If you've got the 1st tier Archmage path ability "Enhance Magic Items" in here though, you can make the wish staff a little cheaper.
By using 1 use of mythic power, you can avoid using a charge off the item. That allows a staff built with a cost of 3 charges/casting and still put out 5 wishes when fully charged (and 1d10+tier will leave the item fully charged each day).
Cost on that staff is 1,311,300/3 = 437100gp. 82% of WBL for an 18th level character, and this is an adventure path with a bit more than standard wealth by level. If 4 characters spread the cost between themselves, as the ones in our party did, you're looking at just under 108k per character - WBL has a character gain that much just going from 17th level to 18th level.
To max the party out the staff will be casting 120 wishes. Even at only one attribute/character, it would be doing 20 wishes. With the cost of the item being roughly 17.5 wishes, even if everyone only wishes up one attribute, the party still comes out wealth ahead (because face it, characters at this power level are already going to do at least one attribute). Then buffing all the other attributes is just gravy, and some very nice gravy that comes with lots of extra hit points, skill points, armor class, saving throws, etc.
GM'ing something like this and attempting to say "yes but" rather than "no", make sure that the wizard is keeping track of which day those uses of mythic power come from. He'd be using 6 uses/day for 23 days. He'll be able to make some of this happen on down time, but between the other party members wanting their wishes now rather than later and a sense of urgency, he'll end up in some combats wishing (pun intended) that he had some more uses of mythic power that day.
My group of players gets a lot of enjoyment out of these exploits. They would get less enjoyment from the game if the laws of the universe were to somehow warp to keep them from gaining certain advantages. And we're in this game for the enjoyment, all of us, so I'm not about to shut down RAW just to keep their attributes a few points lower. In the meantime, the encounters coming just got a little bit nastier and everything should work out fine.
The divisor comes after you determine base cost. Material component cost is then figured AFTER charge divisor. The cheaper charges doesn't affect it. You still have to supply for fifty charges even if the device uses two at once.
Which is kind of weird, but it's how its written.
==Aelryinth
I am looking at the rules...
Pathfinder SRD wrote:
The creator must have prepared the spells to be stored (or must know the spells, in the case of a sorcerer or bard) and must provide any focus the spells require as well as material component costs sufficient to activate the spell 50 times (divide this amount by the number of charges one use of the spell expends).
I'm not sure how open that text is to the reading you're giving. The second clause in parentheses sounds pretty clear to me that using multiple charges per activation would in fact reduce the material component cost.
Only the percentage with which they are charged. It's pretty easy to calculate in my head, once I know the base price of wands by memory. Just divide that by 100, then multiply by the number of charges left, i.e. 7,5 x charges for level 1, 45 x charges for level 2 and so on.
They did make up a miniscule part of the loot for module six, I can tell you that. ^^
I ask because the party wizard is refilling all the wands they come across before selling. With wands of CLW it won't change much (1d10+tier)*7.5 gp is fairly low. But with level 4 spells it's (1d10+tier)*210 gp, and even more if the wand in question has an expensive material component (e.g. stoneskin - a relatively common wand) and that can definitely upset an attempt at delicate balancing. I forget if the ability to recharge is limited to 1/day or 1/item/day. In the later case, characters will exploit all left over mythical power uses at the end of the day for a significant cash edge. In either case, it makes a bit of difference at our table for WBL, since there are a number of wands out there with a level 4 spell and like 1d4 charges.
That same trait ability has the chance to create other issues - one character passed the hat through the party's MAD characters to scrounge up the diamonds needed to craft a staff that casts wish in exchange for 3 charges (thus keeping down the material component costs). Using mythic power to reduce the number of charges per activation and then recharging the staff with mythic power as well yields a +5 inherent bonus to an attribute of choice each day. 24 days later, the entire party has maxed out their inherent bonuses.
Question for you magnuskn - characters with the archmage related campaign trait can recharge wands at will. Did you include the full value of the wands that are found in loot, or did you only price them based on the percentage of charges left (e.g. a wand with 5 charges is only worth 10% of the value of a new want with 50.)?
Illeshka's tactics (p60) seems to imply that bonuses from different defending weapons stack. Is it really the case? Aren't these bonuses generated by the same source?
