Shimesen's page

Just so you know, there are 4 "precise strike" abilities in the game now....all 4 of which stack together and can be used on one attack....so yeah...

Seeing as it the exact same feature as the Bladebound Magus feature, and even refers to it, and counts it's levels, as Magus for the ability, then they should stack.

Much like multiple classes with a Familiar.

we beat that argument to death once before when discussing the merits of 2 bonded objects with a wizard/sorcerer cross class....that thread was exausting, and if i remember correctly, it was never very clear as to how that would be ruled. this would be much the same idea as 2 bonded items. nothing clearly states that gaining a second one instead increases the one you already have. either way, this is just a concept build, so lets go with it works, so the sake of this thread.

to answer the OP's question: you are correct. only the bonus feats can be qualified for as if you are a fighter. the "normal" feats you gain at every odd level cannot be of those that require fighter levels.

He's wrong. The definition of a set numerical value in PF is one that never changes weather or not your character level or caster level go up. A good example is the feat Weapon Focus. The +1 is ALWAYS a +1, no matter what. Any bonus chat changes at all, weather with leveling up, or by some other means is NOT a set value. Its a variable value.

yumad wrote:

Paralyzed

A paralyzed character is frozen in place and unable to move or act. A paralyzed character has effective Dexterity and Strength scores of 0 and is helpless, but can take purely mental actions. A winged creature flying in the air at the time that it becomes paralyzed cannot flap its wings and falls. A paralyzed swimmer can't swim and may drown. A creature can move through a space occupied by a paralyzed creature—ally or not. Each square occupied by a paralyzed creature, however, counts as 2 squares to move through.

If you have still silent remove paralysis prepared or a paladin's lay on hands has the paralysis mercy selected, they can still take an action to remove paralysis. It's physical inhibition only, even if the source of the physical inhibition is a mind-affecting effect.

How ever you want to term it in your game is fine, but Hold person is a mind-affect. "physical inhibitor" is not a game term, neither is "mental inhibitor". Mind-affecting is though, and so is the condition of Paralyzed. FoM doesn't make a distinction to the cause, source or circumstance of the condition Paralyzed, just that you are not affected by it while you have FoM on. Meaning by RAW there is no distinction between the various forms of paralysis for the purpose of FoM, or their is no distinction between physical or mental movement restriction.

the paralyzed condition is NOT a mind-affecting condition. Hold Person might be due to the nature of the spell, but the condition it applies is not. as to the reason WHY FoM makes paralyzed not work is because paralyzed doesn't completely take away your ability to make a move action, it takes away your ability to move. there is a distinction. i can take a move action without physical movement. there are lots of things that require no physical movement that DO require a move action. Daze, on the other had, specifically states that you do not get a move action because you "cannot take any actions" it doesn't matter what you are trying to do with the action in question, you simply cant take it. Paralyze only restricts physical movement, even if the delivery method of the condition is a mind-affecting effect, the condition remains an "inhibitor" of physical movement only, not the actions that are used to make said physical movement.

Nothing in the rules stops you from getting the same class feature twice and benefiting from it twice. Perfect example: a multi class magus wizard has the class feature 'Spells'. If what you guys are saying is true, then they would only have 1 'sourse' of spells and one spell book. They in fact have two spell books and two completely seprate lists of spells per day to cast spells from, neither of which stacks with the other. The same goes for the OPs situation, the two arcane bonds are completely different. The 'stacking' that is talked about in the bloodline arcane bond is only used to determine the effective level of sorcerer for that one object. The sorcerers arcane bond is still completely different from the wizard arcane bond. They don't even function interchangibly. One casts a spell using one spell list, the other uses a completely different list. It is because of this separation of spell lists that it only makes sense that there are two objects. Neither one can use the others spell slots or prepared spells from the spell book. If you believe that it just increases the power of the same object then you are asserting that that object is also now capable of casting both prepared and spontaneous spells.

ok. here is the "head of the nail" that i see everyone swinging a hammer at and missing. except 1 person, Ssalarn, who keeps nailing the sucker (at least from where i am sitting):

people keep assuming that making a ride check would allow you to command your mount to attack. (weather this was the intent or not is irrelevant) it does not. it allows you to still be able to attack. to tell any creature to attack, including a mount, the only skill that states that you can use it to do so is Handle Animal.

Fight with a Combat-Trained Mount: If you direct your war-trained mount to attack in battle, you can still make your own attack or attacks normally. This usage is a free action.

nowhere in that part of the ride skill does it say that directing your mount to attack is part of that check. it only says that when you succeed that check you, the rider, can attack as normal. it does not include directing your mount as part of the check. the check to "direct your mount to attack" is listed under handle animal, here:

and then goes on to list this trick:

further, the skill states the following:

now: given that all those rules have NOT changed with the new FAQ, what HAS changed, is that when you wish to take an attack and receive the bonus to it granted from the mount when it charges, you are now also charging. this is important because
1) a charge is a special attack listed under attacks in the combat section, and thus to command your mount to charge, you are commanding it to attack, which is a move action.
2) if you wish to take the bonus from your mount charging, you must also be considered charging, and as per the rules on charging, you can only do so with a full-round action which you no longer have because you wasted a move action on commanding your mount to charge.

the only possible way to make this rules legal (action economy wise) is by somehow having an additional move action within the round such as granted by the 'Quick Runners Shirt'.

