RAWmonger's page

The difference between necromancy and necromancy is an important one to understand.

4 levels weapon master fighter, some gloves of dueling, and Advanced Weapon Training (choosing Warrior Spirit) is a go-to for me on most 3/4 martials.

What weapon(s) you utilizing?

Edit: prestige classes are mostly overrated, that’s why I offered a simple multi-class instead

Are you guys playing Pathfinder or Age of Empires? If you think NORMAL rules are deficient, obscure, poorly written, or altogether dog doodoo, when it relates to one creature with another creature, these other rules are off the chart stupid.

As Diego said, in such HUGE grey areas, GM discretion and balancing is key…. Might not hurt to get player input on it.

Paizo never set out to try and make hard set rules on this that apply universally, cuz that isn’t the game….

What Tegger said. Here’s the clarifying FAQ on it. Since the PC also has to take the charge action he can only make the one attack.

On my phone, sorry if link doesn’t take you right to it on your screen!

The ‘grapple + maintain in the same round’ kids must be happy that Paizo decided to never officially say “you can’t do that.” Advice to your rogue: take Throat Slicer.

If you’re gonna abuse grapple might as well really get to it.

Other than that interaction that should be houseruled off the face of the planet, everything bbangerter said is right.

You can think that all you want, but you’re wrong. There is a direct quote in the AoO section that says “Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn’t count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.” Round, not action. Round. Not action…. Round…. Not action.

There is no conflict, and no reconciliation necessary. There is a general rule given, and a specific rule altering it…. Sort of like an innumerable amount of other times in pathfinder. You do not provoke more than once per enemy for moving out a threatened square in a round. Did the developers suddenly forget the very basic fact that you can take two move actions? Doubtful.

Home rule it however you want, but here I was thinking the rules question forum cared about RAW.

Edit: also your phraseology is intentionally misleading and disingenuous. There are not two separate sources conflicting. They are the exact same rules entry, one sentence after the other in that exact order: general rule, specific rule about moving out of threatened squares.

EDIT 2: I see you were talking about the table they list: granted as two separate sources. Still I believe you’re wrong though. Just like size, they’re generalizing “movement” to assume walking. However in the attempt of climbing/swimming etc… you’re still moving out of a threatened square, so the specific rule still applies. Unless climbing/swimming specifically provokes an AoO in some instances, there’s nothing supposing you’d provoke again. This is likely here as a balance rule, or larger than medium creatures with reach weapons start to actually be abusive in already difficult-movement conditions.

RAWmonger wrote:

EDIT: Also, make sure you’re understanding that the player only gets *one* attack of opportunity per triggering instance… after ‘creature A’ provokes an AoO by moving through a threatened square, creature A can walk through as many other threatened squares as he wants and won’t provoke (to that player) again that turn. He’d have to do something else that provokes in a threatened square, like cast a spell.

This is almost correct but not quite. A character only provokes once per movement. This means that if it double moves, it can potentially provoke twice.

I can see why you’d think that, but no. It’s once per round per creature, regardless of double move or not.

But belafon wasn’t responding to you, he was asking to clarify what your position is on it… I don’t mean to speak for him, but I’m quite certain he believes the movement provokes. Kind’ve unanimously we’re telling you that it definitely provokes, unless I’m mistaken.

Strong(er) pc’s should be attributed appropriate levels of aggression, assuming the creatures they’re fighting are intelligent enough to determine who the greatest threat is. Out of curiosity, what level is the PC and what sort of bonuses to hit and damage are we looking at?

Is the PC naturally large sized, or is he getting buffed by teammates? If your group wants to funnel a character I don’t see anything wrong with that. I mean combat reflexes, large size, and a reach weapon really shouldn’t be game-breaking.. that’s pretty standard play.

EDIT: Also, make sure you’re understanding that the player only gets *one* attack of opportunity per triggering instance… after ‘creature A’ provokes an AoO by moving through a threatened square, creature A can walk through as many other threatened squares as he wants and won’t provoke (to that player) again that turn. He’d have to do something else that provokes in a threatened square, like cast a spell.

