Ridiculon's page

cause they're level 10 ultra delux tightie whities

Not sure if you differentiate ChromeOS and Linux generally but I didn't have any issues on my Chromebook. I'll try to remember to look at Mac OS tonight.

Regarding the control module, the use of skills, attack rolls and so forth, is based on the qualifier that the "device can already operate autonomously." Page 215, second sentance of the second paragraph under the heading of "control."

So, prior to the control module being installed, can the Powered Armor operate Autonomously? I read it no.

I do think an Automated Turret can opperate autonomously, but I'm basing that on it's name, not any reading on automated turret rules.

Automated Turrets do present a case for an object (in this case a gun) operating without a PC.

An antipersonnel weapon must be mounted near the boarding ramp of a Medium or smaller starships. This weapon can be any longarm whose item level is equal to or less than the starships’s tier. By spending 5 additional Build Points, the installed weapon can be a heavy weapon (of creature scale, not starships scale). When an antipersonnel weapon is activated, if a hostile creature approaches within the weapon’s range increment, it begins firing with an attack roll modifier equal to the ship’s tier (minimum 1). It fires once per round during combat until its ammunition is depleted or the hostile creature is disabled or flees. The weapon can’t detect invisible (or similarly hidden) creatures. This weapon can’t be removed and used by characters. Anyone with access to the starships’s computer system can activate or deactivate the weapon, as well designate what kind of targets are considered hostile. Once installed, this weapon can’t be removed from the starships without destroying it.

If these didn't exist then I'd probably agree with you about that line talking about robots. The automated turrets make that line seem pretty nonsensical, I don't know how to handle that and I hope that they clarify the rules on control modules more.

I'm headed home from work and probably wont be responding any more till tomorrow

And for the record, the lack of quotes is related to the difficulty of quoting via the medium I'm using to type, not actual lack of quotable rules. Honestly, pretty proud of doing as well as I am without a functioning spellcheck or autocorrect.

Fair enough, it is pretty impressive in that light hah.

A starship isn't like an ocean going ship, you can't always just get up alongside it and loot it. Its venting atmosphere, thruster control systems are damaged, some bits of it are just straight up exploding and all of these things are going to make it difficult to salvage. It's trajectory is going to be erratic, its going to take some serious piloting mojo to come alongside and maintain a safe distance long enough to get the goods, much less repair damaged systems or hull breaches to the point where it isn't flailing around wildly and dangerously. It may be completely impossible without the correct equipment (tractor beams or some sort of high power clamp/arms). Moving between two such ships would be insanely dangerous, even if they are clamped together the damaged vessel is going to be moving the whole mess around and any "pedestrian" caught between them is likely to get pulped.

Basically unless you heavily invest into salvage equipment salvaging the ship itself is tantamount to suicide, it makes much more sense from a time, money, and staying-in-one-piece point of view to scoop up the most valuable bits that are blown off during combat. Maybe after a particularly good shot on a ship component you can comment about how a module just went flying off, maybe have the players make a piloting or engineering check to mark the trajectory for later pickup.

That being said, if the players invest into salvage equipment you should let them have the ship. Just be sure to make a salvage ship only good at salvaging.

On top of this you could have a salvage service that the players could call in for their 10% finder's fee if they (understandably) don't feel like risking their lives and ship attempting the extremely dangerous actions involved in salvaging damaged ships.

This thread makes it sound like SP is a shield that regenerates if you stop for a minute haha

I was in a homebrew campaign where we got our hands on an airship, it made a pretty decent mobile base after we added a crapload of copper plating to the underside.

Smuggler's Collapsible Robe. What this lets you do is escape from combat... but only into the robe. Anything that's actually a threat to you is likely to either take the robe with them or destroy it, either of which puts you right back in the same predicament. It's not a bad ability per se but it really isn't great either (compared to e.g. a scroll of dimdoor), what's shocking about it is the price. How many smugglers do you think have 48000 gold just lying around for a haphazard pseudo-escape?

