First off, this is not a question about Druid and Wildshape.
Can a PC use the Gold Nodule Ioun Stone [This stone grants you the ability to comprehend, speak, read, and write a single language (chosen by the ioun stone's creator).] to speak while polymorphed into an animal using beast shape?
I'm sorry if this has already been asked and answered - I looked but couldn't find it. I also checked the FAQ.
If you have improved grapple, you get not only a bonus to CMB for grapple maneuvers, but also a bonus to CMD to resist such maneuvers. Given that the attempt to break a grapple can in fact be used to reverse the grapple, shouldn't it be the case that the roll is against the "grapple" CMD rather than the base CMD? I mean, it seems kind of silly that it would be easier to grapple someone by reversal than by initiating a grapple, doesn't it?
Here are the details in a thread I started in the GM section: Player's Cleric Build.
For those who don't want to follow that link, here is the wording for Whimsical Channel:
Spoiler:
Whimsical Channel(Su): When you channel energy, you may choose to first roll 1d6. On a roll of 1, you roll 1d6 fewer dice of damage or healing than normal (to a minimum of 1d6). On a roll of 2, 3 or 4, your channel energy attempt is unaffected. On a roll of 5 or 6, you roll 1d6 more dice of damage or healing than you would have otherwise. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
7d6 at first level? I'm hoping that this was not the intent. If it was, maybe it's good for a home game, but do we really want it in PFS? Haven't we already had enough with builds based on the latest over-powered hotness?
Aside from that, there is also the question of whether the wording in the Separatist Cleric Archetype allows the player to pick sub-domains as well as domains.
Hi - I had a player at a game yesterday and some things came up that I wasn't sure how to deal with.
1. The character's build. Human Separatist Cleric of Pharasma.
Separatist
Spoiler:
A separatist selects one domain from her deity’s domain list, and a second domain that is not on her deity’s domain list. This second domain cannot be an alignment domain that doesn’t match the cleric’s or her deity’s alignment. For example, a lawful good separatist cleric of a neutral good deity cannot choose the Chaos or Evil domain with this ability, but can select the Lawful domain even though her deity isn’t lawful.
Granted powers from the cleric’s second domain function as if the cleric’s level, Wisdom, and Charisma were 2 lower than normal (minimum level 1) in terms of effect, DC, and uses per day. This also means the separatist doesn’t gain the domain’s higher-level ability until 2 levels later than normal. If the second domain grants additional class skills, the separatist gains these as normal.
In all other respects, this ability works like and replaces the standard cleric’s domain ability.
Does this wording "second domain" allow the cleric to choose any domain or *subdomain*?
2. The subdomain's power.
Whimsical Channel
Spoiler:
Whimsical Channel(Su): When you channel energy, you may choose to first roll 1d6. On a roll of 1, you roll 1d6 fewer dice of damage or healing than normal (to a minimum of 1d6). On a roll of 2, 3 or 4, your channel energy attempt is unaffected. On a roll of 5 or 6, you roll 1d6 more dice of damage or healing than you would have otherwise. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier.
Dice? Does it really add *DICE*? Not just 1d6 more or less or 1d6 + some number base on level more or less? I mean seriously, this is potentially encounter ending/breaking/destroying, especially at low levels (because there is NO scaling). Any encounter in a low tier mod, from the easy first encounter to the difficult boss fight can, on one chance roll, be ended right then and there - period. Also, there is actually no downside at all to a 1st or 2nd level cleric using this (minimum of 1d6 is always channeled). While the expected value of this does not look that impressive, given the extremely large variance and the lower limit of always channeling at least 1d6 ... well it certainly doesn't compare with the other 3 + Wis mod domain powers, that much is clear. If this really is the way that the power works, why is it allowed in PFS? I know that none of you can really tell me the answer to this, and I think it's unlikely that a Paizo rep will weigh in on it, but in case I and my players are all totally misreading this, I thought I'd ask.
BTW - the player whipped this out - brand new 1st level cleric - and rolled a 6 followed by a 6 and then did 7d6 of damage (she's a negative channeler) to all enemies. How many do you think were standing? Guess... I mean, this *is* a 1st level character right?
3. Some of the finer points of selective channeling.
(a) Can a cleric with selective channeling exclude individuals that have 100% concealment, but that she is aware of?
(b) Can a cleric with selective channeling exclude individuals she will affect with her channel but that she is otherwise totally unaware of?
