corwyn42's page

I think the reason they gave the Stone Shield feat an action is so that you couldn't shape your Earth element into a weapon (if you had the Elemental Weapon feat) *and* a shield (if you took both feats) with a single action - something you could easily do if you chose the single Elemental Earth Gate.

Since the PF1E version of Gather Power was a supernatural ability (which didn't provoke), I think the Gather Element action should remove the Manipulate trait; however, since not all creates have the attack of opportunity capability, that may be the reason why they included it.

The Elemental Weapon Feat would make the gathered element into a weapon (say a longsword) and if you took that feat, then you could make melee attacks with it without provoking. I think this is similar to the PF1E version of Kinetic Blade. The gathering of the element would provoke, but once gathered, you could move into melee range and use a Strike action with an air/earth/fire/water shaped longsword doing the longsword weapon damage of 1d8 but instead of slashing damage the damage type would match your elemental blast damage type (based on Table 1-2). If you had handwraps of mighty fists with a Striking Rune, it would increase the damage dice based on the level of the Rune.

Using a Strike action with an Elemental Weapon wouldn't expend the gathered element, so you could continue to make Strike attacks with it until you decided to use some other Impulse action with the Overflow trait. The Elemental Blast action doesn't have the Overflow trait, so if the enemy moves out of melee range, you could blast it with a ranged Strike and still maintain your Elemental Weapon.

Fighting Golems is one reason to take the Universal Gate - allowing you access to different elements. Based on the Golem's Antimagic line, each Golem can be Harmed by one damage type. For example, Clay/Fossil Golems are harmed by cold or water and slowed by earth. A Flesh Golem is harmed by fire and slowed by cold. The Iron Golem is harmed by acid and slowed by electricity. So only the fire/water elements can potentially damage a Golem using the standard Elemental Blast action unless a water based Elemental Blast that includes the water trait but does bludgeoning damage doesn't qualify as water damage.

Various Impulse abilities can cause cold or electricity damage, but the playtest doesn't show any way to cause acid damage. Perhaps the final sourcebook: Pathfinder Rage of Elements will include some acid damage capabilities using the elements of metal and/or wood.

Someone please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

We lost a player in our Jade Regent PbP. We are currently at level 2. If interested, please post a character for consideration.

I put the spell durations in my Stats spoiler

You are right, the acrobatics check failed - I repositioned your character.

Have you found a GM? If not, I would consider it. Please note that I have played in a PBP, but never been a GM. I have experience being a GM IRL so I think I can handle it.

Action economy, action economy, and um, action economy. IMO, it the best feature of the new system. It really improved game flow.

Ditto, ditto, ditto

Ambiguous Rules. Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is.

Since it is clear that the words "all enemies in the area" and "Each creature in the area" are ambiguous, would changing the text "Each creature in the area" to "Foes in the area" be considered too good to be true?

I'd combine something like this with the houserule someone previously mentioned of not letting Shields be permanently destroyed, only rendered useless until repaired.

I also like this, we no longer have to worry about what happens to the Rune situation. I never liked the "You can't repair a destroyed shield" rule anyway.

On Page 450 of the CRB:
"In the midst of combat, you attempt checks to determine if you can damage your foe with weapons, spells, or alchemical concoctions. On a successful check, you hit and deal damage."

"Damage is sometimes given as a fixed amount, but more often than not you’ll make a damage roll to determine how much damage you deal."

"If you’re casting a 3rd-level fireball spell, you’ll roll 6d6."

I would like to see advanced versions of the Spined Shield. This shield gives the character a great deal of flexibility. It can be used like a bow with limited ammunition or a better than sturdy shield for blocking high damage attacks (by breaking off multiple spikes from a single attack).

The regeneration of broken spikes is very appealing as it doesn't require the character to have any crafting skill to restore the spikes.

Imagine if there were higher level versions. They could:

1. Add more spikes
2. Increase the hp of each spike
3. Increase the spikes to +2 greater or +3 major striking shield spikes
4. Increase the hardness, BT and HP in a manner similar to sturdy shields

I think players would enjoy the advanced versions of Spined Shield. I hope we can see them in future books.

