eltrai's page

Hi,

I’m wondering what is supposed to happen when you cast mind swap and one of the bodies dies.
I’ve always interpreted the spell as perfectly symmetrical (per the "As if you each has cast possession on the other"). I think this mean that the spells ends whenever one of the bodies die and that the original soul it hosted is dead.

However, I guess it could also mean that temporarily the two souls share the same host, neither being dead (until the end of the spell). Who is in control then ?

Btw, this is highly relevant to the psychic bloodline capstone (true thought form), which performs mind swap when you die. I wonder why they used this spell and not possession directly, though. Or maybe they meant major mind swap, which would be more in line to the description but suffers from the target requirement (unless it doesn’t apply).

Any thoughts? I’m interested in RAI as well as RAW.

Hi,

Could you please cancel my campaign setting and companion subscriptions (after November's shipment). I'm in need of a bit of a pause here.

Thanks for all you great work nonetheless.

Sincerely,

Dear support,

Could you please cancel my Pathfinder AP and my Pathfinder Battles subscriptions?

Best regards,

Hi folks,

Currently, it is not possible to start a subscription for pathfinder battle, as there is no option of which set to start by. Apparently, I’m not the only one having seen this issue, but it’s been a few days and this situation has perdured.

Is something going on?

Hi,

I've been reading the kineticist gather power class ability and it occured to me that the wording is not very clear on something.

Gather Power (Su): If she has both hands free (or all of her prehensile appendages free, for unusual kineticists), a kineticist can gather energy or elemental matter as a move action. Gathering power creates an extremely loud, visible display in a 20-foot radius centered on the kineticist, as the energy or matter swirls around her. Gathering power in this way allows the kineticist to reduce the total burn cost of a blast wild talent she uses in the same round by 1 point. The kineticist can instead gather power for 1 full round in order to reduce the total burn cost of a blast wild talent used on her next turn by 2 points (to a minimum of 0 points). If she does so, she can also gather power as a move action during her next turn to reduce the burn cost by a total of 3 points. If the kineticist takes damage during or after gathering power and before using the kinetic blast that releases it, she must succeed at a concentration check (DC = 10 + damage taken + effective spell level of her kinetic blast) or lose the energy in a wild surge that forces her to accept a number of points of burn equal to the number of points by which her gathered power would have reduced the burn cost. This ability can never reduce the burn cost of a wild talent below 0 points.

It seems clear that the intend is that by gathering power for a full turn, you either benefit from a -2 or a -3 on your next round, depending on whether you also sacrifice a move action.

However, the way this is worded, I think you could argue that you can in fact benefit from both, on different kinetic blasts. This would naturally require to quicken one of those, which is possible. Say for instance : 1/ gather power for a full turn, 2/ use a blast wild talent for -2 burn, 3/ gather power as a move action, 4/ use a quickened blast wilt talent for -3 burn (=0 with the quicken cost).

I'm aware that no sane GM would allow this, but is there anything RAW that forbids it?

Hi folks,

I've updated my address for my subscriptions. Could you please ship this order to the new address? The previous one will not work.

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

So, I'm trying to understand how burrowing is supposed to work, and there are a few things that are not clear to me.

Assume either:
A) You are the subject of a Burrow spell (Ultimate magic)
B) You have a natural burrow speed (ex: purple worm)
C) You have a natural burrow speed with the earth glide ability (ex: earth elemental)

Now, in those 3 situations what are the answers to:
1) Is the burrowing noisy?
2) Does it leave traces? Ie could someone, later, tell if some burrowing occurred?
3) What happens with wood/roots? Are they impeding your movement in any way?
4) Can you stay inside the earth without moving?
5) Can you attack/cast a spell while partially or totally inside the earth?

Hi everyone,

In a few days my group is going to attempt the stage fight with Helskarg.
I like the fact that vehicule combat is a thing as it has the potential to mess up a bit with the usual combat strategies. I love the image of the very mobile opponent (but with poor manoeuvrability) that is taking periodic shots with his grappel when not overrunning people.

However, after looking into the Vehicules's combat rules, I have the following issues:

1) The ogres are intelligent creatures, and so they increase the driving DC, making it a 40 in combat, so Helskarg cannot actually use the charriot.

2) Even ignoring point 1 (maybe by saying as the ogres are accustomed to this task), it's a DC20 check, with a +10 bonus. This means Helskarg succeeds half of the time. If so, he can make the charriot accelerate 15ft. Otherwise, being muscle-powered, it descelerate 15ft. Hence it seems the charriot will not move a lot...

3) The overrun suggested action simply does not work on medium PC, since the vehicule is only large and Helskarg does not have improved overrun. The character can simply choose to "let the charriot pass", no dice rolled and everything is fine.

4) I'm not sure how the autograpnel is supposed to work. It is a +16 CMB manoeuver, but what happens if it succeeds? Is the creature pulled the whole way? 20ft? less to account for the weight (this woud make it very useless)? Also, this is not very consistent with the max 100lb for objects.

Looking for advices on how other people ran this encounter.

