Tharkon's page

Another little nitpick.
You can't cast permanency on spells that you haven't cast yourself.

You first cast the desired spell and then follow it with the permanency spell.

So unless you are using potions or scrolls (yes, you can create a scroll of permanency) or some feat is affecting the caster level of some spells but not others, the caster level of both spells is usually the same, since they are cast by the same caster at the same time.

The difference between the first and second list is only in the target of the spell, the caster of the spell must still be yourself.

Now, I usually ruled that they don't stack, and the intent is probably that they don't stack.

But then I found out that Expeditious Retreat gives you an enhancement bonus to your base land speed. And Haste gives an enhancement bonus to your normal land speed.

Both are enhancement bonuses but not to the same thing. It's like an enhancement bonus to Strength and an enhancement bonus to weapon damage, which do stack.

A summoner can cast summoner spells while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. Like any other arcane spellcaster, a summoner wearing medium or heavy armor, or using a shield, incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component.

He can cast magus spells while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. Like any other arcane spellcaster, a magus wearing medium armor, heavy armor, or a shield incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component.

Does a Magus or Summoner incur arcane spell failure when wearing a chain shirt combined with a light mithral shield or a mithral buckler?

The way I see it there are two ways to read it.

A. The Summoner does not get ASF for light armor and the shield has 0% ASF for a total ASF of 0%.

B. The Summoner is using a shield and therefor incurse ASF, the total ASF is 20% from the armor + 0% from the shield, for a total of 20%.

Which way is the correct way to read it?

The witch can touch a creature to suppress or protect it from more debilitating negative conditions. Each time she uses this hex, the witch either chooses the blinded or deafened condition, or chooses a type of effect: curse, disease, or poison. If the target is or later becomes afflicted with the chosen condition or effect, that condition or effect is suppressed for a number of minutes equal to the witch’s level. Alternatively, for 24 hours the witch can grant her target a +4 circumstance bonus on saving throws against effects that cause any two of the above conditions or effects (witch’s choice; she can choose any combination of conditions or effects, as long as she chooses only two total). At 15th level, the witch can choose up to two total conditions or types of effects to suppress or three total conditions or types of effects to grant a circumstance bonus against each time she uses the major ameliorating hex. Once a creature has benefited from this hex, it cannot benefit from it again for 24 hours.

Is there any information on how long this effect can last?

For example, if the witch uses the hex on an ally and chooses to suppress poisons and then leaves for a week of cackling and potionbrewing.
Is the witch's ally still protected against poisons?

If so, that could mean that given enough days of preparation the witch could put this hex 5 times on the same target to protect them from all 5 conditions, then use it a 6th time for an extra +4 bonus on two of them as well.

Normal Hunter has the ability to have an animal companion and when he doesn't he gets extra animal focus. Feral Hunter doesn't have this ability because

*when he doesn't have an animal companion his animal companion can't be dead.*

He instead gets the ability to Wild Shape, which is a pretty big feature since its stacks with animal focus (one is an enhancement bonus, the other is a size bonus, and animal focus is not a polymorph effect).

Don't forget that the combination of Celibacy and Fasting means you can receive absolutely no healing, unless you manage to cast spells yourself. I suppose all the extra ki points will give you plenty of wholeness of body though.

There is a big difference.
The performances listed for the Core Bard, marked in cursive, are all part of the Bardic Performance ability which is marked in bold.

Look at the Celebrity archetype for example, it specifically says that Gather Crowd is a bardic performance. It also replaces Loremaster so a performance doesn't necessarily have to replace a performance.

I think RAI at least some are meant to be separate battle dances but RAW they are not and in the case of Rain of Blows it does not even require a battle dance to be active at all.

It is unclear which are meant to be separate and which aren't though, if they can all be used together it is overpowered, if they can't then it is a waste of abilities because you'll end up only using one most of the time.

