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One of my players is asking if Holy Sword can be combined with his Paladin Divine Bond.The spell states that the native abilities of the weapon are suppressed and that spells that have an effect upon the weapon don't work while Holy Sword is in effect, but Divine Bond isn't a spell, nor is it a native ability of the weapon.
If I had to guess I'd say that they wouldn't work, but I'd like to know if there's been an official ruling on this.

Your alchemist NCP had a 34 int?

22 Int actually, he'd chugged a Targeted Bomb Admixture to double the Int based damage, but get rid of splash.

I knew it would be a powerful combo, but I wasn't expecting it to build upon itself in the way it did.
12d6+24 against the guy with horrible touch AC, next round the same again with an extra 36 with more to show for it. Normally I'd just mark it off as a very power-gamey thibg to do and leave it there, but it's left the party one down with exactly one session left until the game ends so I feel bad for the player I wrecked. (It was a mini-boss encounter but still...)
I don't hate my plyers I swear, the thing was technically APL -2 on it's own, but it was the only thing that landed a hit.

I built an npc foe for my party to fight using the above combo and it utterly demolished the party tank. My group (and frankly myself) have a feeling that there must be something I've missed bcause it sems way too powerful. I hit the tank twice for 6d6+12 acid twice, the next round they take splash damage from each bomb, 36 total then a round later they take 2d6 extra. Is this right?
As far as I can see there's nothing in the rules that say the sticky effect doesn't stack but this seems a little sily powerwise, is there something I've missed or some errata somewhere, or did I really just drop the party tank with two touch attacks?

I'm currently running a game that has a certain major artifact as a plot device and one of my players purchased a rod of cancellation, saying that he could use it to effectively destroy it if they can't get it away from the BBEGs safely.

Well at first i just said flat out that there's only one given way to destroy an artifact (at least a major one) but my player insists that since the item calls out what happens when it meets a Sphere of Annihilation and that Mage's Disjunction is used in it's construction as proof that it works on artifacts.

But that can't be right can it? An 11,000 GP magic item capable of wrecking an artifact seems off to me, particularly because it doesn't carry the risk that the spell does.

Can somebody please tell me whether the rod of cancellation is actually capable of taking out a major artifact by repeatedly whacking it until it Nat 1's it's save?

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My player claims that a creature has to be in a type of terrain in it's entirety, no half ways.

Ask your player to cite this.

I did and he gave where he thought he'd read it, but I couldn't find anything so I assumed he'd made a mistake; It wouldn't be the first time we've done this in our group.

Tell your player you are the DM and even if it is the case normally, it isn't in your game.

But, I don't see anything in the rules that support his position. In fact, if you look at the rules for water, there are rules for partial immersion in water.

Bog/Marsh/Swamp Terrain wrote:

The water in a deep bog provides cover for Medium or larger creatures. Smaller creatures gain improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves). Medium or larger creatures can crouch as a move action to gain this improved cover. Creatures with this improved cover take a –10 penalty on attacks against creatures that aren't underwater.

It seems to me a creature that is sticking out of a hole in the ground should also have cover.

It never occurred to me that it would get cover like that.

I was hypothesizing an underground fight between my party and a purple worm and a player started trying to gauge how tall the cavern would need to be to keep away from it using fly.
I pointed out that the worm in question has a burrow speed and as such could logically burrow it's way up the wall, hang from the ceiling and strike from there.
My player argued that the beast would have to make a climb check to avoid falling, I rebutted that in my scenario it would only expose 10 feet of it's 20 foot space from the ceiling meaning it would still technically be burrowed and he claimed hat the creature has to be completely out of the ceiling or wall to make an attack.
I assumes that they could because I can't imagine a sea serpent sitting ON TOP of water to fight the crew of a ship and would have so much of it's mass above the water to fight.
My player claims that a creature has to be in a type of terrain in it's entirety, no half ways.

So in short; can large or larger creatures with a burrow/swim speed be half in one terrain half out?

And while I'm on the subject, what happens if a large creature is half on solid ground and half over a pit?

Houserule territory: Don't half damage and hardness doesn't apply!

HOORAY for all the broken weapons! Players love it when you break their weapons!

