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Feat text from archives: Make a melee Strike with the required weapon. If the Strike is successful, you can immediately make a ranged Strike against the same target with a +2 circumstance bonus to the attack roll. This counts as two attacks toward your multiple attack penalty, but you don't apply the multiple attack penalty until after making both attacks.

If you stab and blast and miss, or otherwise choose not to use the second attack, does it count as one attack or two for MAP?

Another way, does "This" in the final sentence refer to the stab and blast action as a whole, or is the final sentence there to guide you through MAP application if you make the second attack?

Ad 1) The game has covered most of this by the Game Conventions side bar on page 444. In effect this means that specific rules and feats like Combat Reflexes are allowed to conflict, break or overrule general rules.

Ad 2) If a Barbarian ought to use Sudden Charge to run circles around a Fighter having Combat Reflexes, the Fighter is entitled to one Attack of Opportunity per subordinate move action, as Sudden Charge calls you to Stride twice.

Are reactions limited per action? I can only find the limitation based on trigger, with the additional GM discretion caveat if two triggers are considered similar.

In particular with AoO and combat reflexes I'm wondering because AoO lists taking a move action or leaving a square during a move action as two different triggers, so a target taking a stride action should trigger, then leaving the square next to the fighter should trigger. Similarly for running around a fighter with one move action they leave a square using a move action multiple times. I think there's a strong argument that these should fall under the "effectively the same thing... based on what is happening in the narrative" clause under limitations on triggers, but a rule that a given action can only trigger once would make things far clearer to me.

Just for anyone curious, certain strike would add a respectable 8 DPR to the 3 attack routine but only ~3 to the flank and 2 attack routine.

I just realized I have an error here, as (non critical) miss chance caps out at 45%, not 50%. So certain strike is adding about 7 damage to the three attack routine.

The average damage for a fighter attacking 3 times is actually higher than moving to flank and attacking twice against equal level opponents. You'd think people didn't know that with how they talk about attacking three times.

Is this including feats like certain strike or exacting strike? I came up with the flank -> 2 attack doing slightly more damage vs 3 attack with a spot check at level 10 vs an opponent with 30 AC without those feats. Maybe a calculation error, but if the damage is somewhat close that seems like a clear win for the moving to flank option given that someone on the team will probably benefit a little from that as well, plus the fighter gets slightly more overall crit chance per round which can have useful riders. I have the calculation below to look over.

Fighter 10 vs 30 AC monster (median AC level 10 monster)
To hit 23, 18, 13
Enemy AC 30, 28 with flank
Damage base = 2d8 (striking) + 1d6 (elemental rune) + 5 (str) + 3 (spec)
= 20.5

3 attack, no flank
Attack 1 70% to hit, 20% crit (90% weapon damage)
Attack 2 45% to hit, 5% crit (50% weapon damage)
Attack 3 20% to hit, 5% crit (25% weapon damage)
DPR = 20.5*1.65
= 33.825

2 attack, flank first
Attack 1 80% to hit, 30% crit (110% weapon damage)
Attack 2 55% to hit, 5% crit (60% weapon damage)
DPR = 20.5*1.7
=34.85

Just for anyone curious, certain strike would add a respectable 8 DPR to the 3 attack routine but only ~3 to the flank and 2 attack routine.

Has anyone put together a list of ways to get flat damage for certain strike?

FlySkyHigh wrote:

I see this particular action a lot with players from 3.5/PF1e, and a reminder that a majority of enemies no longer have access to attack of opportunity can open up a world of action economy.

Yea, this is a pretty common situations specially from players that comes from older game editions.

Many people don't realize that can move without consequences at 3rd action and how effective is can be (usually a player can force a 3 action monster to move too and loose part of their actions too).

So unless the player have AoO or is a Champion* or is flat-footing the enemy or have Flurry and don't have a better non-attack action to do (like rise a shield/parry weapon...) move or take a step can be one of the most interesting things to do, especially against an opponent that could benefits from all 3 actions to attack.

My group has semi-recently started pf2, and at least for the first two books of age of ashes in a melee heavy party I can't really agree with this (except for steps, which we do use). Both the DM and I tried to encourage people to move around more when we started the game based on seeing this sentiment frequently online. A few brutal AoOs later and everyone is back to only (potentially) provoking when they deem moving absolutely necessary. I'm not sure if it's confirmation bias, the AP in particular, or something else, but it seems like enough monsters have AoO that you can't just discount it.