"A defending weapon allows the wielder to transfer some or all of the weapon's enhancement bonus to his AC as a bonus that stacks with all others." - Pathfinder SRD
A bonus that stacks with all other bonuses may or may not stack with itself, that's ambiguous. Apparently, we now have a semi-official clarification that it does. But this can only be done if the weapon is wielded, not if the weapon is sheathed. I guess having a lot of arms is a really good thing. Think what Ylleshka could do if she knew Greater Magic Weapon to increase the enhancement bonuses...
It's not punishment for 'screwing with the goddess' that's the problem. It's the punishment for getting her questions 'wrong'. Huge amounts of sonic damage and deafness is not a proportional response for a LG goddess to give PCs for disagreeing with each other over whether attempting to redeem the wicked is prudent.
She heals the damage and raises the dead at the end anyway - it only stings a little to high level PC's and only for a short time. It actually seems really appropriate to me as a level of response - enough to get the attention of the bumbling fools before her and yet without doing any real lasting harm (bumbling fools includes those who haven't bothered to think through redemption this far into an adventure path where redemption is a significant theme). And if the PC's think this is unproportional, then they have a lesson that they need to learn about the weightiness of divinity, how far short of divinity they themselves are, the weightiness of the task before them, and the importance to their task of unity.
If the players think it's unproportional, then they can learn the same things above. If they think it's not lawful or good, then they don't understand the alignment system very well.
If the wand/staff/etc. is actually casting the spell (i.e. a spell is being cast, but the other caster is not casting a spell), can my wizard ready an action to counterspell the staff? That seems to violate the rules on counterspelling since I have to wait for an "opponent" to cast a spell and the staff doesn't seem to fit that description. Yet if the staff casts a spell, it seems that, by modifying the trigger I designate for my readied action, I could attempt to counterspell an activation of the staff (assuming that staff activation involves a spell being cast). But in that case, I would be vulnerable to the staff's owner simply casting a spell at me, because I don't have a readied action to counterspell him.
"Activation: Staves use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a staff is usually a standard action that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity. If the spell being cast has a longer casting time than 1 standard action, however, it takes the full casting time to cast the spell from a staff. To activate a staff, a character must hold it forth in at least one hand (or...
Yeah, that's the part I was keying on too in my first post responding to Lochar above. Could it be that the standard action is both activating a spell trigger item and casting a spell? I've been operating under the assumption that those two actions are mutually exclusive.
In any case, I'd be really interested to hear a more official clarification of how the staff is intended to work. It seems here to make a great deal of difference to just how powerful an item a staff (and potentially even a wand - depending on the ruling) is.
Just took an in depth spin through the counterspelling rules and there is nothing preventing their use against spell trigger activation. Seems the staff could be counterspelled.
Also I feel I need to reiterate - the spell in question is DETECT MAGIC. Not Read Magic. So the discussion is entirely moot.
Yeah, the bit about Read Magic is no longer about the stat block and more about Lord Snow's claim that wizards can cast that cantrip without memorizing it. I think the answer is that he just made a minor mistake with the special status of that cantrip.
As for the counterspell bit - you said you think you can counterspell the staff. Can you please explain a little more why you think this works?
If I'm trying to lock down Vang, I will declare that I ready an action to counterspell Vang. That is, I ready an action with an activation trigger that goes off if Vang "tries to cast a spell". Then, during his turn, Vang spends a standard action to attempt to activate a spell trigger item. My instinct is to say, since Vang has not satisfied the condition "tries to cast a spell", the readied action isn't triggered and thus things continue as normal with the staff activating and a spell effect manifesting. Meanwhile my readied action is still waiting and might trigger if, say, Vang then tries to cast a quickened spell later in the round.
I'm guessing that you believe activating a spell trigger item in fact satisfies the condition "tries to cast a spell" but it's not clear why you believe that - can you explain?
Actually, Read Magic is a spell all wizards, starting from level 1 and regardless of their chosen school, can cast from memory (that is, they don't even have to prepare it in advance). So the stat block is correct as it is.
Where do you get this from? The closest I can find is this:
SRD wrote:
"A wizard must study his spellbook each day to prepare his spells. He cannot prepare any spell not recorded in his spellbook, except for read magic, which all wizards can prepare from memory."
