Stefen Styrsky's page

Hello,

Thank you for reading Divine Focus: Cleric. The power of Deadly Weather for the Catastrophe subdomain is in the Advanced Player's Guide.

Thanks!

Stefen

Still no answer to my questions?

Does the acetic get the ability to give himself enhancement bonuses without expending anything that lasts all day and can be spread out amoung his physical scores?

What level is this ability gained? It does not say in the book. Is there a maximum? as is, no there isnt and its gained as soon as you adopt the archetype

This was rather confusing for me as i'd love to play this but i dont know if i could convince my dm its not overpowered as I really see it as such. x.x Any feedback would be helpful.

Darrowphayne,

My apologies for the late reply. I did not see it here until today.

Regarding the ascetic. I am glad you like the class and hope your DM will let you play it.

His lack of ability to wear armor reduces his AC a bit which is balanced by Mind is Body and Wise Defense. Though with d8 HD he will still be vulnerable.

Also, his lack of the standard cleric weapon proficiencies makes him a less powerful melee combatant. He trades these for bonus feats which make him more physically impressive, but many are defensive in nature.

Besides the fact he can not spontaneously cast cure/inflict is a distinct drawback. The spells he can spontaneously cast also can ONLY be cast on himself, further limiting the spells.

Regarding Mind is Body. It is received when you enter the archetype. The bonuses granted from it are ENHANCEMENT bonuses which means they do NOT stack with standard enhancing spells such as Bull's Strength etc which I felt took some benefit out of the ability.

Essentially, he is a monk without any monk abilities. Instead he gets some cleric abilities as replacements.

Thank you for reading!

Stefen

MythicFox wrote:

I've got a question about one of the feats in the 'Putting the Band Back Together' article. Specifically the 'Honed Skill' feat on page 47. Is that accidentally invoking the 3.5 skill cap or is it supposed to be explaining a new skill cap?

Just repeating my question in the hopes of getting an answer.

It allows a PC to exceed the number of allowable skill ranks. In Pathfinder your skill ranks in a skill can not be higher than your level. This feat allows you to choose one class skill which you can have ranks in equal to your level + 3.

I hope that answers your question. Thank you for reading the article!

I'm creating an intelligent weapon and want to put it in the official format used in the PF AP books.

Does anyone know where I can find an intelligent item entry in one of the APs?

Some questions about the Penitent:

1) How exactly is it suppsoed to work? The text mentions ex-Inquisitors taking peneitent ito swap out sabilities when they lose their power, but none of the abilities actuall swaps out for anything?

2) None of the abilities swaps out for anything so this is less an archetype and just a straight, if tiny, power boost for the regular Inquisitor as far as I can see. Is this intentional?

3) Dispensation says it uses Lay on Hands to use it, but Inquisitors don't get Lay On Hands. My interpretation is that it functions as Lay on Hands but only uses Mercies rather than healing.

EDIT: Oh, and one on Censures. Do these replace judgements or are they in addition?

Keeping me honest! Answers to your questions:

1) I forgot to add the "replaces" text for one of the Penitent's powers. The Dispensation should replace solo tactics.

2) Not intentional. See number 1.

3) Your interpretation is correct. The text says the Penitent gets Mercies but can not heal damage.

Censures: Using a censure consumes a daily use of a judgement. How and when censures are used are in the text.

Thank you for reading Divine Favor: Inquisitor. I really appreciate it.

Why does the Moon domain give two spells each for 16th and 18th level? I don't recall any other domains doing this. They tended to give extra spells known as additional revelations.

The two spells with (UM) next to them are the spells assigned to that mystery. The additional spells should be in parentheses. I put those additional spells there for anyone who didn't have a copy of Ultimate Magic. The Moon Oracle does not get two mystery spells at 16th and 18th level.

Again, thanks for your readership and comments!

Phase Druid. Seems kind of, well, a bit much. They give up Nature Bond and not only get WildShape 3 levels earlier but also get to boost their physical stats every time they rest? That seems a little unfair on the exchange. Did I miss something? I like the idea of early wild shape but this doesn't seem to give up enough.

Also, why can the Multiform Druid shape change into Magical Beasts when regular Druids can't? Oversight or intentional change?

I like the product a lot, but these two stood out as nails to be hammered on.

The thinking behind this went as such. The phase druid looses access to domain powers and spells or looses an animal companion. Both of those, especially the later, are powerful class options. In exchange they get to wildshape earlier, an ability that takes a few levels to become truly potent.

