Sprith's page

My dislike of psionics is much more from a practicality point of view. It's not that I have anything in particular with the system its just about breaching content.

All classes have their own set of content. Most of that content you'll already be expecting to include in any basic game. A trap here or there so of course you need the trap rules. Spellcasters as enemies so you need caster rules. So all the standard content is pretty much already included in what you plan to use.

Psionics though has its own set of content and that content is VAST! Thats because its more of a variant than an option in itself. You get Psionic casters, fighters, creatures and challenges. All of this content associated with psionics and now because a single character wants to play it you'd have to breach all of that content in order to give him his challenges, items, spells and feats. Thats's a whole lot to deal with and it's not as interchangeable. If you make up or roll out a rather nice psionic item you've only one of four party members that would likely be interested in it. You now essentially have 3 players gaming out of one set of books and a single other player gaming out a completely different set of books. The amount of work required by the gm has possibly just doubled just to satisfy that single player.

Thats how I feel about psionics. Essentially in 3.5 psionics had so much content and such a large system in itself that it could easily overwhelm the game if attempting to mix it into a normal game.

Does a dwarf vs a tripping giant get +8 to his cmd against the manuver?

They get +4 dodge AC against giants: Defensive
+4 CMD vs trips: Stability

1) Yes (Whirlwind to anyone in reach which is 15' for Whip) and No (no Greater Trip AoO)

2) You can't make a non-Whirlwind attack until after your turn is over.

That is however an interpretation as there hasn't been an official ruling yet on this oft asked question. I still believe that you do retain all AoO gained this way.

As for getting the AoO with greater trip that itself is something thats been debated here on the forums. I'm of the camp that you get the AoO. It's also much more situational than most people think as its only highly effective against bipedal foes and such.

One such thread

Complete Mage is accepted as a good source for detailing 3.5 rules about weapon like spells. Since PF is based on 3.5 and hasnt changed those rules, complete Mage remains a good source for the clarification of those rules. There are plenty of threads detailing weapon like spells interaction with feats and sneak attacks.
Heres a good one:
Touch Spells And Sneak Attack
He's perfectly fine to refer them to Complete Mage or Complete Arcane.

Many gms would allow it some wont. Personally I do with the limitation that I also provide a limit on the craft time pcs were able to invest in their craft feats. This way they get immediate benefit from the feat without risking them to exponentially increase their wealth beyond that of the rest of the party.

All you can do is ask, if he says no suggest a craft time limit and see if he still says no.

The closest item would be the rings of wizardry since they give actual spell slots. The one for first level spells costs 20,000 and doubles your available spell slots for that level, to knock it down to 0 level id cut the price in half to 10,000 (A level 2 ring is twice the cost of a level 1) So now we have a ring valued that would give 4 extra spell slots to any wizard above level 1. So lets just cut that in half to 5k and there ya go, ring that gives two more cantrip slots.

One important thing I'd stick with though is to keep any sort of item like this as one using an item slot. It's a way to make the 'costs' of using it abit more. If they really don't want it as a worn item then I'd multiply it by 2 for having 'No space limitation'

If you feel thats too costly as a gm for 2 more 0 slot spells, feel free to knock 1k off the price since rings of wizardry doubles spell slots including ones from a high stat modifier and cantrips don't get bonus slots from high stat modifiers.

While I could debate that point, it isn't worth it now. In 3.p, casting makes sense. How it worked (or didn't work) in 3.5 no longer matters to me.

Agreed

...

