eerongal's page

I'm just giving you a first impression. Which in a contest where the judges have to read 1000+ entries is all you get.

I didn't say it was a good weapon - its a bit clunky and expensive as a weapon, but thats the impression I get from it. I understand its not what you were intending.

Consider this though - If I bought a +2 axiomatic warhammer with the banishing ability (which for the sake of argument we will say is a +4 ability) - the whole thing...

Point taken. I suppose I didn't consider first impressions when making this (which is maybe an area where i need to sheer up some clarification)

Also, didn't a banishing weapon only function 3/day?

Edit: after posting, I think i remembered about banishment. The original print in BoED was unlimited, but the reprint in MIC was 3/day (and i think it was a +3 enhancement in both).

Chris Mortika wrote:

Wicht wrote:

Hammer of banishment: Making it a magical weapon is a big no-no.

Not necessarily, Wicht. It's sometimes a fine line between, say, beads from a necklace of fireballs and +1 flaming burst slingstones.

There are exceptions of course, so maybe I should say that it is almost always a big no-no.

But the vibe I got from the item was that it was a rather clunky +2 aligned hammer of banishment. The mention of the gong, drum etc not being magical but being vital even though you didn't need it seemed rather awkward. You could put the gong in your closet, take the hammer with you and you're good to go. Better just to make the whole thing magical and make the hammer too small to be used as a weapon.

I'm honestly unsure of why you think that this hammer seems like a weapon. The hammer only functions as a weapon for 3 attacks a day (or 30 rounds if you never use it to attack, which is kinda pointless), serving as an alternate delivery method for the banishments.

Originally, I had a distance limitation between the hammer and gong to function, but I had to remove it due to word count issues.

The instrument destruction is basically intended as a built in weak point for the item, despite the fact that the hammer contains all the real power. I did this because i enjoyed the concept of a simple weak point, does this seem too clunky?

Wicht wrote:

Hammer of banishment: Making it a magical weapon is a big no-no.

Not necessarily, Wicht. It's sometimes a fine line between, say, beads froma necklace of fireballs and +1 flaming burst slingstones.

Also: Maul/mattock of the titans are two SRD wonderous items that are weapons, with some secondary functioning to them.

Another also: 'Grats on top 32 Chris! :)

Hammer of banishment: Making it a magical weapon is a big no-no. Basically you have a magic hammer with a spell in a can.

You might have been better to just have gone for a drum of banishment and worked from there.

Well, it's only a weapon for up to 30 rounds/day, and at that point it almost can't be used for it's primary purpose, especially since you get 1 attack with it, so it's 30 rounds or 3 attacks/day, i wouldnt really consider this a reliable weapon. It was mainly meant as a way to focus banishment on more powerful creatures.

I considered making a portable gong/drum of banishment, but I didn't like the fluff idea of it, seemed clunky to me.

But thanks for the advice! :)

Looks like I'm a bit late to the feedback party! I've been unavailable for the past week or so, so good thing i didnt make top 32!

Anyways, i'd like to post my submission for comments, just to see where I need work. Thanks in advance! :)

I can't find it now, I think it was archived, but it was one of the first threads about the inquisitor when he came out. Basically the thread said

"The inquisitor is better than the cavalier because of the tactical feats, why doesn't the cavalier have tactical feats?"

The response from Jason was something very close to

"How do you know I haven't already incorporated them into the changes I made to the cavalier :)."

Unfortunately as I said, I can't find the thread, so you can either believe or roll a will save to disbelieve me. But I'm being honest that I saw it.

I can confirm this as well. I saw this post too, and it was pretty much straight forwardly saying "yeah, we're doing something like this" in the guise of "How do you know we aren't? :)"

Don't remember what thread, though. But it is likely archived by now.

one of our players is planning on multiclassing a battle oracle with fighter, and he's wondering how this effects his curse and revelations.

