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Hello

Does a sorcerer who takes "aberrant tumor" qualify for "die for your master"?

Die for your master has the prerequisite of the alchemists tumor familiar discovery. The Aberrant tumor gives you a familiar as per the tumor familiar alchemist discovery, but does that count as actually having the discovery?

Thanks in advance.

This is just an observation from the group of players I play with, so take from it what you will

Players in my group all had things they liked or disliked to varying degrees, but the one thing that they unanimously disliked was resonance.

Before we even began the general theme was why are we being arbitrarily limited on how many items we can use? If we find the magic gizmo and someone can benefit from the magic gizmo then they should be able to just use the magic gizmo.

So we played and the first magic item found was a healing potion. When the rules on potions were read the dislike for the system became an intense dislike for resonance.

Everyone had 1 resonance point, and for the entirety of first level everyone played as if they had zero points. The consensus was that nobody wanted to risk not being able to drink a potion when they needed it. Thus, an item or two were simply never used.

By second level a priority list had been made up for resonance points. First priority: Keep one point for a healing potion (this despite the fact that nobody had been in a position to need a healing potion at first level). Second priority: Constant on items. Third priority: If you have any left, maybe on a consumable.

I think that the system may have been more palatable if wands, potions, scrolls and other consumables did not use resonance, but as it is everyone in my group hated the system.

Overall the general opinion was if you didn't want us to use magic items, then don't give us magic items. But don't give us magic items and then tell us we can't use them. In essence, they wouldn't mind if they didn't get many magic items, but they were irked that they couldn't use the ones they were given.

A tangential observation, it was pointed out that this system effects everyone unequally, bards and sorcerers are naturally going to have much bigger pools than anyone else, so while the fighter/cleric/rogue/wizard are starting with 1 or 2, the bard/sorc will have 5. If there were either of those classes in the party they would essentially have been given all the consumables as they would be the only ones with the luxury of being able to use them without putting themselves at risk (by this group's reasoning). The thought was that this was also an unfair burden on the fighter/rogue because they relied more heavily on items than the sorc or bard but had the least points.

Working on a gnoll since that seemed to pique the curiosity of a couple of people. Just a quick warning, there is no secret trick to the nature bonded magus, its just an interesting idea. Losing arcane pool for a plant familiar isn't a powerful trade ;)

That being said, I have narrowed down three options for a lv 1 druid spell:

Frostbite is a good offensive spell that also seems thematic (though if everything has cold resist its usefulness might be mitigated).

Goodberry is a supplementary healing/utility spell and with the right plant familiar I will have a supply of berries on hand.

Featherstep is a utility spell that might be handy given Secret's warning about environmental FX.

Any thoughts or alternate suggestions?

Some possible options are:

A swashbuckling ninja ratfolk {Melee/support}

A Vishkanya alchemist bomber (ranged and can pick up a side of healing as needed)

A gnoll nature bonded magus.(Melee/arcane)

A tengu druid with or without a companion depending on if Secret wants to deal with extra critters. {also with a side of healing}

I have more ideas if something else is needed.

Hello

I am just having a looksee at the other preferences to see if there is any role that needs filling.

The build rules are quite extensive. Are unchained classes allowed/preferred?

Why not just let the player wear whatever he wants, skip the whole "atunement" thing and just let him activate a special effect that he wants, when he wants from his resonance pool? Wouldn't that be straight up simpler? (Ignoring consumables for the moment). It is just silly to me to sit there thinking should I keep my armour running? Or maybe I might need my boots today, but then I would have to move my stuff from the magic bag."

My +1 sword is always a +1 sword, but if I want it to fire a laser I spend a point. you have your special ability limit with the weirdness of my armour doesn't work today because I turned on my shield.

...

I'm making this point once more not because I'm picking on you but because I want to hammer it home to the community at large.

0 Resonance does not mean you can't use items.

It means you start making a check to see if you can use the item. If remember correctly only a fumble result means you can't use non-invested magic items for the rest of the day. (Paizo Person correct me please.)

0 resonance means you start gambling with a coin toss whether you waste a consumable for no effect and lose an action, AND gain a chance where you straight up can't use any more magic for the rest of the day. When are you going to take that risk? Only when you are forced to. When would be the worst time to fail that roll? In a situation where you are forced to take that risk.

I know its just an opinion, but there it is.

If a GM doesn't want the PC's to "spam" consumables, then don't give them consumables? Why hard code this limit into the system to solve a 'problem' that should be nothing more than the GM deciding what power level he want's to play?

If the issue is thematic, you don't like that the players sit around for a few minutes poking each other with sticks, then make higher level healing more affordable so instead of 10 pokes with CLW, its economically reasonable for them to do 5 pokes with CLW or 2 pokes with CSW.