Edit: My bad, it seems this was a transcription error on D20PFSRD, the original book does list most of them in cursive as a subheading of Battle Dance. Fleet, Dance of Fury and Battle Fury are not battle dances. Rain of Blows, Razor's Kiss and Leaf on the Wind are.

By RAW you don't even need to associate with wereboars because no such thing is mentioned in the prerequisite.

The special section mentions that wereboars and associates can take the power but does not mention that others cannot.

I have not figured out yet why the special section is even mentioned.

Major Blackhart.
Adamantine would stack with Armor master, but neither would stack with the DR you get from Barbarian. You did point out unchained gave double the DR so you get some credit for the following build.

Invulnerability: 10/-
Improved Damage Reduction: +3/- (+6/- with unchained)
Dragon Resilience: +6/-
Improved Stalwart: +10/-
Total: 29/- (32/- with unchained)

Level 1: Diehard
Level 2: Random rage power
Level 3: Endurance
Level 4: Random rage power
Level 5: Stalwart
Level 6: Dragon totem
Level 7: Bolstered resistance
Level 8: Dragon totem resilience
Level 9: Improved DR
Level 10: Dragon totem wings
Level 11: Improved stalwart
Level 12: Improved DR
Level 13: Improved DR

Stalwart stacks with class features.
Dragon resilience increases invulnerability by 6, so does improved damage reduction, so you'd have DR 22/- and DR 10/- which are specified to stack with each other.

Now wear a Hero's Hauberk, which grants DR 1/- which stacks with everything, even DR that isn't DR/-, which gives us DR 33/-.

Now for the icing on the cake.
Bolstered resistance doubles this to DR 66/- against one attack per round as long as you can avoid becoming fatigued. Otherwise it just doubles it once.

Stalwart defender could get DR 26/-
DR 5/- from class feature.
+3/- from adamantine armor.
+7/- from taking improved damage reduction at level 13, 13, 15, 15, 17, 17 and 19.
+10/- from Stalwart.
+1/- from Hero's Hauberk.

Stonelord paladin could get 32/adamantine (but would require taking 6 more feats to achieve this compared to IR) if you allow the following:
Stalwart grants DR 10/- which explicitly stacks with class features. Since specific trumps general this would overrid that DR/- and DR/adamantine don't normally stack.

Precent of armor of different types stacking exists in the Hero's Hauberk where the example shows DR 5/magic stacking with DR 1/- to become DR 6/magic as well as DR 1/-.

A splash weapon is a ranged weapon that breaks on impact, splashing or scattering its contents over its target and nearby creatures or objects. To attack with a splash weapon, make a ranged touch attack against the target. Thrown splash weapons require no weapon proficiency, so you don't take the –4 nonproficiency penalty. A hit deals direct hit damage to the target, and splash damage to all creatures within 5 feet of the target.

It doesn't say the target has to be a creature, a square is a valid target and has AC 5 (As if it were a medium object with Dex 0). I believe you can get a +5 bonus on ranged attacks if you make the attack as a full round action because the object is inanimate and a melee attack made as a full-round action will always hit.

What makes me wonder though, does holy water deal 2d4 or 1d4 to incorporeal creatures and does it still do splash damage?

The incorporeal subtype specifies spells and magic weapons deal half damage and force effects and channel energy deal full damage. Holy water is neither, but is specified as being able to affect them, just not how.

I think the intent of Jabbing Master is to double the damage Jabbing Style gives, so it would be this:

JS (before errata):
1)+0
2)+0
3)+0
4)+2d6

JM (before errata):
1)+0
2)+0
3)+0
4)+4d6

JS (after errata):
1)+0
2)+1d6
3)+1d6
4)+1d6

JM (after errata):
1)+0
2)+2d6
3)+2d6
4)+2d6

Note that before errata the extra damage applied to the last attack, which gave the weird situation where you had to decide to make another attack before you resolved the damage of the last attack.

I think the intent of the errata is not to make the feat stronger, but to make it more consistent and easier to play with.