Wed, Aug 19, 2009, 07:19 PM

Hey there all,

This change was made for a few simple reasons. First, it was never perfectly clear whether or not this provoked in 3.5. I saw the rules citation, but it is not entirely clear whether or not that applies to melee as well as ranged. Second, the homogeny of ranged attacks working in a similar way, spell or not, was just simply cleaner from a rules perspective. The value of the ranged touch attack is such, that it probably deserves this limitation in any case.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Full Thread

No where did it say in 3.5 that a ranged touch attack would provoke spells as firing a ranged weapon did. It did however say that casting defensively removed the AoO for casting a spell. So it was reasonable in 3.5 to say defensive ranged touch attacks didn't provoke. Googled for about 20 min now and couldn't find any ruling contrary to that belief for 3.5 nor can I find anything in the book that says otherwise. As Jason said, it was changed and whether or not it was the intended case in 3.5 it is now clear in PF and it was a good change (or perhaps clarification? May never know unless you have proof that they still provoked after casting defensively). Really it could have been argued either way with the vague rules.

And the first wish (of 15 a day was it?) Shall be a wish for many many many perfect diamonds of course.

Exactly the sort of spell that a gm could have OH so much fun with ;)

Hes not looking to recharge his staff, hes looking to use the sorcs capstone to reduce the charge cost of activating the staff to 0

(400 x 9 x 17 x 5/10) + (25000 x 50 x 1/5) = 30600 + 250000 = 280,600 gp or less than 1/3 your wealth by level.

(400 x 9 x 17 / 5) + (25000 x 50 / 5) = 12240 + 250000 = 262240 Even better price than you thought.

With a nice staff like that why not throw a few other spells on it too, additional spells get a nice reduced cost too!

I actually have a really nice custom staff myself for an upcoming custom epic level PF game: (For house game of course)
Staff of Sprithyness (Hoopak +5 Defending / +5 Spellstrike) Stave with Heightened(SL9) Sanctuary *3, Mass Heal *3, Breath of Life *2 valued at total of 188,820gp

*# is # of charges used.

*Fixed addition in my formula, I listed to add the staff costs to the material component cost but didnt actually add it for the result.
So the total staff cost is
20400 + (MC(25000) × 50 / Charges(3))= 437067

or as I said earlier
400*9/3*17 + 50*25000/3 = 20400 + 416667 = 437067 Total costs

Good point on the character wealth by level too!

Sprith wrote:

Also dont forget that ranged touch attacks now provoke AoO even if you successfully cast defensively.

Is that actually new to pathfinder? I've always played that way in 3.0/3.5....under the 'ranged attacks provoke AoO' concept.

Used to in 3.5 ranged touch spells didnt provoke if you successfully cast defensively. Now they do even if you succeed the check. So yep that part is new in PF.

For one thing youve missed on the creation rules, specifically the material component part.

Cost of staff of wishes:
400 gp × (SL(9)/Charges(3)) × CL(17)= 20400
Then we add the material component costs. These costs represent the
amount needed to cast the spell 50 times divided by the number of
charges the spell uses.
20400 + (MC(25000) × 50 / Charges(3))= 437067

So thats quite alot more than you initially expected. Add on top of that this staff can't duplicate spells with material components of more that 10000 gp since the component costs werent included in the crafting (I dont know if you could supply them at time of activation, thatd be up to the gm)

If you are planning to abuse it be careful in asking for any sort of the greater effects since then youre completely at the whim of a potentially annoyed gm.

As an added benefit though, you can slowly recharge a staff now by expending an unused spell slot of equal or greater the highest level spell in the staff, the staff regains 1 charge. More on imbueing can be found in the magic item description of Staves.

Refrences:
PFSRD Magic Item Creation
PFSRD Staves
PFSRD Wish

Also dont forget that ranged touch attacks now provoke AoO even if you successfully cast defensively.

It only applies to the single attack immediately following the swift action. It's effects are gone after that single attack whether you hit or not.

PFSRD

Long thread ahead concerning this topic:
A Question About Tumbling

But as I said in that thread, I read it as individual checks against each foe that become progressively harder.

I'm also a fan of doing sneak attacks with weapon like spells, makes for some fun character concepts and back story hooks as to why your rogue took up magic.

(My favorite story I made was my rogue was captured by a lich and was subjected to all sorts of horrifying magical experiments)

It didn't dawn on me that you could crit with a ranged touch spell attack. What's the threat range, the multiplier, and can you cite a page reference or link to the PFRD?