If it is the fact that the wand is doing the healing, why not just tweak the wand/potion paradigm a bit and say healing and boons are in potion form only while negative conditions and damage are reserved for wands? Then you fly/healing/magic armour/restoration etc magic are potions and your Melf's/curse/magic missiles are wands.

If the issue is healing between encounters, I just have to say that I've played with many different groups from all over the place and the have all had different tolerances for pressing on with different levels of resources, but the one constant that was always a hard limit was HP. Wizard out of spells? We can keep going. Cleric out of healing? Well, we are full on HP so we can risk it. Fighter down to half hp? We're done here. Personal anecdote? Yes, but take it for what its worth.

Hey there all!

.....
I will say this before I go to run more demos at GAMA. Players have rarely run out of resonance in our games, and there is a lot more healing to go around than you might think.
.....

If resonance didn't limit anything, then what was this system doing? And if there is a lot more healing going around than one might think then all that has happened is that healing has been changed from a wand into something else?

Of all the changes so far this is the one that has given me the greatest pause. As has been asked before, what is the problem this system is addressing?

The best change to magic items I've seen so far was simply removing the stat/save boosters that had become must haves and opening those slots up for more interesting things. I've seen several situations where a player says some variation of "that is cool, but it takes the shoulder slot so I can't use it".

The reason my group never bought more powerful wands was just that their cost was out of whack with their efficacy. They absolutely loved finding a CMW or CSW wands, but would never purchase one because paying 6x the cost for 2x the healing or 15x the cost for 3x the healing just wasn't worth it.

... And you weren't kidding about Aviel's backstory, there is a plenty long version of it there Star Fox lol.

When the character was made the DM had us roll on this background generator and then work a story from the results. I thought it turned out well, but it's length is searches for word excessive =) So I made a compressed version but left the link to the longer version if one was interested in reading the whole thing.

Hello

This will be my first pbp game, so I am open to any suggestions and tips to improve the experience.

I look forward to joining you.

I think we broke the DM.

Sounds like two full groups, problem solved! =D

Mashiki Malbourne. Human aberrant sorceress.
Would there be any complications if the flavour of mind-swapped was altered to be fragments of ancient lore from aberrant heritage?

Hello.
I was trying to make a double weapon user as I've never played one before. Reading up on double weapons I've learned that they interact with different feats and abilities in odd ways.

As a result, I've run into an odd situation and am looking for guidance.

So here is the situation:
******
Swashbuckler Finesse (Ex)
At 1st level, a swashbuckler gains the benefits of the Weapon Finesse feat with light or one-handed piercing melee weapons, and she can use her Charisma score in place of Intelligence as a prerequisite for combat feats. This ability counts as having the Weapon Finesse feat for purposes of meeting feat prerequisites.

Spear Dancing Style
Benefit(s): Choose one weapon from the polearm or spear fighter weapon groups. While using this style, you grant the chosen weapon the double special weapon feature, using the weapon's normal statistics for its main-hand end and the statistics of a light mace for its off-hand end.

A weapon wielded in this way loses the brace and reach special weapon features.
******

So if I take a shortspear, it qualifies for the swashbuckler finesse (one handed piercing) and it qualifies for the dancing style (in the fighter spear group)

Can I finesse this while using it as a double weapon?

The general argument against allowing finesse with normal double weapons is that the weapon itself is a two handed weapon despite one end being treated as light for TWF purposes.

But in this case, the weapon itself does qualify for the finesse, so would the other end still be finessable using swashbuckler finesse despite being treated as a light mace for purposes of TWF using the same argument?

One a related note, would it qualify for recovering panache for the same reason (base weapon qualifies for recovering panache)?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Hello

This is specifically about a mystic theurge build but extends to any wizard/ecclesithurge build.

I know there is debate about whether you can have two bonded items, but I was wondering the following:

If the wizard takes amulet (which just happens to be a holy symbol) as their bonded item, later when they get the bonded holy symbol from the ecclesithurge would the bonded item abilities of the existing item expand to encompass cleric spells?

Thanks in advance.

Hello
I have a question about absorb blow.

If an attack does both physical and energy damage, such as from a flaming weapon, does absorb blow reduce both aspects of the attack (does it count as a single source even though there are two types of damage being applied)?

If so, which damage is blocked first, the physical damage, the energy portion or any combination desired?

This is relevant in the situation where an individual has resistance or DR separate from the absorb blow ability.

Thank you in advance

Hello
I have a follow up question about absorb blow.

If an attack does both physical and energy damage, such as from a flaming weapon, does absorb blow block both aspects of the attack (single source)?

If so, which damage is blocked first, the physical or energy portion?.

This is relevant in the situation where an individual has resistance or DR separate from the absorb blow ability.

Thank you in advance