As for Stamina, since it assumes the extra damage only occurs once the effects of Stamina should also occur only once.

I'd say that to keep in that spirit with Jabbing Style you can spend 2 stamina points to increase the damage any one attack after the first by 1d6, and with Jabbing Master you can spend 5 points to double the damage of any attack that threatens a critical.

But since Djinni Spirit is a prerequisite of Djinni Spin doesn't that mean that the part where Djinni Spin allows a save to avoid being deafened never comes up?

It might be an old thread but since nobody mentioned it and I don't want people finding this getting the wrong idea:

A: A druid using wildshape does not become an animal so is not a legal target for animal growth.

B: Multiple magical effects that increase size do not stack.

Still, Improved Natural Attack and Strong Jaw would give you that 4d20 if you follow that list. However, while Strong Jaw and Improved Natural Attack conflict on this issue, they agree you should never use d20's.

Damage dice:
INA: 1d1, 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 6d6, 8d6, 12d6, 16d6, 24d6
Jaw: 1d1, 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 2d8, 4d6, 4d8, 8d6, 8d8, 16d6, 16d8.
INA --------------- alternative track: 1d10, 2d8, 3d8, 4d8, 6d8, 8d8, 12d8, 16d8.

Average damage:
INA: 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 7, 10.5, 14.0, 21, 28, 42, 56, 84
Jaw: 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 7, 09.0, 14.0, 18, 28, 36, 56, 72
INA ------ alternative track: 5.5, 09.0, 13.5, 18, 27, 36, 54, 72

Strong Jaw seems to uses d6's unless you happen to start at d10. In all cases the general idea is that 2 size changes doubles the damage. The d6's seem to be about 16% more powerful, but are probably favored because most people have more d6's.

In your case the 4d8 would become 6d8 because of INA first and then Strong Jaw would turn that into 12d8. If you somehow got Strong Jaw before you got INA then you would go fom 4d8 to 8d8 and then to 16d6.

Diehard also seems to be unclear on whether you are disabled or staggered.

First it says you act as if disabled, which you already are because you are disabled whenever your hp is 0 or lower and you are not dying. Then it says you are staggered but also lose hit points (something that normally is part of disabled).

So it seems to say that instead of being unconscious and dying you can choose to be unconscious and disabled or disabled and disabled and then you are also staggered and lose hit points as if you were disabled.

Besides nitpicking about the exact terminology the important question here is, do you move at half speed? Oh and do you lose hit points twice if you are disabled twice?

Note: Ferocity makes you staggered and lose hit points as if dying.

As for non-lethal damage, by RAW it is unaffected by Diehard.
RAI is vague, I'd say you are never knocked out at all with Diehard, since that's the whole intent about Diehard, someone who keeps fighting until he is absolutely dead. Barring sleep spells of course.

But don't forget about this:
"If a creature's nonlethal damage is equal to his total maximum hit points (not his current hit points), all further nonlethal damage is treated as lethal damage. "

I am pretty sure it is mean to act just like weapon training except for any weapon wielded with a cybernetic arm. Which makes the weapon training gained at later levels quite useless unless you for some reason have weapons you are not wielding with your cybernetic arm. But considering how useful Cybernetic Combat is I would just have it replace weapon training 2, 3 and 4 as well to begin with.

I decided to keep the feat to see if it was still useful. It was, but only because the DM forgot to ask my AC for every attack and thus kept using the AC of the first attack against me for all subsequent attacks.

Don't forget this: "While a character is benefiting from the effects of the drug he is addicted to, he does not suffer the penalties of his addiction disease."

I wonder if maybe there is an oversight with Zerk zomewhere, it seems OP. When do you roll the 1d4 anyway? I think the 1d4 strength lasts for 1 hour as long as you are addicted, so remove the word "for".