I ready an action to get off the pathfinder rules question forum when I see my boss. My boss teleports adjacent to me. I'm fired.

Does that answer the question?

Like the others have stated, the language "moves out of a threatened square" does not mean "the entire creature has left that particular square." It's differentiating as a point of clarity that that moving *into* a threatened square does not immediately provoke.

"Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing certain actions within a threatened square." One of those actions is moving.

Further in the rules, in the AoO chart it lists "move" as provoking an AoO in the move action section. If you are in a threatened square and you take the "move" move action, you provoke an AoO (unless you're moving in a way that specifically does not provoke).

Is there a good reason outside of loose semantics why the large creature *wouldn't* provoke an AoO?

If you're worried or getting caught up on the "order of events" or continuity idea of it (like stopping to attack mid-overrun), remember that rules used to *play* pathfinder are just our best effort at what is, in the theater of the mind, a continuous, fluid fight. Feats and abilities are distinct, unique ways to improve your character and what they're able to do, not lock you into a box of the only three things your character can do in combat and what order they can be sequentially accomplished in.

Yes, per the feat you did not trigger the AoO until the creature was knocked prone, but all that is is our best effort to build your character's unique ability to have the chance to *both* be able to combat maneuver *and* do damage. There is absolutely no requirement that logic-wise or story/theater-wise that's how that action went. Maybe your "overrun" of the creature was smacking it upside the skull with a mace, which resulted in the creature both being knocked prone and taking damage, and you're on your merry way. And maybe if you miss the AoO, instead of you hitting the target, it tried to dodge your mace swing and tripped and fell over, or even willingly dove itself to the ground. Combat in pathfinder does not have to be A > B > C > D > E and so on. The rules and logic of feats/abilities are just there to set a standard and maintain consistency/fairness, not to tell the sequence of events for you.

This is coming from your friendly neighborhood Slashing Grace, Greater Trip Hamstring-severing Swashbuckler

I don't know enough about the example you're going for. As long as you understand that you're not *literally* throwing your sword, the same way you don't literally throw your fist, and you get no enhancement bonuses, weapon magic abilities, etc from your sword, then sure. Send a kinetic blast in the silhouette/likeness of your sword.

Question to shed some more light on your issue..... why does your bear need line of sight?

You're going to have to be more specific on what exactly is confusing you... a single attack action would be a single attack, just like any other creature... pick what weapon you want to attack with and make a single attack... the full attack works exactly as it's written...

Try using d20pfsrd, it has exactly the attack listings and their bonuses for either full-attack action option.

Specifically, if they have DR/Magic their natural attacks count as magic for overcoming DR(but not for striking incorporeal, etc)

Tangental to original Q, but is this accurate? Per FAQ, attacks that bypass DR/magic count as magic for harming incorporeal creatures. Don’t have the link handy just have the picture saved on my phone in pathfinder-related… this was answered Oct 31, 2014. Exact wording was “Such attacks should also be able to harm incorporeal creatures as if the attack was magic.”

You also only release the grapple if by the end of your turn you don't succeed in maintaining at least once. So you don't even need greater grapple as long as you don't mind potentially letting your catch free on the third round after you've pinned (on the second), assuming they survive.

Using this interpretation of the rules would mean anyone pinning an opponent could use a full round action to CdP their victim on the third round. Clearly not intended IMO

I still think he gets the crit on the bomb damage, since it states it works “as if the alchemist had thrown [it].”

So if he crits it crits as if he had thrown it imo

“deals damage normally and detonates as if the alchemist had thrown the bomb at the target.”

Treat the damage separately would be my opinion. You do weapon damage *and* the bomb explodes. Not ‘you do damage equal to the weapon plus your alchemist bomb.’

So the weapon damage gets its x4 (or whatever your crit mod might be for the weapon) the bomb crits as if you had thrown it.