It also feels to me that an AoO is much more dangerous in pf2 than it was in 3.5. If I remember some random math from other discussions, in pf2 the no MAP attack is ~60% of a monster's expected 3 action damage. Chasing down exact numbers for 3.5 is difficult due to how variable 3.5 monsters and PC stats are, so I could be mistaken here, but I'd guess an AoO represents closer to 1/3 of a monster's potential full attack damage and characters that felt like it could have ACs high enough that actual expected damage as a percentage of their hp was low.

Has anyone seen if there's an analysis of what percent of monsters have AoO or AoO equivalent abilities? Based on age of ashes I feel like it's about a quarter to a third, but I haven't been keeping a count.

Do most DMs give information on whether a monster can AoO with a recall knowledge or some other way to guess if an AoO is probable?

I commonly see the idea that pf2 is so much more mobile and fluid in part because of the 3 action system and no default AoOs, but our group's experience hasn't matched that at all. I wonder if we're doing something wrong or missing key points about the system.

The big bonus of Foundry is that you dont have to buy stuff twice. If you have a physical version of an Adventure path you can use that to unlock it in foundry.

You can? I was under the impression you needed the official pdfs. Is there a work around to use the importer or something else for those who only own the physical AP books?

How do people feel about the evil cause champion for dedication? Since fighters are a little less defensive than champions I like the reactions more. Particularly if you're a 2H fighter. Tyrant and desecrator both seem good mechanically. Especially after combat reflexes for tyrant, since you could try and AoO the enemy if they take the prone option. Also tyrant seems less likely to derail a game regarding the tenets.

You do lose lay on hands, which hurts. If you can fit it in aura of despair goes nicely with some of the fighter's fear options, though I've personally had trouble fitting fighter fear feats, champion dedication and feats, and whatever combat style.

Questions about the guide:

Why is paragon's guard green and duelist dance blue? Just due to reactive shield existing?

For dhampir heritage the two spell casting feats seem like red tier. Maybe I misunderstand how innate spells work. Since you have no spellcasting DC progression they'll both just be at trained level, right? Even if you're taking charisma for skills or something it will likely be behind point or two there as well, leaving the save DCs at pretty terrible levels. Charm also has the incapacitation tag and is level 1, making it even worse since pretty much everything will get a success step boost against it. These point might apply to other innate spells with save DCs, but I was only looking at dhampirs.

Thank you for all the work.

Thanks for the extra responses and things to keep in mind. I wonder if the errata/clarifications coming up will address any of the stranger quirks of mounted combat.

I'm in a home game, so I think I can convince the DM to houserule a few things in favor of the lance/power attack combination to try and replicate the old cavalier big charge, but it's good to know the baseline of how everything normally works.

Thanks for responding.

Based on your responses to the last questions it seems you do not agree with the logic in the older post I linked of activities and subordinate actions. For you or anyone else, I assume in organized play like PFS they'll let you power attack (or whatever other feat) with the horse benefit?

I'm just starting up in PF2e and was looking at the cavalier archetype because I like that type of character. I might make a separate advice thread to figure a build, but first I wanted to clarify a number of things concerning how the character might work. There are threads addressing some of these points, but I wanted to try and get it all in one place and perhaps clear up some things. I'm going to put the question first followed by my current understanding.

Is there any way for a cavalier to benefit from their companion mount's support action while using the cavalier's charge feat?
-As I understand your companion gets two actions and you cannot trade your third action for another companion action as you might with a commanded regular animal, so there is no way to use mount support with cavalier's charge.
Caveat: Do you have to be mounted on your animal companion to use cavalier's charge? The dedication gives you a young animal companion that serves as your mount, and cavalier's charge states that you order your mount. If, however, your mount just refers to a creature you are riding you could mount a regular horse, order your animal companion to support you (also moving into position as second action for a riding drake or other animal with a positioning requirement), and then use cavalier's charge on the regular horse?

Trampling charge states that "you command your mount..." but doesn't use the phrase "you command an animal" like cavalier's charge or quick mount do to indicate that you are using that specific action. How many actions does trampling charge consume from your animal companion? If we had a level 20 cavalier with the legendary rider feat would you be able to use the command an animal action before or after using trampling charge? If so, would your animal companion mount have one or two actions available?
-I see no limit on the number of times command an animal can be used, so even if the feat counts as using it I think you could still command an animal again. However, the companion has used stride as one of two actions and would only have 1 action left. The feat makes no mentioned of performing a strike action, only using strike damage, so I believe the companion has used only one action.

