Clockwork Librarian

Tim Malmstrom's page

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Lies! LIES AND TRICKERY!! No cat does tricks. XD


I just got this PDF and it's looking pretty good from a brief skim, but there's one thing that stands out to me right away. I see on pg 12+13 that Sparks get 0-level spells (cantrips or orisons), and so far I've seen Detect Illusion and Remove Oxidation that shows that Sparks can use them.

But the thing is, the Spark's spell list actually doesn't list any 0-level spell. None at all. For that matter, the class description doesn't even mention how/if cantrips works in the class. Ummm, slight miss?


A gaming buddy of mine had something of a thought on the Soul Bind spell yesterday. He brought to my attention that while the spell has a listed value needed (a black sapphire worth 1,000 gp per HD of the target), it doesn't really specify that the sapphire in question needs to be "empty".

His angle to this spell is that instead of only being able to hold one soul, it can hold several, but the gp value determines the strongest soul it can hold. As an example of this, he showed me the book Start of Darkness, from the Order of the Stick series. On pg 106, the main villain, a lich, used Soul Bind to trap the soul of his recently-killed enemy, an epic-level wizard, inside a black sapphire. But the thing is, he had already trapped that wizard girlfriend, a high-level druid, inside the sapphire beforehand.

So that's two souls in one gem. Now, either that sapphire was big enough to hold all the HD of their combined souls (a bit of a stretch, but it was bigger than his hand, so, maybe), or it was big enough to hold the epic wizard, and the druid was just a bonus.

Now, either the author (Rich Burlew, great writer) was doing it by taking some liberties with the source material for the sake of plot, or he's found a genuine loophole in the spell.

I've read quite a lot of RPG books based in the DnD system, and there has *always* been spells, creatures, magic items and even materials that can trap a soul upon death, but very rarely (at least in my experience) has there been any such means that could hold multiple souls at once.

Now, there's nothing in the spell description that denies this possibility, but I'm a little unsure about how to handle it.

On the one hand, it gives the players an advantage in that the don't need to do as much hunting for resources if they, for whatever reason, want to use the spell multiple times. But then, NPC's gets the same advantage, and seriously, how easy is it to find a sapphire big enough to handle the beasties on the higher end of the CR-range?

On the other hand, thematically I don't think it'd be that much of an issue. It'd basically be like the caster putting all their eggs in one basket, which has its own shares of dangers. And there are plenty of examples in modern entertainment of methods of holding multiple souls (I'm mainly looking at the Darksiders series here).

Imagine for example a necromancer that had used the above method, and had a very big sapphire holding several souls of his enemies. If that gem was to be smashed, or for that matter crumbled to dust because he simply miscalculated how many HD a new target had, all the souls inside would be freed at once. And if I was feeling like some poetic justice, I'd have all the now-freed souls manifests as ghosts and promptly proceed to kick the necromancer's ass.

Any input on this matter would be greatly appreciated.


Hmmm, one-time use items useful for enchanting...

Runesticks: Snap 'em to activate.

Candies: Eat to activate.

Snuffs: Snort to activate.

Papercharms: Burn to activate.

Still thinking.


139. "Have anybody seen my sewing kit? Gunther's got the dropsies again."


Looks very cool.

But am I the only one who thinks the MysteryRace looks kinda like that bug boss from the upcoming Darksiders 2?

Y'know, the thing at 01.24 from this trailer. http://www.gametrailers.com/video/extended-debut-darksiders-ii/717621


Hmmm, interesting question.

I'd say no for the skeletal champion for a start, as a matter of principle, since it's basically just a bundle of bones, whereas zombies, while not "fresh", has a bit more meat on them.

As for the other two, according to the Pathfinder SRD ( http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/zombie )it specifically say in the Zombie templates

"may be applied to either skeletons or zombies, unless common sense dictates otherwise (such as a gasburst skeleton)."

I think once you've applied one template to a zombie/skeleton, you can' apply another. I'm not sure about that though, as I think I've seen examples of "double-dipped" undead in some books. Can't remember which ones though.


I'm currently reading "What the night knows" by Dean Koontz, and I'm planning on reading "Voice of the gods" by Trudi Canavan after that, finishing the "Age of the Five" series (which I seriously recommend btw).


Hmmm, an interesting idea. And worth commenting on certainly.

First off, if you're going to bring someone back from the dead, you need magic of one type or another.