Spelleater is an archetype rather than a bloodline, it doesn't directly compete or have anything to do with this question.

He’s probably creating a character and weighing late-game scaling. Might be starting this character at high level. Like spell-eater with a different bloodline or verdant with a different archetype.

Quick look at ultimate wilderness FAQ, nothing official regarding this bloodline, and couldn’t find anything similar scanning the other FAQs about when progression math doesn’t add up. It’s probably out there somewhere though as a comment on a thread from someone official.

Personally I’d lean towards you get FH7. Because it’s not ‘you can choose to increase’ as opposed to another option every 3 levels, with it capping at 6, it’s just “your fast healing increases by 1….every 3 levels thereafter.”

Plenty of other abilities cap prior to where they’d bust at 20 next progression, they could’ve done that with this one, instead it scales to level 19 so keep scaling.

Not to mention the difference of FH+\-1 is (while nice) kind’ve minuscule at level 19.

I would assume that this falls under the "We're Paizo and instead of using already written nearly-identical wording for a different ability, instead we're gonna have a writer wing it."

My best guess is this was meant to work identically to constrict.

Also, this feat functions "as though it had the grab ability," meaning any time the colossal baddy hits with a bite or claw it can use this ability, not just with a standard action.

Round 1 Baddy: Any Bite/Claw Attacks possible > success, make free grapple check > success, both creatures gained the grappled condition > baddie can continue his full attack if he has any attacks remaining, with both creatures taking any relevant penalties for the grappled condition.

Round 1 Goodie: let's assume he really wants to get out and attempts to escape the grapple that he's very likely to fail > he fails.

Round 2 Baddy: Baddy makes his grapple maintain check as a standard action > success > automatic damage from Snatch, baddy then gets to choose from the grapple options (pin, move, damage) or any other relevant options he may have from other feats/abilities.

I doubt it means: make an additional grapple check every round just to see if you get to deal this damage, then make your normal maintenance check. I think it's much more likely, "when you succeed on your typical grapple check, you automatically do this damage"

Feel like this is one of those: "Hey, we're Paizo! We made too many things that effect too many things and now too many things don't work together right with other things. THINGS!"

Creatures do not take up the entirety of the square(s) they are in. It is considered "their square", but no enemies fully fill the area of their 2D or volume of their 3D square/cube. They are moving/acting *within* that square and it is their space, but it's not equivalent to a literal wall along the lines of the square.

There is 0 rule and 0 logical reason the player cannot maneuver "diagonally." You're too cluttered by the squares aspect of it, remove the squares and set miniatures in that general area they would be if there were squares.. There is 0 reason he couldn't 5 foot step (careful, defended movement that takes the entire round to do) diagonally than there is that the character could move to any other unoccupied square by 5 ft stepping.

Take a one level dip in Maneuver Master Monk. Get a bonus combat maneuver at -2 every full attack, even if the maneuver normally takes a standard action to perform.

Also just generally impractical, grappling needs to be more than grabbing hair/beard/ear/throat, or you're going to lose that hand.

You could look into the dirty-trick maneuver if you're looking to roleplay accomplishing minor, quick debuffs to the enemy (pocketsand, a disorienting 0-damage face slap, slightly loosening a strap in the enemies armor somehow, etc...)

EDIT: Although, understand that if you're going to use this bonus combat maneuver to grapple, the "Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll" comes into effect.... So if you go this route to try and grapple one-handed, you're going to be making your check at a -6 penalty overall, just between the grapple penalty and Maneuver Master penalty.

Just the body part maintaining the hold.

But it's automatic damage, this doesn't stop that body part from attempting to pin also.

Okay so follow up question. A creature with Grab hits his first attack with the Grab ability, and also succeeds on his grapple check to grapple the foe normally, but also has 1-3 other attacks. That creature's turn is now over, right? The controller of the grapple doesn't get the option to full attack normally, only to move, pin, or attack once.

Or do creatures with grab go by a different rule set and are allowed to finish their first turn of attacks?