What damage rolls do the horse support action and lance jousting bonus benefit?
-The lance benefits, including when wielding a lance with the horse support bonus as in that case it adds to the lance's trait, add circumstance damage based on the number of weapon dice, including striking weapon bonuses, deadly dice from a critical, and power attack (maybe, see next question). As the effect takes place if you moved 10ft or more on the action preceding your attack, this damage would apply if you were moved by another creature immediately before your attack (monster forced movement or something).
If you do not use a lance, the horse support damage bonus applies to all damage dice from an attack. This term doesn't seem as defined as weapon damage dice but seems to include spell damage, element dice from flaming or similar, and potentially precision damage. However, since the support benefit specifies an attack, you could only get the bonus on spells with the attack tag, which mainly seem to be rays like disintegrate.

Can you use the horse support benefit with feats like power attack?
-This question comes up because of an older thread here. As I follow the argument, feats like power attack are a subset of actions called activities. Activities have separate actions within the activity that do not require spending more actions, but do still count as actions. In relation to the horse support bonus, this means that if I command an animal to support and then move, then activate power attack my action chain would look like command->companion supports->companion moves->power attack->strike with bonus damage subordinate action. As the action before my strike was to activate power attack, I do not get the horse bonus. In cases where the activity has you move and then strike the horse bonus could apply, albeit in a strange way. Since the horse support doesn't have a positioning requirement, you would have the horse support, then use the activity to move->attack triggering the support benefit.

Following up, how would this work with activities that are tagged as attacks, such as forceful shot and harrying strike?
-I have no idea how this should resolve. It depends on whether the horse benefit applies to the whole attack activity action, including all subordinate actions, or only to the initial activation of the activity.

Thanks.

There's no reason for this not to work by the rules. After the UMD roll you function as an oracle with the proper mystery class feature, meeting all requirements for using the ring. As is evident from the others who responded, there may be some more fluff or RAI based reason why a DM wouldn't allow it. There's even an argument to be had that, by the UMD rules, a non-oracle could use a ring of revelation. See here: http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz3ccn?APG-Ring-Of-Revelation-and-UMD#0.

As for how long it works, isn't there a line in the UMD description that says something to the effect of "you have to roll UMD every hour for ongoing effects"?

Half elf alternative favored classed bonus gives 1/4 evolution points per level. Also you can't use claw attacks at the same time as weapon attacks without having another set of arms. So if you're attempting to optimize I suggest dropping the sycthe for now and grabbing the bite evolution and power attack for your eidolon's feat.

You could actually use the claws with a weapon by putting them on the legs instead of the arms. Some consider this mildly cheesy. The OP seems to have a pretty clear picture of what he wants his eidolon to do though, and natural weapons don't seem to be a part of it.

On that note it might be worth your time to ask the DM to refund you the 1 point for the claws evolution the biped starts with so that you could throw it into something more useful to you, or more thematic, like maybe unnatural aura.

Natural weapons are the more powerful way to go with an eidolon in general, so you could alternately choose to go that route and just flavor the eidolon as a humanoid thing that can summon spirit blades or whatever. Aside from the required reflavoring, the other downside is that the natural weapons will eat a handful of points from the evolution pool, which again makes it a tad harder to fit in thematic choices.

Since you're going with a weapon using eidolon, you'll have plenty of points. Did you actually want the reaper man to behave mechanically like a full on undead/skeleton? Getting all of the stuff that entails eats through a pretty good number of points- 6 for fully powered undead appearance and 4 for no breath, with other thematic perks like unnatural aura (1), lifesense (4), incorporeal form (4), channel resistance (2 or 4), and maybe supernatural flight (4+) pretty much eating through your entire supply if you want to go all out.

On the more practical side you have the standard picks like ability score increase and improved natural armor. The size increase evolution are point efficient, but then you have to use spells or items to get your eidolon back to medium size if you don't want a larger one.

I like high numbers over utility, so I would probably do something like this:

Improved Natural Armor x5
Strength Increase +8
Maxed Undead Appearance
No breath
Constitution or Dex +4 (Whatever you prefer)

Which gives you a pretty good, but very boring, tank. Except for no breath all of these evolutions can be scaled back for points to put into utility stuff, or you could find room for the extra evolution feat a few times in your build. Buying the large evolution and a permanency-ed reduce person gets you +6 str, +4 con, and 2 more natural armor for only 4 points as opposed to the +8 str and +4 con/dex from ability increase for 12.

Just to be clear, nobody actually knows the exact market shares or total sales or anything of that nature?

About the errata: the need for errata is a bad thing, as it implies that they didn't do much testing or balance control, or that they possibly don't understand how their own game really works, but the fact that they do errata things is good. That half the time the reaction to the errata was negative because they went too far, or arbitrarily hit something that was functioning fine, is another matter.

I would be really interested to hear some of the content of their strategy meetings. 4e was clearly trying to draw in new players, but the little bit of talk about the new edition seems to be more focused on trying to regain lost players. EDIT: Thinking about it more, I suppose the two are really one in the same, as I imagine that the majority of new players to D&D are introduced to it by an existing player.

