Scrynor's page

Does anyone have a list of fear and charm spells for a Court Bard? How useful is that reducing saving throw performance?

I find it a little confusing. Is suggestion a charm spell? It's in the charm domain but I don't see the charm designator. Seems odd. I like the idea of enchantment and illusion spells but I'm not sure what I should specialize in.

Thanks.

:::Nevermind - Just read it again and it says you can't share a square right in the paragraph so it's meaningless for medium mounts with small riders::

A friend and I are thinking of making a Pally and his squire/herald (bard) combo but we don't understand cavalry formation.

- Does it let us be in the same square all the time? (Obviously, sync of initiative to move together) (Also, we thinking of being gnomes so we're talking about only sharing 1 square)
- What are the rules for two characters being in the same square and being fighting-capable?
- Any good Pally tricks he can do to defend the Bard if they share the same square?

Thanks!

Yeah, I was thinking the same but I wanted to check.

...Man paragon surge is powerful.

PRCs aside, my first reaction is that it could break set dungeon crawl campaign contests where you are resource limited. All of a sudden you get a lvl 1 character grabbing craft wand and the group pooling resources to get that wand of cure light or fireball or whatever that isn't supposed to exist...

Hmm, actually, I could see it both ways. "Arcane spells from the magus spell list" could just as easily be interpreted as declaring the source separate from a body of producable effects (the spells) instead of meaning all producable effects must be arcane to be the same thing as what is on the list.

::shrug::

First sentence of the magic section of Magus:

"A magus casts arcane spells drawn from the magus spell list."
Therefore, if you are casting from the Magus list it is arcane.
Spellstrike says "casts a spell with a range of "touch" from the magus spell list.

That makes it arcane I think. The divine spell frostbite is not on the magus list despite it having the same name.

I'm still not sure it is a "no but". See my previous post.

It doesn't make much thematic sense to have it work just because the spell has the same name. One has an arcane source and one a divine. A Magus has only learned to channel his arcane Magus spells. There is an arcana explicitly for learning to channel other spell sources he knows. I don't see why you'd get around the req just because the name happens to be the same.

Are we sure that would work? I thought the list you were casting from dictates the spell slot you consume. So even though frostbite appears on both lists if you use it through spellstrike you are therefore using it from the Magus list and therefore burning an arcane spell slot cast. The key is you have to cast "from" the list. It doesn't just have to be "on" the list.

Although even if what I just said is true you could still do it using the Theurge combined spells ability. It'd just be a little more costly.

Up front caveat that I kinda hate Paragon Surge but I want to know how this stuff works RAW.

Can you cast Paragon Surge and take extra discovery with the free feat and pick any discovery you qualify for? If so, what happens in the following situations:

Could the alchemist grab combine extracts and whip up a bunch of combined extracts (up to 1/lvl b/c of time limit) with unused spell slots? Would they stay combined extracts once paragon surge wore off?

Could the alchemist grab enhance potion and suck down an int mod number of potions at caster level? Would the effects stay at caster level once paragon surge wore off? What if he does it again? Is his int mod cap used up or is it refreshed because he lost and re-gained enhance potion?

Could the alchemist grab poison conversion and change the form of 1 poison / lvl (time limit again)? What happens when paragon surge wears off? Are the poisons still in their new form?

Thanks.

Gotcha. Thanks for the help.

How easy it is to do makes even more sense now that I just did the math. Hitting them with two separate doses is almost always better anyway.

It says you can be exposed to multiple doses of inhaled and ingested poisons simultaneously and doing it that way is 1 save that is harder with greater duration.

But how do you actually subject someone to multiple doses simultaneously? <-- This is the only real question, you can just jump to answering if you know. Everything else is hypotheticals.

Can you just use a glass jar that can hold 2 doses in it? That seems too easy to me and like it trivializes the alchemists concentrate poison discovery (although perhaps that is meant for injury and contact poisons). Also, if it works this way what is the limit on doses per projectile?

Do you have to throw multiple vials of the same inhaled poison in one turn and for some reason unlike multiple melee attacks with injury poison they all go at once? Does this imply that enemy isn't exposed until their turn when they breath it in so however many you can stack in there before their turn is what they are exposed to? Would they then take exposure at the beginning of their turn and frequency at the end or would the frequency not start till next round?

Would multiple poison delivering sources have to act simultaneously (ie two characters with readied actions to throw a vial at the same time)?

Little help please!

I thought choosing to make a touch attack was explicitly a standard action. So you could do it but you could never do multiple attacks in a round because of a high BaB.

I remember it being spelled out in the touch spell rules but I could be wrong.

