Tarek Alatrach GRC's page

Tarek Alatrach GRC wrote:

Ex 1: Explosive runes or some other damage spell: Is the 3d6 nonlethal damage on TOP of the normal damage of the spell? If so, how do you reconcile this not insignificant boost of damage with the reduction to spell level?

Ex 2: Buffing spells: how it it work with beneficial spells? What about spells that don't necessarily have a positive or negative effect, like other illusion spells (Such as major image)

My gut instinct tells me this spell could greatly benefit from clarified wording as well as restrictions for what kind of spells it can be applied to. This is enforced by looking at Shadow Spell, which in many ways, is strictly worse that its prerequisite Phantasmal Spell.

In the meantime, some quick answers to your specific questions:

1. Yes, in addition. And no, I don't see a problem, because if you make the save against normal explosive runes, you still take half damage. If you make the Intuition save against phantasmal runes, there is no effect at all, and even if you fail it you're still entitled to the Reflex save.

2. I wouldn't apply this to beneficial spells; why force your allies to take 3d6 damage for a buff?

The issue I had was that phantasmal spell reduced the spell level. This allows a significant potential increase to the number of buff or damage spells that one can cast. 3d6 nonlethal damage is much more easily dealt with as a penalty as non lethal damage heals at a much faster rate than lethal damage. Either way, my bigger concern is that shadowspell is worse in many, if not most ways to phantasmal spell.

Question on Phantasmal Spell

Benefit: The effects of a Phantasmal spell are not
real. Those potentially affected receive an Intuition
save to avoid all effects entirely. If this save is failed;
the target is subject to the original spell (and can roll
an additional, normal saving throw against that spell,
if applicable), and also suffers 3d6 nonlethal damage.
The school of the spell changes to Illusion.
Metamagic Cost: -1 level.

So the way I understand it, this spell grants an additional save for the character, giving them an extra chance to avoid the ill effects.

One of my players have been wondering about the extents to which this spell can be applied, and I'm wondering what happens when it interacts with some spells.

Ex: Explosive runes or some other damage spell: Is the 3d6 nonlethal damage on TOP of the normal damage of the spell? If so, how do you reconcile this not insignificant boost of damage with the reduction to spell level?

Ex 2: Buffing spells: how it it work with beneficial spells? What about spells that don't necessarily have a positive or negative effect, like other illusion spells (Such as major image)

My gut instinct tells me this spell could greatly benefit from clarified wording as well as restrictions for what kind of spells it can be applied to. This is enforced by looking at Shadow Spell, which in many ways, is strictly worse that its prerequisite Phantasmal Spell.

Awesome! Seeing as my campaign is focused on a devil prince takeover of an empire, this is great! Please check out the SR values as well!

I was looking at some feats my players wanted to get, and one thing that jumped at me was the spirited charge ability "Deadly Charge":

Deadly Charge (Ex): If you have at least 6 skill
ranks and If your BAB is +6 or greater, once per
day you can attempt a deadly charge (declare this
before rolling to attack, so a miss ruins the
attempt). On a successful hit, you deal triple
normal damage (quadruple damage with a lance).
This benefit does not stack with the normal effects
of the Spirited Charge. For each +3 to your base
attack bonus above +6 (i.e., at +9, +12, +15, and
+18) you may use this ability an additional time
per day.

The limited uses per day contradicts with the design philosophy that physical extraordinary abilities (Such as rogue tricks) should not be limited in such a manner. Why was this written this way?

Kirth Gersen wrote:

The original playtest group (Houstonderek, Jess Door, Silverhair, Andostre, TOZ, and others) were 100% dead-set against ANY fighter/rogue abilities being "X/day," so that's the direction we went.

I think the thinking was that rogues were a non-magic using class that didn't rely on any sort of energy source other than their own caloric intake. While a wizard can be limited in the number of times per day their brain can process Vancian arcane knowledge, but a fighter can hit someone really hard as many times as he wants while he still has the strength to stand*, the rogue should be closer to the latter because an arbitrary limit on abilities didn't make in-game sense.

Granted, I think this discussion was before Kirth started exploring the idea of a rogue picking up magical and magical-equivalent tricks as he advances in experience (which makes total sense and addressed the issue with many rogue tricks being invalidated by party members' spells).

So, if you're interested in following this same logic and still want to impose limits, it makes sense to add them for rogue tricks that are magical in nature. In the example above where the rogue throws a flask equivalent to a fireball, you can say they have to craft the flask and tie it to KF's wealth system.

*I recognize that KF's wounding system (at half hp and quarter hp) adds complexity to this somewhat.