EVEN IF you were NOT trying to charge, but still wanted your mount to charge while you took a full round action to, say, shoot a bow, now you cannot do so unless you can make the above mentioned handle animal check as a free or swift action.

so to summarize the argument: in order to "Fight with a Combat-trained Mount" as per the rules (which have not changed) you need two checks, First a Handle Animal Check, THEN a Ride check. this has ALWAYS been the case, it has never changed. but what HAS changed is that you now CANNOT make the handle animal check and be "considered charging" because you legally do not have the action economy to do so.

Perhaps for this thread we need to start a list of what DOES work with vital strike. I think maybe I'll start a new thread with that name and we can go from there

Wow...so a combat maneuver is no longer an attack. good to know the design team doesn't know its own rules....I think perhaps that the answer should have been worded differently...

Shimesen wrote:

Elbedor wrote:

That is true. It has no effect. So waste the attack on tripping a prone guy if you want, but nothing comes from it. <shrug>

GM: OK, you successfully tripped your target with your first attack, now what?

Player: I make a second trip attempt with my 2nd BAB to try to drag with my meteor hammer. *rolls dice and overcomes CMD*

Gm: aaaand...nothing happens...

Player: why not? I made the roll...why didn't I move him?

I have an issue with this...it completely gimps the meteor hammer and seven branched swords alternate effects. For all purposes I think you should ALWAYS be able to make a trip attempt, but if you are trying to give something a condition it already has, THAT is when "nothing happens" should come into play.

This all goes back to my original argument in the first thread: a condition cannot be reapplied. It has nothing to do with the action you are taking, but the effect you are trying to apply.

So you would allow the 2 weapons with alternate effects be used against something that cant be tripped? You know like a snake/etc? If you allow this then way wouldnt you allow the AoO from greater trip triggered on these creatures.

Because I distinguish between a successful trip attempt and successfully tripping. Successfully tripping means you made a non prone target prone. The attempt is surpassing CMD with a roll.

IMHO there is nothing stopping you from trying to trip a prone target (or even an immune one), but no matter the roll, it will always fail, even if the attempt is successful. But if you are using trip rules to do something that is not a trip, then you arnt tripping.

If something is immune to slashing damage, does that mean you can't use an attack with a slash weapon to deal piercing damage?(assuming you have an ability that allows this) of course not. You are just using the rules for one mechanic of the game to do something else.

personally, i would NEVER allow a cantrip to simply make a higher level spell's effect useless without some kind of unique player doing. i certainly would not allow a cantrip to overpower a capstone ability. its hard enough to ever even get to your capstone, little own have one that doesnt completely suck like most classes do. as far as i am concerned, using hidden master makes you invisible to ANYTHING, even something using blindsense/blindfight/tremmorsense/scent. its pretty much the ultimate form of invisibility in the game for the one class who's soul purpose is to NEVER BE SEEN IN A FIGHT. taking away the one thing that this class strives for for the entire game with something a CR 1/2 wizard NPC can cast is disgraceful to the spirit of the game.

Shimesen wrote:

Forget talking to the GM. Just do it! If he plays with gm fiat with this, then grab your dice, stick them in your pocket, fold up your character sheet, then rip it into pieces and shower the table with confeti and walk away...either a gm let's the players help tell the story, or the gm loses players...its that simple. He needs to be able to adapt to what you do as much as you have to adapt to what he does.

I'm a 30 year old man, I'm not prone to adolescent behavior. Our gaming table is a tight knit group and has been for a looong time. He just needs to realize a couple of things to become a great DM. It's one of his first REAL campaigns (as in, not an AP)

Me and him usually have a great big laugh post-session about the shenanigans happening/not happening due to metagaming from him (and me from time to time. No one's perfect you know).

I'm 27 and also am not prone to acting like a child, but that doesn't mean that its not an effective tool to help get your point across sometimes. My group is also very close and usually very fun and all that too, but none of us are scared to call bulls*** on whoever is GMing at the time. I've called pray to the fiat myself as a GM and had to back off a little when my whole group decided to simply stop being adventures and settle down because i wasn't letting them have much freedom. Player refusal is a powerful tool for education of a gm....

Shimesen wrote:

Forget talking to the GM. Just do it! If he plays with gm fiat with this, then grab your dice, stick them in your pocket, fold up your character sheet, then rip it into pieces and shower the table with confeti and walk away...either a gm let's the players help tell the story, or the gm loses players...its that simple. He needs to be able to adapt to what you do as much as you have to adapt to what he does.