Hi all,

I'm currently running an Iron gods campaign, where one of the player is an Android (the others are an halfling, an half-orc and a catfolk). This is actually suggested in the AP, with no mention of GM oversight, so I didn't spare too much thought on it at character creation.

However, having played a few games and looking a bit more into the race, I feel there is a significant gap in terms of racial powers. Android is priced at 16RP which is already a lot more than any core race, and this seems even way too cheap to me considering the constructed trait (which gives tons of immunities for a mere 10RP).

Given that, I'm considering giving some sort of boon (a feat ?) to the less-favored characters. I don't want to punish the player that choose an AP-sanctioned and flavorful race, but I'd like the party to be somewhat balanced.

What do you think would be reasonable ?

Hi,

I've been looking at the Medium and the wording of Astral Beacon puzzles me.

Astral Beacon (Su): At 20th level, a medium is an open connection to the Astral Plane and a shining beacon for spirits. As a free action, he can channel spirits of any of the five legends he did not contact via his seance. This ability lasts for 1 round and grants access to the intermediate, greater, and supreme spirit powers of the chosen spirits.

Unlike trance of three, astral beacon allows spirits of the chosen legends (for instance, archmage) to gain influence over the medium until 24 hours from when the medium contacted his primary spirit. Also unlike trance of three, if the medium would incur influence by using one of the new spirits’ abilities, that influence is added to the medium’s total influence from that spirit rather than from his primary spirit.

Now, from the wording, I get:

Hence, it seems to me that this is a awkward way of saying that you always have the intermediate, greater and supreme spirit power of all spirits.
Is this really what is intended? This seems very powerful compared to all other capstones that I've seen. Did some intended limitation (usage per day maybe) somehow not made it to print? Or am I misunderstanding something?

Hey everyone,

So, I was wondering what is going on with the FAQ system.

I may be a bit candid, but my understanding was that pathfinder was supposed to be a very consistent RPG, in such a way that there was as little ambiguity in the rules on whether anything was allowed or not. I take the existence of PFS as a strong commitment that this should be the case, since you can't have an understanding with the GM beforehand.

Of course, everything can't be taken account of beforehand, so we have this FAQing system that is supposed to disambiguate anything still unclear once it's reported back to Paizo.

However, in my experience, it seems that anytime I start looking into things, wondering if something is ok or not, what I can find is multiple threads from years ago, with people asking the same question and average of 20 FAQ requests. But official answer (or even unofficial dev answer) is very scarce.

In practice this means that, as a GM, I've to do more balancing work to determine if it's ok or not. As a PFS player, I can't have nice things because I can't reliably determine what is allowed.

I understand that devoting some time on promoting quality has maybe less of a return in sales for Paizo than creating new stuff. But would it really be that much of a struggle to have someone working full-time on answering issues?

What is going on? Was I mistaken in hoping for more than "We'll answer only the most problematic things and let other issues rot"?

Am I the only one feeling it's hurting the game to have so many rules questions ignored?

I'm wondering whether a swashbuckler with swashbuckler's finesse can benefit from an Agile weapon.

Indeed, the Agile weapons states (emphasis mine):

Agile: A character with Weapon Finesse can apply her Dexterity modifier to damage rolls with an agile weapon in place of her Strength modifier. This modifier to damage is not increased for two -handed weapons, but is still reduced for off-hand weapons. This weapon special ability can be placed only on melee weapons usable with Weapon Finesse.

While the swashbuckler finesse class ability states (emphasis mine):

Swashbuckler Finesse (Ex): At 1st level, a swashbuckler gains the benefit of the Weapon Finesse feat with light or one-handed piercing melee weapon, and she can use her Charisma score in place of her Intelligence score as a prerequisite for combat feats. This ability counts as having the Weapon Finesse feat for purpose of meeting feat prerequisites.

It was recently pointed-out to me that, RAW, it is unclear whether "gaining the benefit of Weapon Finesse with this weapon" would be enough to be considered "with Weapon Finesse" for the Agile ability.

I know how I would rule in a home game, but I'm interested in RAW/PFS answers.

The kata master monk archetype has a class features called Panache, which does (emphasis mine):

Panache: At 1st level, a kata master gains the swashbuckler's panache class feature. At the start of each day, a kata master gains a number of panache points equal to his Charisma bonus (minimum 1). His panache goes up or down throughout the day, but usually cannot exceed his Charisma bonus (minimum 1). A kata master gains the swashbuckler's derring-do and dodging panache deeds. A kata master can use an unarmed strike or a monk special weapon in place of a light or one-handed piercing melee weapon for the purpose of {granted} swashbuckler class features and deeds. This ability replaces stunning fist.

To make it more confusing, the word {granted} is present in Advanced class guide book (at least the 1st printing), but not on the PRD.

Can a kata-master/swashbuckler multiclassed character treat his unarmed strike as a piercing one-handed melee weapon for swashbuckler class features not specifically granted by kata master (for instance, swashbuckler's finesse) ?

If no, can it at least do it with other kata master class features than panache ?