There are several other uses that i can see, and you are also forgetting the bonus that the robe does not detect as magical when in use

-Its a safe place to sleep
-You can put a STR based character with their entire inventory into the robe (including bags of holding, although they wont be able to access them while they are inside the robe space) and have the wizard take them wherever (teleport, overland flight, planar shift, invisibility, etc.)
-You can poke a robe through much smaller cracks than you can poke a medium sized creature through. Say, under that door that can only be unlocked from the inside?
-Grappled by a better grappler? Robe
-Suddenly ejected into the vacuum of space? Robe
-Falling? Robe
-Drowning? Robe
-Trash Compactor? Robe
-NPC escort mission? Robe
-Unwelcome visit from the town guard? Robe
-Unwelcome visit from the in-laws? Robe

48,000 GP is still a really high price, but a few of those uses are typically accomplished with spells or other highly priced items and it can do all of them multiple times a day

From Aquatic Adventures:

Creatures with a natural swim speed from the aquatic or water subtype don’t take these penalties with their inherent natural attacks. For instance, a kraken’s bludgeoning tentacle attacks don’t take penalties, but if it took the ectoplasmatist spiritualist archetype from Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures and gained two slashing ectoplasmic lash attacks, those would still take the penalties. Attacks that deal bludgeoning damage by pushing water, such as a kineticist’s water blast, also take no penalty and deal full damage underwater.

So the water kineticist's physical blast specifically doesn't take penalties, the others would probably follow the special spell rules for energy blasts and the normal ranged rules for physical blasts.

Cold Spells: Spells that deal cold damage but don’t normally conjure ice, like cone of cold, instead deal half cold damage and half piercing damage, as the cold creates jagged ice shards underwater. This has no effect on spells that already create ice, rather than just cold damage.

Electricity Spells: While normal electricity, such as that from a natural thunderstorm, tends to disperse in all directions underwater, magical electricity spells hold their integrity enough to have normal effects underwater, with one exception: visible and audible lightning bolts and sparks are the result of combusted air, and they don’t happen underwater. Because of this, creatures that fail to identify an electricity spell that requires a ranged touch attack are flat-footed against the first such ranged touch attack during a fight, as they don’t realize they need to dodge the invisible projectile (unless they otherwise have reason to expect it, like a spellcaster who can cast such spells). This doesn’t apply to melee touch spells like shocking grasp, since the creature can still see the spellcaster’s hand moving towards it.
Fire Spells: While normal fire (including alchemist’s fire) and most supernatural fire can’t burn underwater at all, fire spells have a chance to transform into steam instead. Whenever you cast a fire spell underwater, you must succeed at a caster level check (DC = 20 + the spell’s level) in order to channel the heat into the water and create steam, dealing the same amount of fire damage as normal but without secondary effects of fire, like igniting combustibles. A fire spell must be either entirely steam or entirely fire, which means that if it covers an area that would normally extend beyond the water’s surface, you must choose whether to affect the region above the water or below, and the surface blocks line of effect for the rest of the spell. A spell or spell-like ability with the fire descriptor that already creates steam (like a kineticist’s steam blast) doesn’t require the caster level check to create steam; only spells that would normally create an actual fire require the check.

If you're really worried about them you could always force them to change race, provided you can find a high level witch to do it for you.

If they don't have the extra wording then yes, they don't stack. It used to be thought that this was only because the class was so old, but then they put out URogue which also doesn't have the stacking rule which pretty much sunk that hope.

Again, YMMV by table. The rule is annoyingly sneaky subtle, you have to be able to see all the different types of sneak attack to know its there.

I've used Mirror Image to purposefully drain the op attacks of the enemy so my melee friends can move freely, its got some nice battle utility aside from just pure defense.

Well it seems like the obvious answer here is to have your party members take the burn instead of you. As the healer you need to be awake or risk people dying. If the level of nonlethal the party has taken gets to the point where it is risky to engage in another fight then its time to stop for the day anyway.