Thanks!

Sure thing! Since I typically don't have the book handy I go with PFSRD references.

Spells and Critical Hits: A spell that requires an attack roll can score a critical hit. A spell attack that requires no attack roll cannot score a critical hit. If a spell causes ability damage or drain (see Special Abilities), the damage or drain is doubled on a critical hit.
...

Touch: You must touch a creature or object to affect it. A touch spell that deals damage can score a critical hit just as a weapon can. A touch spell threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a successful critical hit.
...

If a ray spell deals damage, you can score a critical hit just as if it were a weapon. A ray spell threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a successful critical hit.

So the trick here is that the spell has to deal hp damage or ability damage/drain.

Links are:
Critical Hits
Aiming spells

Don't forget the +1 damage from point blank shot too (It applies on ranged touch spells that already deal damage). Also Improved Critical (ranged touch)

If I have WF : unarmed attack and WF : touch spell, do the bonuses stack when I make an unarmed attack while holding the charge ?

Also, can I make my free touch attack when I cast the spell as an unarmed attack or not (Monk/Wizard guy) ?

For stacking the answer is no. These are two different types of actions. For WF: Melee Touch you are trying to just get ahold of the opponent hence youre going up against their touch ac. For unarmed attack naturally youre going against their normal ac as you're looking to do a damaging attack. Thats the simplest way to show that theyre different

You can deliver a held spell with a successful unarmed attack but as to allowing the unarmed attack in place of the free touch attack that would be wholly up to your dm.

My biggest question with this, is does a distracted opponent (one who fails his sense motive check vs the bluff) get to make attacks of opportunity against you?

Great question, Sometimes they do sometimes they don't.

Feint:
You can also use Bluff to feint in combat, causing your opponent to be flat-footed against your next attack.

Flatfooted:
Cannot make attacks of opportunity, unless he has the Combat Reflexes feat or Uncanny Dodge class ability.

You can see the intent is to have the opponent flatfooted against your following action. Might not fly with the most hardcore RAW people. Also, of course if you failed the bluff check there's no point to go running off to try and hide with him staring you down anyway. This of course is if you see fit to use the feint rules. It is very much something that could use clarification.

As for Channel energy usefulness, It's quite alot of AoE healing. Consider that Mass Cure light wounds (lvl5 spell) heals for 1d8+1/level (avg of 13 at 9th level where the same level cleric could channel for 5d6 at 9th level for average of 15hp. Throw in that Phylactery of Positive Channeling for another 2d6 gets 21 avg points of healing.

Also remember while that fireball is quite nice looking, everyone still gets their save for half so Positive channeling is an extremely powerful healing ability in all clerics arsenal. Rather versatile too considering it can heal allies, harm undead, remove some conditions such as bleed and on top of all that you could still take the channeling feats from the WOTC books that allow you to use your daily allotment to cast metamagic spells (divine metamagic). Clerics got some real love between channel energy and breath of life. (Though I still wish channel energy was its old overpowered self healing and harming undead + making them flee all with the same channel.)

Back on topic though: I imagine if I'm allowed to boost the DC to command undead with things like ioun stones and the bead of karma, I ought to be able to do the same to the resist DC on my channel energy.

Karui gave us a couple: decapitating scarf and fire shuriken.
Those would be as found in the Complete Arcane book.

I'd like to see something more on this also as it does change up gameplay abit. As worded I could use Caster Level boosting effects such as a bead of karma or ioun stones to boost the DC on Control undead but not on channel energy.

In 3.5 you could have weapon focus (melee touch spells) and weapon focus (ranged touch spells)

It's all the same. The proper distinction is melee spells that have attack rolls and ranged spells that have attack rolls. The confusion comes in that a ranged spell that has an attack roll makes those attack rolls as a ranged touch attack. So ranged spells with attack rolls is synonymous with ranged touch spells. Again what type of spell do people think of when you think ranged touch spells? Rays! So Rays are really just a subset of ranged touch spells which are the same as ranged spells with attack rolls.

