I've seen quite a few people ask about this with no official answers given, that I can find. Is there ever going to be a fix for this archetype? Is there a contributor or designer who can shed some light on how it was actually supposed to work? I've heard a couple of good suggestions, the best being that feed on fear replaces touch of corruption's ability to heal undead targets, but nothing from the devs AFAIK. Since the archetype retains not only cruelties but also channel energy, there has to be something missing or some kind of typo. Anything?
The Asmodean advocate cleric archetype (from Dirty Tactics Toolbox) has the following ability:
Devil in the Details:
At 1st level, an Asmodean advocate learns to choose her words so carefully that even when she says something designed to deceive listeners, the words are phrased to be technically true. She can use her Profession (barrister) skill for Bluff and Diplomacy checks. This benefit also extends to her familiar. The Asmodean advocate gains an insight bonus equal to 1/2 her cleric level (minimum +1) on Linguistics checks related to forgeries and on all Profession (barrister) checks.
The question is, do bonuses which apply specifically to Bluff/Diplomacy checks (such as that from the Persuasive feat) still apply when the cleric substitutes Profession (barrister)? I can see how someone might rule either way. On the one hand, the bonus (from the feat, in this case) specifically applies only to Diplomacy checks; but on the other, you still are making a Diplomacy check, aren't you—just using Profession to do so?
The possibility of a ruling going either direction makes feats like Rhetorical Flourish a bit more complicated. I feel like, since the archetype is obviously meant to be one used by tricky, deceptive, fast-talking characters, it surely can't be the designers' intent to give the class an ability like this and then lock them out of benefiting from stuff like Rhetorical Flourish, Antagonize, and similar. But, I can hear some players claiming that this class feature could get OP quickly, with the insight bonus and all.
Since Capital is already a deliberate abstraction of resources, anyway, I'm obviously not looking for a firm answer, here. After all, Goods Capital can consist of anything from mithral ingots to "all that lumber you bought," so there really can't be a specific answer that applies to all situations.
Rather, I want to ask (since I haven't been able to find any suggestions or guidelines): For those GMs and players who have made extensive use of the downtime system, what is a good rule of thumb for using standard wagons, basic cargo ships, etc. to transport Goods Capital when moving resources between locations? I'm sure that a lot of games don't need to go into specific details at that level, and handwaving the method via which Goods are moved from city A to village B is perfectly fine in 99% of situations. For myself, though, I'd like to ballpark roughly how many wagons, horses, teamsters, and so on will be required to move some Goods a long distance.
The Capital in question is primarily construction materials for various buildings, including large quantities of masonry stone, timber, and similar, if that helps get the wheels turning. But, as I said, I don't need or expect something mathematically precise; I'd just like to get a feel for how big this caravan needs to be in order to cart all this stuff the 200 miles it needs to go, based on what other people might have done.
On the topic of managers for buildings (Ultimate Campaign p88): I simply cannot find any place where a system is described for determining the daily wage of a manager. Are the wages given for the examples simply arbitrary, or is there some rhyme or reason to them, from which one can extrapolate or reverse-engineer appropriate wages for custom-built managerial NPCs?
As is so often the case, I feel like I'm missing something obvious, somewhere, but I'll gladly kick myself and be thankful for it if someone has an explanation or some advice. I looked around and couldn't find where someone else had asked the question, nor any official UC errata, so perhaps this will help others who consistently use the downtime system, as well.
The Craft and Profession skills allow you to attempt a skill check once per week, earning an amount of gp equal to 1/2 your check result. If you were to divide that amount by 7, you'd get your earnings per day. However, that assumes you work 7 days per week, and most people take 2 days off per week for rest and worship, so that's only 5 days of actual work per week. Dividing your check result by 2 and then by 5 is the same as dividing by 10, which is why the downtime system has you divide your check result by 10 to determine gp earned per day. You can work 7 days per week (if you really need the 2 extra days for earning capital), but even mighty adventurers need a day off now and then!
Referring to dividing your total result for earning gp or Capital by 10 to get your final earnings. Now, keep in mind that the Forgotten Realms uses tendays rather than weeks to track time, so... For instance, if you have a building that has +80 to earn gp per day, and you take 10 as suggested, your result looks, at a glance, like 90 / 10 = 9gp/day. Of course, that really isn't that bad (90gp/tenday, if your building works all the time); but, the base math is also based on a 7-day week. Blast and bebother FR tendays for this reason, by the way, but here we are.