Dont need to spike the door, just grow a casing around the edges of the door itself. or better yet, completely encase the door in stone

If someone had a way to rework the ability so it works with the Kinetic Knight, I'd listen but I don't blame Paizo for not finding a way to fit it in.

If they had wanted only 2/3rds of the ability to apply they could have added "(excepting Unstoppable)" to the ability, which makes me think this was pure oversight. Anyway here is how I would rework it ->

Unstoppable: When the samurai [Kinetic Knight] is reduced to fewer than 0 hit points but not slain [falls below his non-lethal damage threshold], he can spend one use of his resolve as an immediate action to instantly stabilize and remain conscious. He is staggered , but he does not fall unconscious and begin dying if he takes a standard action. He does [and will] fall unconscious if he takes additional damage from any source.

easier to read version:

Unstoppable: When the Kinetic Knight falls below his non-lethal damage threshold, he can spend one use of his resolve as an immediate action to remain conscious. He is staggered and will fall unconscious if he takes additional damage from any source.

You won't catch me saying the other two Resolve options are bad, they are definitely not. I'm saying that this ability would have set the archetype apart by allowing the Knight to keep adventuring (after being healed back above their threshold) beyond the point at which other kineticists become a liability for the party.

I just realized a Kitsune will be able to make much better use of this if they are trying to stay anonymous. Their true form is a fox, you could use it as a branding mascot or a gang tag or whatever and no one would ever realize it was being used for surveillance.

Heck, even if it moves that could play into the branding or legend of the gang.

A white canvas with no image visible versus a white canvas with an invisible image.

The difference is very subtle, no?

Is an invisible image of your likeness really an image of your likeness?

The answer is yes, it is still an image of your likeness. Just the same as an image behind a curtain still being an an image. Just because the one is obscured by magic does not mean it ceases to exist.

EDIT: third example, white ink on a white canvas

I can live with the defensive talent nerf (adding a cost to a 0 cost talent cant be anything else), but i think there was a place where the kinetic knight could have really stood apart and been the flavorful tanky warrior it seems to want to be.

As i mentioned in another thread, i think a huge opportunity was missed when they did not tailor the Unstoppable Resolve ability to be used with the Kinetic Knight's kit

By RAW a kinetic knight will never get any benefit from this ability, to use their powers to the fullest they must attune to their shield for 1 burn so they will always be under their non-lethal threshold by the time they hit 0 hit points (you can't "remain conscious" if you weren't conscious to begin with). If they had changed that to let the kinetic knight remain conscious under their non-lethal threshold it would have made the Knight shine.

someone would have to be able to recognize you from the image/bust, i dont think it needs to be any more specific than that

If only creating a homunculous in your image counted.

that would be cool, but its unnecessary. You can just give the homunculous a tattoo of your face on an arm or something.

If you spend a week or two Shaping Stone you can have a Mt. Rushmore sized head. Similar idea if you convince some nation to build a giant statue.

Ship's figurehead (although again it may take some convincing). This could be fun for a merchant baron.

Learn to whittle, toss a pocket sized bust into a river for interesting sightseeing. Ditto with Stone Shape and deep ocean areas.

This would have all sorts of fun applications in an intrigue campaign if you printed your face on calling cards or leaflets (but then again everyone would know your face). It would make for a fairly secure spy network, although you would have to keep a disguise on at all times since anyone could see your real face (cap of human guise?)

ah, but just "attacking things" becomes way more effective when you can get 3 golems for the price of one

pls, pls no

Killer Robot 34.672 makes its attack roll

RangerWickett stares imploringly into its optical sensors

Killer Robot 34.672 spontaneously generates a beating heart and cannot bring itself to hit the adorable RangerWickett

RangerWickett promptly rips Killer Robot 34.672's new heart out of its chest housing with their bare hands

Man, I wouldn't craft anything for you guys like, ever.

Maybe its just a cultural difference showing through the internet but if my brother came to me and asked me to make him something for free/at cost I would tell him no and go on with my day.

