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Hey everyone,

A situation came up in the game where the Druid in my group shaped changed into a Tiny creature (a bat in this case). The Wild Shape ability states it works like the Beast Shape spell. Upon review of that spell, it states;

If the form you assume has any of the following abilities, you gain the listed ability: climb X feet, Fly Y feet, Swim Z feet

Where X,Y,Z are numbers varying with the level of the Beast Shape spell.

The question, as you can well imagine, if the animal that the Druid selects has that ability, but at a lower listed score, does the Druid get the full benefit of the spell and can now fly/swim/climb at a rate faster than the original animal can? Conversely, if the value indicated by the Animal is better, is the Druid capped?

Example: Druid transforms into a Tiny Bat. As listed in the Beastiary, the bat has a fly speed of 30'. The Druid is level 10 and can Wild Shape as Beast Shape III which has an indicated Fly speed of 90'. Does this mean that the Druid-Bat can fly at 90' or does it simply mean that if the creature possesses Fly, the Druid can fly, up to the creature's natural Fly speed or 90', whatever is smaller?

My view is NO in the first and YES in the second.

My reasoning is as follows: The very idea of Wild Shape is diversity. It gives the Druid a great number of options. However, if you simply gave flat values for all these options, then the Druid would simply find the one animal that is superior in all orther aspects and always change into that. Using the innate balance of the creatures within the forces the Druid to make choices of one over the other; i.e. one might fly faster than another, but possess a superior natural weapon attack, or have as sense that the other doesn't possess.

I also really hate the idea of all creatures just being flattened out like that for the Druid. It makes their Wild Shape really boring.

Hi everyone,

I recently awarded a player a weapon with the Spell Storing magical property. This particular character is a Magus, so I thought the item would be a great enhancement to his character.

The Magus has an ability called Spellstrike which allows the character to channel a Touch spell into an attack roll. The Spellstrike ability explicitly states that in the event of a confirmed Critical Hit, the spell damage is also made critical (only a x2).

However, what happens if the spell was delivered through the Spell Storing magical effect as opposed to the Spellstrike Supernatural ability? In this particular even, he had Vampiric Touch stored in the weapon. He scored and confirmed a critical hit. At the time of the ruling, I allowed the Critical Hit with the sword strike to also apply to the Vampiric Touch. However, should this have been the case?

For the record, spell storing property states:

Anytime the weapon strikes a creature and the creature takes damage from it, the weapon can immediately cast the spell on that creature as a free action if the wielder desires.

There are several scenarios I thought of but wasn't sure what the correct ruling should have been:

1. The Vampiric Touch spell cast as a free action upon successfully damaging an opponent, but that this spell functions as the spell normally would and thus would require an immediate second touch-attack roll to confirm the hit. The reason I thought this was that the spell functions as if the spell was cast normally, except that it was triggered as a free action through the sword... so since Vampiric Touch still requires an attack roll, then an immediate attack roll should have been made. In the event it was a spell that does not require an attack roll, then the spell goes off normally (e.g. Suggestion or Magic Missile).

2. The Vampiric Touch successfully goes off, no further attack roll is needed, but it is considered a normal hit and the normal spell effect is triggered.

3. The attack roll used to deliever the attack is also used to determine if the spell effect is a critical hit. Thus the Vampiric Touch is a critical since the sword hit was a critical... but only if the spell would normally have allowed for a critical hit.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Pentar

Hi everyone,

I'm sure this question has been asked in various forms thoroughout the ages since the intro of DR, but here goes once more:

If a spell causes an effect that deals physical damage, does Damage Reduction apply?

For example, the spell Spike Growth causes vegetation to become sharp and pointy - that is the effect of the spell. The damage that is caused as a result of traversing the affected area is defined as "Piercing damage" in the spell description:

Any creature moving on foot into or through the spell's area takes 1d4 points of piercing damage for each 5 feet of movement through the spiked area

.

Does the rule of spell damage by-passing DR apply in this case? Or in any other case where similar effects were to occur (e.g. Spike Stones). My argument in favour of DR applying is that the damage is not a direct result of the spell itself and that the damage specifically indicates a physical type of damage (in this case "piercing").

In game play, I stuck with the strict interpertation of the rules itself; that is the spell "caused the damage" so the damage ignored DR... but upon further reflection, I do not think that is the correct ruling.

Thoughts?

Hello,

I was wondering if there was any rule regarding the damage type of a sneak-attack? I believe the most common-sense approach is that a sneak attack takes on the damage "type" of the attack used to generate the sneak attack.

Example 1:
A Cold Iron Longsword +1 that is used to deliver a sneak attack will cause that damage to by pass any damage reduction Cold Iron and/or Magic. The reverse also being true, that sneak attack damage using a weapon that cannot bypass the damage reduction of the creature it is hitting has damage reduction applied.

In the case of the above, do I calculate all damage from the one attack and then deduct DR? Or do I treat Sneak Attack as a separate damage pool that DR works against separately?

Example 2
A Scorching Ray used to generate a sneak attack will have that added damage be considered [Fire], thus fire resistance/immunity or vulnerability applies normally.

I've heard some arguments that Sneak attack damage is "untyped".. it's just precision damage and no form of defensive or vulnerability applies. I disagree with this.

Thoughts?

Hi everyone,

I have a few questions I wanted to ask the community. Been about 2 years since we last played D&D v3.5 (or some variant thereof) and getting into Pathfinder was like a cinch. However, there are rule differences and my memory isn't what it used to be, so anyway... here goes:

1. Dispel Magic used on a summoned creature can send the creature back, this much it states in the rules. However, it only addresses a single creature. What if a Summon Monster was used to summon multiple lower-level creatures. Can only 1 be targeted, or is the entire summoned effect affected when a Dispel Magic is used (i.e. all the summoned creatures are sent back if the spell is targeted)? Perhaps this is only an ability that Greater Dispel Magic can grant and the lower level one just has to make due with one-at-a-time?

2. Can you make a Sneak Attack with ranged-touch / Touch spells? I assume the standard rules of being within 30' feet still applies, but I recall back in v3.5 D&D you could do this, but perhaps it was only the special ability of certain classes (like Arcane Trickster). I also can't find rules on this re: Precision based attacks, but are Sneak attack damage die multiplied when it scores a critical hit?

3. I've looked all over for this but I can't find anything on using Metamagic to create magical items. For example, creating an Empowered Wand of Magic Missiles. It fits within the level limit and I'm 95% sure it can be done, but can someone please verify for me? I know that some metamagic feats are wasted on magical items (i.e. a Quickened effect on an item that takes a Standard Action to use will still take a standard action, regardless of the Quickened).

Thanks!