Here are the ways I can think of off the top of my head.

- Raise Dead , 5th level cleric spell, but that needs a body and the target can't have been dead for a matter of days, si i'm gonna assume that's out.

- Resurrection , 7th level cleric spell. Target can have been dead for almost forever, but you need the body or at least some of it.

- True Resurrection , 9th level cleric spell, where you basically dont' need anything.

- Reincarnate , 4th level Druid spell, but the target can only have been dead for a week, and it winds up in a new body, not the original, which I'm not sure he'd want.

- A Philosopher's Stone , a very powerful magic item. 20th level Alchemists (from APG) can make these, but not cheap or quickly.

- An 18th or 20th level Witch with the Life Giver grand hex. This works like Resurrection, with the same limitations.

- I think high-level Paladins can resurrect soemoen by using several uses of Lay on Hands, but i can't quite remember where that's written

There are many others, including powerful Outsiders, like Genies and maybe some creatures Angels, Archons or Azatas, but I'm not gonna hunt through the Beastiaries right now.

But while that covers a lot of the bases, there are a few other things that you need to consider. Namely, complications.

- Where is the witch's body? Since all but epic level magic requires a body, this is somethign you need to consider. Does the witch even know? If not, does he know who killed him? Do they know? If there were several of them, maybe only one hid the body.

- Where does the witch's patron stand on all this? Is he/she/it even interested in bringing the witch back? If yes, would it suggest methods that the witch (or possibly more importantly, the party) would agree to? Some of the nastier patron out there would ask for things that most good-aligned parties probably wouldn't agree to.

- How well does the witch's and the parties alignments mesh? If they are different, why is the party helping this guy? Do they have a choice? maybe they can explore other options without telling the player?

- If you go for an option that requires the witch's original body, there's nothing that says it's been left in peace. There are many undead, and things that make undead, that could find a use for a corpse, and many of them doesn't need the original soul to be in it, so that body might not be where you left it. Might even turn into a quest just to find it and then bring it down.

- Outside interference. Are the witch's old enemies aware that he's come back as a ghost? If yes, then they most likely aren't fond of it, and could possibly have set things into motion to protect themselves/get rid of the ghost. And also, who told them? Maybe one of the parties old enemies has been keeping tabs on them, and when he/she/it finds out about the ghost, maybe they join forces with the witch's enemies?

- Enemies of the Undead. You mustn't forget that there are a lot of people on Golarion who really don't like undead, most notably Pharasma's church, and particularly the more militant branches. Especially not undead that dominate the living. So you shoudl definitely consider having a hunting party of paladins, clerics and/or inquisitors coming after the witch, and by extension you. And if the hunters didn't like your original character, they might not be all that inclined to remove the ghost without hurting *you*. Hey, two birds with one stone, why not?

I might be back with others as I think of them, but that's my ten cents.


A fan of getting them *in* me? Nooooooooooooooooooo thank you.

As for watching them getting pulled out of other people and animals, I'm fascinated.


Dragon78 wrote:
I saw the movie last saturday, liked it just much as the others, though only complaints are I wish they had developed Blackbeard more and i wish they had those two comic relief pirates.

Actually, I'm kinda thinking that new stooge Scrum might take over for one of them.


zylphryx wrote:
I wish I could create an extra day each week that was a paid day off for everyone.

Your wish is granted! However, this new day of the week makes every calendar created up until now utterly useless, infuriating calendar makers all over the world. To show their appreciation for this little stunt, they have all the now-useless calendars airdropped on top of your house. This is funded by all the employers who now have to pay a whole day extra per week to everybody who works for them.

The resulting paper-mountain is actually impressive enough to make the cover of the new-model calendars.

The following bonfire makes the cover of February.

Your house (and you) are however crushed flat as a pancake. The photo of that makes March's cover.

I wish Illithids were allowed in Pathfinder.


zylphryx wrote:
I wish I could remember everything I have forgotten.

Wish granted: You can now remember everything you have ever forgotten, which is pretty much every second of your life. All at once. All the time. The constant and *massive* sensory overload is unfortunately enough to turn you into a vegetable.

I wish that I had the Starstone.


Zyren Zemerys wrote:

Wish granted: But sadly the world goes through a phase of total desertification...

I wish I were Charles Scholz

Your wish is granted: Your mind trades places with Charlez Cholz exactly two seconds before an housemaid accidentally knocks one of the potted plants off the windowsill 10 stories up, which then promptly squashes your skull like a ripe grape.