Essentially my question is should sometimes the creature with grab not use his grab ability on his first attack, especially if it's an intelligent creature and knows it can be more effective by bypassing the grab ability until one of its later attacks, assuming it hits again. Or should you play it out that the grab ability should effectively always be utilized, even if it's not optimal?

Like, wild octopus should almost always be attempting to utilize grab every hit, because that's what they do... but say a Druid wild shaped into a Bear.... should he bypass Grab on his first attack(s) if it would cancel the rest of his full attack?

The short answer: No you don't get to make grappling stronger by not giving the opponent even a single round to attempt to get out. The purpose of not allowing "maintain" checks prior to your next turn is that it gives the opponent *a single* chance to avoid certain death by pinning and murder-hobo stabbing.

Honestly if someone tried this at my table, the next encounter would be multiple dimensional savant grappling masters who would immediately grapple, maintain to pin, and have their buddy come Coup de grace you with throat slicer. Stop gaming the game, especially when the game you're trying to game (grappling) is already super gamey.

Imagine if your GM said: If I hit this roll you automatically lose. Honestly so insufferable every time this question gets asked.

Absolutely not, it:

Universal Monster Rules entry for the Grab (Ex) ability states "The creature has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use the part of its body it used in the grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a –20 penalty on its CMB check to make and maintain the grapple, but does not gain the grappled condition itself. A successful hold does not deal any extra damage unless the creature also has the constrict special attack. If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold."

We typically steer away from creatures with grab, since it can quickly become.... inconvenient... but I had a question regarding this ability. Is the latter part of this quote referencing "a successful hold" regarding when the creature takes a -20 on the check and succeeds in grappling the foe with *only* that body part, or does it mean in either way the creature chose to make the grapple check and succeeds? If it's just with the one body part, then I assume the next sentence means that that one body part does automatic damage, and every other action the creature has plays out normally.

If it's referring to either way, how do you interpret the next sentence regarding automatic damage? Does that mean that the creature controlling the grapple can only do damage, and not choose to move or pin, or does it mean that the damage is automatic after the check, and then the grappling creature can then choose between damage/move/pin?

I think those extra sentences refer to *only* taking the -20 check and succeeding on grappling with only that body part, and that the phrase "if it chooses to do the latter" continues through the rest of the entry, but I may be wrong. Just looking for clarification before some grabby creatures come into play.

Remembered why I come here so rarely now. Absolute delusion to think you keep Dex to CMD while blinded/pinned, whatever it is just because they didn’t write the rules perfectly worded or come to your homegame and stamp it on your forehead for you. Just use general common sense, we don’t need a “ruling from on high,” we’re not 6 year olds. If you are blind and someone attempts to sweep your leg, you’re not going to be able to react prior to being hit. It is no longer your dex that can save you, you’re relying on your own brawn (str) and combat training (BAB) to keep you from losing. You definitely are not meant to maintain dex to CMD when blinded.

If you are pinned you obv lose dex to CMD, you’re pinned. If you’re the one pinning, you obviously lose dex to CMD, because *in order to pin someone, your own movement also has to be very limited.* Watch an MMA fight, they get them in a submission hold, translate over to pathfinder: does either fighter get their dex bonus to CMD, or would you say that’s out of the picture by this point?

Buffoonery, guys. Buffoonery.

Let’s not act like fall damage is even a big deal. You’d have to be incredibly lucky IRL to survive a fall from 50 feet (or at least not sustain permanent severe injury). Meanwhile in pathfinder that’s an average of 18 damage. Level 2 characters can survive that, and most level 1’s won’t immediately die to it (unconscious and dying).

You’ll find me on the harsher side of your argument. If you’re scaling a rock cliff and someone wants to kill you, they’re probably going to get to, because logic.