Yeah, the many crossbows thing is the main reason I hate the restriction on quick draw for pure thematics. Quick draw doesn't let you draw and fire 3 alchemist potions in one round but it does let you draw, shoulder, fire, drop 3 crossbows? Weaksauce. I really feel like if they are going to keep that restriction on quick draw they also need to add a "weapon must be sheathed or shoulder slung" clause and add a limit on the number of sheathes someone can have. Or add a restriction based on two-handed/normal/light etc.

Yeah, I love the many arms concept too. But how do you re-load all arms at once? Are you playing that one move lets your retrieve 1 flask per open hand? Or are you down to 1/round after the initial load of 4?

Hmm, no answers. I'll take my guesses and maybe other people can say if that is how they play it too?

1) 1 round (all other poisons are one-offs so why not this one? It seems weird because they talk about suffocating but maybe that is just in case someone continually throws them?)
2) Visible, no obscuring
3) 1 big save
4) ...Yes?
B) Same poison, not different

Hrmm. Not covered in the rules is annoying. It feels really in the middle to me. I see what you're saying about circumventing the rules but it also seems odd to me to have getting handed an item be as action intensive for you as digging an item out yourself. Really, that means the familiar thing doesn't buy you anything at all.

I wish there was some middle ground like "move for the giver, immediate for the receiver" but I guess without a real rule you can't just make that kind of thing up huh?

What kind of appendages do you consider appropriate? Are hands a must? Or thumbs? Like a monkey could do it but not a cat?

Those options still won't sustain it though right? That only gets you 1 flask a round. How do you keep doing full attacks every round once you have multiple attacks per round?

It doesn't seem near strong enough to have no way to do it...

Three quick ones:

- If you want to hand someone an item in combat what does that take? Move action for the giver and free for the receiver? Do you have to ready the give for their turn? Move action for both?
- It says retrieving a stored item is a move action but it doesn't say anything about simultaneously retrieving multiple items stored in the same location. Can you retrieve as many items as you have free hands? It seems like manipulating the pack is the justification for the time and free hands is the limit on items to me.
- Can animals retrieve stored items? Say you have a familiar of some sort. Can it dig through your pack and hand you an item?

Thanks!

What do you need to throw multiple acid flasks every round? It seems like drawing them is a problem. Quick draw explicitly says you can't draw alchemical items after it says you can throw weapons at your full rate of attack.

Also (semi-related), can you retrieve as many items as you have open hands with a move action? It seems silly to say it takes twice as long to grab 2 potions while you are in your potion bag as it does to grab 1...

I've been reading up on all the places I can find about the real way poison works (Hurrah, Jason Bulmahn!) but I still have a few key questions:

1) How long does an inhaled poison last?
2) Is there any cloud or obscuring effect on inhaled poisons? Is the cloud visible but has no negative effects on vision? Is it invisible?
3) It says you can be exposed to multiple inhaled poison doses at once. If I throw 3 vials of the same poison in one turn at a guys feet is that exposing to 3 doses at once (1 harder save) for when he breaths in or is it 3 normal saves as each vial breaks?
4) Is throwing an inhaled poison considered a splash weapon for stuff like splash weapon mastery?

Bonus Question: They say similar but different poisons are tracked separately and list the same poison but with different base DCs as an example. What about identical poisons but of different forms? So say the same poison but you've made one an injury and one an inhaled?

Holy ballsack. You're right.

That just makes me even more sure that my interpretation must be right because of how nuts that would be.

Still though... even with my interpretation in order to prevent that scenario you would either need the definition of success to not be changed (ie can't be successful unless you make them prone) or you need to say that being immune to prone (and already being prone is being immune to prone, you can't have the condition applied repetitiously) prevents someone from even attempting to trip you.

Based on the rules that Kazaan has already cited I don't see how we're going to get out of this through simple interpretation... I think the wording is just busted. I could be wrong though.

I feel like we're getting distracted but... Huh? How does tripping someone provoke for your teammates? Are you assuming everyone has paired opportunists?

Gotcha, good examples of a break between success and consequence. However, all those examples are explicitly called out as functioning that way as evidenced by your bolding. That implies they are an exception to the rule and not the rule itself. Greater trip has no such wording. We have an example of trying to trigger off of success where it doesn't preempt (hit-damage) that is a general rule. Why override it without specific wording telling you to do so like in those examples you provided?

He is concerned with criticals because if you aren't critting the chain of trips is meaningless. You are tripping and giving up your AoO to trip again over and over and therefore are doing no damage and the end result is just that the guy is prone. You need tripping strike and a critical to get the trip in addition to a normal damage dealing blow.