I wish I could get into the Armory of the Gods to steal the Staff of Ultimate Might.


zylphryx wrote:

You wish is granted. However, the hammer is cursed causing you to hammer in the morning, hammer in the evening, all over this land, to hammer out justice, to hammer out freedom, to hammer out love between the brothers and the sisters, all over this land. Soon thereafter, the police show up and arrest you for the countless murders of all your bludgeoned victims scattered all over this land.

I wish I had a time machine which would allow for travel forwards, backwards and sidewards along and around the current and all possible timelines.

Your wish is granted, but the prospect of you ownign a timemachine that cn do all that attracts the attention of the Guardian of Time, and he prompty decides to just erase you from existence.

I wish I knew every cantrip in the world.


Got it. Looking through it right now. But at first glance, I'm noticing

- a lot of places where bits of text seems to be flat out missing,
- spells and magic items are not in italics,
- domains don't start with a capital letter,
- sometimes a name just appears without any contect or explanation who that character is,
- some of the PrC's abilities are a little too loosely worded and can be confusing,
- some of the magic items seems to have abilities that are mentioned offhand and never explained

There are quite a lot of other little things I can nitpick on, but I'll shut my trap if you want me to. I'm not here to proofread your work, but I am willing to.

I'll make a more comprehensive review later.


Thematically, I dont' think so. but eidolons aren't summoned with any equipment, so you'd have to lug it around yourself when the eidolong isn't around. Plus, you'd have to buy shield proficiency with feats, which might not pay off all that well.


Quote:
An eidolon cannot armor of any kind, as the armor interferes with the summoner's connection with the eidolon.

APG, page 58, under Armor Bonus.


I'm curious as to whether or not this psionic system uses the 3.5E version from EPH, or the PAthfinder-updated version from Dreamscarred press.


I just found one more thing that has me a little confused.

On pg 7, in the Combat Virtuoso Ability Package, under the Counter Design secondary ability, it says

Quote:
You are created with the ability to counter an opponent's combat maneuvers. You use your Combat Maneuver check in place of your Combat Maneuver Defense.

Now, I'm not sure exactly sure what you mean when you say "Combat Maneuver check", but the Core Book says this:

Quote:
CMB = Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + special size modifier
Quote:
CMD = 10 + Base attack bonus + Strength modifier + Dexterity modifier + special size modifier

If you mean that I'm supposed to use my CMB instead of my CMD, that to me sounds like I'm actually getting *worse* at defending myself.

And if you want me to do the opposite, that means I get a +10 plus my Dex modifier as a bonus, which sounds maybe a little overpowered.

A bit of clarification here would be appreciated.


I just bought this PDF 'cause I've always had a soft spot for sentient artificial beings. And the reading is truly excellent so far.

But I have found a few little things.

- On pg 9, under the Jungle Design Ability package, the secondary ability trait Friend of Snake and Spider, you are supposed to have a stronger than normal resistance towards venomous bites, but the +2 bonus to save is against disease, not poison. Am I missing something here or is it some kind of typo?

- On pg 10, the same thing is seen under the Secondbuilt Ability package, in the Dillentante secondary ability trait. The flavor text indicates resistance to "intoxicants", but the bonus is to disease.

- On pg 9, under the Mountain Design Ability package, the secondary ability trait Treacherous Terrain grants you a +2 bonus on your Combat Maneuver Defense. But seeing as that supposedly evolved from being steady on your feet, shouldn't that only apply against bull rush, overrun, trip and maybe grapple? For example, why would being steady on your feet help you defend against your sword being sundered?

- On pg 14, under the bonus feats of the Constructed Sorcerous Bloodline, one of the feats is Skill Focus (Knowledge [Engendering]). What is that skill? Never heard of it. Maybe you should include it in the PDF?

- On the same page and subject, under the Touch of Elan, is there a limit to how many objects an Ironborn can have animated at a time?

- Also, DR 20/- as a capstone bonus at 20th level sounds very powerful. I'm not sure if it's overpowered, but none of the other Sorcerous Bloodlines grants that much, but 20 and no weakness.

- A few things about the Clockwork Familiar,

The PostMonster General wrote:
“Clockwork familiar” is a created template that can be added to any familiar (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

Don't you mean *inherited* template, since the familiar is basically created from scratch?

The PostMonster General wrote:
"Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to construct with the magical beast augmented subtype."