Yikes though if an optimized horizon Walker is still the heaviest hitter at your table... the huge bonuses into favored terrain is nice for checks and initiative, but it’s silly to assume that they’re not still the easiest bonuses (like favored enemy or bane) to make irrelevant in an open campaign. Unlike the classic broken 2H builds for damage, or, I don’t know, ANY CASTER. By the time a horizon walker has the insane stats, a mediocre optimized caster is still save or die. Y’all need to stop being so ardently opposed to making level 15-20 Martial’s decent just because the numbers you see at “to hit” scare you

I could literally ruin entire campaigns with relatively meta caster builds with spell perfection just because it’s *that easy* to make some spells unsaveable.

No. Vigorous through very violent movement might apply depending on the type of water, or other distraction-related concentration checks. But the main problem with casting underwater is the fact that the caster can’t breathe underwater.

“Spellcasting Underwater: Casting spells while submerged can be difficult for those who cannot breathe underwater. A creature that cannot breathe water must make a concentration check (DC 15 + spell level) to cast a spell underwater (this is in addition to the caster level check to successfully cast a fire spell underwater). Creatures that can breathe water are unaffected and can cast spells normally. Some spells might function differently underwater, subject to GM discretion.”

*Cough* Natural Attack Shadow Dancer build with Pressure Points *Cough*

“but at most once per 5 fighter levels.”

No feat says it can only be taken once, that’s just the pathfinder general rule regarding feats. Some have special exceptions, like that listed above.

Training does not say you are granted any feat you want as long as you meet the prerequisites, it says “This feat... functions for the wielder only if she meets its prerequisites.“

This doesn’t negate other rules. If you already had Improved Initiative, and then you chose Improved Initiative again with Training, it wouldn’t stack. Or for that matter, any other feat you already have, you couldn’t use, since you can only take feats once (unless otherwise noted). Training doesn’t give you a workaround to other existing rules, so if you’re a 6th legal fighter who already has AWT, you do not qualify to benefit from taking AWT again until 10th level, unless you’re a weapon master fighter.

The part I misremembered is that i could’ve sworn you had to move away from combat/enemies to your best ability. But I guess I just spliced whatever panicked/frightened rules into my understanding of withdraw.

You can always modify encounters as well, based on what the encounter needs to be to give your party an appropriately challenging fight (based on how challenging you want the fight to be). If your creatures are primarily melee-based, consider adding an additional creature to future fights, increasing the chance that a hit gets through. Consider effects that can make player characters flatfooted, so that he loses his dex bonus to AC.

Consider adding ranged creatures. If a ranged creature knows there's a caster around, it's not unreasonable that they would ready an action to interrupt their casting, if he's trying to cast shield and barkskin during combat.

If these players are 5th level already, they should be encountering their fair share of casters or other creatures that make armor bonuses pretty irrelevant.

Not to mention that at Hunter 4/Sorc 1, the character only has +3 BAB and has severely limited himself to dealing damage at later levels... If he wants to tank and never hit, let him. If you really want to be able to effect him in melee, use combat maneuvers... Depending on his strength, it looks like his CMD is currently:

10+3Bab+4Dex = 17. So his CMD should be 17+STR, since he's not getting any size, dodge, deflection, or divine/profane bonuses to AC that would apply to his CMD. Sunder his shield. Disarm him. Trip him (-4 to AC). Dirty trick him. There's plenty of effective things to do in melee besides damage.

Yes and no, it depends on how you want to read the text to Empty Quiver Flex. It says "While using Empty Quiver Style, you can apply any feats and class abilities you possess that modify your ranged attack rolls and damage rolls..."

Modifying rolls is different from modifying attacks in general. This feat is saying feats/abilities that give you a bonus (or a penalty, as i'll get to later) to your attack or damage roll...

However, flurry of blows does modify your attack rolls, it gives you a -2 to hit when you use it. And there's no text that says that you only use the part of the feat that modifies the roll, so technically you can use it with this feat, although it's my opinion that it's not meant to work with it.

To answer your edit, you only use the stats for the weapon (like when you'd use spear dancing style and the butt of your spear gets the stats of a light mace, you still get the bonuses from any weapon-specific feat/abilities of the original weapon).