Some day I hope someone makes a web series about what a gaming table would look like if people followed this sort of forum advice.

GMs would be less apt to use gm fiat just to get what they want...

full-round action specifically says you CAN make a swift/free/immediate action during it. so yes.

Full-Round Action: A full-round action consumes all

your effort during a round. The only movement you can
take during a full-round action is a 5-foot step before,
during, or after the action. You can also perform free
actions
and swift actions (see below). See Table 8–2 for a
list of full-round actions.
Some full-round actions do not allow you to take a
5-foot step.
Some full-round actions can be taken as standard actions,
but only in situations when you are limited to performing
only a standard action during your round. The descriptions
of specific actions detail which actions allow this option.

i think perhaps you just arn't thinking enough "outside the box" casters can use fly before combat starts and just stay out of range of your melee heavy party members, forcing them to use their craptacular ranged weapons they only held onto "just in case" and your bard can easily suffer a debuff or two on turn one such as blindness/deafness. this would pretty much let you mess around with them as you please until your bbeg is out of spells to cast for the day. if they survive this, kudos to them, but its not likely unless they come up with a creative way to get at the bbeg, in which case everyone wins because fights are always more fun when they're an intellectual challenge.

just make sure you cripple any PC's that can also cast fly as soon as possible.

also keep in mind that as the GM, theres nothing stopping you from fudging information (such as the bbeg goes first on initiative) if you fear a one turn kill. GM fiat exists for a reason...this is part of it.

also, try creating your own adventure entirely, monsters and environment and mission included. this way you know what to expect from the PCs and your monsters and encounters are made to match.

Attack Roll

An attack roll represents your attempt to strike your
opponent on your turn in a round. When you make an
attack roll, you roll a d20 and add your attack bonus. (Other
modifiers may also apply to this roll.) If your result
equals or beats the target’s Armor Class, you hit and deal damage.
Automatic Misses and Hits: A natural 1 (the d20 comes
up 1) on an attack roll is always a miss. A natural 20 (the d20
comes up 20) is always a hit. A natural 20 is also a threat—a
possible critical hit (see the attack action on page 182).

Damage

If your attack succeeds, you deal damage. The type of
weapon used determines the amount of damage you deal.
Damage reduces a target’s current hit points.

Free Action: Free actions consume a very small amount of time and effort. You can perform one or more free actions

while taking another action normally. However, there are reasonable limits on what you can really do for free, as decided by the GM.

given the above rules we can see that YES, you CAN take a free action while attacking, at any point during the attack.

HOWEVER, because there is no distinguishable difference between attack and damage as actions (they are the same thing), if you choose to activate the free action you take either has to happen before or after you roll both dice rolls because by the rules both are the same thing...technically speaking, its perfectly legal to roll your damage before you roll your attack. nothing in the rules specifies which roll must be made first.

if you take the rule on free actions by complete RAW, then attempting to change styles the way you are asking about, you would HAVE to declare the free action AS you rolled the dice.

because there is no difference between attack rolls and damage rolls (because they happen at the same time) the damage has already been rolled before you change styles, or if it hasn't been rolled yet, neither has the attack...see where i'm going with this?

unless you can show me something else in the rules that states these two dice rolls are mutually exclusive, then i (and everyone else here) has no choice but to come to the conclusion that they are one-in-the-same.

ohh, and before you try to bring up something like Arcane edge (the magus arcana) again, lets look at it for a sec:

Arcane Edge (Su)

Prerequisite: Magus 9

Benefit: The magus can expend 1 point from his arcane pool as an immediate action after hitting a target with a slashing or piercing weapon in order to deal an amount of bleed damage equal to his Intelligence modifier (minimum 0).

this does NOT happen before damage is rolled....it happens AFTER, then it tacks on a little bit more....of a different type....Prescient Defense is the same thing - it happens after damage is dealt.

the Kensai's Perfect Strike is a little different because it says "don't roll for Damage", but it still doesn't happen BEFORE damage, because all it is doing is changing one number in the total equation, so even if you HAD rolled damage, it still changes whatever that roll was to its maximum. the damage still happened before you chose to do this, it just hadn't been tallied up and totaled yet (which is an out of game/metagame action anyway) (rolling dice. for that matter, is also an out of game/metagame action as well)

many threads on this, still no answer. so i'm simplifying the question:

question 1) does Multi-Weapon Fighting qualify you for taking any feat that lists Two-Weapon Fighting as a requirement?

Multiweapon Fighting (Combat)

This multi-armed creature is skilled at making attacks with multiple weapons.

Prerequisites: Dex 13, three or more hands.

Benefit: Penalties for fighting with multiple weapons are reduced by –2 with the primary hand and by –6 with off hands.

Normal: A creature without this feat takes a –6 penalty on attacks made with its primary hand and a –10 penalty on attacks made with all of its off hands. (It has one primary hand, and all the others are off hands.) See Two-Weapon Fighting.