That's an unfair arguement, I never suggested that it should destroy any weapon on one hit, just that it should do something to mundane gear, being the acidic sweat of a demon and all.

And sometimes you put something the players usual tactics don't work on against them, keeps them on their toes.

Depends on the acid. Depends on the weapon.

If you are going to shoehorn houserules to make an ability even more powerful, you should at least have the decency to figure out how they work.

Where is my chemist friend when I need him?

Does your friend spend a lot of time in the Abyss then?

Anyway, I really hate seeing abilities that grant the Broken condition independently of hit point damage. It doesn't make sense to me that a weapon would be at full or near-full hit points and be Broken. What is a Broken weapon without damage? How do you fix it? How do you fix an object affected by rusting grasp, for that matter? Bah.

This is just how I'd house rule it, so take it for what it is, but I'd treat it as though it was damaged to half HP for the purposes of rpeair, and possibly only allow repear via magic, after all no amount of hitting with a hammer is going to fix a sword that's rusted through.

I'm guessing that the part where is says

SRD wrote:

Some energy types might be particularly effective against certain objects, subject to GM discretion.

means that the acid damage should not be halfed. Even if that is true, you're still looking at only damaging hafted weapons, projectiles, wooden shields, tower shields, and armor made of stone, wood, leather/hide, ice, paper/cloth, or glass if they roll over a 5. Plus, ammunition should be destroyed after a hit anyway.

So just a fairly undewhelming ability overall then, but if the acid damage is supposed to be left unhalved you'd think that would be in the ability description.

I like to be consistant with gm ruliings too, and if I was to say that this effect does full damage to weapons, I'd have to deal with it as precident, full acid damage against wood is reasonable, full acid damage always and forver on metal and stone? Not so much.

A Babau is supposed to damage weapons that strike it with it's protective slime ability, but RAW it simply can't damage anything:

Okay, as you can see in the above, Protective Slime does 1d8 acid damage to a striking weapon, now let's assume the save was failed and max damage was rolled, so we apply 8 acid damage to the weapon... then we half it because it's energy damage... then apply hardness, assuming even a best case scenareo protective slime simply can't damage weapons, at all.

Please tell me that there's been errata on this, because that's just silly.

Edit: well okay it could destroy a whip maybe, or a wet towel, but it really looks like something's wrong with the ability.

A Ray spell specifies you attack with it as if armed with a ranged weapon. An example would be Scorching Ray. So this sort of spell would draw an AoO for making a ranged attack since it counts as making an attack with a ranged weapon.

Thanks for the further clarification.

None will provoke as ranged attacks. Ranged attacks as spells are generally ray spells, or ones you're rolling attack rolls for.

Thanks for the clarification, is there anything in the rules/errata that spells that out specifically though?

Now maybe I'm just thick but I'm not sure of how area effect spells work with AOO.

What I do know is that ranged attacks provoke an AOO, including spells, but do area spells count as ranged spells?

Let's assume that these were all cast defensively.

Example 1. Burning Hands this is an area of effect spell that starts in the adjacent square to the attacker, does this count as a ranged attack, and thus provoke attack of opportunity?
I'd have guessed not, but I'm not sure here.

Example 2. Fireball is an AOE spell that originates from a point chosen by the caster, typically at some distance from their current position, would this count as a ranged attack, and thus provoke AOO?
To me this would seem like a clear cut case of a ranged attack, but since there's no attack roll arguments have been made within the group I play with both for and against it provoking.

Example 3. Flaming Sphere places a harmful object within a target area, and I'm aware that repositioning it does not provoke (As far as I know at least), but would putting it on the field to begin with qualify?
I doubt it, but I thought I'd ask for the sake of completeness.

So can someone help me out here please?

Good advice folks, I've got a feel for what I'm going to do now. Thanks for the tips.

We've used pretty much the standard mounted combat rules, with the added proviso that any time you take 1/4 or more of your hp total in damage in a single hit you risk being unseated and must make a ride check to stay in the saddle. I suggest bumping the DC a bit from the one listed in the skill.

That works well enough I guess, though I'm not sure how breaking a lance off of an opponent's shield would work with most jousts not being intended as to he death.

Its included in the part about being immune to mind-affecting effects.

