Strix's page

I've only had a look at kineticist so far, and havn't considered the weaknesses of the class yet (OP's points seem to have hit the nail on the head there, though I'm going to reserve judgement about AC and burn penalty until I get a chance to play it), but it looks like an awesome blaster so far (aside from the drawbacks the OP mentioned).

My only concern so far is the "Wings of Air" Wild Talent. Fly at will? Putting aside the fact that casting a 3rd level spell at will at level 6 is pretty strong, all of the other flight abilities at that level I can think of (Witch flight hex, the fly spell itself) have durations limited to 1min/level.

Granted, advanced races like Strix and Syrinx have brought in constant flight from the get-go, but there's always the option to disallow those races (and we do, in our group). This feels a bit like power creep, but it's possible it was intentional.

I'm also gearing my wizard up for the Magaambyan route, although I'm heading more for the golem-crafting path than mastery of nature. Depending on how your downtime works, craft wondrous items can be either brilliant (if you have enough time & money to use it) or useless (if your GM doesn't think your group needs any downtime).

For feats, I'm obviously strong on the crafting side, but I also picked up Eldritch Researcher at 1st level. Again, this is dependent upon the campaign (and the GM), but if you want to bend nature to your whim, you could try coming up with your own spells and give them a "natural" twist for the flavour.

While conjuration is an excellent option, I went for illusion (shadow subschool - again, little summoning. My loss.), because of the versatility of the "image" and "shadow" spells. That said, it was a tough choice over conjuration's teleportation subschool.

As far as wizard spells go, I've found that grease, glitterdust, vanish, create/spiked pit and haste (amongst others I can't think of at the moment) are great at low levels.

Also, why are you waiting until level 9 to enter the PrC? I was going to finish up my 5 levels in wizard and then jump straight into arcanist, mainly to get to the spell mastery abilities sooner.

Thanks, this is pretty useful advice, especially (I imagine) for starting new groups. I've found that an unwritten rule has tended to develop around stealing other people's stuff, as it usually results in unnecessary animosity that distracts us from the actual campaign and derails the party as a whole.

Perhaps a nitpicky point: is it meant to be "intra-party conflict" ("within party") rather than "inter-party" ("between parties")?

Given the lack of magic items and magic item creation, I would strongly suggest that you take something more sorceror/summoner/witch -ish, but if you're set on a wizard, then conjuration probably has the best spells for you.

Having said that, the foresight school is amazing, and in my experience the only downside to it is being forced to take a divination spell at each level. Divination is potentially the most powerful school ever, but the "true divination" spells (seeing into the future/scrying) are entirely subject to GM discretion, and given that your GM probably doesn't want much magic in the campaign, they're probably going to be rendered useless.

So I'd also recommend conjuration.

I think Rerednaw's advice is pretty excellent, and the question about scribe scroll is spot on, as it will have to be replaced with something you can use. In my experience, scrolls are a great way to expand a wizard's casting versatility early on (cheap, low-level scrolls are great for those situational-yet-useful spells), but by your level (7) they're an invaluable tool for expanding your spellbook.
If your GM is going to hamstring you there, maybe ask if you can use the spell creation/research rules to get access to spells. This way, you won't be doing it in bulk (as with copying another spellbook) or for very little investment (as with scrolls). The GM can control how long it takes and how much it costs, you just need to be very careful with your selection of spells.

As for the party composition:

A paladin, and a druid, and a fighter/rogue are the others.

It sounds like there are plenty of combatants to use buffs, and the best part about summoned creatures is that (paraphrasing Treantmonk, I think), "every time they attack a summoned creature, you win". Summons will soak some damage, deal some damage, expand your available options for attacking and generally be one of the biggest nuisances on the battle field. The downside is the one-round casting time. Just don't get hit while you're summoning.

And the rules material:

I reccomend the "void" school myself.

...
I'm also fond of the "Shadowcaster" wizard archetype...

I don't think those are in core or APG, which the OP is restricted to:

20 point buy, and Core and APG only material.