I think there is a list of classes somewhere that dictates the order in which you should check their spell list for availability for the spell. The first class on the list that has the spell is considered to be the default class to provide that spell for magic items. Wizard is the first class on that list and Cleric the second, I forgot about the rest and can't find the list at the moment.

I know this thread has died out a while ago but after all these people complaining there should never be Celestial Full Plate I just had to point out this little thing:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-armor/specific-magic-armor/celest ial-plate-armor

Fair. I do agree that to prevent an opponent from moving would be unnecessary if they meant for it to be on any use of the feat, so that's probably what they intended. Just seems like it would actually make the feat worth it if it was the other way...it seems questionable to create a feat line that is nearly always just plain worse than tripping people.

Indeed, you could just make a trip attempt in the first place, replace Stand Still and Steady Engagement with Improved Trip and Greater Trip and now your opponent is prone and you still have an attack of opportunity left to take. Although I guess that would require Int 13 and Combat Expertise. Anyway, my point was, you can use those feats for something else as long as you aren't facing a lot of oozes and snakes that can't be tripped.

What about Arnica Montana?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnica_montana)

1. No, you don't gain any knowledge about the creature due to this spell.

2. It retains its personality but can't properly act on it.

3. While the spell does not say you the creature can't do things you don't command, it is generally assumed that anyone casting dominate will automatically give it the command to do nothing unless commanded otherwise, exactly how strict the DM enforces this is up to him. The spell mentions the target will continue to ensure its own survival, so when attacked it would probably defend itself or run away depending on its nature, unless it has been commanded to do otherwise.

4. The distance is unlimted on the same plane of existence. The commands can be as complicated as you want them to be, but the spell does not grant the creature any ability to understand your language. If it can't understand you you can only give basic commands like fight, stay, come here.

5. The spell does not say it will ignore commands to not do what is in its nature, merely that it won't do what isn't. So you can command a savage monster to not kill you, but you can't command it to build a house.

6. This is where it gets a little vague and there is no clear RAW on it. I'd say failing a saving throw is not an action, neither in nor outgame. Ingame the concept of saving throw does not even exist.

Some creatures are immune to every spell that isn't harmless, which means that harmless spells apparently declare themselves so to their target. This means that the subject of the spell knows whether or not the spell being cast on them is harmless or not.

And now the most important part, the RAI. If you could command it to fail its saving throw there would be no point in allowing it to make additional saving throws against this spell, since you could command them to fail them anyway.

7. Only when fully concentrating (a standard action), and even then it mentions you can't actually see through its eyes. I might let you consider it as viewed once though to at least give you a chance of teleporting there with 76% success chance.

8. Theoratically unlimited.

9. Issuing a command does not require any action at all.

10. It is not necessarily an Evil act, it could be considered a Lawful act though, since Chaotic creatures promote freedom. You can't dominate a mindless creature.

11. Nothing says it does not remember it, so it does.

12. Yes, you can dominate it again, the effects overlap. If it succeeds on the second save the first spell is unaffected. Multiple casters can dominate the same creature. When the commands conflict the casters make an opposed Charisma check.

13. The creature still perceives and remembers everything, it is just forced to act on your commands. How the creature experiences this varies from creature to creature. Most creatures would not like being dominated, but if you can somehow convince it that it was in the creatures good interest then that might reduce the chance of vengeful feelings. The acts you command it to perform will probably affect this negotiation. The spell does not affect the likelihood of Stockholm Syndrome in either direction.

"If the person is in a position of leadership, can I have him relay orders to his men by detailing what I'd like his men to do and ordering him to make sure they do it to the best of his abilities?"

You will have to command him exactly what command to give, his troops will then each make a Sense Motive check against DC 15. Any who succeed will notice their leader is not in control of his own mind, though they will not exactly know what effect has caused this those that know about Dominate spells likely suspect this. These troops might then tell the others about this, and when there are enough this might allow them to re-roll their Sense Motive checks as they start to doubt.

these options sound great to me but in pathfinder Society where you get roused on for "reskinning" abilities it is somewhat difficult.