I can't even think of a spell off the top of my head that is ranged and requires an attack roll that isn't also considered a ray.

So in the end, it's all the same. So to try and not confuse anyone, try to use the broadest term which would be ranged spells that require attack rolls.

Correct Complete Arcane divides weaponlike spells into two categories. Specifically:
Touch spells that require an attack roll
Ranged spells that require an attack roll

So it's not enough that its a touch or ranged spell but they have to require an attack roll to benefit (which makes sense since the feats that could then be applied are ones such as weapon focus and improved critical)

Even beyond the deity's patience what motivation would a cleric have to spend all of his time creating water? I'd imagine he'd much rather spread word of his deity (most likely in adventure or sermon)/ do the will of his deity / apprentice other would be clerics of his deity. A cleric whose sole purpose is land irrigation better be doing it as part of his worship in some way.

Well, to be fair, it's hard to justify complaining about a rule when A) you haven't read much of the rules and B) your DM is houseruling a lot of the most basic balancing rules out. If he's houseruling that much, anyway, then you might be barking up the wrong tree; instead of asking paizo to publish a feat that he might just ignore anyway, talk to your DM about the problem and ask if you or he can homebrew the feat yourselves.

Thats what I was thinking too. This is really just asking for suggestions to a hybrid game your dm is making so all we can do is point you to existing feats and rulings for you to try and persuade your dm with. Has he tried running a Vanilla PF game yet?

Sidenote there already exists a 3.5 feat that completely avoids AoO for ranged attacks when threatened which seems to be what you're hoping for? Named Combat Archery only it's epic with a fairly dedicated prereq list. If you're going for trying to get balanced house rules, Khalarak's suggestion of a AoO AC bonus based off Mobility would be the best.

It does say actually, you get one free touch as part of the casting and you can touch up to six targets as a full round action. *Edit actually that would only be in consideration to willing targets. It'd actually just be as a full attack with consideration to your BaB.

Touch: You must touch a creature or object to affect it. A touch spell that deals damage can score a critical hit just as a weapon can. A touch spell threatens a critical hit on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a successful critical hit. Some touch spells allow you to touch multiple targets. You can touch up to 6 willing targets as part of the casting, but all targets of the spell must be touched in the same round that you finish casting the spell. If the spell allows you to touch targets over multiple rounds, touching 6 creatures is a full-round action

As for feats, improved critical can be very nice if your focusing on spells that deal either hp damage or ability damage (they're the two types that can be critted with) Combat casting since you'll be casting spells while threatened most likely. Lunge would be a great choice as well, Say 5 ft step out a threatened square, cast without the AoO risk and then use lunge to make the touch attack. Depending on how your DM plays certain feats like Blind Fight are a must have. I personally like it alot.

There are two categories of spells when considering weapon like spells. Theres melee touch spells and ranged touch spells. These two represent two different weapon categories for things like combat&weapon feats like imp. critical or imp. weapons. Details are in Complete Arcane.

and you can cast spells without envoking attacks of opportunity in melee without too much of a problem, but dare to fire an arrow or gun in melee, and you're @$$ is grass. That's SO unfair. Why is waving your arms around, speaking magic words, and juggling spell components like you're a circus clown less provoking than pulling back on your bow, or firing a gun at an opponent?

You've missed a huge rule change here. 1st as you know casting spell while threatened provokes an AoO. This can generally be avoided by making a concentration check. Concentration checks are now 1d20 + your caster level + your relevant ability modifier. DC: 15 + (2xSpell level) So it may not be quite as easy to pull off anymore.

2nd: "Ranged touch attacks provoke an attack of opportunity, even if the spell that causes the attacks was cast defensively."
So the devs saw the same essentially problem youre seeing now and have already fixed it.

In fact there have been many changes in PF over 3.5 and it sounds like you'd be quite pleased with some of them. Check it out! The PF SRD has all the rules online as it's OGL content though it's much easier to read and follow the book either in hard copy or pdf form!

