Poison's page

Jeranimus Rex wrote:

Well then, thats quite a bit more than I anticipated. At least d10 HD means more HP.

But otherwise, its does seem pretty suboptimal.

Well, as ProfPotts said, you don't even come ahead on hp. The blend just doesn't work all that well.

Now, a Magus 1/Wiz 9/EK 10 can be a plausible alternative to the Fighter 1/Wiz 9/EK 10 build. You trade one BAB, one bonus feat, and 2 hp for a +2 Will save, three cantrip slots, an extra 1st-level spell slot, a small arcane pool, and spell combat.

Spell Combat only works with Magus spells (well, any spells that's on Magus spell list). So while it indeed is handy, it doesn't differentiate it so much from a straight magus in terms of the said class feature.

1) that doesn't help me with my sword and board.

2) unless paizo staff has lost ALL sense of common sense on game balance, don't hold your breath. But then again, the issues with balance in UM seems to indicate that they may have lost all sense of game balance. Lets put it this way, if there is a two handed magus in UC, I'm not buying. I got UM when it came out because I believed that paizo is good at getting game balance and power creep in check. They failed utterly with UM. UM is banned in my games until further notice (no save staggered spell at level 2 and no save lose action spell at level 4?!? Antagonize...umm WTF?!? Cold ice strike is a quickened cone of cold as a 6th level spell). I will NOT be getting UC so blindly.

Good news; it's not the UC description that I've read it from- it's this 3rd-party material from Super Genius Games. It also says it's got sword-and-board archetype as well so if you could spare the dime might be worth having a glance.

insert words of awesomeness here

Preach on, brother!

Yeah, I should've explained myself better but I'm not trying to say it's "impossible" but if you start looking at a problem from multiple angles, a lot of them are quite... funny; thus the Physicist-Star Wars analogy.

Although, dilution's still really really awkward.

Edit: anyhow, a chemist who can make himself immune to poison, flat, could probably pull off all the "impossible" tricks I suppose.

Poison wrote:

Yep. Try studying pharmacy and playing the Alchemist class at the same time. I think my fantasy-self died a little inside when I read Eternal Potion discovery. Eat your heart out, schedule-dependent PKPD!

Don't even get me started on Dilution discovery.

What's wrong with those?

Pretty simple actually. Basically, 1 large dose =/= multiple maintenance doses. Still, there are some other ways of providing long duration of effect for certain drugs and formulations, but even then nobody wants a permanent effect.

Dilution is more of a common sense; if you dilute something, you reduce its concentration and therefore the maximal effect and the duration of effect. For whatever the reason, in PF world of chemistry, diluting something just lets you use it one more time for the same benefit.

Edit: it's kinda like a physicist watching Star Wars, if you may.

Yep. Try studying pharmacy and playing the Alchemist class at the same time. I think my fantasy-self died a little inside when I read Eternal Potion discovery. Eat your heart out, schedule-dependent PKPD!

Don't even get me started on Dilution discovery.

Well in 3.5 you had to choose which spell to cast as a spell-like ability and you were stuck with it. However, since I plan to remove the ritual side of the feats (and treat it as a campaign trait), I believe letting the marked character choose each time she expends the pool would be a better choice.

With regard to Dragonmarked, the pool-based approach to the dragonmarks allows one to substitute the Action Point expenditure of many feats with the pool, if one so wishes. Because Action Point is one of the more limited resources available to a character (renewed only upon levelling up), this boosts the feats to a PF-standard which grants the characters generally higher level of power.

Another point I've been pondering about was as you said, allowing the dragonmark-related feats from the book to increase either the CL (therefore the pool) or only the pool by 1/2 the number of dragonmark-realted feats (excluding the dragonmark feats themselves). Combined with the pool-for-action-point substitution rule proposed above, this can create a chain of potent options for the characters to burn through over the course of their daily adventures.

I don't know about you, but if I were a Paladin of House Deneith (a Sentinel Marshal, even), I'd love to have the Dragonmark Smite feat anytime- especially now that I can do it multiple times a day, without having to worry about using such precious a resource.