Special: This feat replaces the Two-Weapon Fighting feat for creatures with more than two arms.

the bolded entry is what needs clarification.

Question 2) if yes to question 1, does Improved Two-Weapon Fighting grant an additional attack for EACH off-hand, or just one?

Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (Combat)

You are skilled at fighting with two weapons.

Prerequisites: Dex 17, Two-Weapon Fighting, base attack bonus +6.

Benefit: In addition to the standard single extra attack you get with an off-hand weapon, you get a second attack with it, albeit at a –5 penalty.

Normal: Without this feat, you can only get a single extra attack with an off-hand weapon.

again, bolded text is what needs clarifying.

i think everyone here is forgetting something: Mythic in and of itself is OVERPOWERED ON PURPOSE! by taking the stance that this ability DOESNT allow a caster to use more spells in a day, you are asserting that you want less OP from mythic...thats stupid. the idea was to make PC's even more insane in power level, this does just that...

It is strange to have a class based on the sorcerer and barbarian mixed together, with a spontaneous spellcasting, but does not gain Eschew Material when he gains spellcasting. She should have it.

My 5 cents: Add Eschew Material at Fourth Level to the Bloodrager. She is a sorcerous barbarian, why would you take out a spell components in a bloodrage? You're supposed to channeled the power inside, not do the same wizard tricks with spell components.

i imagine the spellcasting of a bloodrager to be somewhere along the lines of:

he goes into a rage, begins casting the spell, but cant get the components out of his bag, so just hurles it at the bad guy and screams incoherently. the result it an explosion of arcane power when the bag hits the bad guy that somewhat resembles some other spell we've seen before.

upon beginning my "break the new classes" run for character building for my groups next upcoming campaign which will be Tomb of Horrors, i discovered something interesting about this class: it uses the magus spell list...not that big of a deal until you consider multiclassing into magus with it. normally, to combine any other casting class with magus, you need a three level dip in magus at a minimum in order to obtain a magus arcana to allow you take have access to your other spellcasting classes spells with spellcombat and spellstrike. but since these two classes use the same spell list, i at at a standstill with building this class...can i actually only take a two level dip in magus and still make full use of spellcombat and spellstrike?

my after thinking it over and arguing with my groupmate about it, i think i may have an answer, but feel that it needs to be rewritten as such. while the bloodrager and magus spell lists are identical, they are still entirely seperate lists within themselves and must be listed as such to maintain efficient balance for the purpose or magus cross-classing. otherwise we are going to see a brutal influx of bloodrager x, magus 2 builds as it will become the best possible spellstrike/spellcombat build in the game with a 19 BAB and access to all the touch spells a 20th level magus relies on normally for spellstrikes. in addition, he'll have an oddly large number of usable spells per day due to the increased spell slots granted from 2 levels of magus for 1st level spells.

As what's his face pointed out casting instant enemy is a swift action.

its also a 3rd level spell which limits it use as a swift action to x times a day and cant even be used until what? like 13th level? so over half the game is played without this even being an option. weapon training is active from lvl5 and isn't variable dependent.

havoc xiii wrote:

My wife's fighter is probably our single most destructive force in the group. She even took Leadership for a feat. Do you know why? Because she had the feats to do it she wasn't starved on feats she had the versatility of choosing what she took.

She can also trip, sunder, or disarm at range she threatens 15 feet around and slant worry about provoking AoO for firing in melee it's amazing. And if paizo released a new feat for allowing dext to damage for bows she can take that one too.

Except for the manuevers a ranger can do ALL of those things as well

i can build an oracle who can do all those things too. i can make a rogue do them all. i can make a magus do them all. but if i do, those classes wont be doing their INTENDED job as well as they could have. this is the same with the ranger. if you want to make a ranger stack up number for number with a fighter designed to be the front line bullet sponge, you have to sacrifice something. the very best you are going to get by trying this is a ranger with 3 fewer feats and ~20 more skill points.

yes, you can make a ranger be your bullet sponge, but he wont be the ranger anymore, he'll be the "guy trying to be the fighter/paladin"

at best your ranger will be able to go blow for blow with the fighter when he is standing in a favored terrain and the enemy with a favored enemy. if neither of those are true statements in an encounter, then your down numbers in +ATK and +Dmg. anything you can do to increase these number, a fighter can do as well by some means. plus he's wearing better armor AND he's got at least one other feat chain at any given point more then the ranger does, so he has more combat related tricks up his sleeve. he can do MORE in combat that the ranger can until you factor in the pet, at which point that is a one trick pony where the fighter has a multitude of options to go with.

i'm sorry to sound so childish, but when it comes to combat, "anything you can do, I can do better! I can do anything better than you!"

thats the whole point of of the fighter. yes, you can do more out of combat at the expense of things to do/have inside of combat, but not you are making yourself a jack of all trades, which was never the intent of any class or archetype in the same except for the rogue. and as we all know, the rogue is exactly that - jack of all trades, master of none.