But that just says that he can prepare the spell from memory, not that he can cast it. In fact, there is an implication that wizards sometimes do prepare read magic, which would be really silly if they could cast it without preparing it. Otherwise, I think that what is stated about cantrips from opposition schools taking up two slots fits. I think that including this in stat blocks when divination is a dump school is a pretty common mistake, since Read Magic is such a bread and butter cantrip that even people with divination as an opposition school know it from "birth".
All said, as I noted above, whether or not he can cast read magic is a rather silly thing to worry about in the stat block since Vang is unlikely to be making much use of cantrips on screen, let alone enough of them that it might matter how many cantrip slots he actually has. This isn't a good use of your time as a GM preping to run the game. But I really am interested in the rules question for Lord Snow regarding wizards not needing to even memorize Read Magic - it will certainly alter the daily spell preps for my wizard characters.
For Lochar:
That's a good question.
SRD wrote:
How Counterspells Work
To use a counterspell, you must select an opponent as the target of the counterspell. You do this by choosing to ready an action. In doing so, you elect to wait to complete your action until your opponent tries to cast a spell. You may still move at your normal speed, since ready is a standard action.
If the target of your counterspell tries to cast a spell, make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell's level). This check is a free action. If the check succeeds, you correctly identify the opponent's spell and can attempt to counter it. If the check fails, you can't do either of these things.
My gut says that, no you can't counter it. You hold an action to counterspell the opponent, but at no point does the opponent "try to cast a spell". Instead, the opponent activates a spell trigger item.
However, the SRD also says,
SRD wrote:
Staves use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a staff is usually a standard action that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity.
This is only one of many references to "casting" a spell from a staff. That makes it sound as though what one does with a staff counts as "trying to cast a spell". If that's the case, then it's clear cut that you can counterspell the activation of the staff.
I took a short glance and didn't see much to worry about. Read Magic is from an opposition school, so he should either change that out or lose another cantrip I believe. But seriously, if he's casting read magic on screen, you might be doing it wrong.
You might also want to reconsider his use of contingency. My choice might be like this: Condition - if a resist energy spell active on his person is dispelled. Effect - cast resist energy (fire) on him immediately. That will potentially be a big help in covering his worm that walks weakness. There might be a better way, but I'm not immediately aware of it.
Per James Jacobs, (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kpru&page=1?Int-and-Skills#9) the skill points are correct, not a gift you're handing Vang.
He looks like a much bigger challenge than what's in the print version. I'm sure your party will find a way, but I didn't notice any glaring weaknesses in my quick read through. As for Vang's mythic tiers and their timing - saying those are pretty recent seems viable. He's got a long history over which to gain levels and only a much shorter history making the Nahyndrian Elixir, which is likely the source of his mythic-ness.
That's up to you. For Wrath of the Righteous, we're deliberately increasing the amount simply to make the PCs even more powerful... since some of the encounters they'll be facing will truly test even a mythic party.
Thanks James - that helps. I know that the wealth by level, point buy, experience track, etc are all variables that change the balance of the game. When I buy a Paizo adventure at my FLGS, I expect a certain sort of game balance and I know that I'll make some slight adjustments to deal with the fact that most of our players do a bit more optimizing than average. I feel that, with products involving the mythic rules, I don't know exactly what to expect in terms of rebalancing the adventure as written. That, on top of the additional moving parts of mythic NPCs, it's a lot more work GM'ing a mythic adventure.
At any rate, thanks again for the info. Don't take that as a negative criticism, just a few observations/impressions about the new product line. It's a line of products that just work a little differently in between the FLGS and our weekly game. If our group were to mostly play with the mythic rules for a year or two, I'm sure I'll pick it up fairly naturally. Tips for this adjustment are appreciated from those who have more experience with the newer rules system.
Trust me... we give out plenty of items that are good for clerics and wizards and rogues and all the rest.
Wrath of the Righteous is many things, but stingy on the magic items is not one of them.
I've noticed that the adventures seem a good bit ahead of the wealth by level guidelines. Especially when one considers that charged items can be recharged by a character with the Archmage path and path-related campaign trait. A wand with 5 charges is a relatively low value treasure. But when the wizard can have it/sell it fully charged a week later, that adds to wealth by level, and it seems that Book 3 features a good bit of downtime during which to recharge items.
