Creatures with the incorporeal condition do not have a physical body. Incorporeal creatures are immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Incorporeal creatures take half damage (50%) from magic weapons, spells, spell-like effects, and supernatural effects. Incorporeal creatures take full damage from other incorporeal creatures and effects, as well as all force effects.
I believe the pure, "words on the page" reading is that weapons treated as magic for the purpose of DR should not be able to harm incorporeal creatures. It seems a little strange that a Glabrezu wouldn't be able to harm a Shadow with any of its weapons, but a straight reading does certainly say that. I think a lot of people have feeling and probably always assumed that weapons treated as magic for DR should work, so it seems like a possibly common misunderstanding.
So question:
Are weapons which are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction capable of injuring an incorporeal creature?
I was unable to find a definitive answer on this, so perhaps my google-fu has failed me. If there's a clear developer answer, please enlighten me. Otherwise, is this simply a common misunderstanding that most people have simply overlooked or is it FAQ-worthy?
Ok, so I feel like I know the answer to this, but I wanted to ask to make sure I wasn't missing something. I've seen a few posts from time to time saying that you cannot move in the same round as when you Ready an action. I'd shrug it off except the last public PFS game I played in, the GM said the same thing.
After moving into position, a character wanted to ready an attack for when the enemy approached. But the GM said that couldn't be done - you can move and act or ready, but not both. We didn't really get into why, just moved beyond it to keep things moving, but it seems wrong to me.
Of the posts I've seen, people mention it's because Readying is itself a Standard Action. It's listed that way on the Table in the Combat section. So, the argument seems to go, you cannot Move and Ready because ... frankly I'm not sure. I guess that Readying uses up the Standard Action, then the rest of your action for that round is used up by whatever action you take when your Readied action is triggered (though I wonder how you could ever actually Ready a Standard Action, then).
Ready is described as Special Initiative Action that lets you reserve the ability to take up to a Standard Action at a later point in the round.
Ready wrote:
Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.
You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don't otherwise move any distance during the round.
I've always interpreted Readying not as using your standard action but, essentially, as saving your standard action to be used later. And I think the last quoted line supports that. You can take a 5-foot step as a part of a readied action, but only if you haven't moved that round. To me that pretty clearly means you can move prior to Readying.
So, Question 1: Can you use a separate move action in the same round as when you Ready an action? Am I reading this correctly and the PFS GM was incorrect, or am I missing something and if so, please explain.
If I'm correct on the first question, as a follow up I was always under the assumption that what you Ready is a Standard Action (which you can then use to do an actual Standard Action, a Move Action instead, or whatever). However, the text says you can Ready a Standard Action, a Move Action, a Swift Action, or a Free Action.
So, Question 2: Can you for instance cast a spell (as a Standard Action), then Ready a Move Action (Run Away!) triggering whenever an enemy closes within 10' of you (or whatever)? In other words, Ready lets you "save" one of whatever portion of your actions you haven't used during your ordinary initiative order until a later point in the round, the consequence of which is either forfeiting that action if it's never triggered or resetting you in the initiative order from there on out.
I know the question has cropped up before, but I haven't found a definitive answer (though I could simply have just missed it). Can you apply Keen to an AoMF?
Typically, only abilities that can be applied to Unarmed Attacks work.
Amulet of Might Fists wrote:
Alternatively, this amulet can grant melee weapon special abilities, so long as they can be applied to unarmed attacks.
Unarmed Strikes ordinarily apply bludgeoning damage, but that can be modified with Combat Styles (e.g., Boar for piercing and Tiger for slashing). Additionally, AoMF applies to Natural Weapons, which often are slashing or piercing (or both).
So, the question is: Can you apply the Keen ability to an Amulet of Might Fists if the user has the ability to do piercing or slashing damage with Unarmed Strikes or Natural Attacks?
I can see it going a few ways. The prohibition is intended to simply be blanket for the sake of uniformity and simplicity. Alternatively, the prohibition is a generic statement for the ordinary situation, so if you can meet the criteria for Keen on your UAS/Natural Weapons, then you can apply it to an AoMF. Finally, the line specifically mentions unarmed attacks but not Natural Weapons, so if you can meet the criteria for Keen on your UAS, then you can apply it to an AoMF for UAS, but it still wouldn't apply to Natural Weapons (because that would be too strong of a benefit for monsters and/or characters with multiple Natural Weapons).
I feel like I've seen something in regards to that third option being said by a developer before, but I could be misremembering and I couldn't find it anyway. So, if anybody's google-fu is better than mine, please enlighten me. Otherwise, what are your thoughts? FAQ worthy or no?
This came up because I'm running a Tiefling Natural Weapon Ranger and plan on taking a couple of levels in Barbarian later. So, eventually I'll have d6 Bite, d8 Gore (while raging), and 2xd4 Claws. Obviously, being able to apply Keen would be a nice little boost. But I can certainly see how that might be considered overpowered.