for a general "get more out of the game overall, but excel at my characters main objective slightly worse" point of view, a ranger can replace a fighter in the "tank" role in a group, but he will never be able to be a "tank" as well as a fighter can. the only two classes that can accomplish this are the barbarian and the paladin if you build them to be the tank. and even then, the barbarian usually doesn't end up being as good a tank as you would like it to be.

i would just like to point out that the argument here is based on replacing the fighter with a ranger who is more useful out of combat at the expense of some in combat utility...am i the only person who realizes that this is just a form of archetype-ing? if you want a character who serves a specific role, you use a certain class as a base for that role. if the role you are going for is the front-line "tank" for the group, then (pardon my french) f*** the out of combat utility. that wasn't what you wanted to use him for.

if you want a character who can do all the our of combat stuff like picking locks and hoodwinking people into trusting the group, then your gonna want to start with a class that doesnt excel at combat such as a rogue, but has alot of skill points to make up for it.

if you are trying to make a character who can do EVERYTHING and make the rest of the group obsolete, then just get up from the table, find a hammer, and proceed to smash your fingers one at a time because you need to stop talking on these forums about a game that has classes and class balance. (and YES, this game is balanced properly. if you dont think so, you have a bad definition of balance) because what you are looking for is a god-class and a game designed to be played alone.

yes, and class can fill the "role" of any other class in this game if you design them to do so, but you will never be able to do EXACTLY what another class can do AND do what your original class was meant to do and be better then both of them build to do their intended roles.

you can have one piece of pie, you cant have the whole damned thing.

/endrant

The whole argument about martials being useless comes from theory craft based in a perfect scenario in which you'll have everything you need as a caster prepped and ready for the encounter before hand and your gm allows you to buff before the initiative roll and you still somehow have enough spells per day to use on damage spells that have been metamagiced the crap out of to do a lot of damage. Then the idea is that once your resourses are depleted for the day you use magic to go somewhere safe to rest and use magic to travel right back 8 hours later and nothing has changed like someone hit pause on the world while you were gone.

Simply put, it never happens that way. A martial is better prepared for any eventuality rather than one perfect encounter what realistically never happens. Bad guy caught the party with its pants down? Martial can grab their weapon and proceed to attack the enemy head on while the casters have to waist 3-5 rounds just buffing the party and themselves (assuming they have the spells left to do so).

Magic is great, sure. but it isn't infinite. A sword can be swung forever.

And the whole argument about battlefield control being a casters means of making the martial job "janitor work" is strupid because martial can do that too. Its called using combat maneuvers. Grapple>pin>tie up>move on. If you build a fighter right, he can acomplish all that in 1 round, same as a sleep spell, except now what determines success is the fighters stats, not the dice roll for a save....better if you ask me.

Any class can excel at something if you build it to do that. No class can excel at Everything. I tried to make a caster that could fill the role of any other party member at any given time...I found that although the are spells that allow me to accomplish this, I can't have access to all of them and still be a spontaneous caster.

So there you have it. A caster can be anything he wants, but not everything. Materials can too, they just build differently.

Past about level 9 or so it becomes increasingly obvious that the casters are the adventurers actually solving problems and getting things done, while everyone else in the party are essentially just an entourage of equal level followers.

Shimesen, you seem to be willfully missing the point that no matter how great your fighter is at fighting, a proper caster can completely upstage him by making the one thing he is good at moot. Even your hamfisted GM fiat ways to keep casters in check all revolve around applying more magic to the problem or giving noncasters a few wands so they can be halfassed casters when nobody is looking. All of this is blatant admission that nothing trumps magic, nothing.

i never say anything trumps magic. i know full well that to acomplish a task, there is ALWAYS a magical solution, but the simple fact that there is not a single class in the game that can use any/all magic however and whenever they damned well feel like it because their class has limitations is exactly why they are balanced. yes, i you really want to, you can do anything any other class can do...for a little while...at a cost...then you have to stop and wait...where as the class you are attempting to mimic can keep on doing what they were meant to do without end....

in this lies balance. no matter how you look at it, a caster has to stop at some point at least once a day. martial characters dont have to unless they need to replenish hit points. every class can just plow through lvl 1 goblins without taking a hit...but a caster will run out of spells just like a ranger will run out of arrows...a martial character can keep going until he literally drops dead from exhaustion, which can take a few days. this is balance. this is my whole point. casters are balanced because they HAVE TO STOP. yes, the party will most likely stop whenever the caster needs to because that's common player etiquette. but do they have to? no. thats a choice made for the enjoyment of everyone.

you also have to take into account that a player who chooses to play a (we'll say fighter for the sake of simplicity) chooses to do so because they dont WANT to be the guy who picks the locks, or finds a way around a story obstacle. they want to be the one who sprints into a fight and screams "HULK SMASH". the player who chooses to play a rogue knowing wants to be the guy who picks the locks and hides and picks his targets. but the player who chooses to play a sorcerer because he wants to do EVERYTHING that can possibly be done is going to find that a)they dont have the spells available to accomplish this, or b)they manage to hog the spotlight and everyone at the table ends up hating them. either way, they arn't going to be happy.