So, the rules say that the mechanic of dividing by 10 is due to that being the same as dividing your skill check result in half (as with Craft or Profession) and then dividing by 5 (the number of days worked in a week, assuming the standard 2-day weekend) to get your daily result. In my game, we've already decided that, based on this math, there are 2 possible "work weeks" in a tenday (rather than change all the numbers entirely). But, to get the actual amount earned, do we just double it to account for 2 "work weeks" of 5 days each? Is that right? Or does it take care of itself, e.g., by simply working for 10 days, it evens out since you're still earning the 5-day rate, but for two weeks in a tenday? That doesn't seem completely correct, but the algebra is making my head swim.
Does any of this, including my question/confusion, make sense? I know I'm missing something obvious, but right now all the numerals just look like squiggly lines fighting pointlessly to the death. Please help!
After looking around and not finding anything, I thought I'd pose this question: For a character whose goal is to be functionally useful in repairing and restoring aged/damaged/ruined artwork (e.g., a water-damaged painting, a fresco discolored by mold, etc.), what would be the best skill to use?
I have my own thoughts, of course (the repair function of the Craft skill leaps immediately to mind), but I'd like to get some other opinions. I'm certain I can't be the only GM who's had a player ask the question, so I'd love to hear what others think, and the reasons why.
For clarification: The specific situation, in this instance, is a player who wants their character to be skilled in the science of restoring and maintaining antiques and old artwork, but who isn't necessarily interested in having the PC be an artist, in their own right. The question arises from the player's desire to determine whether it would be appropriate to put ranks in a single skill that might cover said science, as a whole (e.g., Profession [art restorer] or similar), rather than being forced to spread many ranks out across a large number of mostly unrelated Craft skills in order to have some demonstrable degree of proficiency.
After all, if the character isn't intended to be a painter and a potter and a sculptor and a silversmith, etc., then is it fair or useful to force them to spend quadruple, quintuple, or even more ranks just to have a usable modifier in a broad array of skills of which they'll only ever employ a single aspect, especially when (in our world) an art restoration professional may need to have a broad knowledge base concerning many types of art, but may have little mechanical artistic aptitude or ability beyond the skillset required to perform their job?
I believe this is the right forum to post this. ^_^ As the subject line says, I'm looking for some insight from others who get creative with their magic items. In this situation, I have a pair of characters in one of my games who have become romantically involved; one of them is a healing specialist, the other a combat expert. As they began to RP throughout the campaign the process of courting and eventually entering into a relationship, the question of rings naturally came up.
Rings of friend shield were suggested, because they would enable the pair to help one another stay alive while simultaneously fulfilling the real-world symbolism the players are looking for for their relationship. However, the healer then stumbled across this spell, which everyone agreed was both thematic and useful, given the circumstances. The focus component, however (as you'll note), is a pair of matched 100gp gold bracelets.
Obviously, as GM, I could fudge things and just say that a pair of really expensive gold rings are definitely good enough for our purposes here. However, the players like the idea of "love bracelets" and decided to roll with it, so I began delving into what it would cost to get the same effect as the rings using bracelets, instead.
Here's where it gets sticky... Quite aside from the fact that Ultimate Equipment seems to have altered the description of rings of friend shield almost to indicate they are 50k apiece, rather than for a pair (that's not really part of this discussion, as we're using the original description), the wondrous item version (taking up the wrist slot instead of a ring slot on the body) just comes out cheaper, at a glance. Waaay cheaper.
There are a lot of twists and turns in creating magic items (can't wait for that new sourcebook!), and unfortunately, we all know rings and wondrous items can be among the stickiest in terms of figuring prices and costs. So, how would others handle or estimate the cost of a pair of bracelets of friend shield?
I know there have been plenty of questions asked about construct armor since it became available in UM. A FAQ/errata was released here to answers some of it. For convenience, it's under the spoiler.
FAQ:
Construct Armor (page 114): How do attacks target the construct armor? Do I gain its resistances, immunities, and other defenses? What are the "benefits" and "hindrances" mentioned in this section? Does wearing it affect your speed?
