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Am I correct in my understanding that you can't harmonize a lingering composition cantrip?

Likewise you can't harmonize or make lingering an inspire heroics composition.

My interpretation is that if I were to use my harmonize then the next composition spell I cast was lingering composition that would be harmonized (or cancel out the harmonize because it is an action that doesn't qualify for harmonize) then when I cast my cantrip composition it would get the lingering effect but not the harmonized effect.

So the only effects I can harmonize will always be 1 round or instant.

Likewise if I use inspire heroics I then need to cast either Inspire courage or inspire defense which are modified by inspire heroics but then would not get the benefits of either lingering or harmonize.

@Crosswind, I don't know if this is official Canon but a rule that I use in my games is that you can trade actions for worse slots. So you could cast Liberating command as an immediate action and then use a move or standard action to escape the grapple in place of the immediate action that liberating command normally grants you. Obviously this could only be done on your turn.

The way I run it is that you can Convert a standard action into either a move or swift action and you can convert a move action into a swift action. (This assumes that you still have one of the slower action slots available in that turn) You can always trade from fast to slow but never vice versa (I hope the reasons for that are obvious). I don't know if I read this rule somewhere or maybe I read a similar rule and then extrapolated it but it always made perfect sense to me and regardless of the official ruling it is going to be a house rule in any of my games.

So if you're playing in my game you could cast liberating command as a swift action on your turn and escape from the grapple as a move action and still have your standard action remaining. That being said, using it as a move action means that it counts as a move action so you would not get to take a free 5 ft step and to your point, this would not work as an immediate action outside of your initiative turn.

Oh another possible school would be foresight to get the ability to always act in the surprise round, pretty good power but the downside is that you can't take divination as one of your opposed schools. If you were going arcanist this would be a lot more desirable as you don't get the bonus spells/opposed schools.

Random off topic question, targeted at this thread since it is the most recent Magus build conversation I found.

I am researching building a Magus and before I looked at the guides I looked at a couple of different options. When I started looking at the guides I expected to see a magus/eldritch knight build and was surprised when I didn't. It seemed obvious to me but I want to know if there is something I'm missing.

Breakdown of Thought Process:
Magus 15-16/EK 4-5
Pros:
1 extra attack / full attack action

Cons:
Lose the ability to gain 2 wizard spells of every spell tier
Lose the ability to never have to make concentration checks to cast defensively
Lose 1 Magus Arcana
Lose 1 6th lvl spell slot
Caster Level hits 19 instead of 20

Optional:
Trade Counterstrike for a combat feat of choice and +1 to reflex saves

So my thought process is that Action Economy > All, so getting an extra attack per round is worth some of the losses, while significant, from the magus ability.

Again, I'm wondering why I have not seen this build called out as hitting a 16 BAB seems like a high priority to a melee damage archetype, I almost didn't see it as an option not to take EK (arcane archer doesn't really make sense since my magus abilities are melee-centric).

Another build I was looking at is Magus 7/Wizard 3/EK 10

This requires a lot more discussion but again you get a BAB of 16 like above. This build heavily favors a dex based magus and gives you an extra feat in light of that but potentially gets burnt for practiced spellcaster. The reason I chose wizard 3 is because I can still hit lvl 6 spells and after checking this would give access to over 600 wizard spells that the magus does not have access to. This comes at a lot of cost, caster level being a significant one (16 with feat). You lose a lot of magus arcana and your arcane pool is crippled. You do get spell critical which is like the magus arcana with less limitations, but you also have to take broad study so you net out at 2 arcana total. You lose 1 4th, 5th and 6th slot (assuming specialist wizard and bonded item counts as 6th level slot). Given your wizard level is going to be 3 you are limited to like 3 specialist schools that aren't as level dependent, I would say void for +2 all saves, admixture to be able to freely change elemental energy types or controller to get telepathy and shared languages with your charms/dominates.

You could also go arcanist, you would need to get a dm ruling if arcane reservoir and arcane pool can stack (I would rule no but it's worth a shot!). You would lose even more spell slots but gain 2 exploits which could be used to get one of the schools above or a choice of a lot of good bloodlines that aren't too level dependent or a few other decent abilities.

The only sorceror I would consider would be the arcane variant bloodline that lets you use int instead of cha.

The biggest cons for this are the caster level hits, the loss of pretty much all magus arcana and arcane pool and the loss of armor. I would have to really dig into the research but I'm guessing that you could buff yourself up to a similar defensive level with your wizard spells. Which is roughly 75 of each school and like 140 from transmutation.

The benefit vs going pure magus is the spell versatility and action economy. You can get 4 attacks / round + spell, additionally if you crit once in the round you get to cast another spell as a swift action (not limited to a touch spell like the magus arcana). If you run a 15-20 crit range then this is likely to happen almost every round. Also, you can make your melee weapon be your bonded object, in short you're upgrading it at half the normal gold cost.

How do you resolve AoO in this system?

My character concept is a flowing monk who uses a reach weapon such as a double-chained kama or kusarigama to trip (or grapple for flying creatures) enemies approaching him or the casters/ranged attackers in his party.

I could see that being obnoxious to resolve in a system where you detail all of the actions for all the enemies and have to go back and redo all of the ones that end up being tripped, etc...

Oterisk wrote:

Great Cleave is a waste compared to Cleaving finish in my opinion.

Well, let's agree that they do completely different things. Cleaving Finish gives you 1 extra attack on a round when you kill a guy.

Great Cleave lets you whirlwind attack, so long as you don't miss and things are next to eachother.

So the question is really what you're trying to do.

OP, here's the problem with Whirlwind attack:

It costs 4 feats, of which only the final is of use to you, and it lets you take 1 melee attack against everybody in reach.

Cleave + Great Cleave cost a standard action, and let you take an attack against any set of opponents who are adjacent to each other and in reach, so long as you don't miss. They cost 2 feats.

-Cross

Cross,

I would argue that for someone using a reach weapon spring attack is extremely useful for maneuvering yourself since you are constantly forced to move away from adjacent enemies and this can prove to be a sticky challenge when fighting more than 1 creature. Of course if you're fighting just 1 creature you can simply take your free 5 foot step. (PS I'm aware that spring attack requires you to attack a target that you did not begin the turn adjacent to, this is typically easily accomplished in mass combat, particularly if any enemies use ranged or magic)

Also, when you are comparing great cleave and whirlwind attack using a reach weapon factors in once again. When you are great cleaving a bunch of creatures who are adjacent to you (aka non reach weapon) it is very easy to make it so that they are adjacent to each other as well, but if you're threatened squares are at reach there is a lot higher likelihood that they will not be adjacent to one another.

The only wasted feat I see in that chain is mobility.

I apologize if this has been brought up because I didn't want to read 141 posts but even if it has it clearly hasn't been fixed yet.

The colored space, reach, reach weapon diagrams at the bottom of the page are exceptionally useful but 2 of them are erred.

If you compare the large (tall) and large (long) diagrams the reach area in the large (tall) diagram (green squares) is effectively the equivalent of the combination of both the reach area and the reach weapon area (green and purple squares) in the large (long) diagram. However, the 2 square diagonal is colored green in the large (tall) diagram. This square is the equivalent of 15' and should be purple not green in the large (tall) diagram.

In the huge (long) and huge (tall) diagrams the space and reach are the exact same for both which implies that the colored green squares would be the exact same for both but that is not the case. The only thing that should be different between the 2 diagrams is the reach weapon distance (purple squares). Or, conversely the values listed for the huge (long) should be corrected but at present no corrections to those values would satisfy the coloration in the diagram.