Interesting. They do seem to have explicitly re-defined the word "success" which I find odd but is what it is. So that definitely means things that trigger off success can happen even without the consequence (like your locked gauntlet example). Thanks for pointing that one out.

The very next words after after the re-define of success though are "and has the listed effect".

I still don't know of any evidence that there is a gap between success and consequence allowing you to pause or preempt off of success.

The quote about the timing of prone does not apply as it isn't a trigger off of successfully standing. It is a trigger off of taking the stand action so it certainly happens before they stand.

The successful attack example still exists as evidence that shows you cannot pause or preempt between success and consequence. You cannot act before the damage.

Yes, all actions are intermixed within the 6 second round with multiple combatants but we are talking about two people with two actions linked by direct causality and not the greater mind-job that is the general fray.

There is a paradox and you are just sidestepping it by inventing rational to avoid it because you can think of one. What if the readied action isn't an attack? Say it is a 5 foot step backwards?

- I ready an action to 5 ft step away from someone who successfully trips me
- You successfully trip (and you have a 5 foot reach)
- I step back and am now outside your reach

Am I prone?

The sticking point is still that there is no gap between success and consequence. A trip is not successful until someone is prone. You are adding a non-existent resolution point just because there is a die roll involved. There is no success until the desired consequence of what you attempted occurs. That is the very definition of success and the only way to evaluate it. Think real world. Nobody would ever say that a person is successfully tripped until they are down on the ground. As long as they are stumbling or falling they still have a chance to recover so you are still trying to trip them. You have not successfully tripped them yet.

The core argument is that AoOs and readied actions are the same thing at their mechanical core because the preempt wording is the same. The only difference is AoO has fixed triggers and a limit on executions per round
whereas readied you use an action to set a temporary trigger.

If they are the same thing then we have an official ruling triggering off of successful actions via "hitting" that is in conflict with the interpretation you and others are putting forth for greater trip.

Try this:

- I ready an action to attack someone who successfully trips me
- You successfully trip me
- I attack and kill you

Am I prone or not? If the attack preempts then why am I prone? I killed you before you successfully tripped me. But if you never successfully tripped me then I never had my action triggered.

It creates a paradox. That is why you can't preempt when you trigger off of successful actions. To avoid paradox.

Why would an AoO be different? It is the same wording. Why would successful trip be different than successful attack?

I think people have avoided this conversation because greater trip doesn't actually create a paradox. That doesn't make the rule go away though.

That is still avoiding my argument. You are applying your own interpretation of the rules instead of reading them directly when you choose to focus on one part of an entire sentence ("preempts the trigger") over the rest of the sentence. You are choosing to pause where I am saying you cannot pause based on your own interpretation without providing solid evidence and then saying "thems is da rules". You are the one separating the successful trip and prone into two separate resolutions via your interpretation. It is not stated anywhere that I know of that you should do this.

The wording for a readied action go exactly like this:
"You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it."

However, when you ready against a successful hit you do NOT execute your readied action before you are hit providing you the opportunity to negate that damage. You take the damage.

The wording is the same. Why are you discounting this similarity? Explain how the readied/hit/do-not-preempt makes sense using your interpretation for trip.

Yeah man. I know how AoOs work.

My entire argument is that the key difference is that the trigger on GT is not an action. The trigger is on a resolution. Trip is the action. A "successful trip" is not an action. You cannot take the "successful trip" action. "Successful trip" is a resolution. Therefore that rule you cited is not stating what occurs in this situation.

The only example I personally know of in the game that has an official ruling and has a trigger that is set on a resolution instead of an action is someone readying an action on when they are hit (not attacked or approached. ie a successful attack). The normal ruling for a readied action, much like for AoOs, is that they preempt their trigger. However in this specific circumstance, by readying against a resolution instead of against an action, the readied action does preempt the trigger (the hit and damage).

I take this official ruling on this very similar situation as evidence of how GT should work in the absence of an official ruling on GT or at least an example of another similar situation with a different official ruling than the example I listed above.

I sincerely do appreciate the discourse. I just don't think this is as settled as you are treating it. Please engage me on the specifics of my argument either by inspecting my logic or providing counter-example instead of re-stating the AoO rules.

I'm still waiting for your support of that conclusion. Where is your evidence that you can pause between success and consequence?

...to say nothing of how thematically weird that is. ::edit:: Hrmm I guess I did say something... what an odd phrase.

I'm not sure if the made-up scenario will actually distract us or not but it actually isn't quite like that scenario because you didn't explicitly call out success.