Regardless, illusion is another good option because, as williamoak pointed out, you can reproduce a lot of useful spells with the shadow evocation/conjuration line. This goes a long way towards restoring your original versatility.

And if you do take extra spells for your FCB, I'd suggest taking toughness. Hell, even if you go for the hp bonus, toughness is probably still a good idea. Everyone likes not dying, right?

I've been trying to find some clarification on this ability, but all the posts seem to be about whether non-wizards can take spell mastery.

I'm trying to find out how superior spell mastery (from the Magaambyan Arcanist PrC) works re taking the feat multiple times and lowering the power of the feat when using the ability to reselect mastered spells.

Firstly, if I take the feat as a level 5 wizard w/18 int, I can choose 4 spells I know that I no longer need to use a spellbook to prepare. If I then become a Magaambyan Arcanist and, at level 7 (Wiz5/MA2) I get superior spell mastery and use that to reselect spells, by RAW:

"choose a number of spells she knows up to her Intelligence modifier, which have a maximum combined spell level total equal to or less than her caster level, to be her Spell Mastery spells in place of the same number of spells she previously selected for her Spell Mastery feat."

So, by using "superior" spell mastery, I will more than likely end up with fewer spells than I had before re-preparing. Is this correct? If I have a 1st, a 2nd and 2 3rd level spells mastered initially (at level 5), re-preparing means that the most I can do is have one 1st level spell and 2 3rd level spells. (at level 7)

This seems to weaken an already weak feat because of the "versatility" it could add (remember that there's a 24-hour in-game study time required to use this, with which you could be making items and such). In my experience, versatility doesn't come close to specialization in terms of the power it can give a character. (Mystic Theurge being a case in point) Basically, power is throwing out a Quickened, Persistent, Piercing Baleful Polymorph at DC40 multiple times in combat. Versatility is remembering to cast teleport before that happens.

As a 13th level wizard (say, Int 20), one could take this feat for 5 7th level spells (a total of 35 spell levels) and, upon remastery, this drops to 13 spell levels (about half the original). How is this drop in the overall power of the feat justified by the versatility one could get?

Then, reading the wording again, it seems as though it doesn't cater for the fact that a caster (wizard or otherwise, depending on the ruling) can take this feat multiple times. The rules use the singular "feat" and don't handle what could happen if you take spell mastery multiple times or later on in your career.

Do you keep separate lists of mastered spells and have to relearn them in a set group each time? Can you pick new spells in place of mastered ones as long as the total spell level of mastered spells doesn't go over (CL)*(no. of times SM was taken)? Or does "superior" spell mastery replace all mastered spells with, at most, a set whose levels don't exceed your CL?

Sorry if this sounds whiny, I'm just really keen to play one of these and I want to know how the abilities are meant to work.

Strictly speaking (RAW) it's "as if" you were using dimension door, so you definitely don't qualify for the feat. However, I think it would be ok to house rule it as acceptable (depending on the character). Note that it simply doesn't allow an AoO when you use it, but then the range is very limited, so unless you are making a melee type character (EK, Wiz/Magus), you shouldn't have too many problems with game balance.

Where this messes up is that the ability is a swift action to begin with, so no AoO from the start, Dimensional Assault (and the rest of the feats) could be used many more times than intended (especially at close range).

Ultimately, the answer is definitely "no", and any discussion about house-ruling a yes belongs in the homebrew section.

I think it comes down to whether you see the Spellstrike as a) a melee attack with a spell augmenting it, or b) a spell that is delivered through a weapon.

As I see it, when you cast the spell, the Spellstrike functions as a spell that is delivered through a weapon (b), allowing you to use your weapon's bonuses and crit range and add your weapon's damage to the spell's effect.

However, when you're holding the charge and Spellstriking, you're effectively just making a melee attack that is augmented by the charge of the spell (a).

While this seems like pointless garbage (and it is for almost all intents and purposes), it becomes very important when you want to combo a held charge in spell combat.