maybe i'm the only one who sees balance as being more then 4+2+1=7 is the same as 1+4+2=7....balance has alot more to do with the players interaction with themselves than it does with the characters potential to interact with the rules.

a group with a fighter, rogue, and sorcerer in it comes to a door: options include fighter kicking it down, sorcerer blowing it up, or rogue picking the lock. without even discussing the issue everyone knows that this is the rogues time to shine. if in this situation the sorcerer uses a spell instead of letting the rogue do it, you have 1)created tension in the group dynamic, and 2)made the rogues player feel that he has played the wrong class to do what he wants to do (which he hasn't).

in addition, in a group such as this, no caster in their right mind would have spells ready for situations that the other party members can deal with. there isn't space enough to be prepared for anything and everything. so instead you prepare for what ISN'T in the party. just because there is a spell for everything, doesn't mean you USE spells for everything. you use magic when there isn't a way to deal with something WITHOUT it....this is the balance that is build into casters. their strength is in their versatility, but their versatility is also their weakness, because they dont prepare to pick the lock, but then the rogue gets taken out in an encounter and the locked door wasn't picked and the caster doesn't have the spell ready to solve this problem because he used it to stabilize the rogue so he didnt die. now they all have to wait and sleep until the next day, at which point the rogue will be able to pick the lock again and so the caster doesnt prepare the spell again. these are things discussed out of game (metagaming) that make co-existence possible

Shimesen wrote:

As far as ending combat using battlefield control spells, guess what, very few are perminent . Example: sleep only lasts for a little while, so when you decide to walk off without dealing with it your gonna end up with 2x the baddies in the next room. And even if you do use sleep to do a coup de grace, you need a martial character to pull it off cause a caster doesn't have the melee damage nessisary to actually kill the baddy most of the time. If you do, he probably has a will high enough to resist sleep.

It doesn't matter if you need a martial to coup de grace the guy, the point still stands that you ended the encounter with a single spell without allowing anyone else in the party to do anything interesting besides end the life of targets that can't fight back.

Shimesen wrote:

besides, if casters are really that OP compared to martials well i have news for you: its not hard to extend an anti-magic field over an entire dungeon using GM fiat. then whats your precious god-mode 9th level 10 metamagic-ed super-spell gonna do? hmmm? nothing. its gonna fizzle like it should cause i can break the game too.

Ah, the ol' "It's not broken if I Fiat it into not being broken", which is probably the stupidest argument I've ever heard for a multitude of reasons, foremost among them being that if you have to Fiat something into not working, that means it was an issue to begin with.

In essence, by giving an example of how you can heavy handedly "fix" the problem, you have admitted that there IS A PROBLEM and can therefore no longer say that there isn't one.

fiat exists because the game isn't perfect. its never going to be. stop exceting it to be. there has never been a "perfect" game, ever. tabletop, boardgame, videogame, anything. theres ALWAYS something you can exploit if you take the time to figure it out. for those players who discover these tricks, cudos to you. for the rest who play the game to enjoy it, shut up and enjoy it, flaws and all. casters ARNT broken unless you knowingly break them. my best friend just retired a fighter/monk/barbarian who got somewhere around 15-20 attacks a round because of his build. thats REALLY broken. and we told him so. doesn't change the fact that he did it and it was fun to watch for a while, until his turns started taking over 45 minutes to complete and he wiped out 70% of the bad guys in 1 round.

fiat was put into the game for a reason. to unbreak what players break. its not the developers problem that you exploited the system. dont cry to them to change it. its the GM's job to do that. thats EXACTLY the reason the GM has the final say on EVERYTHING in the game. if the GM cant put limitations on things when nessesary, then you are creating a TRUE sandbox, and in a TRUE sandbox, the laws of physics dont apply either so what ends up happening is the players do whatever the hell they want and the story becomes irrelevant. when the players break the story in a normal game,its the GM's job to fix it.

if you build a game where EVERY answer is in the book, and NOTHING can be broken, then you dont need a GM. this is not such a game. those types of games are called video games. in which everything is spelled out in black and white....not the case with a PnP...

Shimesen wrote:

All of these arguments are based on the idea that the players are playing AGAINST the gm...you arnt. Your playing WITH him/her. If you don't have a caster in your group and your gm isn't giving you ways to solve/overcome obstacles, he's failing as the leader of the game. Also, just because a caster CAN break the game with spells, doesn't mean he should unless its nessesary (which it should never be).

That is fine, and that is what actually occurs in most campaing, a gentleman agreement.

