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Question around Jistkan Artificer (Golemfist) Magus

I was looking at the RAW of this, and I must admit, I'm a bit puzzled. Jistkan Artificer Magus have an arcana called Flurrying Arm, which grants them a Monk's (non-UC) Flurry of Blows, but only grants one extra attack.

Spell combat is a full-round action that lets you take all your attacks as well as casting a spell (assuming requirements are met).
"As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty)."

Flurry of Blows is a a full-round attack action, that replaces a normal full-attack action with specific rules.
"Starting at 1st level, a monk can make a flurry of blows as a full-attack action."

Both rules do not say "when you take a full-attack action", both say "you may do flurry of blows/spell combat as a full action". Since they are both full actions, that would mean you can't do both because they are separate and distinct actions.

If I'm looking at RAW, despite that they both do similar things, it looks like Spell Combat and Flurry of Blows can't be used together, because they are both different full round actions.

Am I missing something?

Hi there,

When targeting a creature that has spell resistance with Force Hook Charge and then failing to beat its SR, what happens?

Does:
A: The spell fail to cast and nothing happens. (This appears to be correct as per RAW).
B: The damage of the spell is negated due to spell resistance. The caster then is pulled towards the target (regardless of the fact that the target resisted the spell.
C: Something else?

What does "immobilized" mean? What is the trigger for someone to be classified as immobile? Is it just not being able to move from their current space, or is it not being able to carry out any action, effectively helpless?

Does someone entangled in a net tied to a immovable rod count as being immobilised?
Does being pinned count as immobilised?

There's a few instances where the word is used but in most cases its not clear what it actually means. Halt Undead is an exception because it clearly tells you that they are immobilised as per Hold Person, and this is because Undead are normally immune to the paralyze condition. Snake Sepia Sigil is another where immobilised is referred to but again it explains that they are in stasis. Tatzlwyrm Rake uses it in the fluff text when talking about grappling.

The only reference I can find as a rule is from the 3.5 Rules Compendium (which I know is not the same as PF), which defines it as so:
Immobilized: An immobilized creature can’t move out of the space it was in when it became immobilized. It otherwise functions normally unless it’s flying. Immobilized flying creatures that have the ability to hover can maintain their initial altitude. All other flying creatures subjected to this condition descend at a rate of 20 feet per round until they reach the ground, taking no falling damage.

I've been looking at the rules for the synthesist summoner, researching on the forums, looking at other rules, FAQs, etc, but not come up with a definite answer. I'm not an expert on summoners or synthesists but I've tried to look through this to find answers.

The simple question is, does a synthesist's eidolons gain benefits from continuous effects from magical items?

With regards to the specific rules that I'm looking at, these are the three important lines:

1. While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist uses the eidolon’s physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution), but retains his own mental ability scores (Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma).

2. The synthesist uses the eidolon’s base attack bonus, and gains the eidolon’s armor and natural armor bonuses and modifiers to ability scores.

3. While fused with his eidolon, the synthesist can use all of his own abilities and gear, except for his armor.

To try and provide a common starting point I should clarify some points of how I'm reading these.

Starting with point 1, I've seen people state that the physical attributes being replace are base attributes and thus the enhancement bonuses from belts, such as a belt of might constitution, are added on afterwards. However that is a RAI interpretation as it makes no mention of the word "base" in the text. This means it is open to interpretation by the players/GM.

With point 2, it's unclear from the line whether the armour and natural armour bonuses add on to the existing bonuses or replace the armour bonus. However in this case we can infer from the FAQ that it replaces it.

The key point for this rules query/discussion is point 3. The wording is clear in some people's mind that any gear can be used except armour. However if this is the case then there's interaction issues with the other two points that are not clearly addressed. For example with regards to gear with continuous effects, such as stat increases. Does an enhancement bonus to constitution from a Belt of Mighty Constitution apply to the summoner's stats following the eidolon's summoning? Does it apply to the eidolon's stats? You might wonder why I seemed to have asked the same question twice but they are two different questions. Because if the increase only affects the summoner's stat line and not the eidolon then the eidolon doesn't get a boost to the temporary HP it provides to the summoner. Thus I question whether this line actually means you can use items like blinkback belts, amulets of the planes, wands rather than gaining the benefits of continuous effects.

Some points I came up with while I was researching this:
1.They are overpowered. Everyone seems to be in agreement that they are extremely powerful. And they got banned from PFS. Not necessarily because of the reasons I'm giving in my post but it certainly contributes to them being powerful.

2. Twin Eidolon. This is slightly different mechanic as its a polymorph effect (similar to wildshaping) and clearly states that items with continuous effects are absorbed. From the perspective of a synthesist there is very little reason to use this ability. If the items only provided their bonuses if the synthesist is in their twin eidolon form then it makes the ability more attractive.

3. Double ability increases. Everyone is probably aware of how synthesists can min/max their scores, and effectively use their eidolon's scores to achieve what is essentially a 52~ point buy. But it's also important to bear in mind that they can effectively gain double the attribute increases that would normally be afforded to them via the use of eidolon evolutions. They get their +5 attribute increases that everyone gets, which they spend increasing their mental attributes. And then for the physical side they can get five instances of the Extra Evolution feat which grants an additional evolution point for a total of 20 points which can all be spent on the Ability Increase evolution and grants +8 to two stats, and +2 to another stat. On top of this we then add on the +5 str/dex bonus enhancement. This means if you assume a bipedal eidolon and wearing +6 belt and headband we are looking at a potential stat line of something like Str: 35, Dex: 25, Con: 27, Int: 29, Wis: 23, Cha: 21. This doesn't include any other bonuses such as inherent bonuses from wish/book, but even these are a little over the top in my mind.