The phase druid gets to boost one physical ability score, but not his primary score of Wisdom. Also, this boost is an "enhancement" bonus which means it won't stack with the buff spells, nor will it stack with most magic items such that do the same thing. So it might not be as powerful as it seems at first glance.

I gave the multiform druid the ability to become a magical beast for a few reasons. Each individual creature in the multiform is much more vulnerable than a single wildshaped druid, so they need a little help surviving. Also, the regular druid gets to be larger creature sooner. The tradeoff being the multiform gets to be a magical beast. Lastly, this was also to make for the fact the multiform druid can NOT change into an elemental or plant, a severe restriction in my opinion.

Thank you for reading DF: Druid! That really makes me happy. I hope you enjoy it and the others in the series.

I love this book but i do have a few questions if anyone has time to answer....

1) When wildshaping into multiple creatures if you cast a spell do all the creatures have to cast or just one?

2) If you are targeted by a spell you cast or someone else casts do all the creatures get it or just one?

3) If you have mage armor on before you shift. do all the creatures have mage armor or just one?

4) I have a great idea for a build and will be playing with this book soon so i realy want to know.

Daken201,

As a general rule you should treat each member of the multitude as a separate creature. So:

1) Only one creature has to cast the spell.

2) Only one creature becomes the target of the spell, unless the spell can affect more than one creature or is an area spell of some sort. Be careful! If you think about it, its easier for you to die in a fireball spell if all your multitude members are caught in the blast than if you were in your normal shape.

3) Just one, since the description of mage armor says it affects only one creature, and each member of the multitude is considered an individual.

4) Thanks for your interest in DF: Druid. When a player says they want to use in a game something I wrote, that makes my day!

Stefen

P.S. It might be a good idea to sit down with your DM and hash out any problems or interpretations you have with the rules before the game.

Thanks for the answers. I think I asked the question poorly.

What I don't get is the way in which the cost was calculated. I know the price is about double the cost, but how do you arrive at the cost, which I assume is based on a crafter able to do everything himself.

Is it just the gp someone would pay to have those spells cast plus the construction materials or is it something else?

Hey everybody,

Can someone help me figure out how much it costs to make a construct? You know, your basic golem. The amounts listed in the Bestiary don't make sense to me.

Thanks!

- Stefen

Hello Everyone!

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Due to the nature of the Monster Update Subscription, we are not able to bring it to you at a reduced cost. However, we have 19 subscribers who have selected more than 80 OGL monsters for us to convert to Pathfinder. This is going to be a huge project by the time it is complete. Hopefully it will rival our recent monster book Forgotten Foes (Tricky Owlbear Publishing) in size and quality with your support and feedback.

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Thanks!

Stefen

The big thing I would like to see for options for barbies is ones that don't rage at all. Maybe replace with rage powers with a ranger/rogue abilities IE Conan. Or why not a beast lord, barb with a animal pet or pets. ((of course these idea's would all replace the rage line)) That's in addition to the ones you named.

Don't worry. Got ya covered!

A view of things to come!

One thing I wanted to avoid in the Barbarians Book is turning it into a giant list of new rage powers.

So while this will have a bunch of them, I also have a new "type" of rage that confers different bonuses other than boosts to Str and Con.

Like the other products "Barbarians" has alternate abilities that replace trap sense, DR, uncanny dodge, etc. There's also a way to turn your barbarian into a Wild Shaman, sort of a barbarian/cleric/druid.

Last, but not least is a series of barbarian bloodlines. In the RW, it seems primitive peoples often trace their ancestry back to a god, monstrous being or mythical animal. The bloodline allows a barbarian PC to do the same and gain access to rage powers (as well as what I call a Heritage Mark) not available to other barbarians. There are 8 bloodlines. Two are cyclops and linnorm.

Of course, there are new feats too.

Since this not finished, I'd love to hear what other things people might want to see in this.

Thats what I thought.

Thanks

No problem. Thanks for reading it. Please let me know what you think of the piece. All criticism is welcome.

how many extra feats does the holy warrior get?

Thanks for the question!

The Holy Warrior gets one bonus feat at 4th level. This feat must be a combat feat, and the paladin can select a combat feat that has fighter as a prerequisite. (Its assumed the feat selected will be Weapon Specialization.)