And that's your prerogative. Just know that there are players out there that will make it a point to show you why that's an iffy houserule by pulling off some real wonky crap... since they're trading their first weapon training for an equivalent bonus with a specific type of weapon, *also* gaining other abilities from their other weapon trainings at later levels, and on top of the same attack/damage bonus and unique abilities, also being granted the ability to bypass the weapon training feat prerequisite.

Definitely not. The real question is why aren't you getting shield focus anyway?

If Armor Training and Shield Defense were more similar it might be a different story, but they're entirely different abilities. It's already pretty strong that it gives you a scaling shield bonus, so to also have it count as armor training for this prerequisite just so that you can bypass a feat that will benefit your character anyway.... that's a little iffy.

To offer a little precedent that's similar, there are a bunch of archetypes that replace weapon training with an ability that's similar, but doesn't count as weapon training... Would you allow all of those to qualify for Weapon Mastery Feats without taking Martial Focus?

Yes, using the feats gained by vigilante talents triggers this effect. And it's for a good reason.

It's a "use common sense" sort of rule. The problem with vigilante is that it's easy to play outside of the intended way...

Your character should be similar to how different Bruce Wayne is from Batman. Bruce seems exactly like the type of person that *couldn't be batman* because his personality is so different in his "social identity."

Even though you might be a level 11 vigilante and have 6 other feats not from vigilante talents, your social identity shouldn't seem like a good fighter... Not because he's not allowed to be, but because you're trying to draw as much attention away from the possibility that you're capable of that sort of thing, since you're trying to make it seem impossible or at least highly unlikely that you're the vigilante.

If people watch your social identity absolutely destroy someone in combat, even though you didnt use your one vigilante-talent feat, and then also there are stories of some vigilante who's maybe only slightly better at combat, they may not make that connection for sure, but they'd certainly be less surprised or dismiss the idea that you could be the vigilante...

Your social identity shouldn't be slightly worse at combat than your vigilante, your social identity should be intentionally avoiding combat, unless he can do it sneakily or make it pass as an accident or lucky... If you can't do any of these things, and you have witnesses, you should be intentionally fighting as poorly as possible while still making sure you don't die. Bruce Wayne wouldn't join the Gotham City freestyle MMA fighting tournament.

The Warden Ranger Archetype does not ever replace or otherwise alter the Ranger Favored Terrain ability, but at level 1 gains the ability "Master of Terrain" which grants him his first favored terrain at 1 and a second at level 3. Does that stack with the Favored Terrain ability that he also get as a ranger at level 3? So does this mean that at level 3 this class is meant to have 3 favored terrains already, meaning more than likely a +6 in one of those terrains and +2 in the others?

This seems... Strong. Especially once I grab boots of friendly terrain and start running Horizon Walker at level 7...

Why does the feat stunning fist gives me one use per day per brawler level? The second sentence of martial training counts me in as monk, nice, but afterwards in the feat stunning fist it is said: "A monk may attempt a stunning attack a number of times per day equal to his MONK LEVEL."

Martial Training:"She also counts as... a monk for feats... that have different effects based on whether the character has levels in those classes (such as Stunning Fist and a monk’s robe)." Stunning fist has a different effect if you have levels in monk. That effect is "A monk may attempt a stunning attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level." Since it has a different effect for characters who have monk levels, the brawler counts their levels as monk levels for this effect.

"At 4th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the monk gains the ability to apply a new condition to the target of his Stunning Fist" is it then meant: "At 4th level, and every 4 levels thereafter (AS A MONK)..."

That's correct. Scaling class abilities, or class abilities that grant other effects at later levels, only care about your class level, not your character level, unless otherwise specified.

So, does the special of the feat Dragon Ferocity gives a monk and a brawler, if they also take the feat elemental fist, the ability Elemental Fist of the Monk of the four winds? And if yes, am I correct, that a monk would benefit from the scaling of this ability and the brawler would not like you already wrote for stunning fist?