Although the player's reasoning does not fit the d20 RAW/I line of logic, I'd allow it just because it sounds badass. So while there is no written rule anywhere that the mechanical supports (bipod/monopod) he wants to install will negate the attack penalty, he's being creative and it suits the character well. I for one wouldn't penalise my players for being creative.

Edit: obviously, it would require a lot of work to really pull it off because it would be unwise to drag along a 6-foot crossbow behind you (unless it's a Japanese anime-themed game, ha) so the character will have to set up an ambush point beforehand- not unlike like how a real sniper does things.

Also, the fact that he doesn't care about the reloading time tells me his idea of using the weapon isn't too far from what I've suggested above- this is not to be his primary damage-dealing weapon of choice on a round-by-round basis of combat, but as a combat opener, something that can only be used probably once per combat limited by the efficiency (well, the lack thereof) though.

I always took it as that you gain the maximum hp for your first level of PC class.

Well it is the epitome of "creepy", in my opinion.

A normal crawling hand is of dimunitive size, and if we can assume that it's from a medium creature, we can work backward to say that a giant crawling hand comes from a gargantuan creature.

Thank you so much Space Titanium and hogarth for your encouragement and feedbacks. I'll soon update the original post to make a few changes.

yeah, I'm concered about that too. Perhaps I should make the ritual available only as a separate feat- can be taken at 5th level or higher. Since the bulk of the common NPCs don't ever reach that high a level, only the skilled artisans of each houses may be able to tap their potential at a more efficient rate.

Another solution would be to remove the ritual side of the things from the feats altogether and treat it as a part of the House's "trade secrets". So it'd be entirely up to individual DMs whether to incorporate this theme or not. It makes sense that it would take more than just a few coins to activate such a powerful ability and that only a proper house enclave would ever possess enough resources to facilitate such procedures. Kinda like the altar of resurrection thing (can't remember the name) of House Jorasco, you know.

Yes, the ritual part of the feat line is the weakest area that needs a bit more working and feedback. So thanks for all your feedback guys ;)

On the justification of the rituals: 4e Dragonmark gave the characters a sort of exclusive access to certain rituals, granting the Dragonmarked Houses a clear competitive advantage. I wanted to emulate that sense of exclusivity to the feats and more importantly, give more "life" to the world. So instead of a House Jorasco Expert only being able to cast CLW 1/day and then having to resort to his Heal skill to get him by, he now possesses an untapped pool of potentials (unexpended Dragonmark Pools) through which he can "cast" the spell-like abilities over and over again- given enough time and more importantly, resources. Since an NPC, especially that of a Dragonmarked House, is severely limited by what resources they have lying around. Unlike spells that may be replenished daily, the gold expended upon casting the ritual ain't going to come back for sure.

So I based the ritual cost based on the Spellcasting Services of the Goods and Services section (10gp * caster level * spell level) as a general ballpark for the services a Dragonmarked House could provide using their dragonmarks. It seems this approach is a lot less problematic with NPC builds because the lower cost is justified by the inability to exchange the spellcasting goods (scroll is a good benchmark); the fact the official guideline on the spellcasting on-the-spot was also a big factor in determining the 'crafting' cost of each rituals.

PCs however, are in an entirely different ballpark because of the PC-centric nature (naturally) of the games. The feat not only provides the cheaper alternatives to hiring NPC spellcasters (or in more likely, the "free slot" effect for preserving valuable spell slots), they can take it around wherever they want! Thus sidestepping the whole issue of "lack of portability" inherent in the spellcasting services.

Another issue with the current draft is that it allows a higher-level NPCs with the appropriate Dragonmark to cast the desired spells over and over again- while it was the whole point of having rituals, a Jorasco scion casting Heal all-day long with a 54-minute casting time (AND costs 1/4 the price of the scroll!!) is indeed an oddity in a relatively low-magic world such as Eberron.

Mayhap I could reduce the required Dragonmark Pool by one step? So while a Least Dragonmark ritual still allows you to cast all-day long (the "high turnover stocks" of the dragonmark houses), a Lesser Dragonmark expends 1 point from the Pool per ritual, and Greater 3 points.