The spell-like abilities are indeed my biggest concern. When a relatively low level rogue can become invisible essentially at will, it becomes really problematic. Either these abilities are removed, or a limit is introduced somehow.

Also, after running my campaign with kirthfinder for 6 months now, and also starting another one concurrently, I've come to dislike some rogue skill tricks. The main reason for my dislike is not the skill trick itself, but the ability for rogues to use them infinitely.

Some of these abilities provide fun tools for the GM and the player (eg: Compelling question, innocence, and so on), but others (Like expeditious retreat, vanish/invisibility) that imo would break the way mortal low level characters should behave. Imagine if every other 1st/2nd level rogue thug could run around vanishing or running like sonic the hedgehog willy nilly?

I really would like to introduce some kind of limitation other than the skill roll.

I was personally thinking of giving them uses per day based on spontaneous spell casting, or spell-like abilities uses table.

That's what I thought. My concern is more of a simulationist one: What is a light ballista? What is a cannon? and so on.

For example, in pathfinder raw, a heavy ballista has 4d8 damage, needs like a crew of 3-4, and 5 rounds total reload+aiming. with 180 ft range increments.

But why is that the case? These are apparently 20 lbs bolts. Only 4d8? Seems quite underwhelming. Also, most of the siege weapons strike only one target somehow. Even a cannon ball. This is not in agreement with common sense.

The ruleset you created seemed to approach weapons from a common sense perspective (eg: See crossbows).

For consistency's sake, for example, ballista need to somehow work on similar principles to crossbows.

Question on siege equipment. I did not find any mention of them in the equipment section. With the buffed up weapons, I think that they'd deserve a section of their own there, or at least them being addressed somehow.

I do feel that siege equipment in default pathfinder are somewhat undertuned as well.

How would you do them in kirthfinder?

Would anyone be interested in forming a discord server for kirthfinder discussions? https://discord.gg/tDKntwr Join up and let's have some discussion there! I've just made it so it doesn't look pro or anything, yet!

I've been running kirthfinder for a good while now (year-long campaign now), and there are a few things that I've done to add/homebrew a few things on it. If anyone would like to take a look and give an opinion:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yVaEFHwOirlOoUa_AmfWWU0PTfsZ80tf6cQ3OP6 bWp0/edit?usp=sharing

Here.

Because in my setting, there are fairly common races with the ability to fly with wings, I appended the rules on flying so that it is considered as a strenuous activity.

Further, I created guns as a weapon, not a magical item. Because honestly, I think creating them as magic items is unfun and also quite s$!@. I modelled them after the pathfinder weapons, but so I am unsure of their balance (didn't have much chance to test them since the area the players are in do not really have guns, yet.

Based on a few posts from several years ago, I believe the intent is that the Weapon Form bonus applies to wielded/manufactured weapons and Unarmed Mastery applies to unarmed strikes, in which case the damage output is comparable between the two choices (+1/2 level vs. +[1/4 level]d6). If so, then the lack of ability to add Unarmed Mastery to weapon attacks makes sense. The exact wording of Weapon Form doesn't seem to exclude unarmed strikes, though, so I could be wrong.

I can see how you say that, but take for instance the exotic proficiency in Gauntlets, which lets you apply unarmed mastery. It's clearly presented as a weapon, so it should be able to stack weapon form and unarmed mastery. Further, one can also argue that monk's fists are "weapons".

I also do have a question about the Monk's unarmed mastery feat. The way it is written, the ability only works for unarmed attacks. If so, it seems like a nonbo to allow monks to use weapons, yet give no apparent way to have Unarmed Mastery's precision damage apply to weapons that the monk uses.

Is there any way to bypass this limitation? Or have I missed something obvious?

Can someone help explain to me how do Power Conduits (Chapter 6, page 28).

Can these spell slots that you get (calculated from spells per day table 2, ie the spontaneous spellcater one), be used by wizards to prepare spells?

If not, what do you do with them?

Thank you, Mikes, and hello, everyone.

My name is Tarek, an expat born and raised in Abu Dhabi. Though I have dabbled in role playing games before, I only seriously got into the hobby when the GRC went public at the first middle east film and comic con.

At the moment, I run a long term campaign set in Golarion using the Pathfinder rules. I think I am the person with the most PFS experience between the three of us, as I have participated in a few events at gencon'13 and in Chicago as well. But that is not saying much, really. The cyclops is king in the land of the blind.

Now that we are involved in the pfs, Mike and I will arrange monthly pfs games in Abu Dhabi. I think we also pretty much unanimously agreed that PFS games are ideal for our seasonal mini cons as well as major events such as the middle east comic on.

Nice to meet you all.