There is a difference between freely giving a gift to a friend and a friend demanding a free gift that I think many of you should consider more closely.

^ this, the FAQ only talks about getting extra attacks. The post is asking about whether the vestigial arms have claws. Two separate things

Gray Warden wrote:

Disclaimer 1: this is something I've been thinking for a long time, so this will be looooooong. Continue only if really interested.

Disclaimer 2: before you reply with random variations of "Pathfinder is a cooperative game", "There's no I in team" and "You greedy power-player!", I'd like to specify that this question arises from a MECHANICAL and BALANCE issue. Also, my personal opinion is that a discount should be applied, but in a rational way. So, please, let me explain.

Sure. 50GPs for a CLW, please.

1000 gps for having the fighter defend you, please.

10000 gps per trap disarmed, please.

You are only hurting your own gold supply with this logic. If its a choice between not getting anything at all and getting something for not-quite-as-cheap-as-you-want-but-still-cheaper-than-market-average you'll go with the second one.

Gray Warden I think the answer to this is to roleplay out any transaction where your party member puts in a crafting request. This way you can act the merchant without having to explain your math to your friends. It also allows them to attempt to haggle with you which is always fun, and if they try to charge you prices for their services in return you can just refuse service, as any merchant will with an out of hand customer.

This thread needs data. More data. Somebody cast summon anthropologist!

Seriously though, it really could use some data. The abstractions and equations sound compelling, but without a sense of how the game is typically played, they're pretty much just spun fantasies in a mathematical mode. Not that I object to spinning fantasies, mind you, but I'm wary of assigning them the adjective "correct".

I guess we could go through every possible character concept and algorithmically assign power/gp values to every feat based on their relative value to each build. I think you will earn the dorkiest nobel prize ever if you do so (and thats coming from a compsci person who hangs out on this forum). Its probably a pretty close run with the traveling salesman problem for complexity. especially since new stuff keeps coming out...

I think you should think of your party companions as your personal mod-able constructs, that way everything you craft for them is a direct upgrade to your own power.

Dunno, but i threw the whole alchemist once and that worked pretty well

Ridiculon wrote:

Actually it does work if you can get Dex to damage with your spear dancing weapon with URogue or Agile.

Weapon Versatility(Spear Dancing Style(Nodachi)) allows you to use heavy blades with Spear Dancing Style.

EDIT: No clue if Weapon Versatility is legal in PFS, I'm just speaking from a RAW perspective

Often misunderstood, Nodachi, while a brace weapon, is not a reach weapon. Also I still don't see how the brawler gets to flurry with it..

OH! I've been saying the wrong name, its not Weapon Versatility, its Martial Versatility

Nodachi belongs to both the polearms fighter weapon group and the heavy blades weapon group.

From there its just the same things you can do with the style feat, only now you can use a lot more weapons with it.

Spear Dancing Style - choose a weapon and treat it as a double weapon, lose any reach or brace ability while using the style

Spear Dancing Spiral - apply weapon finesse to chosen weapon, treat chosen weapon as a quarterstaff for all feats and abilities

Spear Dancing Reach - Grant chosen weapon the reach special ability during full attacks as a swift action

Brawler's Flurry can be used with a quarterstaff, Spear Dancing Spiral allows you to treat the chosen weapon as a quarterstaff, therefore you can flurry with the chosen weapon.

The Quarterstaff Master Feat lets you use a quarterstaff in one hand, which means you can use your chosen spear dancing weapon in one hand, which means you can use two of them (not that you really need to thanks to the way brawler's flurry works).

So my take on this issue is to look at how the rest of the system works. In particular, look at how specific trumps general works.

In this case, what is the general rule?

For centuries, great warriors have looked to nature and the multiverse to find inspiration in battle. Countless monastic and contemplative orders have crafted intricate unarmed fighting styles based on the deadliness and grace of natural and supernatural creatures. Although many such fighting techniques were created by secretive orders, they have since spread to practitioners the world over.