Isn't it somewhat common for a company to deny knowledge about their new product until they're ready to reveal it? I don't remember what WotC was saying in particular around then, so maybe it was worse somehow, but the tactic in general seems fair game to me.

As to customer reviews- in my experience they can be useful to read, but the actual number ratings are nearly pointless. I've seen people give board games a 1/10 for using dice (presumably they dislike randomness), as though that one thing totally invalidates whatever else may be going on in the game.

I think the main reason there was such a split between 3.5/4 was that the OGL and increased internet usage made it much easier than it had been in the past to stick with the older version while still getting new content and having easy access to other people of the same mindset.

It's possible in my estimation for Wizards to deliver the super game that can reunite the disparate factions of D&D gamers, but I have little faith in WotC's ability to actually do so. It seems more likely to me that they'll produce something that loses the tight(er) mechanics and balance of 4e, and the people who were attracted to that, while not being able to lure back the customers who have since moved onto other systems or Pathfinder.

I see a lot of people talking about sales figures and such for 4e and Pathfinder books. Where can I find this information, preferably extending back a few years?

Most powerful it's ever been in any version of D&D ever. In AD&D, it only ever granted you one extra attack, and in 4e it only grants you +1 attack/damage and possibly a shield bonus. TWF looks cool, but it's a complicated and inefficient fighting style that very few disciplines ever took seriously.

Kind of a nitpick, but the TWF ranger in 4e is the king when it comes to damage (or at least it was ~5 months ago when I was checking these things more regularly). The feats suck, but TWF lets you access some of the best killing powers.

I don't know what pathfinder has in the way of birdman races, but back in the 3.5 book Races of the Wild there was a race called the raptorans that fits the bill nicely. You would need to do some minor updating, but it's probably your best bet.

If you want to stay pure pathfinder you could be a synthesist summoner and just have your eidolon outer skin/inhabited body/whatever be a birdman. Not really the best solution, but it works.

Before I start off this "counter rant", keep in mind that not every archtype is superior to it's base. MANY of the fighter archtypes are argued to be worse than their base counterpart, and the synthesist need not be superior to the core summoner. If you don't like the synthesist, just remember it's not paizo's job to sell you on it. Just don't play it. There are obviously still plenty of players who like the archetype.

Archetypes shouldn't be superior or inferior to the base, just play differently. Saying that Paizo has made bad archetypes before isn't really a defense, and it sort of is their job to sell people on the product they present.

I will admit that I'm not certain how much the attack limit is going to matter in real play. How many synthesists were planning on using a combination of BAB attacks and naturals over all primary natural attacks?

I wonder if the synthesist attack cap is supposed to be absolute or a base. Can you still get an extra attack from haste if you're at the cap? What about adding attacks for TWF, or an ability like flurry of blows? My guess is that the cap is hard, which sucks.

Since it has gotten kind of buried I'd also like to bring up the improved ability evolution ruling again. If they had just said that a synthesist can't take it, sort of like they did on the aspect chain, that's one thing, but their stated reason doesn't jive. You, as the fused summoner, have gained the evolution, so it should apply to your mental stat. At the very least if they decide to keep this ruling the skilled evolution also shouldn't work for a synthesist, for consistency's sake.

Calypsopoxta: I don't know what support feat you consider necessary, but remember that being fused into one critter means your summoner now has to bear all of the feat burden. With a normal summoner you can devote your feats to casting and eidolon improvements while your eidolon takes all the standard beat down feats.

I don't understand what you mean with the skills. A synthesist has the summoner's skills selection at level to use, probably with a few bonuses due to better int/wis. A regular summoner has both his skills at level, and an entirely different set of skills in the eidolon, which can be any skills the summoner wants.

If I remember correctly the aspect that effectively gives you an evolution point boost doesn't occur until level 18, so while technically true it's a non-issue in a great many games.

My version of the pros/cons list looks more like this:

Good:
- Centralized power (no weak link, no splitting items)
- Dump physical stats*

Bad:
- Action loss
- Versatility loss (fewer feats and skills overall, fewer bodies on the board for flanking and such)

Neutral (?):
- Single target (less from AoOs, but save or sucks and related spells are harsher)

* From what I've read on these boards it seems a lot of DMs would go after you hard for dumping, so the actual gain may be less that what the paper shows.

General thread: to keep beating that dead horse, if a normal eidolon included weapon attacks in their attack limit the attacks ruling would at least make sense, but as is the synthesist's limit seems pretty arbitrary.

