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The Guy With A Face wrote:
Quote:
This would not have worked sadly because I can't cast vocal spells in fox form.
A ring of eloquence will let you speak in fox form.

Now that is good to know if I'm ever a bit more flush with cash. Right now a new body armor and shield for my humanoid form is a priority but certainly something to keep in mind for later :)


Firebug wrote:

Armor for Unusual Creatures: Note the * next to Tiny or Smaller. That means the armor bonus is halved. It also only is a 1x multiplier on the cost, not 2x.

Literally until its enchanted all armor is worse than Mage Armor on a tiny creature. Full Plate +1 is finally a higher armor bonus of 5 compared to 4.

If you don't want ranks in UMD, and have no one in the party able to buff you with Mage Armor, I would recommend taking the Spell Blending Magus Arcana. Otherwise a rank in UMD, and a Wand Key Ring will succeed more often then not.

Its honestly more about having a weapon to use my arcane pool on (armor spike) than it is about gaining AC. Doesnt mean Mage armor wouldnt be cool ofcourse, but that aside :)

avr wrote:
Doesn't sound like you need it, but Serren's swift girding is a 1st level magus spell which puts armor on you (and your friends if they need it). It takes a standard action so it can be cast using spell combat if desired.

This would not have worked sadly because I can't cast vocal spells in fox form.


When you have one natural attack it is always considered primary and gets 1.5 str to damage. If you have multiple, all the secondaries get only 0.5 str to damage

What happens when you take deadly agility. Is it always 1 dex to damage or does it follow the same 1.5 or 0.5 multipliers as str?

I would assume it follows the multipliers but am unsure.


Thanks for the insights.

Number 2 is indeed less the preferred option as I would not be able to have armor spikes then and those are the only way Ive found so far that seem reasonable to wield an enchantable weapon in fox form. Nevertheless mage armor would still be interesting because whatever barding i pick will be fairly low AC because I dont want to give up dex bonus. The problem is though, that for some reason I can not comprehend, Mage Armor is not a magus spell (you know, the class specifically meant to be a magical fighter .. I'm sure there's a good reason for that).

Number 1 I had also seen as a possibility but it is way too expensive for a 'just in case I ever have to do any fighting in fox form' situation. The idea is very much to be in humanoid form while in combat whenever possible (as I lose the ability to cast spells in fox form as well as wield my black blade).

Number 3 is interesting and I was not aware of it. Its still way too expensive for what would be a fringe benefit for my character but nonetheless interesting as I was not aware of it before, so thanks for that :)

Fortunately the problem is resolved another way as I've talked to the DM to see what he thinks and he seems ok to let the barding meld into and out of my humanoid form, regardless what the RAW says. The fox shape feat is described as working like the spell but flavourwise it is not really casting a spell it is more shapeshifting between forms that a kitsune might naturally have. So he is graciously siding with flavor over RAW as good DMs do!


Is it possible for party members to devise their own language by putting a rank in linguistics?

F.e. A party might want a secret language of their own for communicating. Or it might be usefull to learn a language of yelps and yips for the druid to be able to communicate with the party while in wolf form or whatever.


Andy Brown wrote:
Pretty sure that all primary attacks are at full BAB in a full attack if you're not using a manufactured weapon

Huh, learn everyday. Cool


Critical Assessment wrote:
So I am making a kobold fighter who uses natural attacks he will be a dragon disciple so he will have 2 claws and a bite but I also plan to take the tail terror feat so he will have a tail slam how does that work?

Its a little confusingly written but I think this is how it works:

Natural attacks can be primary or secondary.

When you make a single attack as a standard action, you pick any of your natural weapons and make a single attack with it. If the weapon is primary this attack is at full BAB with full str to damage bonus, if it is secondary it is made a -5 with half strength to damage bonus. If the chosen natural attack has multiple attacks (f.e. 2 claws, 8 tentacles) you still only make one attack.