Correct. Knowing the damage before deciding to block will help with newer players, but hopefully they should figure this out once they start leveling up and finding out how fragile their shields are at higher levels. They won't need to be a math genius - they will find this out after their shield breaks or is destroyed and now they have an action available every round since they can no longer raise it. They will know their AC no longer includes the +2 bonus and they are more vulnerable to damage.

Some players will always want to know so they can mitigate how many times they need to repair their shields and to keep them from being destroyed. Other players will figure out that healing a player can be done in combat a lot easier than repairing a shield.

Either way players will adapt their play style to match the GM's choice to let the players know the damage amount before hand or to withhold that knowledge.

It is clear to me that the longer someone plays, the better their understanding of mechanics involved. We all have to make decisions every day without having all the relevant details. Players should be able to play and have fun whether the GM allows them to know the damage or not.

I don't think the wording is wrong, I think it is specifically worded the way it is so that it overrides the general rule specified on Pg 452. This way the spells can damage those who are true neutral or are neutral and not directly opposed. However, since they are not directly opposed to the Alignment typed damage, they receive the benefit of one degree better result from their Fortitude saving throw.

In your example, you chose Law; so LG, LN, LE characters would be unaffected. NG, N, NE characters receive the one degree better result. CG, CN, CE characters receive normal saving throw results/damage.

I think this is an example where the "Specific Overrides General" Game Conventions mentioned on Pg 444 applies.

I think we can all agree that blocking with a shield is best done at low levels where the Hardness value is close enough to the average strike damage to be effectively used. A steel shield at 2gp with a 5 hardness will be very effective against a level -1 to level 3 moderate monster's average strike damage.

From Table 2-10: Strike Damage from the Monster Creation document, the average damage for a level -1 to level 3 moderate monster is: 3,4,5,8.

So for attacks from these monsters, it is not that important to know the damage beforehand, you will most likely want to use the Shield Block reaction (if not saving it for a strike of some kind). Even if destroyed, replacing a 1-2 gp item is not that difficult.

For martial characters that receive shield block as part of their class, there is no reason not to use shields to block against monsters at levels -1 to 3 unless you want to use both hands for a weapon.

Classes with Shield Block: Champion, Cleric (WarPriest), Druid (but with a more limited hardness of 3 from a wooden shield) and Fighter.

For classes that do not receive shield block, unless you are a human with a Versatile Heritage you cannot get the General shield block feat until you are level 3. Making it a harder choice for a feat that will most likely have diminishing returns starting at your next level.

The average moderate monster strike damage from levels 4 to 7 is 12, 13, 15, 17.

Getting the 5 damage reduction from a normal steel shield block helps, but the risk to your shield (especially from a critically successful strike) goes up significantly. The normal steel shield probably breaks after a couple of blocks. For these levels, if you do not want your shield destroyed, knowing the damage before deciding to block is important.

If you have invested a significant amount of gold in a specific shield, it is even more important - especially since most specific shields do not provide a level appropriate increase in hardness and HP (yes, sturdy shields are best mostly due to the increase in HP).

After level 7, normal shields risk being destroyed by a single block. Even level appropriate sturdy shields will only survive a few blocks before becoming broken.

A level 10 moderate monster's average strike damage is 22 against a level 10 sturdy shield's hardness of 13 results in 9 damage to the shield with each block. The sturdy shield breaks on average with the 6th block. So the 1000 gp item saves you from 6*13=78 points of damage before requiring repair and needs to block against a hit with over 54+13(67) points of damage to go from just above broken to destroyed - which will most likely only occur from a critically successful strike.

From what I can see, using specific shields to block damage from level appropriate monsters has a high risk of being destroyed unless it is a sturdy shield. The sturdy shield's risk comes mostly from critically successful strikes.

It seems to me that you really don't need to know the damage from incoming strikes unless you are using specific shields or you don't want the shield to be broken. For normal/non-sturdy shields it matters most from levels 4 to 7. For sturdy shields you only need to know if the strike was critical. Since the item level for most non-sturdy specific shields is more than 7, their value in blocking incoming damage from level appropriate monsters is minimal and risks being destroyed even by a single block.

Since the designers did not provide sufficient spells, runes or other items to significantly improve a shield's hardness, broken threshold or HP values, it appears they are only really useful at low levels. Unless you are a champion with shield ally, anything other than a sturdy shield should not be used for a Shield Block reaction after level 7 unless you accept the fact that doing so will most likely result in your shield being destroyed (Indestructible Shield being the lone exception).