Hi I just want a clarification to make sure that I'm understanding light and darkness in Pathfinder correctly.
For a source to be considered a "Magical" light source, does it need to be a spell or magical effect with the "light" key-word or that is described specifically as a "magical light source"?
I just want to make sure that effects that clearly produce light, such as fire or lightning spells, spell-like abilities and supernatural abilities, but that are neither given the "light" key-word nor described as being a magical light source, are in fact NOT magical light sources. The light they shed is instead treated as incidental environmental effects that cannot affect magical darkness.
So do I have that right? Or would something like a firewall (or a admixtured lightning wall) or an elemental body (I'm specifically thinking of a fire elemental) be considered a magical light source and therefore affect the level of light if within the area of effect of a Darkness or Deeper Darkness spell?
I'm having trouble with this: I'm thinking about a necromancer, and I'm wondering what buff spells actually work on undead. I know desecrate buffs them, but what about other spells? I was looking at Bull's Strength, but a friend told me it won't work. I can't see why not, but I suspect he may be right. (Knowing me I read right over the reason and just kept going.) So exactly which spells can be used to buff a necromancer's undead minions?
Thanks
Q
I've been searching through the messageboard postings and I'm still confused on this.
My understanding from what I've read is that Augment Summoning has been specifically addressed by one of the developers and it can be used to modify the monsters summoned by the Summoner's SLA. However, I'm unclear as to whether other spell modifying non-meta-magic feats also affect this SLA. Specifically I'm interested to know whether or not the Superior Summoning feat will also work with this SLA. Ultimately, it would be nice to have an FAQ entry that makes this iron-clad: All spell modifying non-meta-magic feats, only Augment Summoning or something in between.
I *AM* a hardcore gamer, and have been since I was 11. I got lucky and married a girl who got into gaming also, though she's not nearly as hardcore as I am. However, from about 97 to 07 we were not able to game much and I subsisted on CRPGs (she read books ... a lot of books). So we missed the tail end of 2E, most of 3/3.5 and got back just in time for 4E. We had never done OP, and both kind of looked down on it. In my rush to get back into things, I started playing LFR at a local game shop ... and surprisingly had a lot of fun. There was this great sense of community. And then I got my wife into it ... and then our youngest daughter. (My oldest plays also, but with a different group, and not OP.) All was good with the world, and we had a lot of fun. We played and ran mods in a huge community of gamers on the east coast ... about 3 slots a week for a couple of years! But then spammed supplements killed 4E and the cheeze weezles killed LFR, and I went looking for something else. I found PFS, and I liked it. I tried to get my wife and daughter into it also, but ran into several problems that have hampered my efforts.
1. I can't replay modules, and if the table is legal, I'm not even supposed to go along for the ride. So since I've played a lot of modules (hardcore, remember), I pretty much can't play at their table.
2. They've each had bad experiences with less than fun DMs in PFS play, and they hate the fact that they can't replay with a different character and a different DM and hopefully a better experience. Because of a particularly bad experience, my daughter absolutely refuses to play PFS anymore. She's almost 17 now, and thinks it's a waste of her time to do something that might suck, with no chance of correcting it.
3. My wife will play now and then, and we're trying to get some of our old LFR friends into PFS, but #1 makes this really hard. I've started running the mods so that I can participate, but because the new players trickle in, it's hard to plan our sessions. We also want this to be the sort of community that we had with LFR, and so have been willing to let all comers join, but this has only made things worse. There is one guy with almost as many mods as I have, and he pretty much kills the number of open mods we have to work with. Another problem is that people who miss a couple sessions just don't come back. They feel like they can't catch up. And no one wants to use the slow play option - they all feel like they're getting cheated. (I know that this isn't really true, but we're dealing as much with how people feel about the situation as we are with the facts of the situation.)
4. We actually are friends with our local area Venture Captain (we play at a couple home games with him ... one is PF, one is not), and I think he's sick of our questions. We've heard the argument that replaying will mean that games get ruined by players who reveal plot, but that doesn't really fly with us. There was free replay in LFR. (And before you say anything, that is *NOT* what killed it. No, it was overall powercreep, free character rewrites, rampant cheezing, and no reward system for DMs that killed LFR.) If anything, people went out of their way to police themselves and not use out of character knowledge in game ... often in modules they had played many, many times. We rarely had a bad experience with people revealing plot, and in the rare cases where we did, a simple word was all it took. And it doesn't fly for one other reason: PFS allows it also ... without credit under PPP, and for credit in the 1st level games like We Be Goblins, etc. This alone destroys that argument.