Ok, I'm venturing into PFS for the first time this weekend and wanted to pick some brains on my character build. I've got a few questions but I don't want to inundate people with a Wall of Text, so I'll spoiler a lot of it.
What I know is that I'm playing an Oni-Spawn Tiefling Urban Ranger with Natural Weapon as my combat style.
Stats are as follows (racial bonuses in parentheses):
Str - 18 (16+2)
Dex - 14
Con - 14
Int - 10
Wis - 14 (12+2)
Cha - 6 (8-2)
I've taken mostly alternate racial abilities since I have no desire to do anything with sorcery. Took Maw (1d6 bite attack) instead of the SLA (Alter Self), Scaled Skin (+1 Nat. Armor) instead of Resistances, Fiendish Sprinter (+10' on run/charge/withdraw) instead of Skilled (+2 to Disguise & Intimidate), and Prehensile Tail instead of Sorcery (which would be useless for me).
So, my questions are as follows:
What are good mid-level feats (I haven't played a ton of melee-oriented characters, so I'm not familiar with the actual utility of some of this stuff)?
I'm considering a dip into Barbarian, so when and how many levels?
Hunter's Bond v. Animal Companion
I'm going Urban Ranger right now, but I'm not married to that idea if something else fits the flavor. First Favored Enemy is Human.
FEATS
Spoiler:
My first level feat is Power Attack. At second level, I plan to take Aspect of the Beast (Claws) to get 2x1d4 claw attacks, so I'd have Bite (1d6), Claw (1d4), Claw (1d4) for full attack. For my next combat style feat at 6th I'm likely planning on taking Eldritch Claws so natural attacks will count as magical and silver. At 10th level, I'm probably going to do Multiattack, since that would allow me to reduce the attack penalty with my natural weapons to -2 while using a regular weapon and get all my iteratives. However, I've also considered Improved Natural Attack on the Bite since I could put something like Keen on an AoMF.
But I'm not entirely sure how I want to go, so I'm hoping for some thoughts on what else I can do. Things I'm considering: Step Up and the related feats; Improved/Greater Drag/Bull Rush; Intimidating Prowess (if I do, I'll drop the Sprinter Feature and keep the bonus to Intimidate).
I don't think Rend would make much sense (it's only 1d6) unless there's feats down the road that build on it that make it worthwhile. I've thought about Vital Strike if I do Imp. Natural Attack on Bite at 6th level. But meh. Is the Fiendish Sight stuff worth much?
I'm pretty sure I want to take Lunge when that's available, but other than that I'm not really sure. So really I'm looking for some potential build ideas that work with the flavor I've got going.
BARBARIAN DIP
Spoiler:
I like the idea of raging and running into battle to rip things apart. Obviously, Barbarian fits well into that theme. A one-level dip would get me Rage and Fast Movement. A two-level dip would get me Uncanny Dodge and a Rage Power (probably something like Scent). If I did, I'd go for a level probably at 3rd, but I also don't know if I want to put of the Ranger Combat style stuff all that much. So if I go two maybe the first level at 3rd and the second at 8th (so I can get 6th in Ranger first)?
I also have to admit I'm not particularly well-versed in Barbarian, so if there are other good thematic rage powers or archetypes that would work, I'm all ears.
I don't want to go with the Wild Stalker Ranger archetype. I do know that.
ANIMAL COMPANION
Spoiler:
I've never been all that impressed with the Hunter's Companions version of this, so by default I'm leaning towards Animal Companion. But, if the other version of this is more useful than I'm giving it credit for, please let me know. Urban Ranger loses Handle Animal as a class skill. Right now I'm taking a trait that makes it a class skill again. However, I'm also debating the trait that lets me treat UMD as a class skill.
I suppose my question is would I rather have an Animal Companion and Handle Animal as a class skill (action economy is great, but it's the Ranger version not Druid, so it's underpowered) or the other Hunter's Bond and UMD? With a bad charisma, I can't see either of these being particularly useful without being a class skill. So Animal Companion or UMD?
So that's it. I appreciate any feedback on this. Really I guess I'm asking how you might design this character if you were playing it (based on the flavor I'm going for here). Any quality feats I'm ignoring? Any archetypes I should check out? All that stuff.
The sword always forces that character to employ it rather than another weapon. The sword's owner automatically draws it and fights with it even when she meant to draw or ready some other weapon.
In game, I said he could TWF, but his primary hand had to be the cursed weapon and if he ever made only one attack, it had to be with the cursed weapon.
It works out fine that way, I think. But what does everybody else think?
It didn't come up, but what would you do if the character wanted to Two-Weapon Feint (make a feint with his first melee attack)? Would you have the curse penalty apply to the feint check, etc.?