Instead of having the assassins kill the girl with crossbows, instead have one of them be a "healer" who attempts to help out Jhonas. During this medical attention, the "healer" offers a "healing"/"poison" potion to the girl or perhaps some other more subtle way of bringing about her demise.

Give the party a chance to perceive this deception and potentially intervene. You could make the Perception and/or Sense Motive DCs high enough to reasonably fail but with some chance for them to figure out what is really going on. Have a cleric (or other character with healing capabilities) get a bonus to their roll to detect the deception - perhaps even forcing their own healing attempts. If the party detects the ruse and stops the "healer", you could have the assassins kill the "healer" and allow them to keep up their ruse for a later attempt (see below).

As far the posts question, my immediate reaction would depend largely on the kind of character I am playing. A CN barbarian with a similar bent party probably wouldn't care (unless there is some financial motivation with saving the girl), a LG paladin would likely attempt to bring down the assassins and try to convince the party to do the same (if they detected the deception in the first place).

If the party actually does save the girl, have the adventure/campaign attempt for her demise in some other way (perhaps something the party may also have a difficult time disrupting). You could keep up these attempts until successful and each time find some way to frame the party for her demise. Then you can proceed to the remainder to the adventure - which I assume is about proving their innocence.

dirtypool wrote:

Someone put her behind the locked door. She is being held captive behind it.

She is locked in, and the building is burning. That is all I stated. No enemy in sight or immediate reach.

Either the guy who did it is long gone (would not make sense for him to immolate himself, would it?) or she may even have locked the door herself, dropped a candle while playing with her puppets, panicked and forgot where she put the key.

And the mighty Barbarian who's inner rage lets him even fight dragons can not just freak out and bash down the door in time, because - you know - rules.

If I were to GM this situation I would probably consider this example an acceptable exception to the rule, no more no less.

There is nothing stopping the Barbarian from potentially bashing down the door in time. What is being argued is: "Can the Barbarian benefit from Raging while doing the bashing?" So it really comes down to how liberal you interpret the term "enemy"? (since the CRB has no formal definition to guide us)

Enemy definition:
"a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against another; an adversary or opponent."

Based on the definition the enemy is another person - however, in our fantasy setting, "another" can mean monster (i.e. Bestiary entry) - which extends to a great deal more than "people" - including Animated Objects. Is it too much of a stretch to include non-Animated Objects (Walls, Doors, Statues, Furniture, etc. - things with a Hardness value and/or can take Item Damage)? It seems reasonable that the Barbarian feels hatred for the door that is keeping him from rescuing his sister.

If you can convince the GM that the locked door is your enemy by role play, I think the GM should allow you to rage against it and receive all the benefits therein.

If allowed, would you only need to break the door (i.e. sufficient Item Damage to exceed its Broken Threshold) or would you need to reduce its Hit Points to 0 before you would no longer consider it your enemy? Another area for role play - it is broken enough for me to get through - so is it no longer my enemy? vs. even though it is broken now and I can get through and rescue my sister, I am still Raging so I will keep bashing away at this door until it is nothing more than a pile of fire kindling (and hopefully another party member rescues my sister instead of Raging me).

I would say that if you are going to use the Rage Barbarian class action and you are trying to use it for something other than going into combat and killing all enemies you know about, you are trying to do something that was not intended by the game designers.

Personally, using rage for anything other than combat seems like you are meta-gaming. Barbarians rage to kill enemies. All benefits from raging should be applied to further that end.

If you tried to use Rage to gain its benefits to climb a wall or run away or anything that is not combat related, then I would wonder - what kind of barbarian are you?

Titan wrestler has no interaction with Whirling Throw, it specifies exactly which actions it effects (Grapple, Trip, Shove, Disarm)

The Whirling Throw would be at -4, but yes they can throw any creature so long as they have it grabbed.

The Titan Wrestler feat would allow the Monk to grapple a creature two/three sizes larger than itself, without it the Monk is limited to one size larger.

However, the Monk could still use the Whirling Throw action to throw a restrained (i.e. tied up) creature two+ sizes larger than itself.