As a general question about mythic play - I know that mythic tiers increase the appropriate challenge rating of encounters to present a challenge to the party. They are tougher, so need tougher encounters. In general, should mythic tiers alter wealth by level in a manner similar to how they impact challenge ratings? Or is this perhaps just a feature of this adventure path?
A 25 point buy, as opposed to 15, makes that gap just a little wider and tougher to navigate.
Paradoxically, considering the power boost in this particular path that comes from becoming mythic, the gap between 15 and 25 points feels much smaller.
Agreed - the power gap is smaller, given the number of stat boosts that characters get. A group playing with a 15 point buy might see a single attribute character get that single attribute to 50 by the end. (18 from buy using a dump stat, +2 racial, +5 inherent, +5 leveling, +6 enhancement, +10 tiers, +2 path feature, +2 from Devotion Points).
The difference is smaller in terms of the overall power level of the characters, but it's yet one more point where the optimized pull away from the unoptimized. A non-optimized wizard won't get a 50 Int, and the poor non-optimized character who has to compete with a DC 33 save against fireball is going to have a really rough go of it. (One of our optimizers has already done all his advancements through L20/T10 as part of his planning and will be dishing out mythic maximized disintegrate with a DC 40-something saving throw (roll 3 times, take the lowest) as a swift action.)
In response to Tangent's comments about what the game should be about - I agree with the sentiment that it ought to be about fun. However, the specifics that Tangent says he wants to see would not be fun for most of my group. If I'm playing with a group for which fun means optimizing the characters, then I want to see them optimize the heck out of those characters. What part of Pathfinder someone finds enjoyable is not something I'm willing to say is an infallible indicator of virtue or vice on the behalf of the gamer, so I'm not willing to condemn anyone at my table over the fact that they enjoy one particular style of play over another. If the computer scientists in my group are interested in optimizing, then I'm going to wish them the utmost enjoyment of it and do what I can to further that enjoyment while maintaining my enjoyment and my wife's. (Our group juggles a couple folks who just like to poke things and enjoy the results, a couple power gamer/optimizer types and a couple storytellers who enjoy the game less when the story stops moving forward.)
In any AP, there is a balancing issue which Paizo has always tried to shoot the middle on - groups with players who do a lot of optimizing will end up being a little stronger than the path is pitched for, those who do zero optimizing will be a little under, but it should be playable for everyone.
The issue here is that with 1) higher levels and 2) all the extra mythic goodness, there are a lot more choices for players to make. Choosing 5 mythic feats, potentially some mythic spells, and 10 mythic path features (in addition to extra bonuses such as might be earned in book one) raise the number of chances for an optimizing player to get ahead of a non-optimizing player. The gap between the gal in our group who has every feat planned out ten levels in advance and the guy at the table who asks others to pick his next feat because he doesn't want to deal with all the options grows every time they make another round of selections.
Since this game features 30 different rounds of selecting feats/skills/etc (20 levels + 10 tiers), almost double many other APs, this is going to widen the gap between these players at my table. Or it will widen the gap between the more aggressively optimized groups of gamers and the more beer/pretzel crowd. It makes it that much harder for Paizo to write a game that successfully hits the middle of this range and potentially makes it impossible to write the AP in such a way that the most powerful groups still get a challenge while the groups less interested in optimization are able to make it through.
A 25 point buy, as opposed to 15, makes that gap just a little wider and tougher to navigate.
A mechanics question here regarding the Guards and Wards spell in Armag's tomb:
I'm curious about the following features of the guards and wards spell:
Duration: 2 hours/level
Area of Effect: 200 square feet/level.
spoiler:
Zorek: CL = 12, Can do Guards and Wards 1/day.
As I understand it, Zorek can't stack up multiple guards and wards spells, they expire as fast as he can cast them. But each spell can only cover 2400 square feet. The dungeon is probably more like 15-20k square feet - the very first room is 1600 sq ft. If I'm not missing anything (which I very well might be) what's a good way to handle this in game. Should large parts of the dungeon be left out of the guards and wards effect? Or should there be a mechanism for Zorek to be able to cast the spell many times daily? Cover the gap with metamagic? Shrink the dungeon to half the size?
Not sure how I'll run this one in my own game, so I'm looking for suggestions and maybe insight into what the author might have had in mind.
I'd like to have this work in a fairly straight-forward way because our group has a lot more fun when the characters (if they are well played) are able to piece together what's going on.