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Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).

Yep, I'm definitely going blind, I might just allow the rage bonus despite it not being allowed by RAW, but yeah, they seem to have dropped the ball with the Horn of Valhalla a bit.

Thanks for the help at any rate, I should be able to deal if I put the Horn in now.

We all know the scene, a dashing underdog Knight charges, lance at the ready against the cruel Black knight to with the hand of fair maiden, it's such a common scene that we automatically equate knights with jousting, naturally I feel that such a tired old cliche simply must be used in at least one of my campains but I've yet to see rules on how to do it.

So my question is of course how would you handle a joust using Pathfinder's system?

The only way I can think of is to handle it a bit like a dual exhibition fight using the rules for both using ultimate combat, except assume that both combatants are moving at the same time using initiative only to determine who gets the first blow.
But how would you score it, and what about unseating the opponent?

Do you have any advice for how to handle jousting? would you use the way I've suggested or go with something completely different?

Apart from them being kind of a part of your old armor? Not as far as I can tell I'd rule against it myself though.

The more notable problem is that the barbarians are constructs and, as such, can't gain moral bonuses. So raging gives them nothing but -2 AC and an inability to use some skills.

I wasn't sure about that so I took a quick look, though I didn't see anything about morale bonuses, though I might just be going blind, I did see that as constructs they have no CON score... what kind of Barbarian doesn't have a CON score?

So, so far I've gathered that I should use the basic attributes, apart from CON, the basic gear listed above, no feats, nor skills, no rage let alone rage powers and to just go ahead and pump all of the bonus attributes, if they get any for that matter, in to STR, because what else am I putting it in to with no CON score then adding 20 HP for it being a medium construct.
Does that seem right to everyone?

As far as I can tell by RAW it wouldn't effect them at all.

Others, such as golems and undead creatures other

than vampires, are not affected by the loss of their heads.

Personally I find that a bit daft so I houserule it that anything that would logically use the eyes and ears in it's head to see and hear would go blind and deaf from the effect, as well as lose their scent ability (if any) assuming they used their nose to do it. but what I'd do isn't supported by what's in the book.

Pathfinder didn't copy that data from 3.5 D&D. (Its not Open Content). They also didn't provide a replacement.

Well that's just daft, you'd have though they'd have given us something, even if just as errata, I wasn't aware that most of the description was a holdover from D&D though (outside of Infinity engine games and a D&D classic red box I got at a car boot sale when I was ten I've had little experience with D&D), that still leaves me with the question though, do I just use the example heroic NPC attributes and arm them with the above mentioned gear leaving out feats and rage powers? But then where do I put the +2 for being human, or the extra points for their level for that matter?

Thanks for the help though, at least I know I'm not just blind.

First off I'm still a comparatively new GM so I'm sorry if these are stupid questions or have already been answered, I did look but I couldn't find them.

The description for the Horn of Valhalla says that it allows the user to summon a number of human barbarians according to its type and that they start with the basic equipment for a Barbarian.

Firstly as these barbarians aren't statted in the core book (as far as I can tell at least) I'd like to know, do they have an official statblock?

What kind of equipment are they supposed to actually start with? It's not listed anywhere from what I can see.

If they have no official statblock what are they supposed to be built like?
What are their Attributes, skills, feats and rage powers?
Again, what equipment do they actually come with?
If there isn't a way they are supposed to be, who decides their stats? The GM or the one crafting the horn?

I like the concept of this item and I've been wanting to place it as part of a treasure pile late on in the campaign I'm running, but I have no idea how they work beyond what's written in the Core Rules so any help would be appreciated.

Yeah that's what I meant, I would have guessed that it would reduce the penalty though, perhaps by half (to a min of -1) or just by one.
It's mostly just an academic question though, the group I play with would pass up a twenty on something their class needs to avoid an eight on anything else.
I mostly got to thinking about it since I rolled a Cleric of Iomdae with an 8 in strength and it got me thinking.

Thanks for that, but it brings up the question, should it mitigate the penalty?
It doesn't seem to but you'd think it would.

When weilding a one or two handed weapon with both hands you add half again your strength bonus to the damage dealt, what (if anything) happens if you have a strength penalty?