You'd have to say something like:
When someone successfully taunts you, they provoke an AoO from you.

In that scenario the successful action is the taunt and the consequence is you being angry. So do you stab them before or after you get angry?

Everything you are citing are triggers which do not specifically call out success (attempting to leave a threatened square not successfully leaving it, attempting to stand not having successfully stood). You are triggering off the start of an action. Success is the completion of the action.

Changing a failure into a success by using an ability to get a bonus is not the same thing as creating a time gap between success and consequence to allow a pause or retcon.

The example for not being able to retcon off success to preempt consequence is a successful attack. You cannot trigger off of being hit (successful attack) and have your response preempt the damage (consequence of successful attack). Your response comes after the damage.

There's mine, I am open to debate on it. I await yours.

As for cinematically, yes, I can visualize hitting someone as they fall. I can just as easily visualize hitting them just after they fall. What I can't visualize is a falling man defending himself as well as a standing man (ie retains dex mod, no penalty to AC, etc). As they don't explicitly detail the penalties of "falling" it is easier to avoid the absurdity of them being a fully capable defender by taking the prone interpretation.

Well for that latter I am pretty sure that is just a wasted action as all you are doing is spending time/risk to try and apply a condition that is already on them similar to what happens if you trip somebody with your AoO triggered by them standing up.

Let's stay focused on the success-consequence bond! What evidence is there that there is a gap between there allowing you to violate its immediacy?

If it really is a "forced action" then I understand but I've never heard of a "forced action". What is the support for that being the way it works? You aren't forcing them to take the fall prone action. It isn't a fall prone action. They don't even have the action econ for that because you can't fall prone when it isn't your turn (free not immediate). The application of the prone condition is simply the consequence of the successful trip. Just because there is a "fall prone" action doesn't mean that is the only way to become prone.

You can't "stop the flow" between success and consequence just like you can't "retcon" off success and preempt the consequence. There is no gap. Success and consequence are one.

Where does it ever say you can? What else in the game breaks that success-consequence bond? Why make an exception just for trip?

@Kazaan, isn't that clarification in favor of them being prone for GT?

According to those statements, readied actions are even faster than AoOs . If a readied action cannot break the successful action -> consequence timeline then why can an AoO?

I know how to actually invalidate an attack, I'm just not sure why the the success-consequence connection is slower in the case of greater trip than it is in the case of everything else in the game.

I think I get the movement AoO thing. The big deal is that the trigger is "leaving" a square you threaten instead of "has left" a square so they are still in range.

If I discard the notion of readied goes before trigger then VS makes perfect sense to me. Prone == prone.

I still don't get GT though. What else in the game divides a successful action with its consequence in this manner? It still seems like once you dictate "success" the consequence is immediate and implicit and cannot be interrupted. How is a hit not just a successful attack with damage as the consequence just like a successful trip has prone as the consequence? If you can split up the success and consequence of a trip in this manner then why can't you split up a hit the same way just by wording it differently?

In mechanics:
I ready an action to attack the first person to successfully attack me.
They attack.
Attack roll is determined to be a success, but that doesn't mean that the attack has been completely resolved yet.
I attack back.
Their damage is applied (if they don't die).

In thematics:
They pull back their sword and begin to swing, I've readied my stab for the feeling of the first nick on my skin, they hit, I attack and stab them, their dagger finishes sinking in.

Now replace attack back with 5 ft step back and you have yourself in the paradox scenario they were trying to avoid by negating the consequences of success when the trigger is success.

I also still don't get VS either. That one seems like they shouldn't be prone RAW (although that seems opposite RAI given flavor text). There's no success clause so why wouldn't normal "AoO occurs before trigger" clause apply? The trigger is falling prone adjacent to you. Therefore your AoO preempts them being prone. Just like when the trigger is someone leaving a square you threaten. The AoO preempts them leaving the square.

I seem to be backwards from what sounds like the common ruling. What am I not getting?

That's a really odd interpretation of success. Almost any real person would say a trip isn't successful until the target is prone.

That's why the successful clause should come into play.

It's just like readying an action against a successful hit. A hit isn't successful until the consequences are applied so an interrupt can't act before the consequence. That's why if you want to avoid damage you need to ready against the swing itself not the success of the swing.

How is what I'm saying wrong? Why wouldn't the fact that it calls out "success" in the trigger override the interrupt clause for trip/prone/AoO just like it does for hit/damage/readied action?

I'm still not clear on if it is officially settled that they are not prone during the AoO according to RAW. Is it official or just the current interpretation people are taking?