As a swift action, you can enter the stance employed by the fighting style a style feat embodies. Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style. You can use a feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite only while in the stance of the associated style. For example, if you have feats associated with Mantis Style and Tiger Style, you can use a swift action to adopt Tiger Style at the start of one turn, and then can use other feats that have Tiger Style as a prerequisite. By using another swift action at the start of your next turn, you could adopt Mantis Style and use other feats that have Mantis Style as a prerequisite.

Ok, so the general rule is that you can only use/gain the benefits of feats that use Styles as a prerequisite while in the associated Style.

Note that this general rule does not say that you only gain the benefits of the style feat itself while actively in the style.

So lets look at a particular style feat. We'll use Kirin Style since it's come up already.

Alright, well there is the wording that limits this style's benefits to the time you are actually using the style.

Lets look at a chain feat

If you can find an example of wording that does trump the general style feat rule then have at it (im at work and don't have time to look through all of them so if someone else can do that then please do, i'd like to see it).

Set them bedtimes(watch times) and chores(survival checks), develop a hobby that would embarrass them if anyone outside the group learns about it.

Instead of Lay on Hands call it Pull My Finger.

I have a feeling I already know the answer, but just in case I'm wrong:

If a Master of Many Styles takes Spear Dancing Style for his level 1 bonus feat (for which he does not have to meet prerequisites) does he still have to take weapon focus for the 2nd and 3rd feats in the chain?

I suggest grabbing Phalanx Formation and Redirect Attack if you have the prereq's for both. Sounds like you'll be doing plenty of close quarters reach weapon shenanigans and these will both help with that.

Actually yeah I think Lovecraft would fit right in with those groups, at least judging from the way he wrote his sympathetic protagonists. He was racist, sexist, classist, and generally -ist towards anything that smacked of scientific advancement (in the stories, i'm not claiming to be an expert on the man himself). His stories praised ignorance as a virtue, most of the academics his stories focus on are considered to be inherently evil even if they aren't shown to be doing anything that would earn them that sort of stigma in today's world. He acknowledges that there are academics who are not evil, but they are almost never actually shown in the focus of the story.

Maybe I should have said "He His protagonists would be absolutely horrified and that should be a mark of pride for us all."

Chthulu is popular because we are the cultists, obviously.

Not sure if you said this as a joke or not, but my own opinion is (and has been ever since i read one of the Lovecraft Anthologies a couple years ago) that this is 100% correct.

The main difference between the cultists and the main characters in Lovecraft's stories is usually the fear of the unknown coupled with the basic assumption that it is right to fear the unknown. (Although many of the cultists are also outright murderers or other flavor of criminal, which is a separate issue)

Our society no longer holds that basic assumption to be true; the unknown is no longer something to be feared. The unknown is something to be studied and understood, the essential tenet of science can be stated as "make the unknown known". It's why Cthulu does so well as a pop-culture figure but the original stories he spawned from are much less well known.

So yes, because of our society's assumptions we would all be marked as cultists if we were to show up in Lovecraft's world today. He would be absolutely horrified and that should be a mark of pride for us all.

No, the soft cover rules allow you to pick which part of a large creature you attack in melee. If you pick a square that you actually threaten with a reach weapon, which is allowed by the soft cover rules for large creatures then attack is perfectly legal. The notion of "the space you need to wield the weapon [being] blocked by the creature" is represented by the +2 they get to their AC due to soft cover. It is mechanically more difficult to hit them because they are standing so close, but not impossible because they are large enough to hit anyway.

I'll give you another example. If you are surrounded by adjacent allies and there is a large creature in the threat range of your reach weapon you may still hit them with partial cover. There is a feat specifically to negate the soft cover provided by allies in this case called Phalanx Formation which shows that reach weapons follow the soft cover rules.

1) The Glaive does not threaten the squares directly adjacent to it
2) You can attack an adjacent large creature with a reach weapon, but it will have partial cover against you.