After reading countless threads about this and that not being allowed in Pathfinder Society, I have to ask this question and this thread happens to be relatively young so maybe the right time too.

Why would anyone play Pathfinder Society if all it does is limit the options you have?

As for charactes remaining original.

I had a halfling adopted by a wolf, when he came of age his wolf mother passed away, the halfling wanted to go see the world and took both his brother and mother with him. His brother wolf as a companion and his mother wolf as armor/clothing. Eventually he got captured and he lost his equipment. He spent the entire campaign trying to get that first suit of armor back even though he since acquired better armor.

Oh, he was a Druid, not that it matters.

If I just decide to hit the next guy, not by being seaky but by being fast and brutal, why is it my bluff roll they have to beat? I don't try to bluff them, I just try to strike cold and fast. Like when something might surprise the players often it is a perception roll, not sense motive.

And I've seen it happen more often than not, that it was just:

Player1: I charge the guy wielding the grataxe.
All other players start yelling that they attack, too.
GM: OK everyone roll initiative. (No surprise roll)
Everyone rolls, Player 1 goes (nearly) last and can't charge anymore because all his "friends" got in his way.

If you just decide to be fast and brutal then you should make sure you win the Initiative roll. If your allies are faster than you and get in the way then you don't seem to have very cooperative allies, I mean they know you were about to attack, that's why they are attacking. And if they are your friends then they should know your favorite strategy is to brutally charge. In fact, if I am guessing correctly the type of character you are describing, he might even be shouting CHAAAAARGE! while doing it. You could say that you auto-failed your Bluff check since you were so eager to strike that you were broadcasting your intentions all over the place without any attempt at hiding your motives.

I'd say you roll for Initiative as soon as it is important to decide in what order things happen.

A discussion is something you do together, not in turns so no Initiative is needed. Talking is a free action during combat, that does not mean that you need to take an action to talk in general. When I go to the shop to buy some items I do not take a free action to talk, I simply talk. Even if you encounter a party that is probably hostile to you (how can you be sure?), that discussion is not an action yet as far as I can tell.

As for losing Initiative even if you iniatiate combat we don't even have to look at movies. Real life cops get into these situations as well, they see a crook reach for their gun and they draw their own gun (a move action) and shoot (a standard action), hopefully before the crook got to act. Since the cop took a move and a standard action this can't be a readied action, even if he has Quick Draw since free actions can't be taken during someone elses turn (talking is a specific exception to that rule). Alternatively, the crook might be drawing his weapon as a surprise round, the cop drawing his as a readied action, after which they roll Initiative determines who shoots first. The end result doesn't change a lot unless one of the weapons needs a move action to load (which isn't the case now).

I must say I do like the Bluff (opposed by Sense Motive) idea to get a surprise round similar to how a Stealth (opposed by Perception) roll could get you a surprise round.

I also like the rolling Initiative every round bit, it reminds me of the fact that in real life sword fights, with every technique one of the two has iniative and with every maneuver that follows initiative could be stolen by the other combatant. However, I think it would increase the amount of die rolls in a fight by up to 50%. Less so at higher levels with iterative attacks and round by round saving throws being more common.

I'd simply treat the spell as the Fabricate spell except that it can only be used to make bullets.

Of course the Fabricate spell is somewhat unclear itself but at least that's one spell less to worry about.

Also, why was this spell created while there is no spell to create arrows?

Who cares who is better than whom, it's a role-playing game. It's not about being powerful, it's about playing a character you enjoy playing and all having a great time doing so.

If a DM wants an encounter where Rogues can't sneak attack there are still many options.

Sneak attack can not be used when:
The opponent is neither flat-footed nor flanked (uncanny dodge, all-around-vision).
The opponent has concealment (darkness, blur, invisibility).
The opponent is incorporal.
The opponent has fortification.
The opponent is ooze, elemental or swarm.
The opponent is further than 30ft away.