Whether grappled or restrained the -2/-4 circumstance penalty would apply on the Athletics check when throwing the creature.

Here is the link to the discussion:
Seminar discussion

Here is Mark's post:

The last iteration of the Shield rules (where shields could take 2 dents, but blocking only gave 1 at most) meant it was impossible for a fresh shield to break in one block. Is that still true in the final rules?

As you can see throughout the process when we kept answering the question multiple different ways on the streams, that last playtest iteration was mostly a patch on an issue involved with calculating the dents and HP. Using HP, it is possible for your shield to break, or even be totally destroyed, in one hit, but you get to know how much damage is incoming before you decide whether to block, so that only happens if you choose. Looking at how much it would take to destroy Linda's dwarf's shield in one hit, though, even on a crit that's not going to happen unless they're fighting something way beyond their level. Even a balor would be hard-pressed to do that much in a single crit.

HammerJack wrote:

No, you won't benefit from a broken shield.

Yes, shields can be totally worthwhile.

Additionally, you should know the incoming damage and whether it would break your shield BEFORE you choose whether to block.

Why would you expect a PC to know what the damage is and whether they want to use the shield block reaction ahead of time?

If I know a player has a shield raised (and am actually on top of my game and remembering things) I tell them they will be hit and will take damage and ask if they want to use their reaction to reduce it before announcing the damage amount.

Retroactively allowing them to shieldblock after the damage is known does not make as much sense to me.

This was discussed in this subforum:

Am I assuming this correctly that if you are a Chirurgeon, and you are expert in medicine, you can only treat wounds at the trained level (not expert) if you want to use your crafting skill to do the check?

If you are a Chirurgeon Alchemist with a Medicine Skill proficiency level of Trained and a Crafting Skill proficiency level of Expert and you want to perform the Treat Wounds Medicine Trained Action you could perform the DC 20 check to increase the Hit Points regained by 10 using a Crafting Skill check.

You are not limited to the DC 15 check.

Once your Crafting Skill proficiency level reaches Master you can use a Crafting Skill check to perform the Treat Wounds action with the DC 30 check to increase the Hit Points regained by 30.

Once your Crafting Skill proficiency level reaches Legendary you can use a Crafting Skill check to perform the Treat Wounds action with the DC 40 check to increase the Hit Points regained by 50.

beowulf99 wrote:

Goldryno wrote:

I would agree with beowulf99 on this one. Looking at the wording for Unified Theory, Rituals, and how sample Ritual's are presented I just am not reaching the same interpretation as Blave.

I can definitely understand where Blave is coming from, and I even had the same thought initially.

But what convinced me was the existence of rituals with optional final checks of differing traditions. Why shouldn't a powerful enough Wizard be able to use his Arcane knowledge to control the weather? Or Resurrect the dead?

Also as a Level 15 feat requiring a Legendary skill, this doesn't feel in the realm of "too good to be true".

Because the arcane tradition doesn't interact with vital or spiritual essence, which is what is used to bring the dead back. They might be able to understand the magic at play but they can't replicate it through arcana.

By RAW, a ritual is neither a skill feat or an action. You could house rule otherwise, but it is pretty clearly not a thing based on RAW and flavor.

I am not sure I agree with the statement that a ritual is not an action. On page 461 of the CRB:

"There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions".

I interpret this to mean that all activities are considered to be an action.

Also on page 461 of the CRB under Exploration and Downtime Activities:

"Outside of encounters, activities can take minutes, hours, or even days."

On page 408 of the CRB:

"While a ritual is a downtime activity" -> thus a ritual *is* an action - specifically a downtime activity action.

On page 268 of the CRB:

"Whenever you use an action or a skill feat that requires a Nature, Occultism, or Religion check, depending on the magic tradition, you can use Arcana instead."

So my interpretation of the Unified Theory feat is that when performing the Atone Ritual, a Primary Caster with this feat *could* use an Arcana Check instead of a Nature (Druid) or Religion (all others) check - since this check is being done as part of a downtime activity action. This would also hold true for any Secondary Casters involved in the downtime activity action that have the Unified Theory feat.

Indi523 wrote:

Still I actually like the version of my mistake better. If you find a magic item you have to learn the spell (if a wizard or sorcerer) to use the spell in the staff. I would give a circumstance bonus to attempts to learn the spell from the staff. Knowledge is power.