Other than that the Holy Warrior gets no extra feats. What the holy warrior is allowed to do is take Combat Feats that would normally only be available to a fighter at the respective level. So, for example, a 12th level holy warrior could select Weapon Specialization when a normal paladin could not.

I hope you like the product.

Mongoose Publishing's d20 Conan RPG game has an expanded version of the Heal skill that allows PCs to restore hit points with a successful check. It is essentially healing magic without the magic because anyone can do it.

The 50th issue of their free PDF magazine Signs and Portents detailed a Healer class with various abilities that further enhanced the game's Heal skill. (Full Disclosure, I'm partial to the article and Healer's abilities because I wrote it. TOOT. That was my own horn. :))

I based the healer around several feats I've been using in my home D&D campaign (along with the Conan RPG expanded Heal skill) to decrease the plethora of healing magic required to keep a party alive and fighting. Each feat requires a certain number of ranks in the heal skill as a prerequisite. A couple of examples:

Skilled Healer: Lets a PC add his Wis modifier to the number of hit points he restores each time he uses the Heal skill.

Battle Surgeon: When stabilizing a dying PC, a successful heal check also restores an additional 1d6 (plus attended character’s Constitution modifier) worth of hit points. This increases to 2d6 at 8th level, and 3d6 at 16th level. A PC can only benefit from this ability a number of times per day equal to his Constitution modifier (minimum 1).

Ability Damage: Once per day a heal check can restore 2 points of ability damage to a PC's Strength, Dexterity or Constitution.

Staunch the Blood: As a full-round action a character can perform a Heal check on an adjacent PC to restore 1d6 (plus attended character’s Constitution modifier) hit points. A PC can only benefit from this ability a number of times per day equal to his Constitution modifier (minimum 1).

It might not seem like a lot of hit points, but coupled with a paladin and a few potions it has worked for us. It has also made the Heal skill something everyone wants, and lets the party cleric use his spells slots for something besides cure moderate wounds.

I bought the PDF and would buy a 3.5 version as soon as it came out.

My group and I have been playing with accelerated feat acquisition for about half a year now and it's been a lot of fun. It has in no way unbalanced the game, but more importantly it has allowed greater PC differentiation.

Feats are a great way to make a PC stand out from the crowd. As an example, our fighters started taking "social" feats such a Persuasive or Skill Focus (Diplomacy) to turn the PC into a charismatic warrior without having to put a high score in Charisma. When you have more slots available you can take feats that fit the PC's concept without having to worry that doing so will cripple you in a fight. With fewer feat slots available players usually take the most combat-effective feats which tends to make most PCs look the same after a few levels.

Plus, by allowing PCs more feats we can now justify all the money we blew on splat books. :)

You should beg, plead, and argue for a FREE copy of the Player's Guide to be sent out with each and every subscriber copy of Pathfinder 7. Because we're doing that, too.

Awesome. I can't wait! Thanks again for a great product and great customer support.

Groovy! But did you mean The Ravenous Crypts of Gluttony?

Yes, I meant Gluttony. Gluttony - Greed I got confused.

Anyway, Xyoddin's deadliness shocked me. I really hadn't intended for the encounter to be such a killer. Although, surprises like that are what made this entire dungeon a great trip.

Name of PC: Garridon Pale
Class/Level: Human Exalted Fighter 12
Adventure: Sins of the Saviors - Halls of Greed
Catalyst: Two criticals from Xyoddin's human bane dagger.

Once Kazaven became aware the PCs were in his domain he sent Xyoddin to investigate. Xyoddin gathered two random ravenous dread zombies and hunted down the party.

The two groups met in a hallway, and the fighter charged Xyoddin, breaking away from the rest of the party.

He gave Xyoddin a good whack, who retaliated with two stabs. One was a critical, dealing 44 points of damage. The second was a measly 20 points. The next round the fighter backs away, realizing he's in way over his head, trying to get to the party cleric. Xyoddin sprints past the rest of PCs, who are all non-human and spent their actions blowing away the two normal zombies, and stabs the fighter again before the cleric can heal him. Another critical and poor Garridon Pale goes down, way past -10.

Fortunately, the cleric had a scroll of revivify, which he used the next round to keep Garridon from total oblivion.

Our window for making PDFs of older issues has closed. Sorry!

Gah. That stinks.

Thanks for answering my question. Ebay here I come.