Still the caster have considerably more means to disrupt the plot of any adventure, whether they use those meanst means or not do not matter they are there.

i'll give you that much. but don't get me wrong, any good group should have a caster in it. although i HAVE played in a group without one before. there isn't too much of a difference in playing without one if you know what you are doing and you have a decent idea of what kind of setting you are getting yourself into before hand. worse case scenario, you finish what you are doing, then go back to town and ask a spellcaster for help. or or or! heavens forbid your GM tells you before hand that " **stops foot** you should probably grab those scrolls this guy is selling...**stops foot**"

besides, if casters are really that OP compared to martials well i have news for you: its not hard to extend an anti-magic field over an entire dungeon using GM fiat. then whats your precious god-mode 9th level 10 metamagic-ed super-spell gonna do? hmmm? nothing. its gonna fizzle like it should cause i can break the game too.

alot of the spells referred too so far have all been at CL 18+ anyway at which point your martials all have amazing gear and outrageous damage and your spells can get cast like 2-4 times a day that can keep up.

save or die spells are great, but all of them have both SR AND a save (i've checked) to bypass first. and monsters, unlike PC's have scaling SR with the HD. this means that odds are against you that you are gonna get the full effect. spells are hit or miss when it comes to actually working exactly how the caster wanted it to. yeah, i see the badguy i would rather not tangle with, so i'm gonna use dominate person so i dont have to, but ohh, guess what, he happens to have a high will save AND gets bonuses against such spells. sorry, guess you ARE gonna have to hide behind your fighters shield for a few rounds, arnt you?

my point is that EVERY class or group of classes has their usefulness. you cant expect a 3rd level wizard to be able to take on a CR4 setting alone anymore than you can expect a 3rd level rogue to do it. but a group with a wizard, a rogue, and a fighter could do it together. so could a barbarian, ranger, and monk. they just have to go about it differently. know the class you are playing, play it well and SUPPORT YOUR FRIENDS.

side note: no 1 caster can do EVERYTHING any other class can do. its not possible. you can build a caster to mimic 1, maybe 2, other classes in their specific playstyle, but you dont have a spell prepared or learned for every situation possible. you might be able to build yourself a gundam using magic, but i bet if you make a character that can do that, he wont be able to sneak past someone when he needs to. of you could build a druid that can hold his own just like a barbarian, but you wont be able to heal as effectively as a druid designed to do so or a cleric. every PC created has a design, and every design is unique, but no single PC can do EVERYTHING all the time. you cant have ALL arcane and divine spells in your spellbook, and you cant cast any of them at will 1000x a day. you have limitations to your power, just like a fighter cant make 100x attacks a round even though he can stack his +atk ridiculously high.

All of these arguments are based on the idea that the players are playing AGAINST the gm...you arnt. Your playing WITH him/her. If you don't have a caster in your group and your gm isn't giving you ways to solve/overcome obstacles, he's failing as the leader of the game. Also, just because a caster CAN break the game with spells, doesn't mean he should unless its nessesary (which it should never be).

As to the examples given for burst DPR from a caster, how many times a day can said caster do that a day? Not many. As was stated above, a lot of games have 4-5 encounters a day before rest at which point the caster has no more spells left to cast.

As far as using a spell to run from a fight, a good gm is gonna make you regret that choice when a day later you come back and the number of baddies has increased, or the whole dungeon has rest and you have to start from scratch again.

It all goes back to the gm running the game properly. If everyone in a GRP with no caster fails the perception check no notice the key to the door they need to go through, the gm should have a plot device ready for this so the key gets noticed. Gm fiat, or a gm played NPC adventuring with the group, or something similar.

OK, so wait....your telling me that people think casters are superior to materials because of their SUPPORT abilities? Are you F***king kidding me? Who the hell wants a martial character for the support it has? Wtf! If you want that, build a skill monkey rogue....

I keep seeing everyone talk about how casters are gods and martial classes suck. I just don't see how. Are people playing games where concentration checks and spell interruption and AoO don't exist?

I'm sorry if this is just gonna be another "the game is unbalanced" thread. That's not my intent. I just don't see how people can come to that conclusion. There are so many things in the game that make a martial character render a spell caster nothing more then a bag of wet potatoes without even having to do much. Spell resistance being the biggest one.

Also, if the argument stems form the idea that in a 1v1 fight a sorcerer or wizard can beat a fighter every time, well then no duh! The game is designed around a rock<paper<sizzors concept which is exemplified in the three types of saves and how some classes have higher saves in one area and lower in others. The idea is that caster beats tank, tank beats healer, healer beats sneaky, sneaky beats caster.

No one class should ever be better then all the rest, and if you think full casters can, I want to know why because I just don't see how unless you are ignoring rules and giving them D12 for hit dice.

Brilliant energy katana for lightsaber and the kensai archetype with a focus on force spells and enhancement arcanas.

I also have FAQ -ed this thread.

My 2¢: it is implied in the description of dark vision that it cannot see through magic (both in the wording used, and in the examples given) and shadow blend is a magical ability. Although is is not granted by a spell, as per other debates on the subject, it still works under the same guidelines.