When you make a full round attack you pick one of your primary natural weapons and attack with them at your full BAB. If that natural attack has multiple attacks (again, f.e. claws) then they all happen at full bab. All your other natural attacks, be they primary or secondary, then happen at a -5.

(Not relevant to you but for the sake of completion: If you only have one natural attack, it is always primary and you get 1.5 times strength bonus to damage)

Individual creature descriptions can override the above. For example a dragons tail slam works differently than most tail slams.

So what does that mean in your case?
You have a bite (primary) and a pair of claws (primary). You will later have a tail slam (secondary).

As a standard action you can attack once with either of them. The tail would be at -5 though, so maybe not pick that one.

As a fullround action you can either bite at full and then claw claw (tail) at -5. You can also claw claw at full and then bite (tail) at -5. Unless there is a particular situational reason to favor your bite, the latter approach is better as you get more attacks at full bab this way.

You can also use manufactured weapon attacks together with natural attacks. In this case you would make all your weapon attacks as normal and then do all your natural attacks at -5. Note that if doing this you can not attack with natural weapons that are not free because of you using a manufactured weapon (f.e. if your claws are occupied wielding an axe, you can not attack with your axe and claws in the same full round attack)


So I have a Kitsune character that took the fox shape racial trait. Meaning that I can choose to be a fox as per beast shape spell at will. This effectively makes me the sneak of the party.

I have a few questions about how barding would work in this case. I understand that I can make barding for my fox form by doubling the cost of an armor from the list of armors. As my dex is quite high I was thinking of just going for a simple padded barding for 1 etra AC and up to 8 dex bonus (though currently I am at 7).

Question 1:
My humanoid shaped armor melds into my body as I change shape to a form that does not support it. Would the reverse also be true if I had fox sized barding? As in would it meld into my body when I went to humanoid form? I would assume strictly RAW this would not be the case. Would there be any other reasonable way around having a party member put on my barding every time I change shape?

Question 2:
My character is a magus. She thus has proficiency in all martial weapons and also the ability to use her arcane pool to temporarily enchant any melee weapon she wields. Would it be possible to add armor spikes to animal barding to use it to attack with in fox shape instead of with my bite attack? This way I could at least enchant it with my arcane pool and have a magical attack in case of need for that (or later even iterative attacks).


Thanks for the advice so far.

Party composition is as follows:
- Melee summoner (Eidolon archetype) Has a lot of hitpoints
- Melee Magus (me)
- Bow Ranger. Has as many hitpoints as I do more or less but obviously is not up front.
- Bombchucking Alchemist. Fights at range, kind of squishy.
- Oracle. Kind of squishy.
- Inquisitor. This is our drop in player. Don't know his build very well but he was up front last time we saw him. For the moment it is unlikely he will attend sessions though.

So there isn't a lot of front line, only me and the summoner. The summoner has reach as well so I generally can't stand behind him if I want to hit something.

I can't take protector familiar as bladebound magus inhibits me from taking other familiars than my black blade.

Various wands of healing and vanish and shields have been considered but as was correctly pointed out, I will have to wait a few extra levels for that. I'll probably move intensified spell down to 3 eventhough I dont have a use for it at this time and move craft wand up. So that won't be till level 5. So far we have not made much in the way of gold so buying wands full price is probably something of an extravagance at this point. Although we should have some money after we come back from the current dungeon and sell some of our loot.

Retraining hitpoints sounds interesting in theory but at 30*current level per 1 hp and 3 days time spent it seems quite costly. Currently it would cost 18 days and 500+ gold to gain 6 hitpoints. Likely by the time we actually will have that kind of downtime we will be level 4 or 5 though so it would be more still. Seeing as I'm currently only down 6 hitpoints of my maximum I feel like I shouldnt really feel low on hitpoints though, unless the game is broken :)

I have a few extra plans for survivability but none of them are for right now. Eventually I hope to have 4 different parry options (iron shell, calm the storm, aerial roll and deavons parry) which I hope will help :) Obviously I also intend to learn some protective buffs but right now spell slots are very limited.