So this is most definitely a corner case and I don't know for sure. I'm inclined to say that the Brawler levels count in this instance, because it's the feat that says "A monk [and therefor a brawler] with this feat can use Elemental Fist as if he were a monk of the four winds." And I agree that this feat special effect is talking about the supernatural ability they get with the scaling damage, since there's really no other difference for Monks of the Four Winds.

The difference between this feat and Stunning Fist, is that Stunning Fist does not say in the feat that "a monk with this feat can use stunning fist as the monk class ability." They do this because there are Monk archetypes that trade out Stunning Fist for other stuff, so if a monk with one of those Archetypes got the feat Stunning Fist at a later level, they would not get the bonus conditions that come with having the class ability.

Last question in this concern: Having read your last sentence, I already guess that a brawler character, who makes at the very first character level a dip into the monk archetype Master of Many Styles ( https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo-monk-ar chetypes/master-of-many-styles/ ), will get the ability "fuse style", but the ability does not scale any more since there won´t be any more monk level ups, but just brawler ones? Am I right?

That's correct. You would only be able to use "fuse style" as a level 1 master of many styles monk, regardless of your character level. The logic behind this is that if class abilities scaled with character level, then everyone would just take a new level in a different class every time, and end up with every class ability in the game that scales with their character level. Master of Many Styles or Maneuver Master monk are probably my all-time favorite one-level dips. Huge saving throw bonuses, and great level 1 class abilities.

Hope this has helped. Cheers.

“ You keep your Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, level, class, base attack bonus, base save bonuses, alignment, and mental abilities.“

While this doesn’t say that you maintain YOUR feats known, I believe you do, since it’s still your mind/soul within their body and most of the feats we’re talking about are things that you taught/trained yourself to do. The host body still has to meet prerequisites for those feats however (other than in the areas where you are controlling the host). So if his strength is below 10 (like if you possessed an assassin or something) you can’t power attack with him, he’s not strong enough for you to utilize it

EDIT: ninja’d by avr.

The last sentence means that when you take your first level in Brawler, you don't automatically get Stunning Fist as a bonus feat (or any other bonus feats), like a level 1 monk would, and the same applies to any fighter bonus feats from fighter levels.... You don't get those feats. You just count your Brawler level as monk & fighter for any feats you choose at your normal character progression (odd numbered character levels) and for your bonus combat feats that you get due to Brawler levels.

The second sentence and the third sentence are completely separate. The second sentence states that when feats and magic items have specific effects based on monk or fighter levels, you count your Brawler level as fighter and monk levels for the purpose of those feats and those magic items.

The Feat "Stunning Fist" Does not include this text: At 4th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the monk gains the ability to apply a new condition to the target of his Stunning Fist. This condition replaces stunning the target for 1 round, and a successful saving throw still negates the effect.

The Monk Class ability includes that text. Regardless of if you dip a level into monk, you will not get to count your brawler levels as monk levels for the purpose of this class ability, because it is a class ability that grants those new conditions, not the feat.

The Feat Stunning Fist does include this text:" monk may attempt a stunning attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk."

So as a level 4 Brawler you can use Stunning Fist 4 times a day, not once, since the *feat* has specific effects for a monk, and your Brawler levels count as fighter levels for the purpose of what the feat effects.

You only only only only only count your Brawler level as monk and fighter for the effects in feats and magic items, not the way that other class abilities from monk or fighter might effect those feats.

Someone call the Church of Pharasma, there's some unholy works going on in this thread....

CAN ANYONE LIST ANY SQ's THAT APPLY HERE

I'm having trouble finding SQ's that improve melee/ranged attacks that aren't already special attacks that get removed...

You should be able to, although it says "A larger version of the wrist launcher," but it does not say "this otherwise functions as a wrist launcher," which is the key phrase in pathfinder for stuff like this.