The revelations and curses all state things like "at level X this happens", it doesn't specifically state oracle level, so he's confused on if your curse changes as you level a non-oracle class, and your revelations continue improving or not.

On the subject of 'making sense' for an inquisitor to have tactical feats.. why does someone who only travels with people to avoid notice get feats that help those people? An antisocial view doesn't lend to team play in combat, which is what those feats are for.

While I agree that cavaliers should get some kind of bonus feat progression for tactical feats, in reference to this the way i see it is, because of their solo tactics ability, they're more adept at USING their allies to provide benefits for themselves only. Which doesn't sound like good social behavior to me.

If that ally happens to have knowledge of a similar trick and can use it to his advantage with the inquisitor, that's fine. The inquisitor gets it regardless of their benefits, though.

What is the point of defining these as feats, since no one will take them but Inquisitors, who remove the basic drawback? It's not likely two characters in a group are going to take matching feats, and what happens if one of them dies?

Me and a guy in my party are currently taking plenty, we think they rock. I guess it all depends on your play style.

This question came up this evening during our playtest of the various classes, but someone asked if an alchemist could take "Eschew Materials". Obviously it makes no logical sense, but the specific wording is vague in the rules regard, it says it takes material components and its akin to a spell's non-costly material components.

The reason this came up is because a caster can take the feat (obviously) and if stripped of his component pouch, can still use most spells, where as an alchemist separated from his lab has no such recourse.

In the end, our DM allowed it out of a fairness perspective (the alchemist was separated from his equipment for a few days, which would have made him basically useless) but i just thought I would bring it up here to check community input on the idea. I'm sure as heck not going to say it makes any LOGICAL sense.

eerongal wrote:

i'm talking about true mutagen, the grand discovery (level 20), which as far as i can tell has no pre reqs to select.

Edit: also, the alchemist gets 6 discoveries, not 5. 1 at 4th, 1 at 8th, 1 at 12th, 1 at 16th, and 2 at 20th plus a grand discovery. unless, of course, something has changed since the PDF came out that i dont know of.

I also checked while i was at it, true mutagen is +6 to all stats and +8 to NA, and I doubled checked and still see no pre-reqs

EDIT: Oh your talking about the capstone, yeah I don't really care about that, you shouldn't have to take pre-reqs for a capstone ability and it only affects one level of play. So True mutagen doesn't bother me and is actually super suck as a capstone if you've taken the previous discoveries, ooh I got to 20th level and I got a +2 bonus to natural armor and a +4 to one stat and a +2 to another. That's actually a pretty lame capstone in those circumstances. I think true mutagen is specifically for those who didn't build their mutagen with discoveries.

Well, I agree that the capstones shouldn't have pre-reqs, but my problem with it was the fact that all the mutagen increasing discoveries are made null with the capstone. So someone who focuses on mutagens and picks this gets gypped, where as someone who doesn't focus on mutagens gets more than the previous person, basically for free.

Honestly, the only capstones i really care about are fast healing, awakened intellect, and true mutagen. The others are handy, but I don't see them as useful as those three.

I just think that the capstone shouldnt outshine the specialization it goes for like it does, or it should work with someone who is specialized and make theirs better. (for example, something like "if you have greater and grand mutagen, also gain X")

eerongal wrote:

Shar Tahl wrote:

One thing I can see creating a problem for a player making large amounts of gold with this is what they are going to do with the large chunks of un-worked gold or silver. It's not a liquid asset like coins so its real value will depend on how good they are at selling things. I am sure some GMs would have them just get the coin amounts, but I make my players work for it ;) That big chunk'o'gold will look like a nice prize for a local dragon!

If your players aren't buying lead/iron in bar form, they're probably all ready making things harder on themselves than necessary. A 5,000 pound chunk of iron is, in addition to being hard to work with, probably a bit tougher to find than bars or any other form of it. Note that it doesn't say that the iron and lead have to be in one giant piece...