Magical Beast is a creature type, and Augmented is a subtype, unless my lore is a bit off.

Also, there aren't a lot of details on just what kind of creatures can't be made into clockwork familiars. For example, could this feat be used in combination with the Improved Familiar feat? I personally would not allow that, and would restrict it to just the basic familiar list mentioned with the Wizard class, since that seems to have been the intention. I.e. it only works with animals (and possibly vermin) below a certain size.

- And finally, I can't find anything on healing or repairing Ironborn. That's something that I figured should have gone into the Traits section. For example the Warforged counted as a living construct, and therefor only recieved half the normal amount of healing from both the Cure Wounds and Repair Damage spell series. How do the Ironborn work in this aspect?

-----------------------------------

And that's about all I could find that struck me as kinda odd. Nothing big, but I feel I should point these things out.


My first contact with DnD was with 3.0, an when it moved on to 3.5 I really liked the changes. The details were very good, the kind of intricate system that I could fall in love with.

Then news of 4E came over the horizon, and I figured it could only get better. I bought the Player's HAndbook on day 1, since that was for players, opened it..... and found myself wondering what the *beep* I was looking at. This wasn't even remotely what I'd grown used to at that point. This felt more like something halfway to either a card-based game, or World of Warcraft, neither of which had any business with DnD. I pretty much gave up on DnD after just one book of the new edition.

Now mind you, Pathfinder adventure modules had been coming out for a while at that point, but I just tought it was purely a new setting with the same old 3.5 rules, so I pretty much figured there was no point in taking a closer look at soemthign that used a system that was no longer going to get supported.

Then I caught wind of a new core rulebook for Pathfinder, and I was midly intrigued, but I reserved judgement for when i saw the books. They eventually arrived at my local gameshop, I very cautiously opened the PH.... and fell in love. These were the rules and character classes I had fallen in love with, but now even better. Been sticking to them ever since.

So, no, I can't really tell you much about 4E, except that I abandoned it after one book. You choose for yourself what you want, but if you like me came from the 3/3.5 era, 4E is probably not your cup of tea.


Libris Mortis is more for when you want an Undead cohort, which will clash with you being the good guys.

But the Undying in Eberron were based on the Deathless creature type in Book of Exalted Deeds, which are basically Undead, except they're powered by Positive instead of Negative Energy.

However, there are only two of them in the book; the Crypt Warden (CR 8, pg 167) and the Sacred Watcher (CR 7, pg 182).

Simplest way to do it would be to take a normal Fighter, apply the Zombie template (or maybe one of the templates from Libris Mortis, liek the Necropolitan) but don't change his INT or WIS and his alignment must be Good, then look over the Deathless creature type in Book of Exalted Deeds to see how to change some of the mechanics. Of course, you have to check so see that his CR or EFCL matches that of the Leadership feat.

Best guess I figure. Never really had something like this come up. Deathless are pretty rare.


Bought the PDF of this earlier this week and I'm loving it so far. I *was* kind of expecting a feat that would let you choose another Blade Skill, but it wasn't in there. Oh well, not that hard to make.

I have one question so far though. At 6th level the Pyrokineticist gain the new ability Leech Heat that allows him to steal body heat from others and use it to heal himself. But it's never mention how the targets can avoid this damage. Does it count as a ranged touch attack or does it allow a Will save, or something else?


Lamashan Dalastonor wrote:
I think what you want is the article "Thematic Channeling" from Wayfinder Issue 2.

YES!!! THERE IT IS!!

Thank you so much. I knew I had it somewhere. And look, there's 2 more issues. Double thanks!


I've actually bought that here at Paizo. Great book, I give it both thumbs up. Kudos to you.

But it's not what I'm looking for, I'm afraid. This book mentioned the Pathfinder deities by name and what their channel energy effects looked like.

Still, thanks for trying.


Hey everyone. I'm new here on the boards, and this is my first post. And I'm already asking for help. Great.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I read a chapter about how the visual/physical effects of channeling energy varies depending on what god you worship. I remember reading that clerics of Nethys who channels negative energy makes half of one side of the victim's bodies become horribly burned.

I know it's somewhere in my collection, but that's like 200 PDFs and my free time doesn't allow for quite that much.

Does anybody recognize what Im talking about? You'd make a Pathfinder newbie really happy if you could tell me.


Oooooh, eidolon Templates. I like!! First day buy!