It seems it still requires much fiddling with the actual spell selection for the dragonmarks though, since free Heal spell 3/day is indeed a much more potent power to be given to anyone than a Sending spell.

Poison wrote:

I believe some people had already made this point before, but I also much prefer straight Magus compared to an EK-gish. Although a Fighter 2/Wizard 8/EK 10 gains +16 BAB and 9th-level spells, those benefits don't kick in until level 20.

Straight magus on the other hand, get its class features all spread out evenly across all levels and therefore is a lot easier to play in a long-term campaign where I'd expect to level up.

Unless of course you want to any style of combat other then one handed weapon....

And really, that is why I keep going back to the EK over the magus. I like sword and board.

I think two-handed weapon fighting magus archetype is planned for Ultimate Combat so I'm quite happily waiting for the book to come out.

You do not gain any additional interative attacks on natural attacks. Therefore, bite claw claw still applies.

While I'd agree to disagree with people who believe at will cantrips/orisons are an overkill on an already powerful spellcasters, I just don't understand what all the fuss is about around this particular issue. A spell that takes up 0-level spell slot is cast at-will and that's what a cantrip/orison is. Just because it's called otherwise makes no difference whatsoever. Saying "no it's not" is simply voicing out one's opinions and houserules not a concrete rule both as intended and as written. Well, maybe not the magical lineage merciful magic missile stuff, but as said ad nauseum, that's a case of badly worded trait not the actual spell level to per day interaction.

Cantrips

Sorcerers learn a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, as noted on Table: Sorcerer Spells Known under “Spells Known.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they do not consume any slots and may be used again.

I've been thinking about updating the 3.5 Dragonmarks from Eberron Campaign Setting to be applicable to PF. The thing about 3.5 Dragonmarks was that unless you had a very good (often concept-driven) reason to do so, they tended to be a bit of a waste of a precious feat slot. That's why I loved the exclusive feel they got in 4e and I wanted to do a bit of a mix of the two to be used in PF.

So here's what I got:

Least Dragonmark
You have a least dragonmark (duh)
Prerequisite: Member of appropriate dragonmarked race
Benefit: you gain a Dragonmark Pool equal to the caster level of the dragonmark feature which you may use to cast various spell-like abilities. It takes 1 point of Dragonmark Pool to cast a Least Dragonmark spell-like ability. Normally, your caster level for your dragonmark spell-like ability is 1 + your level in the dragonmark heir prestige class. This pool is replenished once per day after 8 hours of rest. This need not be consecutive.
A saving throw against your dragonmark spell-like ability has a DC of 10 + the level of the spell + your Cha modifier.
In addition, you may prepare and conduct a Least Dragonmark Ritual, which allows you to cast a dragonmark spell-like ability without expending the normal dragonmark pool. You must pay 5 * caster level * spell level worth of gold pieces in material components, even if the spell emulated does not normally possess expensive material components. 0-level spells are considered as one-half level for the purpose of calculating the gp and time required. You must have at least 1 point of Dragonmark Pool left to conduct a Dragonmark Ritual. Conducting the ritual requires 1 minute of work per 10gp in the spellcasting service's base price, or the normal time required to cast the spell, whichever takes longer.

Lesser Dragonmark
You develop a Lesser Dragonmark
Prerequisite: Member of appropriate dragonmarked race, Least Dragonmark, 6 ranks in any two skills, one of which must be associated with the dragonmarked house's line of work.
Benefit: Your dragonmark caster level (therefore your dragonmark pool) increases to 6 + your level in the dragonmark heir prestige class. You may also cast a lesser dragonmark spell-like ability, but it costs 3 points from the Dragonmark Pool.
As with the Least Dragonmark, you may conduct a Lesser Dragonmark Ritual.

Greater Dragonmark
You develop a Greater Dragonmark
Prerequisite: Member of appropriate dragonmarked race, Least Dragonmark, 9 ranks in any two skills, one of which must be associated with the dragonmarked house's line of work.
Benefit: Your dragonmark caster level (therefore your dragonmark pool) increases to 9 + your level in the dragonmark heir prestige class. You may also cast a greater dragonmark spell-like ability, but it costs 5 points from the Dragonmark Pool.
As with the Least Dragonmark, you may conduct a Greater Dragonmark Ritual to cast a Greater Dragonmark spell-like ability without expending the Dragonmark Pool.