I'd like to point out that you are generally talking about adding a liquid to solids.

It doesn't work really well. You have to LIQUIFY the lead or iron to transform it, to mix the liquid quicksilver to the liquid metal to transform all that metal - otherwise you'll just transform the surface of the iron and waste your precious quicksilver. Liquifying 1000 pounds of lead is not exactly childsplay....

Well, i've always assumed it was a "pour it on it, do a little ritual and it becomes gold" sort of thing, not a "melt down and mix" thing. The actual text of it doesn't specify otherwise, so i would assume it's likely up to interpretation.

One thing I can see creating a problem for a player making large amounts of gold with this is what they are going to do with the large chunks of un-worked gold or silver. It's not a liquid asset like coins so its real value will depend on how good they are at selling things. I am sure some GMs would have them just get the coin amounts, but I make my players work for it ;) That big chunk'o'gold will look like a nice prize for a local dragon!

If your players aren't buying lead/iron in bar form, they're probably all ready making things harder on themselves than necessary. A 5,000 pound chunk of iron is, in addition to being hard to work with, probably a bit tougher to find than bars or any other form of it. Note that it doesn't say that the iron and lead have to be in one giant piece...

i'm talking about true mutagen, the grand discovery (level 20), which as far as i can tell has no pre reqs to select.

Edit: also, the alchemist gets 6 discoveries, not 5. 1 at 4th, 1 at 8th, 1 at 12th, 1 at 16th, and 2 at 20th plus a grand discovery. unless, of course, something has changed since the PDF came out that i dont know of.

I also checked while i was at it, true mutagen is +6 to all stats and +8 to NA, and I doubled checked and still see no pre-reqs

While I agree the mutagen tends to fall short in the later levels without specialization, it also becomes basically an all day buff once you get it to hour/level. And since you can get rid of the bad effects immediately (let's see, brewed my daily "mr. hyde" potion, now for my daily restoration potion) at little to no cost, i honestly think it's going to be fine as is.

Especially since at level 20 (which is where one my little niggles with the class comes in), you don't really require any specialization into it to make it good, as true mutagen doesn't seem to require the previous mutagen increasing discoveries selected, and in fact makes them look subpar to pick if you're going to make it to 20.

Off hand, the alchemical bonus sounds ok, until we, once again, get into increasing the mutagen's power. With true mutagen, you're getting a +8 (true gives 8, right? i cant remember, but i think it is) to all physical stats that's basically going to stack with ANYTHING, and last you all day with no (well, at this point very minimal) draw back.

A flat progression sounds good, as long as we don't change the bonus type, and remove the improvement through discoveries, and replace with additions to the bonuses (NA attacks, size, etc.)

All in all, though, i'm hesitant to weigh on and change things until i get some actual playtesting going. We're actually making characters this saturday, and one of our group plans on being an alchemist (we're actually gonna have an alchemist, inquisitor, summoner, and oracle, and potentially a witch all in the same game)

eerongal wrote:

Madness bomb says that they take 1D4 wisdom damage in addition to the normal (reduced by 2D6) damage, i'm not sure where you're getting that much wisdom damage from unless you are assuming it does the full damage as wisdom damage, which it does not.

Edit: also, that's 1d4 that doesn't scale in any way

Oops. Still, the Wisdom damage still hurts, even if it gets to the point each madness bomb does only 1 point of Wisdom damage.

My bad.

Oh, don't get me wrong, madness bomb is quite nice, it's actually one of my favorites (for the name and the ability)

It just isn't a vortex of wisdom destruction, like you originally thought. :P

Madness bomb says that they take 1D4 wisdom damage in addition to the normal (reduced by 2D6) damage, i'm not sure where you're getting that much wisdom damage from unless you are assuming it does the full damage as wisdom damage, which it does not.

Edit: also, that's 1d4 that doesn't scale in any way

Thats what it looks like to me. Which is a little odd givin that the Alchemist cant make potions on his own.