Hello Paizo crew,

Do you think you might be able to offer a PDF version of Dungeon #70? I'd love to have the "Kingdom of the Ghouls" adventure, seeing as how its considered one of the ten best from the magazine.

Thanks.

Stefen

Hi everyone,

When my son turned 13 I started looking around for a game we could play together. We'd really enjoyed Heroscape (Hasbro again!) so I thought D&D would be a great step up.

He took to the game immediately. What I found interesting was that his school friends had never heard of D&D and really weren't interested, especially because of the reading involved. We resorted to explaining things rather than making them read the parts of the PHB that were relevant to their characters. We have a good campaign going now, but it's still really hard to compete with video games.

Video games rule the entertainment world of children these days. If D&D is to survive it must adjust to this new paradigm. If we expect 14 year olds to get interested in the game and keep it alive, D&D must become a game you can play on the computer. Eventually, these children will adapt to the more sophisticated role-playing, table-top format we know and love, but right now the best way to attract new players is through the internet and computers.

I sent them some queries last week and still haven't received any auto-replies indicating my queries were received. I'd think an auto-reply would happen within minutes.

Has anyone gotten an autoreply yet?

Thanks.

Sterling,

I think the best guideline is to let common sense and your imagination be your guide.

If you find a monster you think would be nice to add to a summoners list just make sure it's comparable to other monsters in terms of CR the character would be able to summon at that level.

For example, I let the clerics of Wee Jas in my game summon undead and human mageblades (an Arcana Evolved class) as long as their CRs equal the CRs of the monsters on the standard summoning lists.

Although, if someone does have official guidelines I'd love to see them too.

Stefen,

Steve's right. Dungeon 148 was shipped to subscribers on 5/22, which was two weeks ago tomorrow. While most will arrive much more quickly, subscription issues can take as long as two to three weeks to reach their destination. So it should be arriving this week or next. Keep us posted!

Thanks,
cos

Arrived last night. Thanks!

Hello,

First thank you for being one of the best customer service centers in the world. You guys are top-notch.

Now that I've buttered you up can you please resend Dungeon 148 to me? I have not received it yet and would love to get a copy.

Thanks.

Stefen

As far as I understand it, yes, we can use the ToH version of the Huecuva but not the FF version.

Thanks! That's good to know.

What about monsters that first appeared in Tome of Horrors but were then later issued in a 3.5 version by WoTC?

For example, the Huecuva appears in ToH but is also in some 3.5 book (memory fails me - FF perhaps?)

Can the ToH Huecuva appear in Pathfinder or is it off limits because WoTC has created their own version?

We (and by "we" I mean people who aren't me) have developed a pretty snazzy stat block format that takes the useful and neat foundation of the DMGII stat block and Paizos it up a bit.

What the heck do I mean by that? Well, I guess you'll just have to buy the product and take a look-see. ;D

Please, please, please give us a peek at the new stat block.

Just a taste.

Pretty please?

I completely agree with Ashevale. While the scope and sweep of APs was fabulous and always got my players excited to begin a new game, we've also had a great time running the other adventures. Sometimes we'd just generate characters for an adventure in Dungeon that appealed to everyone but didnt fit into our current campaign.

In any case, I'm really excited for Pathfinder. I know it's going to be great.

Dear Guys,

I know Mike gets Class Acts queries, but so I don't misdirect other queries, to whom should I email ideas for the following categories?

General articles/features
Spells
Magic Items
Ecologies

As always, I'm very impressed you editors at Dragon (and Dungeon) take the time to give us advice. Thanks.

I recently purchased a bunch of Dungeon back issues and was supremely disappointed when not all of them contained a Map of Mystery.

But to your original question I like the linked series of maps.

Hi guys,

I have not received my issue of 145 yet either. Should I wait another week or can you send a replacement?

Thanks.

As Hanz and Franz used to say (remember them?): "We'ah gonna POMP you op!" ;)

1400 words, please, or expect a rejection.

Good to know. Should I resubmit my query with a revised word count? Unlike Hans and Franz this won't be padding, but real meat on the bone.

Thanks again.

Mike,

I think it's great you take the time to give us struggling writers a little guidance.

My question for you is this: the online Dragon sub guidelines say CA articles should be 700 words long, but the guidelines updated on the message boards indicate they should be 1400 words. If in a query we sent you we indicated 700 words would be the piece's length will that kill the chances of a go-ahead? I could certainly pump up the word volume on an article if it meant a shot at publication.

Thanks.