Spell combat as written allows you to cast a spell and attack with a weapon in the same round, as though using a "2 weapon fighting" variant. Now, if you think of the Spellstrike attack with a held charge as a melee attack (a) (which it effectively is, by RAW), then that would be the melee attack part of the spell combat, so you would have to cast a spell with the other hand. (ie. you don't get 2 melee attacks without casting a spell in between)
If you hit with the Spellstrike charge, then you could follow it up with a spell in the other hand and use Spellstrike to channel the spell through your weapon.

As I see RAW now, you couldn't use a held charge as the "spell" part of the spell combat, however I don't think that it would make much of a difference at the end of the day (getting a house ruling should be easy). As you said, it would be pointless at higher levels, and useful at lower levels for the extra attack. That said, I think the magus is pretty weak at the levels where an extra weapon attack would make enough of a difference to consider it, so I think it should be fine.

I don't see why you technically couldn't sunder glasses with the combat maneuver, but thinking about someone specifically swinging a longsword so as to break someone's glasses and not actually deal damage to them, it seems a bit far-fetched. But hey, it's fantasy.

RAW(pp. 201, Ch8 of Core): "You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack." The Glasses of Arcane sight would be worn, so yes, they could be sundered.

The likes of dispel magic, antimagic field or Mordenkainen's Disjunction (yes, Wizards, I used his name :P) could suppress their effects temporarily, which would sidestep the whole sunder issue.

I'm bringing in a 7th level wizard in an upcoming campaign, and I wanted clarification on the arcane builder discovery from UM. It says that

"You create items of this type 25% faster than normal..."

I need to know if this stacks with crafting at half speed. For example, creating a +4 Headband of Vast intelligence would take 16 days of work normally (or 128 hours of work). If I add 5 to the DC, however, I can instead craft at 4 hours per 1000gp in the base price (64 hours\50% of normal time). Now, if I use arcane builder, does that get me 25% off the accelerated crafting time (48 hours\37,5% of normal time) or do I add that to the 50% I get for increasing the DC by 5 (32 hours\25% of normal time).

Looking at the RAW, it seems like the 48 hour version is right, as Ch15 says:

"This process can be accelerated to 4 hours of work
per 1,000 gp in the item’s base price (or fraction thereof ) by
increasing the DC to create the item by +5."

... and then you'd take 25% off of that crafting time, leaving you with 37,5% of the original time (50-50/4=50-12,5=37,5)

I've decided on a Zen archer for an upcoming campaign, but I'm not sure what sort of personality to give him. I generally don't have much of a personality for my characters, but I'm wanting to start moving away from number-crunching as if it's a computer game and into messing with the world the GM's putting us in. Basically, I need a bit of imagination just for the character (the skills, traits and feats I'm taking are pretty much sorted). So far, we're playing in a world based on a 500CE version of earth, with a view to writing history as it is (instead of re-writing it). Here is what I have so far:

Raimundo, the son of a Spanish ambassador to China (not sure if it's historically accurate, but it doesn't have to be) was in training to be part of an elite cadre of body guards for <insert name of important person here>. He hasn't yet completed his training and is returning to Spain on his father's orders, as China has recently re-united (GM said there were essentially two nations in China at the time), leading to a faction of overly-patriotic xenophobic extremists ,<insert intimidating name here>, who have decided that foreigners are to blame for the country's divide in the first place.

My graybeard may just get grayer for saying it, but I find the Summoner to be just too anime/pokemonish for my tastes.

But that's the best part of the summoner! With master summoner out, all you need is the GM's go-ahead to throw pokéballs in order to cast your summon spells :D Make your last name "Oak" and your first name "Professor" and you're good to go, provided you have a "pokédex" tome handy...

So, I've decided to make a Zen archer/Qinggong monk in an upcoming campaign, and I wanted to know if I could sign up for a vow or three? In the vows description it states that "A monk who takes a vow never gains the still
mind class feature, even if he abandons all his vows."