Right, but it's a pretty understandable balancing factor, though I'm slightly concerned with uses on potions of spells like haste, displacement, etc.

Just a clarification (i'm under the impression this is correct) Eternal potion only functions on actual potions (from the magic items section on the player's hand book) and excludes elixirs from the wonderous items list and the alchemists own "potion" spells (extracts)?

eerongal wrote:

so far I've just read the inquisitor class, and I like what I'm seeing, but the only thing that bothers me is the use of the judgements.

To me, this ability seems like it's intended to be their "bread n' butter" combat ability, but with uses per day, it seems like it may not work to well, considering the bonuses are both marginal in the long run (starts out maxing at +3's here and there). That is, they seem nice to have, but not overpowering so.

That's why I was thinking that maybe they needed something like the cavalier's challenge ability that is per encounter, instead of per day. Obviously, in its current form that won't work since it applies to everything, but I was thinking maybe at certain levels it applies to X many creatures, or applies to an additional creature every round, or something along these lines. Obviously, the bonuses may require a little tweaking, but I just wanted to throw it out there and see what comes up.

A lot of the bonuses you can get are pretty powerful. Fast Healing 3 for example is insane. I think it balances out fairly well as a uses per day. It lasts the entire combat and you can hot-swap judgements in and out( if you can deal with restarting their round progression ).

well, like i said, i don't think the simple tweaks i mention are 100% correct for how it should go, I'm just saying that, to me, it strikes me as an ability that you would be using more than 1/day, since like i said, it has the feel of the "this is my main feature" ability of the class, and the low usage per day makes it more of an "i'm going to reserve this for the boss" sort of thing

edit: I would also not really have a problem with "useable x times + something modifier" per day, but then you'd have to have some kind of duration cap or factor to end it during an encounter.

the low number of usages per day just seems kind of restricting to me in a read through of the class, and I was just gauging everyone else's thoughts on the subject.

Epic Meepo wrote:

Solo tactics and bonus tactical feats need to be cavalier class abilities. I suppose they can still remain inquisitor class abilities (although the ability to share certain judgment bonuses with others would be a better inquisitor class ability). But either way, solo tactics and bonus tactical feats definitely need to be cavalier class abilities. What screams mounted knight more than a bunch of conditional bonus feats that activate whenever you are adjacent to your mount?

Also, from a flavor standpoint, "judgment" may as well be "oath of vengeance."

Whose to say they are not part of my redesign of some aspects of the cavalier...

**whistles softly as he wanders off to other threads**

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

These thoughts make me happy. In the pants.

so far I've just read the inquisitor class, and I like what I'm seeing, but the only thing that bothers me is the use of the judgements.

To me, this ability seems like it's intended to be their "bread n' butter" combat ability, but with uses per day, it seems like it may not work to well, considering the bonuses are both marginal in the long run (starts out maxing at +3's here and there). That is, they seem nice to have, but not overpowering so.

That's why I was thinking that maybe they needed something like the cavalier's challenge ability that is per encounter, instead of per day. Obviously, in its current form that won't work since it applies to everything, but I was thinking maybe at certain levels it applies to X many creatures, or applies to an additional creature every round, or something along these lines. Obviously, the bonuses may require a little tweaking, but I just wanted to throw it out there and see what comes up.

That is kinda the point with this class.. you ARE playing the monster. The monster is really mostly superior to the PC...

At least, that was the dynamic we were shooting for.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Well, then, i suppose it's good that i didn't miss the point of the class!

...I wanna play the eidolon!

Anyone else with me?

This "build your own monster" concept of the thing is just so awesome, and the abilities available for "purchase" are so cool, i'd rather just play the eidolon and not even worry about the summoner!

I mean, heck, my first impression looking at it, the eidolon on its own merits could create a fairly solid character/monster, let alone with a magic user to back it up.