I am yet to review the spell selection for each of the houses but the DM is pretty happy about the direction this is going. I was just hoping to get some more opinions of the matter from the wider population though.

Yes, however silly it may sound to individuals, RAW it works. While some of the similar abilities that utilise spells have "you cannot use 0-level spell slot to do this" kind of clause, this feat clearly lacks such specifications and unless errata'd otherwise or an official answer is made by one of the developers, it is entirely up to the DM to decide whether he would allow it in his game or not. After all, the DM is the final arbitor of such decisions.

Feats are one of the more limited resources in PF. Spending 4 feat slots for a single trick (well, spell focus: conjuration could be used to qualify for augmented summoning, I suppose) seems too much of an investment, especially considering how a single casting of a higher-level spell can do essentially the same thing.

But I do agree that it is a neat trick to pull off, but what I wanted to point out was that cost-benefit analysis of the strategy has a lot of room for improvement, that's all.

Maybe it would be useful for a one-off session of high-level characters, possibly pitting off against each other arena-style? Probably yes, but even then only against spellcasters. Other characters do it better with the much-hated Antagonize or anything that causes deafness.

I don't see why not.

Antimagic Field + beat the crap out of the insolent wizard works too.

I'd be happy to see a construct race coming up, much like Eberron's Warforged. But I suppose it's going to be pretty difficult because, well, Warforged.

1. Yes. A dragon can naturally cast spells therefore it is considered a form that is capable of casting spells. Circular reasoning, yes, but it works.

2. probably NO. The spell's requirement doesn't state out the exact price of the material components (just the scale of a dragon blah blah) therefore a sorcerer could quite happily cast the spell without going on a shopping trip to get the dragon scales to suit all the colors of the rainbow.

Edit: English FAIL. I meant no but I got carried away with the first question :(

Just to throw more confusion into the fire, what if you took Spell Perfection on that spell, and threw quicken on it when you cast it? Could you get an at-will, swift action, disruptive cantrip?

It's not the most productive use of those abilities, but even in the 15-20 range where you can have spell perfection, it's still useful to force someone to make a DC 30+spell level concentration check every round to cast spells, with no resource expenditure (beyond a swift action, which often goes unused anyway).

A Disruptive (+1), Quickened (+4) Acid Splash (0-level) with Magical Lineage (-1) and Spell Perfection (negates Quicken) would indeed be a cantrip RAW.

But since it's a cantrip, the DC is going to be pretty low; assuming the caster has, say 30 Int (+10 to DC), the concentration check is DC 20 + spell level. It is not 30 because the base DC of this concentration check is just the saving throw DC of the disruptive spell (10 + 0 + 10).

Just in case if anyone thinks Acid Splash is an inappropriate candidate for Disruptive Spell because it has no saving throw DC (just ranged touch), Flare is an acceptible alternative with the added benefit of lacking somatic components.

Back to the topic, any caster worth its salt at that level (15-20) should be able to make that save quite easily. If we assumed the target to be the same level and gear (therefore the same primary ability modifier), at level 15 she has +25 to save against DC 20 + spell level. With Combat Casting, it's a given.

I can see how it may be troublesome to the partial casters who may not max out their primary casting ability but then again, their concentration DC is proportionately low because of their lower spell level access. I doubt a 15th-level magus would have much trouble using his Intensified Shocking Grasp (DC 22) every round, for example.

So while it is a valid tactic and may bring the party a nice surprise here and there, it is not worth the 15th-level feat slot to do something as mundane, especially if you're burning through the precious Swift Action to cast the quickened spell. It is much more advantageous to, say, get a Quickened Baleful Polymorph (w/ Spell Perfection), cast it once on an enemy spellcaster and proceed to ignore the fluffy little bunny, for example.

Well things like a Magical Lineage Merciful Magic Missile (MLMMM?) is a very fickle issue to be sure. RAW, it takes up a 0-level slot but the core of the problem is with the trait Magical Lineage having no minimum reduction limit, not with the actual spell level to usage/day interaction.