One problem i see with that is how Spontaneous Casters getting shafted with that deal. Druid and Cleric don’t have to do anything to use staffs with how they prepare; Wizard has to learn it once; and Sorcerers have to sacrifice their limited amount of spells known to use it with a staff. There’s also spontaneous casters getting less charges on their staff when they prepare them. Pretty sure the staffs were designed like that to give spontaneous casters access to a wider array with reasonable investment.

I don't understand, from what I can gather reading page 592 of the CRB you don't have to learn the spell in the Staff in order to Cast it, it just needs to be on your Spell List and you need to be high enough level to cast a spell of that level.

If you are a Sorcerer who uses the Primal Spell List, you can cast the Resist Energy spell from a Staff of Abjuration even though Resist Energy is not in your spell repertoire as long as you can cast second level spells.

From the CRB Page 593:

"You can Cast a Spell from a staff only if you have that spell on your spell list, are able to cast spells of the appropriate level, and expend a number of charges from the staff equal to the spell’s level."

Is Resist Energy on the Primal Spell List? - yes
Is the Sorcerer able to cast second level spells? - yes
Are there two charges in the Staff? - yes

All three requirements met - you are good to cast Resist Energy from the Staff of Abjuration.

The same would be true for a Wizard who does not have Resist Energy in their spellbook:

Is Resist Energy on the Arcane Spell List? - yes
Is the Wizard able to cast second level spells? - yes
Are there two charges in the Staff? - yes

Since Resist Energy is on all four Spell Lists, only the ability to cast second level spells and having enough charges in the Staff matter.

Now lets look at Feather Fall. Since it is only on the Arcane and Primal Spell Lists, the Wizard (Arcane) and Sorcerer (Primal) would be able to cast the spell from the Staff of Abjuration but a Bard (Occult) or Cleric (Divine) or a Sorcerer (Divine or Occult) would not be able to cast Feather Fall from the Staff of Abjuration.

In the case of a Wand, it only needs to be on your Spell List - you do not even need to be able to cast spells of that level.

From the CRB Page 597:

"To cast a spell from a wand, it must be on your spell list."

So a first level Wizard (Arcane) can cast a third level Burning Hands spell (Arcane or Primal) from a Wand created with a third level Burning Hands spell; however, the Reflex DC would be the DC from the first level Wizard casting the spell. The same would be true of a first level Sorcerer (Primal), but a Bard (Occult), Cleric (Divine) or Sorcerer (Occult or Divine) would not be able to cast the Burning Hands spell from the Wand.

Is my understanding correct? or am I missing something?

How about adding a new condition: studied <value>.

The Study Subject could give the target a studied 1 on success and a studied 2 on a critical success.

NOTE: targets that have immunity to precision damage cannot have the studied condition.

The Studied Strike could be an action with certain weapon and studied condition requirements. Make a Strike and apply the studied condition value as a circumstance bonus to the attack roll. On a success it would deal the 1d6 precision damage that would increase as your level increases (5, 9, 13, 17). After the strike the studied condition is removed.

Now you can have new feats that support debuffs rather than damage.

Blinding Strike - precision damage is applied as a blinded condition for studied value rounds.

Kidney Strike - precision damage is applied as enfeebled condition: value equals studied value.

Additional feats could be made for the precision damage being applied for the stunned, stupefied, slowed, etc. conditions. The feat level would be used to ensure the strikes are only available when their power is on par with the character level.

In each case, the studied condition is removed after the Strike is made (successful or not).

With a studied condition, the value could be increased by *not* attacking the target, but continuing to study them. This way the circumstance bonus and other debuff values could also be increased.

In order to maintain the studied condition between rounds, you would need to perform a Sustain the Study action with the Concentration trait.

Thoughts?

When reading the Alchemist Feat: Feral Mutagen:

Whenever you’re affected by a feral mutagen,
you gain the mutagen’s item bonus to your Intimidation checks.

Was curious what the term "feral" referred to - I assumed it referred to Bestial Mutagen, but that item did not contain any reference to the term "feral". I went to the index to see if there was an official term for "feral" and there was no reference to it. I was hoping for an entry between Feint and fey bloodline.