It's clear you can still conceal it under your clothing, since that's the whole point of a wrist launcher, no matter the size, but you may not get the "After firing, the wearer can attempt a Sleight of Hand check opposed by opponents’ Perception checks to keep the wrist launcher concealed."

Personally I'd say you get it, since if you don't carry over those rules for the wrist launcher, there's no reason you should carry over the reloading rules from the same text... which means there would be literally no written rules for reloading the heavy wrist launcher.

You absolutely *can* ride them, it just becomes a question of how adequately you can ride them. They will certainly not be as effective as just using a normal mount which has been trained for the purpose of mounted combat...

Immediately you take a -5 to ride checks because they are "ill suited as a mount." Regardless of what undead creature you're riding. It's literally a mindless creature, and on top of that, it's either all bone or bone and rotting tissue... making it rather ill suited for use as a mount. Then I would imagine you *probably* don't have a saddle for this. Even if you had a saddle, a normal horse saddle on an undead horse *wouldn't* function correctly, since there's no longer the muscle/tissue of the horse there reliably enough to secure the saddle. So if you're going to claim to make a saddle, it would be quite the engineering feat, since you would have to nearly permanently secure it to the undead creature's bones. No saddle puts us at another -5 to ride, for a total of -10.

Then you verbally command them and they obey "to the best of their abilities." Undead are not meant to be given complex commands, which leads me to believe their capability of comprehending commands is about the same as a simple machine given "if>then" commands. The RAW examples given are "follow me" and "guard this area," with other simple things like "attack this type of creature if you see it," and obviously a shrill "kill him" when you want it to attack something. Mounted combat is slightly more complex than that. It would become *very* situational on the actual verbal commands you start giving your mount. This mount simply would not have the same intuition on how to act as a combat trained mount would, since this mount is literally brainless.

Even just generally travelling would be a nuisance with this mount. Your best bet is to ride behind one of your teammates and then say "follow him" so that you don't have to keep on telling your mount where to walk to. Then you have to say "stop" every time you want it to stop.

Or you're currently going through a dungeon and there's a lot of stopping and starting and listening and stealthing, and all the while the necromancer is going: "walk to that corner." "stop." "turn me around." "follow the fighter." "stop."

Not to mention the mount *has no idea* how fast you want it to go (which trained mounts learn through your body language and nonverbal cues you give them), so if you don't specify for it by saying "take me to x quickly" your undead mount either runs as fast as it possibly can at them, as slow as it possibly can at them, or some randomly rolled speed determined by the GM. Mindless Undead also do not fall under the "you cannot command them to hurt/kill themselves" rule like other compulsion-ish spells (as far as i'm aware). So if you're chasing something that succesfully jumps a gap that your undead creature can't, or flies over a chasm, or you're going down a steep pass, you better think to tell your undead mount to stop, because if not, he's going to keep on chasing it, because you told him to.

This would be much more like setting a launch path for your rocket flight to the moon than it would be taking the horse into town casually.

Of course if you're just trying to have some fun little thing for your character, talk to your GM about it. He may overlook some of the specifics/technicalities of undead (like the way every non-evil creature will immediately take up arms against you or bow to your will if you're alone seen riding into town on an undead creature...)

TL;DR

It’s really just a balancing decision. It’s so that cheeky kids like me don’t run halfling with helpful alongside benevolent on a shield and armor and end up granting like a +7 to AC at level 10 just by expending an AoO.

Your best bet with bodyguard is to run a high high damage build. Otherwise they’re just going to ignore you either way. It’s better to build a character that says “target me, or else.” And then also run bodyguard. Max HP and damage will always outlive high armor.

For confirmation, see basically any NPC wearing an AoNA in any published book.

For example

or here

Feel like this part here is pretty irrefutable. The characters/creatures officially created by the designers and writers follow the more intuitive side of this argument (more intuitive in my opinion). Why twist semantics and make an overly-long argument to oppose not only 99% of players in the game, but also the designers of the game on an issue that's so minor that it's almost negligible?