References:
PFSRD: Cast-a-Spell

big test:
1d1001 ⇒ 143

ah capped at d1000

Lottery test:
1d59 ⇒ 501d59 ⇒ 311d59 ⇒ 261d59 ⇒ 331d59 ⇒ 151d39 ⇒ 14

In 3.5 you had to declare a single opponent that it would grant +1 dodge ac against

In PF-Beta you had to use your swift action to get +1 dodge AC against all foes (bonus increases to +2 if 10 or more ranks in Acrobatics)

In PF-Final it's now a permanent +1 dodge AC against all foes. (It doesn't increase due to high skill ranks)

Also note, Weapon finesse would allow you to use your dex instead of str on attack rolls when unarmed. In addition this thread over here:
Weapon Finesse on Special Kinds of Attacks
Has James saying that weapon finesse combined with a combat maneuver that works with weapons allows you to use dex instead of str on the cmb check. Thats essentially two feats in one! All the goodness of weapon finesse and you essentially also get partial usage of the acrobatic maneuver feat.

Ah, great find Wraith! So that rule was errata'd away.

So that means either Paizo happened to miss that. Or their rule was a modified ruling on it in which case only weapons could be sundered by equal or greater weapons.

I'm thinking its actually alittle of column A alittle of column B. That is, since the sentance is almost exactly as written in 3.5 it seems they read and modified it however they had completely missed the errata.

So now, it needs to make it into PF errata =) Hardness and HP really ought to be enough.

Ok, back from work here's page numbers

3.5 DMG 222: An attacker cannot damage a magic
weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his own weapon
has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon or shield
struck.

3.5 PHB 158: [Under image on right] You can't sunder armor worn by another character.
-This changed in PF and is fair game.

PF 468: Damaging Magic Weapons: An attacker cannot damage weapon that has an enhancement bonus unless his weapon has at least as high an enhancement bonus as the weapon struck.

Cast on pig for fun and games

once you start falling down stairs you are going to keep falling.

grease + stairs/ramp + golem. It's 1 minute/level of your own captive slapstick comedy routine!

I like this thread

Cannot combine charge spring attack.

Charge is a full round action in which you are allowed to move up to twice your speed and attack. It has a special restriction that movement must be done before the attack and not after. This rules out spring attack.

-----SRD LINK-----

Correct, a rogue could get sneak attack dice after making a vital strike attack.

Could be done either way I'd imagine. Either it'd emulate Gloves of arrow snaring where their appearance is altered once worn

Or you could just treat them as if they had a permanent invisibility spell cast on them.

All personal tastes! Challenging someone to a duel using an invisible glove would be quite fun. =)

The way it works is all weapons & weapon like spells have at least crit range of 20. So that includes spells that require either a touch attack or a ranged touch attack.

So thats a range of 1, when you consider a feat or enhancement that increases your crit range by doubling it, you double the range of 1 (getting 2) and then the top two digits on your d20 now represent your crit range [19-20 for a range of 2].

So consider a Falchion which crits on 18-20. Thats actually a range of 3 so a improved critical for falchions improves the range to 6 meaning it threatens on 15-20!

It is covered in the rules. Look at the item damage section of the core book. magic items get bonuses to hardness and hit points based on the enhancement bonus.

EDIT: Bottom left on page 174 of the core book.

You misunderstood me. It's not the rules about Hardness and Weapon Hp that are missing. Those fairly well detailed. [Tangent: Except for the part where the special material Adamantine is the ONLY one that gives an increase in arms/armor hp]

In 3.5 theres an explicit rule that you couldn't sunder a foe's worn armor
In 3.5 theres an explicit rule that you cannot sunder a +2 sword or +2 shield with anything less than a +2 weapon.

In pathfinder theres an explicit rule that you cannot sunder a +2 sword with anything less than a +2 weapon.

So PF is missing the text in their rule that also prevents a +2 Armor and +2 shield from being sundered by anything less than a +2 weapon.