Had a TPK as a player one point in time. It was close to the end of the session anyways and we (the players) were all so depressed because we've been playing the characters for so long.

So the DM came up with an idea that by the following week, we were allowed to come up with a scenario of how the characters came back from the dead! So the next session began "three years after the tragic event" where all the characters somehow met again by "destiny". It was quite dramatic and we all had a blast of time.

I believe some people had already made this point before, but I also much prefer straight Magus compared to an EK-gish. Although a Fighter 2/Wizard 8/EK 10 gains +16 BAB and 9th-level spells, those benefits don't kick in until level 20.

Straight magus on the other hand, get its class features all spread out evenly across all levels and therefore is a lot easier to play in a long-term campaign where I'd expect to level up.

the thing is, just like a sorcerer may cast her 1st-level spells 6/day (+ bonus spells from high Cha etc etc), Cantrip, by the sole virtue of using 0-level spell slot (or spells known in this case), may be cast at will. Therefore, as long as the final spell level still remains 0, it may be cast at will. Since Magical Lineage allows the character to choose a single spell and reduce the metamagic-adjusted spell level by 1 (so a quickened, maximized acid splash as a magical lineage takes a 6th-level slot instead of 7th), a Silent acid splash w/ magical lineage still takes a 0-level slot, therefore one may cast it at-will.

However, choosing an at-will power to be affected with Magical Lineage trait is somewhat suboptimal, if I may be excused to say so.

Yes. A merciful acid splash is still a 0-level spell therefore an at-will cantrip.

The last time I played PbP, two of the six PCs just disappeared off the face of the forum. We waited for AGES (well, three days) to see if they'll come back but alas. After the hasty conclusion of the adventure, I've never played pbp again :(

If you want to play PbP, you'll want people who are reliable- something you can't judge from half an ocean away with only the ever-so-impartial keyboard as your communication medium. So either play with the people who have a good track record of attendance or at least establish another method of communication (msn and others) just so you know straightaway if they want to back out due to other circumstances.

Edit: as a side question, is it just me who had had a terrible experience with less committed players? If not, how did you (or the DM) deal with the problem?

Carbon D. Metric wrote:

It is a built in version of TWF is all, nothing to see here folks.

So what's the point of the Spellblade Magus then?

Two benefits:

1. you can now get two-weapon fighting line of feats to gain more iterative attacks

2. you can still spell combat with buffs and other blasts- just not at the same time.

Remember that the magus can choose to apply the benefits of his Arcane Pool to BOTH his actual weapon and the force dagger at no additional cost.

Edit: the actual problem with Spellblade Magus is that the Dex-based Magi tend to go for Dervish Dance to maximise their efficiency. Since the dagger-hand is considered free only for the purpose of casting spells and whatnots, you do not gain the benefit of DD while wielding it.

Remember you still suffer the normal limitation of action economy. Even though an Arcane Mark-channeled Spellstrike does allow an extra attack per round all-day, everyday (provided you can make a full-round attack), you are still limited by one extra attack per round (unless you Quicken a touch spell, in which case you may get two). While it may seem 'powerful', remember it is virtually the same as two-weapon fighting, except you leave your arcane mark all over your opponent.

So yes, the change from beta is very much deliberate.

I do understand that there's a side benefit of only having to enchant a single weapon but for a character that's focused solely on dealing damage (and gets an average BAB progression and a d8 HD), it's not really a game-breaker.

the Bomb and Discovery features only increase the DC based on the Alchemist level. So although DC 34 is nothing to scoff at even at level 20, the said Tarrasque can happily chew the tanglefoot bomb to escape- making the Tanglefoot Bomb a suboptimal choice at higher levels.

It's a class feature so it would follow the same DC as the normal bomb DC.

On Sneak Attack: although there was a ruling back in 3.5 that unless the base damage can overcome DR, you could not deal SA damage. This is not the case with PF because there's no such clause in any of the released materials.