At least in terms of mechanics getting someone excited is all about making them think whatever concept they have is awesome mechanically, possibly even broken, without it actually being so. The 3.5 monkey grip feat, especially combined with goliaths, was actually a pretty good example of this- a lot of people saw that larger weapon damage as the end all be all of awesome, even though the actual increase was pretty small compared to what a well done character could do for total damage, and the to hit penalty actually outweighed the damage bonus in terms of DPR. I haven't played one myself yet, but from the chatter the summoner is another good example; people are taken in by the high potential damage and defense from an eidolon, but in pratice it's not really breaking the bank.

As for RP type investment, I'm not really sure what you can do to create this. It sort of has to come from the player. You can certainly feed their interest (or crush it) by what you allow them to do at the table, but the original spark pretty much has to be theirs. The only thing I can think of it try to make the player actually make their own character. From my experience people never bond as well with a character handed to them.

It is balancing. The synthesis is no longer two creatures and as such should loose some action economy. Every other class that gives up a companion as part of an archtype also looses action economy. Why would the synthesis be any different. If the synthesis was always better than a summoner everyone would just play it and it wouldn't be an archtype anymore.

You can not give the synthesis summoner a whole bunch of goodies and not take something away in return. Remember that the synthesis solves the biggest problem of eidolons, a weak will save. You gain increased protection against banishment for a decrease in attacks.

They lose the ability to act independently from their eidolon. A synthesist can't cast a spell and still maintain good melee damage like a normal summoner can. They also effectively lose feats; you can't just load the eidolon up with the necessary combat related stuff and keep all of yours for extra evolutions and casting stuff. Will save is probably the most important, but you're losing a bit in at least one of the other saves compared to the eidolon.

Different questions:

1)How does the splitting work with a synthesist. Does the split eidolon keep your feats and skills or what? Mt initial thought was that the eidolon does have a normal set of feats and skills, they're just typically inactive, but the archetype directly states that they get no skills or feats.

2) As I understand the FAQ a synthesist can use his own arms to attack while fused.
a) If you want to have the eidolon, not the summoner, use a weapon do you need the weapons training evolution?
b) In the case of increased size eidolons, where are you attacking from?
c) I'm fairly certain of the actual rules on this, but if you're actually the one swinging wouldn't you logically use your base strength?
d) Does a biped eidolon synthesist effectively start with 4 arms, or are the eidolon's limbs assumed to overlap with your own if they can.

I'm a little confused about the fused attacks bit. Can the summoner attack from any square in the eidolon's body, in the case of large/huge eidolons?

More importantly, am I reading it right that a normal summoner's eidolon's attack limit does not affect weapon attacks, while a synthesist's does? If this is the case I really don't understand why.

EDIT: I also disagree with the synthesist not being able to use improved mental ability score evolutions. As I recall it says you gain the eidolon's evolutions, so you gain improved ability score (whatever) evolution and your stats go up. Not a huge issue with me though.

I think a lot of things could have been cleared up earlier if the fluff had just been your mind, eidolon's body instead of the translucent image overlap stuff.

What ways are there for a PC to gain immunity to negative levels? From what I've seen there are a few classes that can give you the undead type, but that doesn't happen until level 20 typically. Other than that the best I can come up with is a continuous death ward item, which is going to be fairly pricey (112,000 gp I believe). Is there something like the old soulfire armor trait around in PF, or perhaps feats or class abilities that would activate somewhere closer to the 10-12 range? I ask because I'm trying to figure how to port an old character who used a lifedrinker axe (improved at higher levels).

Synthesist and fighter stuff

I'm not seeing it. What is this extra utility the fighter has? Both have lackluster skill lists, but at least the synthesist is likely to have better mental stats which tend to figure in more for the useful skills. With a better charisma and UMD as a class skill the synthesist should be able to match anything the fighter can do with that skill, and more. There's also that 3/4 casting business a summoner has. On top of that the synthesist has more access to useful abilities without needing magic items or spells from the party, including flight and improved senses.

I can see a fighter being an overall better front line bruiser, and that's as it should be, but I really don't understand how you came to the conclusion that the synthesist is more of a one trick pony than the fighter.

Note that in regard to the boon companion like feat Gignere was talking about the eidolon in general, not the synthesist specifically. Additionally, there could be some minor issues with such a feat if it's ruled that synthesist base attack in a multiclass works like a monk's flurry of blows, as it would be possible to take one level of synthesist to get more than one BAB.

I agree with the common interpretation in this thread, but I noticed that the UC fighter armor master archetype has an ability that specifically references the sum of a shield's armor and enhancement bonus to AC; doesn't this indicate that they are actually separate things? After all, if the enhancement bonus just increased the shield's bonus the wording to use the sum is redundant. Exact wording: "this bonus cannot exceed the sum of the armor and enhancement bonus to AC provided by the shield..."