The word "successful" really means a lot doesn't it? I thought that the consequences of a "successful" action were instantaneously applied because they wanted to avoid paradoxes. That is why if you ready an action for being hit the damage is still applied regardless of your readied action - because being hit is a successful attack action. That way you avoid the paradox of invalidating the attack which in itself caused the trigger.

If that is the case then since it says "successful trip" the consequence (falling prone) is instantaneous just like the consequence of a successful attack (damage) is instantaneous. It's a work-around for the whole response occurs before trigger clause.

...Right?

Necro bump because I want the official answer on VS too!

Also, is the GT thing official canon? I always thought that they were prone despite the trigger clause because it explicitly calls out "successful" trip. In my mind that put it in the same camp as how if you ready an action for when you are hit the action comes after the damage not before.

It feels really weird to claim that a guy can defend himself better in the second while falling than he can while on the ground...

Right. It was the text in stunning fist itself that made me think sicken + sicken == nauseated. I confess I've never really looked elsewhere to see if that fact is true. Why would it say that if it wasn't? Is it a relic of old rules? Like maybe they removed that from sicken but forgot to update the stunning first text?

So 2 hanging questions:
1) Everyone agrees sicken + sicken != nauseate making the whole thing moot?
2) Would it work with fatigue? Does order matter? Say frostbite first and then stunning fist to cause exhaustion?

From the description of stunning fist.

"These effects do not stack with themselves (a creature sickened by Stunning Fist cannot become nauseated if hit by Stunning Fist again), but additional hits do increase the duration."

That clause made me assume that sicken + sicken == nauseated, but not if both sickens come from stunning fist.

Does it not?

Sicken + sicken == Nausea right?

So does this work? Lvl 8, Maneuver master monk with greater dirty trick. The monk dirty tricks to sicken the enemy and then stunning fists them to sicken in one flurry. Does it upgrade to nauseated? Stunning fist says it can't combine with itself but doesn't mention combining with other things that caused the same effect. And once nauseated the creature lacks the standard action to clear the dirty trick. So did you just lock a guy down for 1d4+X rounds?

Is this super good or are there so many ways to nauseate (or stack sickness into nausea) or hard disable people that it really isn't that big a deal?

I'm pretty sure Snake Fang always gives you an AoO every time you are missed while in the style. It really can't only work when doing the "sense motive is my armor class" thing because you have to burn an immediate action to activate the sense motive thing and you also need an immediate action to activate the 2nd free attack granted by snake fang (assuming your AoO hits).

The crane feeding snake thing I still don't know. I can see it both ways. I will say that the Hong Kong cinema lover in me wants to assume they were written to be purposefully synergistic to harken back to the many films (especially early Jackie Chan movies) featuring blended snake and crane kung fu styles.

Yeah, that's the part we weren't sure about. We were going on whole "first it hit, then you made it miss" thing so first it triggered crane wing into crane riposte and then snake fang. It always did seem a bit sketchy yet arguable since the wording on crane wing says "that would normally hit you" implying that since you winged it the attack did not hit you and therefore missed.

I'm sure we would have searched for a real answer if the character actually did any damage.

Yeah, I used snake style as the example because that's the one that really has the huge boon for skipping to the end.

I made a Snake and Crane guy I called the pinball halfling because he'd just run around provoking AoO on purpose and counter striking. We could never decide if he was legal though because we didn't know if I could skip to the end of snake like that and we didn't know if blocking with crane style really counts as being "missed" for the crane riposte double snake fang 3-for-1 retort. Also it didn't really matter because he was terrible (his damage was a joke and enemies would just stop taking their AoOs at him once they saw what was happening). Hehe.

Yeah, I actually screwed up twice in the original post. Double counted strong jaw as you said and used the enlarge as a double instead of getting into the grand "what advancement occurs" debate.

We're past that part. It definitely can't get the 448 I was originally scared of.

Different but related - I've never been 100% on this. Does master of many styles let you jump the middle feat in a chain?

ie:
Lvl 1: Unarmed fighter 1, snake style
Lvl 2: MoMS monk 1, snake fang

Legal?

That's pretty cool that the damage works out to the same value (even if super weird that there are different scales). Although, it did confuse me on another point.

Do improved natural attack and strongjaw normally not stack based on the same logic as lead blades and an impact weapon not stacking? (ie They are a redundant effect because they both go up the scale "as if the size had increased").

Do they suddenly stack again once you trigger the double clause of strongjaw though? Because at that point you aren't moving up the scale, you're just doubling the damage.

...might be a moot point anyway. That's pretty RAW even for RAW.