and once he DOES get that, lets him reapply skill points previously spent on Fly and Acrobatics to other skills. This'd work similarly to how sorcerers get to repick spells periodically.

The other element is that when you use Versatile Performance to use a Perform skill for another skill, bonuses you'd get to that other skill from things like Skill Focus or other Feats, racial modifiers, magic items, and the like SHOULD apply to your Perform skill check when you're using it for those particular versatile skills. In effect, Versatile Performance gives you a pair of "phantom skills" with the corresponding "phantom skill points" each time you gain it.

If instead you want to just kill the Versatile Performance ability entirely, my suggested fix would be instead to increase the base skill ranks per level granted to bards by 2 each time they would normally gain Versatile Performance. These skill rank increases should probably be retroactive.

ANYway. It's something that I might call a personal crusade to get fixed. Might be a while before it sees print, but them's my thoughts, anyway.

It is possible the design team ultimately decided that their upcoming skill retraining system was enough to address this issue. But at the least, allowing it for free is a designer recommended house rule. Maybe that will be enough for your GM, if not you can hopefully use regular retraining.

I remember a James Jacobs post where he wishes they’d have included the language for retraining earlier. I’d call it an officially recommended house rule to allow retraining with those kinds of options.

There's a difference between a bad ruling and a house rule. Frankly, if you knew this was a house rule going in, it may not be the worst I've ever seen for weakening caster power or making a low magic world. But this sounds more like a GM who simply failed to properly understand how the game is supposed to work. And correcting someone's mistake in this case seems more than worthwhile.