4. Double stacking bonuses. If you apply enhancement bonuses to the eidolon and to the summoner you effectively get some limited amount of double stacking. Specifically with HP although there may be others. If you apply belts to eidolons stats it gains double the number of HP that any other class gains. For every 2 points of constituion that a synthesist gains, they get +1 HP and +1 temporary HP from the Eidolon per level. So a +6 Belt of Might Constitution grants +6 HP per level compared to +3 for every other class. If you don't think that's a lot let's look at some theorycrafting. A 10th level cleric (which shares the same HD as a summoner) with a con score of 20 gets a maximum of 130HP. A 10th level barbarian with a con score of 20 gets 170HP. When they rage they get an additional 20HP for a total of 190HP. A 10th level summoner with 20 con gets 130HP + 150 temporary HP (or 105 temporary HP if you take it as racial HD) for a total of 280HP (or 235 HP). And it simply gets worse as the con modifiers increase.

From the reading I've done I've seen mixed thoughts on whether enhancement bonuses from belts should add onto the eidolon's physical attributes although the general consensus seems to be yes it does. Similarly there should be a question as to whether rings of protection and amulets of natural armour should also add onto the eidolon's armour. The only posts I've seen seem to indicate that people think that amulets of natural armour dont stack and thus it swings the other way which confuses the issue.

I feel that certainly the synthesists are extremely powerful with high stat lines, effectively near double the HP of other classes, good attacks, etc. My feeling is that if they do not gain bonuses from continuous magical items to stats that are replaced by the eidolon then it may help to mitigate some of the power problems they have.

Thoughts?

Hi there,

Looking to preempt any rules complications/discussion with one of my players. He's looking to play an Enlightened Paladin / monk (probably Scaled Fist). The current RAW questions I have are:

• 1) Do the ki pools stack? This is broken down into two different stacking questions:
  a) Do the number of ki points they have stack?
  b) Does the paladin levels (which are counted as effective monk levels) stack with the monk levels to determine the pool/pools abilities?
  My feeling on this is the answer is no, due to the FAQ.

• 2) Assuming two separate ki pools, can an Enlightened Paladin's ki pool be used to power monk's ki abilities, i.e. Flurry of Blows, Abundant Step, Cobra Breath?

• 3) Does the Enlightened Paladin's Confident Defense ability apply to Touch ac? Unlike the Monk/Unchained Monk's AC Bonus which specifically states that it applies to the Touch AC, Confident Defense does not. However it states that it adds it to the Dexterity bonus, which then arguably does get added to the Touch AC.

• 4) Given that a Scaled Fist's AC Bonus and an Enlightened Paladin's Confident Defense both provide increases to AC but use different mechanics (AC Bonus is untyped bonus, and Confident Defense is applying charisma to modify dexterity bonus), do they stack?

If there are any other potential rules issues that may come up with this particular combination then please feel free to add them.

Question on the Radiant Charge feat, on a critical hit as the lay on hands damage is extra (additional) damage rolled by dice it doesn't get multiplied as per the critical hit rules. Does the Cha bonus get multiplied by considering it to be technically flat damage or does it count as part of the additional damage dice?

i.e. If you crit with Radiant Charge, assuming there's no cha modifier and you have 4 lay on hand charges, it's (1d8+4) + (1d8+4) + 4d6 + 0.

If you have cha modifier of +4 as well, is the damage:
A. (1d8+4) + (1d8+4) + 4d6 + 4
B. (1d8+4) + (1d8+4) + 4d6 + 4 + 4

Hi there,

One of my players is about to play an alchemist for the first time and is coming up with lots of small miniature headache rules questions. This is only the 2nd alchemist we've had in our group (the first being eaten by a giant eel) so we've not had a chance to get to know them very well. I've been trying to research the rules questions that pop up but not had a lot of success. Some of the issues feel relatively minor but it would be great if there was an official rules citation on some of these questions. Here's the questions and my take on them:

1. Can you use Explosive Missile with Alchemical Weapons?

Couldn't official answer. Assumed to be allowed as while the wording declares both abilities "infuse" the weapon or ammo there is no ruling saying that they cannot stack because they provide two different mechanical benefits.

2. Does rolling a critical hit with a splash weapon increase the damage?

Only on the direct damage. Splash damage is automatically applied and thus there is no "roll to hit" that is required to critical.

3. Does critical hit with bombs (and explosive missile) increase the "minimum damage" of bombs for their splash affect.

No. It only increases the direct damage of the bomb. Explosive Missile when crits on a hit increases the ranged weapon damage, the direct bomb damage and the direct alchemical weapon damage only.

4. Can you use Explosive Missile with a Conductive enchanted weapon?

Haven't found an official answer. Again this has the issue in that is empowering the ammo similar to Explosive Missile and Alchemical Weapons, however the mechanical benefit of Explosive Missile and Conductive weapon are the same in this case and so undecided on whether to allow this.

Honestly I just want to be fair to the other players, the player with these issues, and the NPCs.

Thanks!