Rynjin wrote:

I don't think it's too short. If you were in good shape (and any adventurer will be) you could leg it 30 feet in 6 seconds and have time to smack a guy probably.

But could you shoot 6 Longbow arrows?

That would require a heroically high BAB combined with the Rapid Shot feat or a Haste spell. I don't think anyone like that should be compared to real life examples anymore than the monk that can run 50mph and jump 22 yards or the barbarian that can break stones by headbutting them.

There is a feat that majorly accelerates crafting, but it only works for the Craft (alchemy) skill.

It's a good point though indeed that crafting magic items earns you a default 500 gp per day, or twice that with accelerated crafting, while a mundane crafter's earnings are skill dependent.

Yet even with that scaling you'd need a +183 bonus to make the same money a magician could make.

The only explanation I can think of is... it's magic.
I don't think the craft rules for mundane items were made with player's in mind, and perhaps a feat can be designed similar to the Master Alchemist feat that works for other crafts.

To clarify, that feat grants you a +2 bonus (untyped) on Craft checks, accelerates crafting tenfold as well as allowing you to create multiple doses of poison in the same time as one.

If you had a tenth level fighter with 12 Intelligence, 10 ranks, Skill Focus and the house ruled Master Weaponsmith feat, then you'd have a +22 bonus and be able to create a longsword in one hour, and masterwork version in 18 additional hours (all assuming a 6-day workweek, and an 8-hour workday).

With this feat you'd only need a +51 bonus to make 500 gp a day.

To answer the question regarding magic items. This depends a lot on the items in question. Most of the info I got here is from Races of Stone for D&D 3.5 but similar things exist in Pathfinder material as well, I'm sure.

In 3.5 there were special dwarven forges that granted a +20 bonus on either armour or weaponsmithing (depending on which forge). Aside of published items though, the magic item creation rules (both in 3.5 and in Pathfinder) simply say that any item granting a competence bonus costs that bonus squared times 100, so be creative. A magic item that grants +10 on weaponsmithing would cost 10*10*100, or 10'000 gp. It's a substantial investment, yes, but the item is not consumed.

The forges published for 3.5 were accompanied by a note that immobile magic items of that nature had their costs reduced by 75%, so a forge that grants +20 would cost 10'000 gp, while a hammer that does that same would cost 40'000 gp.

They also had a forge that costed 8'000 gp that simply allowed you to work 24/7 without need of air, food or sleep, and thus allow you to finish an item in 1/3rd as much time.

All the forges texts said that they only worked when operated by dwarves, but this was not reflected in their prices and is probably just flavor.

Don't mean to further fuel the hatred of the default system, but in it, providing a masterwork sword is already available, a +1 sword takes 2 days to make, not 1, since it's base price is 2000gp.

+1 longsword
Base price: 2000gp
Cost of materials: 1000gp + masterwork longsword
Time to make: 2 days
Market price: 2315gp

If you want to make the sword yourself, at high level that doesn't need to take long either. Aside of spells like Fabricate, you could buy or make yourself an item that grants a competence bonus to craft checks.

At level 10 you'd have something like +5 Int, +2 mw tools, +3 class, +10 ranks, +10 magic item gives you +30 in total, meaning you can get 40 by taking 10.

Increasing the DC of the sword from 15 to 35 and the mw component from 20 to 40 means the sword can be made in 125 hours (assuming 6 work days a week and 8 working hours a day), or 2.6 weeks, a significant shorter amount of time than 8 weeks.

If you were a Gnome with Skill Focus then, even when assuming an Int of 2 lower to compensate for your normal Wizard race's +2 racial bonus on Int, you'd be able to make it in 80 hours, or 1.6 weeks.

The main point though regarding this topic is that if you have more money than time, you shouldn't be crafting items and thus shouldn't be taking crafting feats. Just like in real life the high executives hire people for everything, cause an hour of their own time earns them more money than an hour's pay of the one they hire.