I guess what I'm saying is that we like PF ... we know we CAN have fun with PFS ... but we're struggling to make it work because the one-time-play rules are so restrictive. We just can't recreate that sense of community that we had with LFR. The players come and go depending on what is being run - there are only a few regulars. Heck, the guy that got me into PFS doesn't even come around anymore ... he'll run without credit, but he has better things to do than play without credit.
Having played both LFR and PFS, I don't think you PFS people know what you're missing. I have played at cons, at game stores, at friend's house, but I have yet to experience that same sense of community that I had with LFR. The truth is that some loosening of the OTP rules coupled with your already existing reward system for DMing would make PFS the best of both worlds.
I know that this is a dead horse. I don't expect that this will do anything, but I still wanted to say it.
If possible, all players must use an existing Pathfinder Society character (without modification) within 1 level of the module’s starting level.
Each of these modules has a chronicle sheet that includes a level range. For example, the range might be 4-6. Here are my questions:
If a player *DOES* have a character that is within 1 level of the module's starting level, but also has a character that is still in the level range but more than 1 level above the starting level, is he allowed to pick or does this statement make the decision for him?
Does this statement actually adjust the range? Continuing the example, does the 4-6 range actually become 3-6? (BTW - if so, why not just extend the range on the chronicle sheets?) Or is this statement only meant to preference the lower levels? Again, continuing the example above, does it mean that characters of level 4 and 5 are preferred?
I have a feeling that I'm coming into a discussion that has been ongoing and that these rules were meant to address specific cases that are not clear to me. Can anyone clarify?
...Additionally, except for specific examples cited in this guide or the Pathfinder Society FAQ, the Craft skill is not legal for play and crafting of mundane items is not allowed in Pathfinder Society....
After searching the new 4.1 guidelines and the FAQ I can find only 3 specific examples: Latern Lodge member with the Meticulous Artisan trait, Alchemist (craft alchemy), Rogue with Poisoner Archtype (craft alchemy).
Is it really the organizers' intention that these are the only PCs who can legally train a craft skill? Under "Day Job" a "trained craft" is mentioned, but by my reading, only three not many PCs can even train it?
I have a series of questions regarding the Sorcerer Undead Bloodline, specifically the in-game ramifications of its Bloodline Arcana:
What affect can color spray have on a humanoid corporal undead when cast by a Sorcerer with the Undead Bloodline?
Does the first sentence of the Bloodline Arcana (Some undead are susceptible to your mind-affecting spells) specify an absolute limit or only an example?
Or is the second sentence of the Bloodline Arcana (Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them) really as wide open as it sounds?
If the first sentence does describe the only way in which the rules change for this bloodline, then what of spells like color spray that are mind-affecting, but whose effects on the mind are phrased in terms of other in-game key words (in this case stun, blind and unconscious)?
Sorcerer, Undead Bloodline, Bloodline Arcana:
Some undead are susceptible to your mind-affecting spells. Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them.
Creature Type Undead:
...
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
Immunity to bleed, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.
...
Color Spray Spell:
A vivid cone of clashing colors springs forth from your hand, causing creatures to become stunned, perhaps also blinded, and possibly knocking them unconscious. Each creature within the cone is affected according to its HD.
2 HD or less: The creature is unconscious, blinded, and stunned for 2d4 rounds, then blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds, and then stunned for 1 round. (Only living creatures are knocked unconscious.)
3 or 4 HD: The creature is blinded and stunned for 1d4 rounds, then stunned for 1 round.
5 or more HD: The creature is stunned for 1 round.
Sightless creatures are not affected by color spray.
Hi all - I know that this has been pointed out before, but some spells that an oracle can cast are based on Wisdom [e.g. spiritual weapon], and some have two stats listed but don't explicitly mention oracle [e.g. telekinesis]. Has there been any official ruling regarding these spells and how they interact with the oracle class?
I know that this will largely be up to individual DMs, and I respect that, but I also think something official from Paizo or the PFS organizers would be really helpful for organized play. As it is, whenever I play my oracle, I have to ask how the DM at the table will handle it ... and as you might expect, there is no single answer.
Maybe I missed something in a FAQ somewhere or there's been an errata? That would be nice. Otherwise, Paizo ... please don't leave us hanging.