Personally, my guess is that it's just an awkwardly worded clarification, there to head off people claiming the ability only references the shield's base bonus. I'm curious what others think about it in relation to this thread.

It was mentioned earlier that one of the paladin archetypes, holy tactician I think, replaces smite evil for bonuses to allies- is this ability still alignment based (ie: can you use it on non-evil)? Also what's the general idea behind sacred shield; is it a paladin that hits guys with a shield or a bodyguard type of thing? Thanks.

Not to derail the thread, but can you use the Qinggong monk with other archetypes that replace any of the abilities you can replace as a Qinggong, given the interpretation that all of the Qinggong switches are optional?

Can you give a breakdown of where the +38 natural armor comes from?

2 Base

Alright. Thanks to both of you for responding.

The level 5 synthesist would lose only 8HP from its temporary HP pool (since that is based on the eidolon's HD and CON) and 10HP from his ordinary HP (since that's based on his own HD and CON).

Follow up: do you fall unconscious if you have temporary HP but no normal HP?

If you have an oracle using UMD to emulate a mystery other than what the oracle actually has in order to use a ring of revelation, what is the oracle's effective level for using the revelation granted by the ring?

As I see it there are three options:
1) The oracle's level for the purpose of the revelation is UMD-20
2) The oracle is considered level 0 for the revelation
3) The oracle uses their normal oracle level for the ring's revelation

Mostly what's unclear to me is what is meant in the UMD emulate a class feature text regarding gaining an effective class level, and how far that extends into the use of the item.

This is mainly a bump or necro because I've seen a few more synthesist threads popping up and I think centralization is a good idea.

OdinsBeard: You use the summoner's base saves. Not sure about the poison/disease. When you're fused you're only one creature, but if you split with the split forms power both you and the eidolon are under the effect.

New question- if you get hit with a CON drain or damage power while fused do you lose all the HP from the eidolon temporary HP pool, per normal temporary HP rules, or does some of it come from the summoners pool? Example: A level 5 synthesist fused with his 4 HD eidolon suffers 4 points of CON damage. Does he lose 18 HP from the eidolon's temporary HP pool, or does he lose 8 HP from the temporary pool and 10 HP from the base summoner's HP?

That's pretty much what I though- thank you for the response.

So, for a specific clarification, could a synthesist summoner with the huge evolution use alter self to return to door friendly medium size for a bit while retaining a large strength score?

When casting a spell like enlarge person do you follow the spell exactly no matter the starting size? For example if you had a huge humanoid would you still only take an additional -1 size penalty to to-hit and AC (total -3) when you increase to gargantuan, or do you follow the normal size adjustment of -2 (total -4)?

When you change size do you apply the size stat alterations in addition to the spell changes? My inclination, and the consensus in an older thread, is that you do not apply anything but what the spell says. Given this, what happens when you cast alter self as a huge creature? Do you just go directly to medium (or small), not passing any stat adjustments for size beyond the spell's +2 str (or dex)?

Maxximilius wrote:

*Crossing all fingers and body parts for the gunslinger or monk variant, Pathfinder's grammaton ecclesiast*

Holy Gun archetype, listed under paladin?

I haven't looked at the playtest gun rules, but couldn't a zen archer pretty much fill in for this? Replace bows with guns and tweak the bonus feats a bit. They were called clerics, sure, but they used gun-fu.

This has already been covered, but why does the wizard get some new archetypes and such while higher BAB classes (oracles and summoners) get left out? The iconic status, I suppose? Will there be new mysteries or evolutions in the book?

I have hope that the knight of the sepulcher will make a decent stand in for the Eberron bone knight.

Question about eidolon weapon use

There's no reason that taking the feat wouldn't work, especially since the eidolon evolution just gives you the simple weapon proficiency feat.

Just another idea for you, reward the other PCs with Hero Points every time the offending player uses his out of character knowledge. Don't be shy about explaining that this applies to everyone. Any apparent* act of OOC knowledge being used IC will result in the other PCs being granted a Hero Point. Awarding Hero Points is completely at the GM's discretion, so he will have no ground on which to stand a complaint.

*This is the important part, make it clear that anything that even looks like it is OOC knowledge being used will have consequences, so that there is no room for argument as far as whether or not he did indeed cheat.

So your plan is to reward the group for a player reading the module? This only seems like a punishment if the player in question is hyper competitive (which is a possibility).