On SA damage typing: on effects that deal hp damage, I'd say it make a great deal more sense to follow the type of the base damage; for example, if you sneak-attack'd a Troll with an Acid Splash, all damage will bypass its regeneration, not just the AS damage. With Enervation and the ilk though, I think it should be handled much like Weapon Specialization line as discussed and confirmed by this thread.

I mean, an Intensified Fireball (4th level slot) is so much more effective than a Cone of Cold (5th). So I would think CIS is the proper CoC. My only complaint about CIS is that while Clerics get this awesome blasty-blast spell at the same level as a Wizard would but Magi and Druids don't.

I mean, why on earth would a cleric need this blasty evocation for?

Anyhow, since the Components section of the spell is unknown at the moment, I would imagine the errata would have some expensive material component that makes it prohibitive to use almost every round.

If it were up to me, I'd have a Wizard, a Summoner and a Druid would forming the baseline party for versatility; the remaining two spots would probably be filled with a Magus and a Bard. Fills all the traditional roles to a degree while maintaining the signature flexibility of being an all-caster league.

I would say no, by the strict reading of the rules. Unless you are afflicted by the conditional restraints as mentioned by other people above me, you are not strictly "limited to a standard action".

The thing about this is that unlike the standard charge, one can easily spend a move action during the round to reposition themselves to a more convenient spot and then ready a charge to largely circumvent the inherent limitations of the charge manoeuvre (moving in a straight line).

So if one were to houserule the action (readying a charge), then they'll have to address this issue by adding something like "during the round where you ready a charge manoeuvre you cannot move"

I would imagine some magical/dragonhide brass knuckles (meaning they are not made of brass after all) would have an entirely different look compared to the run-of-the-mill, third-rate street mugger's ones. I mean, some of the weapons the characters from the offical arts wield look pretty funky.

Especially since Monk's unarmed damage progression replaces that of the brass knuckle, I don't see why it can't be something, well anything other than made of brass as long as it's similarly disarmable.

Hahaha this is so awesome!! Though its hp seems pretty low for a CR 18 creature. Bump it up to mid-200 range, give it a Sticky Hold (semi-automatic sunder/disarm of some sort perhaps) and it might be beautiful, even.

But because it's a mindless creature, it doesn't gain any feats (save bonus feats). Also no good save means it should have saving throws of +8/+7/+8.

Well, if that's the developer's official stance then I stand corrected.

You can see that it took me 15 minutes to track down all the wordings though. 'twas a tough discussion ;)

I can take my hand off and on as a free action during any other action i take including casting the spell.

The hand, that is to say, being used as a part of casting the spell. I believe when casting a spell with somatic component, the hand is occupied until completion of the spell. Since the attack is made as a part of the spell, not following the completion of the spell, you cannot just skip the somatic component to put your hand back on the hilt.

Even though an Alchemist's Extracts are "cast" by drinking the extract, it still takes the required amount of time to mix/drink/whatever the preparation. For example, an Alchemist would not cast Sending (10 minute casting time) as a standard action just because it's an extract.

Also, if the description of opening the bottle can be considered a vital part of determining the casting time, then the time it takes for the creature to fully grow and animate should also be considered- the time of which is given in the same sentence as being "per spell" (1 round).

I'd say "as per spell" is pretty specific a guidance. I mean, it's not a Summoner's Summon Monster line of class features; you just add the said spells onto the formula book no more, no less.

At 2nd level, whenever a magus casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell through any weapon he is wielding as part of a melee attack. Instead of the free melee touch attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell.

So unless the touch spell lacks somatic component, no.

Edit: if the spell is Stilled though, you can happily cast the spell with both hands on the sword and smack the opponent with it as part of casting the spell.

Ooooh, very nice. Thanks for your input, Skylancer4!

More dragons, whoo!

Keeping in mind that the examples I mentioned above are not exhaustive by any means, my current train of thought would say that the answer to both of your questions would be: "any action of questionable moral that are motivated by situational convenience or by mercenary gains is often considered Neutral".

Of course, by situational I would have to note that if this matter of convenience occurs often enough to be a part of the character (so "kill the guy" becomes a general method of dealing with problems), then I would say there's a streak of Evilness starting to appear. However, I would exercise great caution in shifting any characters' alignment.