That being said, take this example into consideration:

A Creature with dark vision can see darkness, but said darkness is still actually there. A creature standing in same darkness thus is granted his shadow blend because the only prerequisite is to be in an area as such, which he is. The creature with dark vision can see in that area, but the %miss chance granted the SB creature does not come from the darkness its self, but rather from the ability shadow blend. This can be described however you like, but I prefer to think of it as though the shadows act similar to frodos cloak in lotr where it is clear there is an object there, but said object looks as though its part of the background. Although it wouldn't work nearly as effectively, you get my meaning. The shadows act as a sort of cloak around the creature to somewhat hide them.

Regardless of how you look at it in your imagination, the activation of shadow blend is not determined by weather or not someone can see them, but by where they are standing. Therefore a you could then use the stealth skill or others to hide from someone with dark vision because you are being granted a concealment chance by shadow blend, weather that creature can see you or not makes no difference. Just like hiding behind a table make no difference because they can't see through that table, they also can't see through the magic that is giving you concealment.

As a side note, my last character was a fetchling rogue who had SB and my gm ruled that darkvision negated it, so I know what it feels like to have an utterly useless racial ability, but he did rule that it allowed me to use stealth weather or not they could see me, they just didn't get a %miss chance to hit me.

I built my magus with full intent of using haste with spell combat until I found out about the FAQ. That being said, my number one argument behind disagreeing with the FAQ was "so why the hell did they make the magus arcana 'hasted assault' and what use is it now that it no longer applies to spell combat rounds."

In my opinion, should this class specific haste be exempt from this ruling? Yes. If not, then the arcana should be errata-ed to say that it does not work with spell combat so that this ruling is reflected in the book somewhere.

Matthew Downie wrote:

thaX wrote:

I would assume that the character gets the book and finds the tutor during the previous level, learning it just as he gains the new level.

That seems impractical to me. I've had characters level up multiple times in a single dungeon.

I was taught French and German at school but I don't 'know' either language. (In the binary "you know it or you don't" Pathfinder sense.) But suppose I suddenly got magically more intelligent. I might start to remember all the things I was taught. That actually makes more sense to me than taking a rank of linguistics.

In the film Limitless the protagonist took an experimental drug which affected his mind. He could suddenly remember everything he had ever even glanced at or half heard, and make amazing connections between things, allowing him to do some pretty amazing stuff!

What was this in d20 game terms? Maybe +20 to Intelligence?

It's not too much of a stretch to believe that an increase in Intelligence allows connections to be made that were not made before, resulting in another language suddenly making sense, as well as increasing one more skill than last level.

And with this argument played down I have been shown a pretty damned good example of "why" a flat increase to intelligence would in fact grant a bonus language....suddenly I find myself sitting on the other side of the court room....well played my friend...well played.

Also, that was an epic movie.

[Edit]the fact that how you described "how" he started to "make connections" better in his mind to validate the argument just puts it on a level above all other arguments because that is damned near verbatim to the pf definition of intelligence.

Learning any kind of skill - including linguistics - happens gradually in between levels, and is properly "recognised" when you level up.

exactly what i said, but far simpler wording. thank you Avatar.

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

That being said, a bow never strikes an enemy, little own do damage, the ammunition does both, so unless you had arrows is spell storing this would not be possible. And sense spell storing is not listed as an enchantment for arrows, nor as an enchantment that bestows its quality on ammunition, it is indeed not legal for PFS play.

That is the answer you are looking for exactly as a dev would write it. That is exact RAW, and RAW is law in PFS.

Shimesen wrote:

valid point, but IMO the genius's of our would would be somewhere near a 30 INT given that they are so rare.

Extrapolating ability scores into real life means we'd have to have people well over level 40 to get to 30 int, seeing as we don't have magical headbands and such.

Just saying.

DaVincci could have made a magical headband....

My advice? Let them starve and die, then force them to reroll. Give the witch homework and make her study all the spellcasting classes. It sounds to me like what she wants out of the witch is actually the iconic wizard or maybe druid. I have a few pegan friends and from what I understand, those two classes fit well into that worship system. As for the barbarian, it sounds to me like he is intentionally playing the "hulk smash" retard his class was meant to be. Let him. Just make sure someone in the party has a fishing rod and a steak to keep him following the smart ones.

I promised not to force him to fall which I haven't, none of these choices were fall or fall.

having to kill an innocent or letting hundreds of people die is by ALL definitions a fall or fall choice...either way you go you have broken your vow of LG-ness and thus lost either your lawful or your good alignment.

the only way a paladin gets out of a situation like this is by simply NOT making the decision and leaving the choice up to others and walking away.

as a DM, if you really want to make him feel better as a player, your only option is to STOP giving him situations like this and START pointing out situations he puts himself in that are "walking the line" such as not beheading the rogue in the party after he stabs a merchant and steals his gold...