I'm looking to build a sorceress who focuses on Enchantment/Charm, and the "best" bloodline that I could find to enhance that at all is the Infernal Bloodline. However, it appears that there are only 4 spells that actually have the (charm) descriptor in the spell in the entire wizard/sorcerer spell list. Does that really mean that the Bloodline Arcana of adding +2 to charm dc's is useless except for those 4 spells??

(Spells: Charm Person, Charm Monster (mass/single), Symbol of Persuasion)

I recommend the fey bloodline, which gives a +2 DC to compulsion spells. There are a lot more compulsions than charms. Alternatively, if you really want the charm DC boost too you could crossblood fey and infernal to get +2 DC to most of the things in the enchantment school. I don't advise this mechanically, since the cross blooded downsides are a little harsh, and as you pointed out there aren't that many charms, but it's an option if you really want to be infernal.

If you're going to get to higher levels you could also consider either crossblooded fey/arcane or eldritch heritage arcane bloodline for +2 DC to all enchantment spells (you get this at 15 for crossblooded or 17 for eldritch heritage).

To clarify something with UMD, if I were a synthesist x/oracle 1 with a ring of revelations with some revelation that's level dependent- let's go with armor of bone- how does this work exactly? If I were to roll a UMD 33, so my effective oracle level for the bones mystery is 13, would the armor of bone power be useable 13 hours a day and provide all the benefits that a level 13 oracle would get out of it (+6 armor and DR 5/bludgeoning in this case)? As far as I can tell that's what happens, but I've never really paid close attention to UMD before.

EDIT: Also can your effective level exceed your character level, and if it can, can it break 20 before epic?

EDIT2: On second though, since you're using UMD to emulate the mystery feature and not the revelation in question, would that mean that your effective oracle level is zero for the revelation?

I wish they'd print a boon companion equivalent for eidolons, but another part of me realizes how that could be a very dumb thing.

Krispy: Our group also tends to heavily upscale the enemies we fight, since all the players like to tweak, so it should wash. There's also a decent chance this idea will only see play on the DM side, if it does at all. At this point it's in the "just thinking about it" zone.

If you're going to do something like that, don't forget Osyluth Guile. When fighting defensively, it allows you to add your Charisma bonus as a dodge bonus to your AC against an opponent you specify.

Also, having a high Charisma + UMD means you can simply use a Ring of Revelations to get access to Sidestep Secret.

Thanks for pointing out that feat.

There's a considerable amount of argument around using umd and the ring without oracle levels. If you can then it's 100% better than the actual dip, yes, but let's assume that you can't for this thread. As a note to future posters, please try to avoid getting into long arguments about the ring.

For the record my own opinion is that it's probably not worth the level since as a synthesist you already have massive AC and you lose a fair amount of other things. The exception would be if your DM is trying to hammer you when you aren't fused, as a lot of people suggest against synthesists who tank their physical stats.

After a poster mentioned that one level in oracle of lore can get you CHA to AC and Ref instead of Dex it got me thinking about taking the dip for a Synthesist summoner.

First I have a couple of rules questions:
-Would this work at all? I'm assuming that since you retain your Cha and abilities nothing stops you from using the sidestep secret mystery when fused, but I know there's a lot of argument about what's going on with the synthesist.

- Could you effectively ignore some of the curses, namely clouded vision, deaf, and lame? You "perceive through [the eidolon's] senses" (UM 80) so I'd think your own bad eyes or ears wouldn't matter, and similarly if you're riding around in a ghost eidolon thing your legs don't matter probably.

The other big question- is it worth it? You lose casting (though the CL can be made up for with some money), a point of BAB about 2/3 of the time, an evolution point, an eidolon Str and Dex point about half the time, 2 eidolon AC again about half the time, and the rest of the slowed summoner stuff that I don't feel like picking out. The gains change depending on what you're doing with the eidolon, but your Cha should pretty much always be above the eidolon's Dex, and using the evolutions to feed into your Cha for casting now also benefits AC and Ref. Plus your summoner isn't quite as squishy without the eidolon. Just for an example at level 20 a biped eidolon would have 20 base Dex, while the summoner should probably have 26-30 base Cha (including an inherent bonus). I'm not positive, but I think there's going to be a 3-4 point gap pretty much over the summoner's entire career and it could be a good bit bigger if you use evolutions to feed into Cha or size up the eidolon.

Suggest you read the rest of the thread. the football analogy wasn't mine. i just responded to it saying it wasn't a good analogy.

Also, later in the thread the OP makes it clear this wasn't an isolated occurence, but rather a pattern of behavior showing two issues: metagaming by using knowledge the character does not have and consistently trying to tell another player how to run their character.

