Tarquin Cox's page

I get that, but that's even more confusing! They need UMD as a prereq, but not to activate the ability? So weird

So I've been looking into the Item Mastery feats some, and after I noticed the Con casting aspect my immediate thought was: Barbarian. Or bloodrager, of course. However, even though going from 3.5 to Pathfinder did strip some important phrasing out of rage in regards to using magic item command words (aka they are legal to use during rage in Pathfinder), there's still the matter of rage/bloodrage forbidding "any ability that requires patience or concentration" while in use.

Given that the Item Mastery feats say that activation is "similar to activating a command word item, though you do not need to speak" and doesn't provoke an AoO, yet also says that using one "requires you to assault the existing magic of the item through your force of will and channel the item’s inherent magic through your own body", it felt unclear if you can use them during a rage. "Force of will" suggests concentration or patience...yet it's also a standard action and is equivalent to activating a command word item. I got a bit lost in RAI vs RAW here, so I was hoping for some clarification.

I've been playing a Legate/Chosen One paladin in my group's most recent campaign, this time against a certain tyrant that whispers, and recently I've been reading over the Celestial Armor ability. Specifically, it states:

"At 3rd level, a legate can conjure armor as a standard action. This ability acts as the spell instant armor, using her paladin level as her caster level, except as follows.

At 6th level and every 3 paladin levels thereafter, the armor gains an additional +1 enhancement bonus. These bonuses can be used to add any of the following armor special abilities:" etc etc.

The phrase that caught my attention is the beginning of the second part, where "the armor gains an additional +1 enhancement bonus," which means it stacks with the instant armor bonus you get from not taking the best armor available. If I change my fullplate down to chainmail, the chainmail starts at +3. The bonuses from Celestial Armor specifically stack with this.

...However

The part that confuses me is that it is followed immediately with "These bonuses can be used to add any of-" etc etc. "These bonuses" suggest (to me) that both the bonuses of Celestial Armor and of instant armor can be used for the abilities. Given that instant armor specifically states they can't be replaced, but Celestial Armor says this part is an exception to its similarity to the spell, I wanted to know:

Which bonuses are allowed to be replaced for armor abilities? If I'm level 18 and conjure chainmail (which normally is +3), do I have only +5 to use for abilities, or do I have +7 (since I'd still need at least +1)?

Originally, I wanted the wood blast so that is get verdant blast later and because I didn't want to start with positive blast (although this is going to be an undead-heavy campaign). If undead became a serious problem for me to hit/damage by 7th level, I could take positive blast and get verdant blast for the composite (being able to always know if it's undead or not when you don't have knowledge religion is nice, as it switches to positive energy damage if it's better, and I'm hoping there's a DM-approved visual of that). If I'm fine on offense but defense lacks, I could branch into another element with a stronger defense and get the defense of that one (such as earth or aether) to improve that way.

The final element branching would probably be wood/positive/earth or earth/positive/wood if I'm not going to keep taking the same element, but if I do want the same element then wood was a good choice as I'd get the positive blast and I'd get some nice utility talents as well.

I get why earth is really good defensively, but I was wondering why wood isn't as strong as water when for a Kinetic Knight wood has basically the same amount of bonus but all the time instead of only when you use burn for a water talent. I thought wood would be a close second for a Knight, honestly.

Saying this again, as it seems I should to be safe...

Melkiador wrote:

When making a kineticist, your attack stat is almost always more important than your constitution. You will naturally do “ok” damage when you hit. But you need to be able to hit consistently. It’s even more important if you’re using a melee infusion, because you want your iterative attacks to hit too.

Now that's an interesting opinion, I might shuffle her stats a bit more for Strength then. Lemme see...

Middle Aged building more for Strength puts her at, using total number (base number) for verification:
Str 16(17), Dex 12(13), Con 14(17), Int 10(9), Wis 10(7), Cha 10(7)
Seems decent enough, especially if I take Toughness. Dropping Int means I'll lose craft (carpentry) and a language, not too bad. I can change her flavor to match a new element, but I can't use water (cold) in this campaign easily as there will be a lot of undead in this one, so that mostly leaves air, fire, and void for touch attacks. With her new strength though, I think she shouldn't need to use a touch attack as desperately.

But why is the wood defense so bad? It's just pure natural armor up to +7, which eliminates an entire item (Amulet of Natural Armor) by +5 as well as stacking with any armor/shields you have. Water either increases your enhancement bonus (Kinetic Knight) or just gives you an armor or shield bonus (which means it's an either or with your existing armor, as armor doesn't stack) and both with a burn use, and it only goes to +8 (armor bonus) or +6 (shield bonus) plus up to half that with burn (which means only +4 to your armor or +3 to your shield as a Kinetic Knight, as that's what matters). How is a flat natural armor not as good? Sorry to rant, just trying to make sure I understand them both.

So the earth element is probably better than wood...I can work with that, I think? Especially as an armorsmith. Perhaps she tried the druids but felt more of a connection to the earth than the plants, but she's naturally good at gardening? Hmmm...

If her stats are good enough as I put above, anything else I should keep in mind? Anything I should aim for? Other elements (and elemental defenses) I should look at expanding with?

