Mnemaxa's page

I realize this is the playtest, but there is one thing I have concerns with.

Many people say that no one ever reaches high level play. I have personally run games from first levels into the thirties - and not only for D&D/PF. I would like to know if there is life after 20th level planned for this iteration of the game or not, because the 'bounded accuracy' and 'set level caps' of the games that have them are very troubling to me. You can go this far, this high, and no further.

And that's offensive to me as a gamemaster.

I liked that there were rules for going beyond 20th level in PF that were not necessarily epic, and that the additional alternate rulesets could accommodate them (Mythic, words of Power to go beyond 9th level spells, and Style feats or Stamina system to give martials further ways to deal with issues they might not ordinarily have). And admittedly, you do have to scale up other feats to keep certain feats and abilities relevant, but they were minimal at best.

Casters feared the fighter in my games, because he could very easily one-shot them through most of their defenses without any trouble at all, and that did not require major homebrewing. But in a level capped 20 level or 30 level game, there would be an end to it; you could keep adventuring, but the challenges would remain the same after that point because increasing the abilities beyond that point broke integral systems. (I am sure people have heard that "+1 to hit is king in 4e", and it's not wrong.)

So my hope and question is - will there be places for those of us who want to move into 21st level and beyond?

I was wondering why the PDF dropped from 48 meg to a mere 31 meg.

It's because the entirety of the Magus Archetypes are missing from Ultimate magic.

I would really like them back please!

Curious interaction between the Nails hex and the Arcane Pool power for Magus.

Do the claws provided by the Nails Hex count as a weapon held by the Hexcrafter Magus or not? If so, they could use their arcane pool to empower one set of claws as they could a weapon. It would definitely give them the dual-weapon option that they do not normally have even if their arcane pool didn't come into play, but it would make for a very stealthy magus type if it did apply (Disquise Hex, Nails Hex, spellstrike with Vampiric Touch and magical claws....)

A monk-hexcrafter magus would not have this problem as monk's unarmed attacks already count as weapons.

I noticed this first in the Sorcerer long ago, and it crops up again in the Alchemist.

What exactly does it mean that a sorcerer or an alchemist may choose their spells/formulae from unusual sources that they have studied? It does not really specify in any place I've looked. Does this mean that a sorcerer could theoretically learn a spell such as Barkskin if he is taught it by a druid and is high enough level to cast it? Could an alchemist learn to create an extract of Protection From Evil if he studied the spell in depth? Both of those presume spending time and money on research, of course, but the question still stands - what exactly does it mean that they can learn unusual spells not on their spell lists?

In my home ruled games this is possible, but an official ruling after so long would be nice.