Creatures, even your enemies, can provide you with cover against ranged attacks, giving you a +4 bonus to AC. However, such soft cover provides no bonus on Reflex saves, nor does soft cover allow you to make a Stealth check.

Big Creatures and Cover

Any creature with a space larger than 5 feet (1 square) determines cover against melee attacks slightly differently than smaller creatures do. Such a creature can choose any square that it occupies to determine if an opponent has cover against its melee attacks. Similarly, when making a melee attack against such a creature, you can pick any of the squares it occupies to determine if it has cover against you.

Partial Cover

If a creature has cover, but more than half the creature is visible, its cover bonus is reduced to a +2 to AC and a +1 bonus on Reflex saving throws. This partial cover is subject to the GM's discretion.

The only squares you can pick are blocked by a creature (the rest of the large creature), however more than half of the creature is visible so it gets only partial cover against the attack (aka +2 to AC).

What am I supposed to do at work without access to all the Pathfinder Forums???!! WORK?! Not on your life!

I am similarly distressed, i keep flicking from the paizo front page to tor.com and back and nothing is updating and its a nightmare

Read the first sentence again before you look at the Natural Adaptation section.

The rules presented in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook for underwater combat apply to creatures not native to this dangerous environment, such as most PCs.

[...]
Any creature that has the aquatic subtype can breathe water easily and is unaffected by water temperature extremes that are found in that creature’s typical environment.

Its pretty obvious that the rules do not apply to anything with the aquatic subtype. "Most PCs" do not have the aquatic subtype, therefore the rules for underwater combat apply to "most PCs".

You are correct that there are no alternate rules presented, but that doesn't mean you go ahead and apply a set of rules that has just been explicitly stated to not apply.

Can we ditch the nonsense with infernal healing yet?

Doesn't look like it, more like we used the nonsense as a sort of springboard to jump right into the subjective vs objective alignment madness. We'll see what the thread looks like if we ever make it out the other side.

Side note -

It seems like it could be exceedingly difficult to obtain a spell component of devil's blood that wouldn't disappear since summoned creatures pop back to their home planes when killed. The inference being that the blood would likewise disappear. The second inference here is that any "componentable" devil blood must have been harvested from a bona fide gated devil that is wholly on this plane of existence, which would be uncommon at best and quite dangerous at worst.

Are there no opportunistic Devils hanging out on the material plane of their own free will making deals for their blood? deals that they know will end with the users more devil than mortal? seems pretty in character to me

Don't ever yell "Release the KRAKEN!" where your GM can hear you unless you actually want the kraken to be released.

0o0o0 O 0o0o0 wrote:

How being silent doesn't technically improve your Stealth chance.

If you are Invisible and you cast Silence on yourself, it currently does nothing to help.

The rules on stealth, invisibility and perception are quite contradictory (a hold over from there being 2 separate skills). In some places, being silent helps stealth. In others, it doesn't.

Talk with your GM or expect table variation (PFS)

Viola, like magic

1st rule of "wielding a 2-hander in one hand" is "don't talk about wielding a 2-hander in one hand"

is there a rule that says you can't be both? (i havent actually looked)

if you can get over the whole mind control hump couldn't you just do them both as you level?

yeah i want to make a dude with a sword cane pistol in each hand and a buckler gun on each arm. He switches off which swordgun he's wielding and which buckler he's wielding, an ambidextrous swashbuckling pistol-flipping wonder!

By the by, does pistol whipping work with buckler guns and sword cane pistols?

If you do end up having to use a sword you should consider getting a Sword Cane Pistol. It is a walking stick, a sword, and a pistol all in one! After you unload it, well, its still sharp!

(Its in the Ultimate Combat book)

If you take either the Rogue or Slayer Sniper archetypes you can extend the range softcap, the archetype reduces range increment penalties (at lvl 1 to boot). Combine that with Far Shot and you're only taking 1/4th range penalties. (Far Shot reduces penalties by 1 per range increment, Sniper halves all penalties = 0.5 per increment)

Again, TWF does not apply if you are using only bombs in your Full Attack