If I change her stats, drop her back to middle aged, and make her use the earth blast, would that be more workable or am I still in the same ballpark of horrible?

Also, the other questions still stand!

We're not power gamers in our group, we prefer something of a balance. Yes you can absolutely do more damage than the kineticist at 7th/8th level, but it's the lack of needing to use anything up and the massive range (it was more of an open campaign at the time) that did it, combined with not needing to be built strongly to do it well. High base, lower ceiling messed with the power balance a lot in that one.

But anyway, anything about the other post before the explanation?

Oh, and as for background on the "kineticist OP" judgement:

He's been a DM for a long time. I was throwing 4d6+8 every round, for free, from up to 240ft away (extended + air range doubler). I literally sniped an enemy that was running away because we didn't want to let him escape. If you hit a lot of enemies with one spell your total damage is good, but you expend a spell slot. At this level as a wizard you get a couple 4th level spells, a few 3rd, and 4 to 6 of 2nd on down. You're probably using 2 to 4 spells a fights, mostly lower but maybe a couple Haste every day at least? A 4th level for a bigger bad?

Kineticist doesn't care. Way in the back, 4d6+7 every round before overflow. Channeling some burn into defense, suddenly it's more like 4d6+13 and oh yeah 40% of your arrows just miss me. Coming into melee with me? Up to four rounds of double moves minimum for the average enemy, and you have to get through my allies as well, before I even got the extreme range talent. Oh yeah I'm probably constantly flying too, because wings of air is a 3rd level talent. So no melee unless you can fly (plus a couple movements to catch me as I can fly 60ft and shoot in the same round), and I can burn a little to get half of all ranged attacks to miss. If I have a little burn to spare I can stop rays as well for a round, but I'm mostly targeting the casters with no issues because I'm a freaking sniper.

Unless the DM specifically increased the danger level of the baddies for me, or prepared them a fair bit more (and thus indirectly raised the danger level), the party wouldn't have a fair fight: either I'd be too strong, or they'd be too weak. We nerfed my power together because I basically didn't miss. This was with air blast too, I had electric for the high AC enemies (which means more no missing, or heavy electrical resistance). Yeah it's all or nothing of two greatsword swings, basically, but it's free from a long range sometimes on a touch attack.

Does that all make sense?

When making a kineticist, your attack stat is almost always more important than your constitution. You will naturally do “ok” damage when you hit. But you need to be able to hit consistently. It’s even more important if you’re using a melee infusion, because you want your iterative attacks to hit too.

Now that's an interesting opinion, I might shuffle her stats a bit more for Strength then. Lemme see...

Middle Aged building more for Strength puts her at, using total number (base number) for verification:
Str 16(17), Dex 12(13), Con 14(17), Int 10(9), Wis 10(7), Cha 10(7)
Seems decent enough, especially if I take Toughness. Dropping Int means I'll lose craft (carpentry) and a language, not too bad. I can change her flavor to match a new element, but I can't use water (cold) in this campaign easily as there will be a lot of undead in this one, so that mostly leaves air, fire, and void for touch attacks. With her new strength though, I think she shouldn't need to use a touch attack as desperately.

But why is the wood defense so bad? It's just pure natural armor up to +7, which eliminates an entire item (Amulet of Natural Armor) by +5 as well as stacking with any armor/shields you have. Water either increases your enhancement bonus (Kinetic Knight) or just gives you an armor or shield bonus (which means it's an either or with your existing armor, as armor doesn't stack) and both with a burn use, and it only goes to +8 (armor bonus) or +6 (shield bonus) plus up to half that with burn (which means only +4 to your armor or +3 to your shield as a Kinetic Knight, as that's what matters). How is a flat natural armor not as good? Sorry to rant, just trying to make sure I understand them both.

So the earth element is probably better than wood...I can work with that, I think? Especially as an armorsmith. Perhaps she tried the druids but felt more of a connection to the earth than the plants, but she's naturally good at gardening? Hmmm...

If her stats are good enough as I put above, anything else I should keep in mind? Anything I should aim for? Other elements (and elemental defenses) I should look at expanding with?

Tarquin Cox wrote:

She knew she wasn't agile enough to throw them, nor was she strong enough to hit things hard, so she let the plants do the work for her.

That doesn't sound like a Kinetic Knight. At all. The Grasping Vine Shaman Ryan Freire mentioned sounds like a good fit, or maybe a Cultivator Bard, Plant Master Hunter, or Leshy Caller Summoner.

Really? I thought Kinetic Knight was more about tankiness and the damage of the blast was kinda separate from the physical strength/dexterity of the person (especially since it's all based on Con)? Made sense in my head at least lol.

I suppose I can change elements, but I'd like to keep Kinetic Warrior I think. I like Kineticist as a whole (shaman kinda confused me) but the whole base class is kinda broken. Free elemental attacks (some being touch) from pretty good range forever, just for a simple blast? And if you're standing still with supercharge you can just gather power and composite blast every turn as well, doubling the damage or straight up increasing it (or both if you're even higher level). It's just plain nuts how little resources they use for the damage they can deal, especially in a touch attack. So I was intentionally weakening myself by making her melee only and tanky.