I imagine though that its like any other worn magic item continuous ability, it doesn't function if it isn't worn.

So losing your glove would make it visible.

I'd imagine it'd go on the straight enhancement bonus too (the +1 attack/dmg), not the bonus from abilities so as thazar said.

For the +2/+10 thats the rules on hardness. And yep the option to break or destroy was added to pathfinder which is why I'm really happy with it being more friendly. That along with the repair rules. Either able to cast 'make whole' if you're a higher caster level or spending 1/4 retail price worth of materials and craft time to repair it.

Anyway, don't have the book in front of me so I'll post later the precise page #s I'm referring to in the 3.5DMG/PHB and PF

In the 3.5 handbook, for sunder it says that you are unable to sunder armor worn by another character. Now that's something that has changed in PF since they've made sunder much more friendly and viable (yay!)

Also in the 3.5 DMG it's stated that magic weapons & shields with an enhancement bonus can only be sundered by a weapon of at least the same enhancement. Ok so +1 sword cant sunder +3 sword but another +3 sword can right?

In PF they also have the statement that magic weapons can't be sundered except by other magic weapons of at least the same enhancement. The problem is they don't mention shields in this spot in the PF book. Worse yet since worn armor went from being unsunderable in 3.5 to fair game in PF, the book has failed to say one way or the other if you have to have a weapon of equal or greater enhancement to sunder magic armor.

So I'm calling for an official rule & errata on this.
In order to sunder a magically enhanced weapon/shield/armor worn/wielded by a foe, do you have to make the attempt with a magic weapon of at least the same enhancement?

The intent seems to be yes so that's how I'll play it for those three cases until it gets errata'd

A wand cannot hold higher than a 4th level spell so no cannot get an empowered fireball however you are correct in so long as it doesn't exceed the spell level maximum of potions/wands, you may create metamagic enhanced potions/wands

Archived thread about same topic:
Archived link

A belt of physical might and the subsequent belt of physical perfection follow perfectly the item crafting rules in terms of multiple abilities on a single item. That is a +6 Con costs 36k as does a +6 Dex. Rules to adding abilities on an item call for the additional abilities to be priced at 50% more. So 1.5 x 36k = 18+36 = 54k would be the cost to add +6 Dex to a +6 Con belt. That makes the total item price 54+36 = 90k (BINGO!) exact price of a +6 Belt of physical might. Add a +6 Str to that belt we just made? Going to be another 54k for 90+54=144k.

You can also use the same formula to mix and match bonuses on your items. Say a Dex+6 Con+4 belt. You cannot however upgrade a Belt +2 dex to a Belt +4 dex.

At least thats how it's done outside of organized play. I'm uncertain if theres any additional restrictions placed on adding abilities to an item in Pathfinder Society.

I've said in another thread how I believe Lunge+WW+G. Trip is all viable. I consider it that way since an AoO is considered an interrupt. Thing is as scary as the combo is theoretically I believe it the result is going to be much less effective than imagined. As Grandfather mentioned is happening in his group, it's only going to be an effective combo against many bipedal foes of your size. If they're larger their CMD is going to be quite abit better. The over reliance on making checks against someones CMD is going to result in quite a respectable failure rate meaning theres a decent enough chance theyre going to end up tripping themselves. Also the cost of this combo in terms of feats and optimizing your CMB is going to severely limit the character in other areas.

So I put forth its not as game breaking as it seems on paper. Also, an over reliance on this tactic will have consequences that balance out or may even negate any benefits.

I plan on using the new sunder rules quite abit so I'd be very much against having the tool used for sundering take damage along with the sunder target. It'd just discourage people from sundering things. Instead focus more on the quote Grandfather presented from pg174. You can only sunder a target with a tool that makes sense. So no not going to get through that iron door with a piercing/slashing weapon. Going to need specifically a bludgeoning tool there. That quote is exactly what you were looking for.

And remember again as Grandfather pointed out: Adamantine ignores hardness below 20. So Adamantine can't sunder Adamantine easily still.