The construct armor is treated as breastplate for the purpose of AC. If something targets you, it must first hit your AC. If it hits you, the attack has to get through the construct's DR or hardness and its hit points. In effect, the construct armor acts much like a pool of temporary hit points: you don't take any damage from attacks that target your AC until the construct is destroyed.
Attacks that bypass your AC bypass this protection and affects you normally (this includes most area effects). If the construct is resistant or immune to a particular attack, the attack bypasses this protection and affects you normally. Basically, the construct armor is good at mitigating damage from melee and ranged attacks, but doesn't protect you like you were the actual construct.
For example, a wood golem is immune to and healed by cold; if you're wearing wood golem armor, hitting you with a ray of frost doesn't harm the armor, heals the armor if the attack deals at least 3 points of cold damage, and deals 1d3 points of cold damage to you. Fortunately, you don't gain the construct's weaknesses; just because a wood golem has vulnerability to fire doesn't mean you take 150% fire damage when wearing wood golem armor.
The "benefits" in this section refer to the construct armor counting as breastplate and to its hit point buffer against melee and ranged attacks. The "penalties" in this section refer to the construct armor counting as breastplate.
Because the "counts as breastplate" section doesn't say it affects your speed (presumably because the construct is partially animate and able to help you move), it does not affect your speed.
Update: Page 114—In the Construct Armor modification, in the first paragraph, in the second sentence, change “first target the construct” to “damage the construct.” In the third sentence, change “regains all the hindrances” to “retains all the hindrances.”
—Sean K Reynolds, 11/16/11
I'm still having a bit of difficulty with utilizing these rules, but I'd like to use a suit of construct armor for a major NPC in an upcoming campaign I'm writing, and so would appreciate any help I could get in adjusting and dealing with the variant.
My goal is to use an iron golem shield guardian for the base construct, but I need to reduce it down to Medium size, as per the Bestiary adjustments; so, firstly, I need to make certain I've got the hang of that. Do I just reverse the stat alterations for increasing a Medium creature to Large? The entry seems to imply so.
Secondly, I need to figure out how that's going to affect the price, overall. Of course, the actual construct armor and shield guardian mods have their own costs that are described separately, so no problem there. But, I'm having trouble figuring out the cost of a Medium iron golem, what with all the talk of special abilities and costs per ability but this ability is actually two, and so forth. I don't want to do anything else special to the base golem, other than reduce its size by the one category.
Breath weapons and spells cannot pass through a wall of force in either direction, although dimension door, teleport, and similar effects can bypass the barrier. It blocks ethereal creatures as well as material ones (though ethereal creatures can usually circumvent the wall by going around it, through material floors and ceilings). Gaze attacks can operate through a wall of force.
This makes it seem as though a very specific subcategory of effects can pass through a wall of force--namely, those effects which do not produce a tangible manifestation which must pass through the intervening space between the origin point and the intended target.
Obviously, it is clearly stated that gaze attacks can do so, and you may teleport "through" or around a wall of force, despite the fact that "spells cannot pass through." Since these effects produce a result that does not rely on actually traveling physically through the plane created by the wall, they work normally. A breath weapon must actually reach its target; a gaze attack only needs to be seen.
All that to say: Even though it seems at first glance to be pretty black-and-white on spells in general, would it be fair to rule that spells that produce an effect without requiring a line of effect, that do not produce an area in which the target need be caught (such as a lightning bolt), or that otherwise do not need to physically travel in some tangible fashion to the target or target point to produce an effect (fireball) can work across/"through" a wall of force?
To clarify: Let's say, for the sake of example, you wish to cast dominate person on a target located on the other side of a wall of force from you. The spell has a range of "close" and a target of "one humanoid creature," but its effects are described as functioning through a "telepathic link that you establish with the subject's mind." Assuming it can be agreed that telepathy works normally through the wall, just as shouting presumably would, would it be legitimate to agree that dominate person can then also work normally through the wall, since nowhere in its description does it specify that it must shoot out, envelop, explode, or otherwise move from point A to point B in order to function normally? Likewise for spells such as crushing despair, black tentacles, or even summon monster?
