frakeer's page

Should I be treating my level 12 wild shape ability as one, all encompassing spell like ability (beast, elemental, plant shape spell)? The most basic explanation of what I am asking is if I change into a Sargassum Fiend do I get the swim speed of 40? Do I lose the climb 20? Plant shape makes no mention at all of gaining swim, climb, burrow etc. but my beast shape allows it. The Plant shape spell even implies that you do get different means of movement.

"If the form you assume does not possess the ability to move, your speed is reduced to 5 feet and you lose all other forms of movement."

Elementals are very specific that the extra traits you gain are when in a specific elemental form so no issues there but it seems that "Wild Shape" should function as one class trait instead of 3.

The wording of Wild Shape does imply we are activating one of three different abilities ("When taking the form of animals, a druid's wild shape now functions as... ") But I can't find any reason to enforce this (other than RAW) and it seems kind of stupid to allow a swimming animal its swim speed and not a swimming plant.

To be plain. Should I be using this ability like three separate spell like abilities or is there an obscure rule out there somewhere that supports blending outside examples as to how a class skill should work? I can't help thinking about all the issues caused by using "like Two Weapon Fighting" as an explanation for how "Flurry of Blows" works. The Brawler's version is so much more concise and our group use that function of Two weapon fighting being conditionally on or off as the norm.

Does the Tentacle Cloak get +8? The Monster entry for grab gives it an un-named +4 bonus and the Cloak gives a +4 "competence" bonus. Even if the cloak itself doesn't give both bonuses, Shouldn't a wild shaped Dire Tiger get +8?

Google supports thread resurrection.

I may offer a solution to this. 1 durable arrow costs 20 times as much as a single common arrow.

1 durable arrow = 1gp
1 common arrow = 5cp (5cp x 20 arrows =100cp or 1 gp)
1 common Shuriken = 2sp (2sp x 5 Shuriken = 10sp or 1 gp)
1 durable Shuriken = 4gp (20 x 2sp = 40sp or 4gp)

After that it's just like making a durable arrow with Adamantine. 60+4 gp for each durable Shuriken that would have the same qualities as the durable adamantine arrows @ 60+1gp for each.

" Ammunition (Bow): Arrow(s), Durable

Benefit: Durable arrows don’t break due to normal use, whether or not they hit their target; unless the arrow goes missing, an archer can retrieve and reuse a durable arrow again and again. Durable arrows can be broken in other ways (such as deliberate snapping, hitting a fire elemental, and so on).

Drawback: If crafted with magic (such as bane), the magic only lasts for one use of the arrow, but the non magical arrow can still be reused or imbued with magic again."

And besides, a durable Shuriken makes a bit more sense than a durable arrow. Arrows can travel at 200+mph while it would take an all star baseball player to get a shuriken above 90mph. On a common arrow, the wood can break and the tips are designed to break apart inside the foe to do more damage. Shurikens were not. A skilled person with a whetstone could fix a sharpened piece of metal that had enough weight to be thrown 50 feet.
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Point is, if someone can make a durable arrow, it should be easier to make a durable shuriken for around the same price.

I didn't specify that the 30' to 60' range increase only affects people with low light vision. Normal and darkvision are not affected beyond 30'

"This 1-foot-long, silver-tipped tin rod glows dimly when struck as a standard action. IT SHEDS DIM LIGHT IN A 30-FOOT RADIUS. However, the light given off by a moonrod is particularly easily to perceive for creatures with low-light vision. For such creatures, a moonrod increases the light level by one step (to a maximum of normal) for a 60-foot radius."

The Moonrod produces dim light for everyone (with normal and dark vision) for 30 feet. players that have Low light improves that to normal.
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30' to 60' the moonrod increases darkness 1 step to dim and/or dim 1 step to normal.
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That's how I read it.

I suppose everything can't get fixed at once. :D
I don't see how they could have been any more concise than the current explanation of an alternate class. It says it is a class and it says it has the same mechanics of its base class.
To me, it doesn't seem like the question is "should we be able to apply Rogue archetypes to a ninja"... we should be asking how can we make it happen.
Is this a RPG or what? :)

Has this been updated in another FAQ somewhere?
It seems everyone here that is trying to apply RAW to this are confusing the rule for a class qualifying for an archetype with the rule for applying multiple archetypes to a class.
Ninja's are a class that operates exactly as a Rogue class, save that a character who takes a level in the ninja class can never take a level in the rogue class.
Just as the ninja class is the rogue class spelled with different letters, so too are all the ninja class features just rogue class features... differently worded.
The idea Submit2me put forth is closer to RAW than saying "no" to all but 2 archetypes. All the Ninja class features are granted at the same intervals as the Rogues with one exception, Light Step. If you just assign a number to each class feature at the level they are granted and have the archetype affect the #_ class feature, there would be no problem.
None of the Pathfinder Rogue archetypes, that I could see at a glance, would break any game mechanics if applied to a ninja. It makes me sad that no one will play a ninja just because they think they are so rigidly controlled.
As for the Light Step issue I would either group it with "no trace" and have the "light Step" ability unlock at lvl6 or call it the cost of taking an archetype. "... while you were becoming a knife master, you missed the lesson on water walking." Regardless of how the GM solves that small issue, There are no rules written (that I have come across) that says that a class must have the class feature(s) an archetype (that can only be applied to that class) must change/replace. It does say that the character must take them all and that other archetypes cannot overlap with its class features.
After all... RAW does not stand for rules as implied. Personally I would allow (and encourage) this.
The ninja is a re-written rogue. In my book ALL the rules for rogue get re-written... including its archetypes.

Ahhh! there are actual "mind daggers" available in the blade skills. Problem solved. :D

No that was a re-write of the existing rule... the "made from" text within brackets doesn't exist.
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I guess a more concise question would be: when I form a mind blade, would declaring it a dagger qualify it as a dagger. Being made of materials like Mithral or iron doesn't change the fact that I am holding a dagger. Why should making a dagger out of energy be any different.

Subject: Rogue (Knife master archetype) Soulknife (cut throat Archetype)
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If I forge an edge weapon out of iron it is not a weapon that qualifies for weapon focus/specialization. It needs to be declared a longsword, rapier, dagger etc. I get to choose that.
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As far as I can tell, declaring that I am forming a dagger out of psychic energy gives it the "Dagger" and the "formed weapon" qualities which would qualify it for the d8 sneak attack damage.
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Am I missing a rule somewhere? The rule that says "When she makes a sneak attack with a dagger, kerambit, kukri, punching daggers, starknife, or swordbreaker dagger, (made only from wood, bone, glass, metal, stone or something other than psychic energy) she uses d8s to roll sneak attack damage instead of d6s.