The DM agreed with me on the power front on a previous character, so if I go normal kineticist, I'd gain a damage did every 3rd level instead of every other.

Could I mix Overwhelming Soul in and shift her stats around to make it work that way, maybe? Or would that make the elemental defense talents basically useless? Is there a better element than wood to use in the first place? This campaign is going to be using a fair bit of undead but I also noticed the positive blast doesn't hit living targets...

I don't mind if she's made more of a bruiser than tank, as I mentioned we have a Warblade (3.5 adaptation) that I think will help cover the tanking duties.

I guess I'll drop her a few years back into Middle Aged, so that changes her stat line to be Str 12, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12. Would that be a better line to work with, keeping the rest the same? Any tips for feats, wild talents, equipment? At current levels or future.

Alright, character backstory time:

She's a caring grandmother (in her 50s) who lost her daughter and her daughter's husband in a freak accident involving an adventurer rescuing them from some undead (sadly failing), and took in their child to raise as her own. The grandchild grew up under her care and became an adventurer as well to help with living expenses, but he died under suspicious circumstances while doing a job. Now that she had been left to her own devices, she decided to go out and protect adventurers from the same fate as her family. She carved small statues of them and left them on her bedside table before leaving her home, possibly for good.

She didn't really know how to protect people though, but she knew she had always had a green thumb. The druids had said she didn't have a capacity for their magic when she went to them for training, and she felt that the metal armor she had crafted when she was younger worked better for protection anyway, so she began her own journey. Along the way, she slowly learned that she didn't just have a green thumb - she could trim and prune with a wave of her hand, conjure them on her own, even ask them to help her find things in areas of heavy foliage. So, the plants became her sword and shield. She knew she wasn't agile enough to throw them, nor was she strong enough to hit things hard, so she let the plants do the work for her. Whatever she had, she would train herself and use it to protect whoever she could from the same fate as her family. The heavier armor might take some getting used to though...

She's basically playing into the eccentric old lady type, but with plants instead of cats.

I'll post her background when I get the chance, gotta dig it up from the chat logs.

Traits right now are Oathbound, Friend in Every Town, Dedicated Defender, and the drawback is an arcane malignancy that drops her reflex saves by 2, thankfully it's a good save and not a bad one.

If I bumped her back an age category and manipulated the stats to compensate the Con, would she be decent enough to work with?

Her skills are more of an all rounder temporary face, but the DM said the gold/item rewards might be a bit low...so I made her a carpenter and a bit of an armorsmith (backstory!).

Hahahaha, I was hoping for more optimistic solutions than remake entirely. It's for flavor. I know I could have made something better, I just like to try and make old people work.

Anyway, I'd like to avoid changing her age if possible. What recommendations do you guys have to make the best of her situation? I know I can eventually get a ring or amulet of age resistance (a continuous age resistance spell on a wearable item is about 13,200gp if I did the magic item creation rules correctly, using a wizard), so there's that at least...

But yeah, any tips or suggestions for what I can do with her as is?

So, background. Getting back into a campaign with the first group I ever played with, played with 'em for 9 years since I was 12, it's good to be back, yada yada. The DM says he wants to run something pretty dangerous and it'll be at level 1 to start, and I'm all "cool, I'mma make something fun!"

I end up settling on a Kinetic Warrior using the wood blast, but not just any Kinetic Warrior: an old (yes, the age category) storm-born changeling (-2 con, +2 Wis/Cha). We're using High Fantasy point buy, so to make sure she didn't bomb any stat entirely I had to be creative... leaving her with a grand total stat line of 10, 10, 13, 12, 12, 13.

She has a +0 to hit, armor class around 14 (with wooden armor), +0 initiative, and I put the favored class bonus into a skill point (which I don't want to change). She has Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Perception, Craft (armor), Craft (carpentry), and Knowledge (nature) (with a trait giving her Knowledge (local) as a class skill should she get the intelligence to take more ranks). Her CMD is 10, she has only 9 hit points, and if you've seen Dingo Doodles on YouTube then you know this character has some strong Old Gothi vibes (not crazy, just eccentric with plants!).

I haven't picked her feat, wild talent, or equipment, and I have 30gp after the armor.

How can I get the most of what I've made, from current to short term to long term? I don't want to multiclass, and nothing 3rd party, but DM approval can let me use stuff from 3.5 (we have a warblade as another PC so far). She got into adventuring to protect other adventurers from suffering the fate her family did, so tank is probably the direction I want to take her, but any and all suggestions and ideas are appreciated as I want to know how I can overcome this much of a handicap.

Thanks everyone!

Thanks!

I've noticed a few questions about how Brain Drain works, but I could never figure out something not mentioned so far:

How do you calculate the Will save? It just mentions that it has a Will save and that the information gained is the same as using Detect Thoughts. Is it the same save as Detect Thoughts? Or is it something like "10 + half your oracle level + your Charisma modifier"? Please help! I want to use this ability but if the save is something as small as a 1st level spell it would feel really underwhelming.