I think you need to read a little closer as well. The TC only referenced another player suggesting a course of action for the spellcaster twice. It's not even clear that it's the same player- in fact it's implied that the whole group engages(or engaged) in this sort of behavior. S/he has never said that the complaint was one player running another player's character, only out of character knowledge in knowing which spells are good for what and the particulars of each spell. The last part there wasn't even in the original post, it was added later. Overbearing players might be a problem, but it's not something the TC has mentioned yet.

A lineman who comes into the huddle and suggests to the quarterback that the receiver run a slant, rather than a go pattern is most likely to get a quarterback in their face telling them to shut up and just do their own job and let the QB and WR do theirs. Probably laced with at least six profanities. During a timeout or on the sidelines, some QBs (or actually offensive coordinators, these days, since they call all they plays) might be amenable to suggestions from a veteran, respected lineman. Or they might not. In the huddle, during regular playcalling (which is actually a good comparison to a six second combat round) there is no time for that kind of BS. The QB has to announce the play, the formation, the blocking scheme and the count, all in about 15 seconds or less. It's not a democracy and not a debating society.

I don't think I understand your example in context. The "problem" is that one player made a suggestion to another, not that a team member is contradicting the leader that they may or may not even have.

At least as far as we're aware the only thing the fighter did was suggest the sleep spell before the sorc had decided on a course of action- he didn't say "oh there are too many HDs of monster there" or "what you want to do is dumb, do this instead." Nobody is allowed to make a suggestion without penalties?

Considering that you need two feats to get the animal companion (Skill Focus: Knowledge (Nature) and Eldritch Heritage), and the animal companion is at your sorcerer level -3 (which is already at -2 from Eldritch Heritage, stacking it to -5), and that you need a third feat to get the animal copmaion's effective level to -1, which still isn't your full level, I'd say it isn't broken to allow this use of Eldritch Heritage to get an animal companion as any character.

You might be able to use the robes of arcane heritage to save a feat (or get full druid level). For most cases this would require getting the ability added on to another body slot item (ie their armor), but 24,000 gp is better than a feat.

I do not own that particular product, I only know some of its content from the playtests and the pfsrd. Is the foreword (I guess you meant that) available somewhere for free?

Dunno, but the relevant point in there is that Advanced Player's Guide is just a name. The options aren't intended to be for experienced players only, just like the stuff in Ultimate Magic isn't actually supposed to be better than all the other options for magic using characters.

Why would you possibly think it's 'less well designed'?

Lots of people have lots of fun playing summoners. Power-wise its still quite a bit below an optimized wizard. And just because the rules are kind of messy and there are lots of small fiddly special rules and exceptions - it's supposed to be this way, it's D&D 3.5+something after all.

Paizo's own designers even stated that Fun > Balance during the PF RPG playtests.

And since the summoner is described in a book called .... wait for it... Advanced Players Guide, this might be taken as a hint that it's intended for advanced players, as in, those players with a basic understanding of addition and pf game mechanics :)

I'd venture a guess that Kerobelis was referring more to the relatively loose rules surrounding the summoner, not necessarily imbalance. There are a lot of questions on the summoner (especially a certain UM archetype) because some of the class's rules a unclear. As for the last line there you should read the forward in the APG.

A new system

Frankly this seems just as arbitrary as the other system. There's a lot of redundancy in your criteria. The offense and defense (11 and 12) should just be rolled into combat usefulness and a little bit of encounter number (#1-3, 13). Social functions as just non combat encounters, so number 5 is just part of 4. I'm not even really sure what you're going for with 6, but the best I can come up with is that a class has a chance to screw itself making the wrong choices for the day, in which case this is just an aspect of 3, with the positives covered by 7. I'd also consider adding a counter to 13, something to cover the ability to alpha strike (or nova, if you prefer).

Quote:

Blave wrote:

Slam Evolution wrote:

An eidolon can deliver a devastating slam attack. This attack is a primary attack. The slam deals 1d8 points of damage (2d6 if Large, 2d8 if Huge). The eidolon must have the limbs (arms) evolution to take this evolution. Alternatively, the eidolon can replace the claws from its base form with this slam attack (this still costs 1 evolution point). This evolution can be selected more than once, but the eidolon must possess an equal number of the limbs evolution.

This (bolded) entry is meaningless if the claws from the base form were intended to be put on either location.

I believe there is a similar line under the hooves evolution, which strongly implies that the biped base claws could be applied to the legs.

The problem with Monkey Grip is that if it is allowed in a game melee characters pretty much HAVE to take it or be left behind. Feats like that are bad design.

Really? Maybe with the power attack change and possible to hit curve differences in PF monkey grip might be good, but in 3.5 it was a trap feat for people who can't or won't do math but like their anime style oversized weapons. I do agree that it's bad feat design though.