Kaouse wrote:

Ask your DM if you can play a Sublime Warmage, a Magus archetype that replaces cantrips with entry level initiation (but forces you to spend arcana/feats for progression).

Since all it does is replace cantrips, it also stacks with the Kensai and Bladebound archetypes. Kensai is good for not needing armor, but it can still wear and benefit from a Haramaki, since Haramaki armor lacks Arcane Spell Failure as well as Armor Check Penalty.

Bladebound is just there to save money on your sword, allowing you to purchase better items. If you have high DEX and INT, then you're set.

I really just took bladebound because having a sword buddy seemed cool. I'm a recovering minmaxer from the 3.5 DnD days so I am purposefully trying to make choices based on 'that looks cool' rather than 'that seems mathematically optimal'

I'm not necessarily looking to have the most optimally min maxed character in the world, I just feel like despite that I'm going down easier than my stats would suggest. I can't imagine that paizo published adventure paths would be balanced towards only being possibly with minmaxed characters so I was wondering if I'm doing anything particularly wrong.

I took hexcrafter because I really like the idea of the prehensile hair hex (and also the flight hex but really mostly the mad hair). Coupled with the extra AoO gimmicks from Bushi that seems like it could be a neat battlefield controller. I'd just like to survive until then is the problem :)

Honestly Im not that bummed about the level dip. Yes it slows down spell progression a bit but I feel like I got a lot from it as well. There is more cool stuff in the Warder(Bushi) kit than just the low level initiation. And I took a perk that lets me make up up to two caster levels from multiclassing so at least I'm not missing out in that department. I'm even considering taking second level of bushi around 7 (If i can make it there) to get an extra higher level maneuver, retrain another one and get a second stance. To be determined though. But I really don't see how going straight magus would have made me more survivable. More damaging maybe yes but not survivable I think.


avr wrote:
If you can get scrolls or a wand of infernal healing for use out of combat and cast shield in combat that would probably work better. I don't know what's taken you out or the circumstances so it's hard to come up with more there.

I took craft wand at level 3 to make my own wands but it was only during the current dungeon we are in so haven't had time (or money really) to make one yet (let alone buy one). But healing wands are for sure part of the plan.

We also found a CLW wand with a few charges as well as a couple of health potions along the way but those all ran out real quick :) I think we have 2 or 3 healing potions left which I hope somebody will be able to feed to my unconscious character otherwise I'm not really sure how I'm going to get out of this dungeon :)

I'll detail how I went down but please no spoilers about any place I don't specifically mention since we haven't completed the adventure path or the dungeon yet.

Spoiler:
The first time I got dropped was by Ripnugget who charged me and did .. I don't know .. All of the damage.
The second time was against a Barghest in the basement under that same fortress somewhere who took me from 21 to -5 in one round. I wasn't standing in front but it has reach so .. yeah


So I'm playing in a 5-6 player (we have a drop-in sometimes) campaign of rise of the runelords.

My character is a lvl 1 bushi/lvl 2 hexcrafter bladebound magus (probably not optimal but whatever).

Ive nearly died twice now, getting dropped from over 50% health to negative in one round. I won't say how or where to avoid spoilers but we are still on the first adventure path.

Defensive abilities:
My hp is 31. (con 16)
My AC is 19.
I have the iron shell maneuver to occasionally negate an attack.
My saves are 8/4/5
I fight at a small distance using reaching blade stance.
I generally prepare 1 or 2 infernal healing spells a day to try and stay at a good health level.

While these are not ubertank stats, I feel like they shouldn't be squishy stats either. Yet I keep dying. Sure I could stand at range and plink at things with my shortbow but magus is a melee class (mostly, I know there are ranged builds). Surely always standing at range is not the intended

What are some ways that I could boost my survivability? My damage contribution is fine but I go down like nothing despite the fact that I don't feel like I've built the character glass cannon.