However, a Zen Archer replaces still mind with point blank master at level 3, so does that mean that I foregoe point blank master when I take vows or can I not take vows at all (not having still mind) or (and this is where I'm confused) as the RAW implies, I never gain still mind if I do take vows despite the fact that I don't get still mind anyway?

I don't think there's an errata out on UM yet, so I just need some clarification on this.

Hi there! I've been playing for a while in a party of 5 (+1 GM, so 6 people) and (although we keep swpping GMs) we've also found that CRs for a party are difficult to gauge.

Remember that a CR2 equivalent encounter is only supposed to be an average encounter for your party. If you want to actually challenge them, then you can always up the CR (to about APL+3/CR5 in this case, but that's classified as an epic encounter, so you should have at least one near death experience). We have found that with 5 characters, the average encounters are a joke. Also, check how the XP is divided up in a party of 6 (I think it's just XP/6, but I can't remember)

The best thing to do would be to add more lower-level enemies, as a large party can often handle single opponents well to a point. Eventually, the BBEG you throw at them will be a challenge for the party as a whole, but any one character who gets hit by it will be taken out of combat. You can even try adding 6 orcs (1 per player), but also remember that you are responsible for the initiative order, and keeping 6 players motivated while managing 5 or 6 orcs isn't the easiest thing. (but a big party is going to be a challenge anyway if you are new to pathfinder)

I would recommend 2 or 3 CR2s (2 to start with, in case they're harder than you think), as they will be tougher than orcs, they probably won't decimate the party and they won't hog your time with keeping track of initiative.

I'm about to start a new campaign as a synthesist (gnome, lvl2, bipedal base form) and have just read about 4 separate posts explaining the different interpretations of the rules and most end up advising house rules until the errata comes out. Usually the messageboards have all the answers needed, but this time I really need clarity on the armored synthesist problem, and didn't want to start a separate thread about the same topic.

As far as I can see, the description in UM is vague at best, as the summoner "gains the eidolon’s armor and natural armor bonuses". Usually if you gain two bonuses of the same type, only the larger one applies (chain shirt and bracers of armor+2 only give +4 armor - from the chain shirt), so if you 'gain' the eidolon's bonuses as stated, then you could have [+4 armor, +0 natural armor (synthesist)] and [+0 armor, +6 natural armor (eidolon)] for a total of +10 (4 armor, 6 natural) taking the better of the two each time.

While this seems to be allowed by my reading of the rules, I feel that there must be some mistake as, while the summoner appears "inside a translucent image of his eidolon", that image would surely cover the entire summoner and any gear he's wearing, rendering the armor bonus from the summoner's chain shirt useless in terms of protection (at least according to the description, if not the rules wording). As they are counted as one creature, perhaps replacing the summoner's natural armor and armor bonuses with the eidolon's would be a better rule.

My real question, however, has to do with the fused synthesist/eidolon wearing armor specifically designed to fit the eidolon's form (as I'd use mage armor anyway, all this does is save an action at the beginning of each combat, because the max dex bonus would only begin to limit me at later levels). This armor would be the equivalent of crafting armor for an unusually shaped creature (I havn't the foggiest idea about the exact rules), and would never be found during the adventure, as it is abnormally shaped, and also would have to be donned by the synthesist after each time the eidolon is summoned. He would also have to lug it around when the eidolon is unsummoned and this raises some potentially hilarious situations should he fail the will save for a dismissal/banishment, especially at later levels (huge eidolon is dismissed and the small gnome has to spend two consecutive full-round actions trying to get out from underneath the massive chain shirt).

I raise this because of the wording in the original description of eidolons and armor: "An eidolon cannot wear armor of any kind, as the armor
interferes with the summoner’s connection to the eidolon." While I can understand that game balance may be an issue, the armor is now around both the eidolon and the summoner, so it couldn't interfere with the connection between them any more than both of them stepping into a metal-lined chamber would. Sure, a barrier can affect the link between them, but now that the armor is around both of them, the wording of the old reason no longer applies.

I can't think of any potential reason why the fused eidolon can't wear armor, other than (maybe) game balance.