harzerkatze's page

It gets even cheesier when you consider that both would also stack with a masterwork weapon giving you a +2/+1 attack/damage situation.

Arcane Pool does not stack with Masterwork, no enhancements do. The +1 to attack and damage replaces the +1 to attack from masterwork.

How do concentration check rules work under multiple distractions?

Say you try to cast a spell while grappled on a ship in violent motion in a hailstorm while being sickened from an ongoing spell. Would that be only one concentration check against the highest DC (probably from being grappled), ignoring all the other effects? Would that be four concentration checks? Would it be one with a DC that is somehow higher?

A more typical example would be casting while under the effect of e.g. Elemental Touch (acid). You both take 1 point of ongoing damage, which calls for a DC 11 + Spell Level, and are sickened for the duration, which calls for a check against Spell save DC + Spell Level.

No. Check the skill description. It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging.

Anyway, in the situation with the drow, it has enough an advantage by being "invisible" that it doesn't matter. The drow will be pinpointed when he attacks but he's a move action away from hiding again.

Hmmm, I am not sure that's how it works.

If you opponent is blinded, you have total concealment.
Core p. 197, total concealment: "You can’t attack an opponent that
has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies."

So the opponent has to figure out where you are, no matter if you have used an action to stealth or not.

"Ignoring concealment" goes on to clarify: "Although invisibility provides total concealment, sighted opponents may still make Perception checks to notice the location of an invisible character. An invisible character gains a +20 bonus on Stealth checks if moving, or a +40
bonus on Stealth checks when not moving (even though opponents can’t see you, they might be able to figure out where you are from other visual or auditory clues)."
But a blinded opponent is not a sighted opponent, he at least has no other visual clues.

So say I battle an opponent, blind him with e.g. Dirty Trick or Blindness, then make a 5-foot step either to the left, right or back.
My understanding is that the opponent does not know where I went, he can only attack a square he guesses I'm in. If he has scent and is adjacent, he pinpoints me automatically, likewise with tremorsense, blindsense or blindsight. Otherwise, he can probably make a perception check vs. my stealth+20, but that is a bit muddy rules-wise, as I am not invisible, he is blinded. Perhaps he has to choose a field to attack and hope I'm there.

As far as I know, the question of delivering touch spells through maneuvers has never been definitivly answered. It's not just a question for the magus, anyone can deliver touch spells through an unarmed strike, and use an unarmed strike to perform a maneuver.

The critical rule is CRB p. 186: "Alternatively, you may make a normal unarmed attack (or an attack with a natural weapon) while holding a charge." Your answer will mostly hinge on how you read "normal" in that context. Is a trip maneuver a normal attack? Some think yes, some think no, I know of no official answer.

A Magus with spellstrike has it a bit easier to argue his part, as spellstrike says "...a magus can make one free melee attack with his weapon (at his highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell." No "normal" there. However, the next sentence goes "If successful, this melee attack deals its normal damage as well as the effects of the spell." That makes it clear that an attack that deals damage was meant, which Trip and Disarm are not.
So it's up to the DM. Personally, I'd say the devellopers didn't think of this option when designing those rules. So don't try to interprete to much into the text.

Regarding spellstrike with sunder, I see no reason to believe that the spell wouldn't be subject to hardness when delivered through an adamantine weapon. The hardness would not apply to the weapon damage, but it would apply to the spell, because those are two different things. It would be like claiming that because energy damage ignores Damage Reduction, a weapon delivering an energy spell should ignore a monsters damage reduction for its weapon damage. Not so, those are two separate damages, and they should be checked separately for resistances, hardness, DR etc. I'd even say that if there is a touch spell that does damage suseptable to DR (don't know if there is), delievering it to an enemy with DR would mean the DR reduces the weapon damage and the spell damage separately.

Regarding the question of whether the critical range applies, opinions are devided. The spellstrike text says "This attack uses the weapon’s
critical range". "This attack", however, relates to the free melee weapon attack, it seems, and a maneuver attack doesn't seem to have a critical hit - it is an automatic success on a 20, but there is nothing about confirmation rolls etc, and it is not called a critical hit or threat, only a success. What happens on a 20 in a meneuver has its own text passage, so you can say the normal crit rules for attacks do not apply, being overwritten in this case, or still apply and this passage is just restating the general rule. Who knows.
So the question whether a maneuver delivering a touch spell, if possible, can crit, is so far beyond what the rules talk about that it is esoteric. Ask your DM or hope for an FAQ. But don't tell me the rules are clear one way or the other.

I'd say no new levels, but he ratains all abilities. Paladins annd clerics channel their gods power, and the god is angry that you left his path, so he doesn't give you power anymore. The barbarian lets himself go and if he gets lawful, his mind has become too ordered for that (which is stupid I admit). Bt an assassin is just someone with a training in murder, why would that training go away? And if used against monsters, why would that be a problem for a neutral assassin?

It should be the other way around: If you continues to assassinate people of humanoid races, his alignment might shift back to evil. But anyway he should still know how to do it.

My understanding is that the evil requirement is implied to mean that assassins will only train someone with their amoral worldview, hence the necessary killing of an innocent. You prove to your trainers thatt you have no qualms. Devellop qualms, and they will not train you further (and probably try to kill you).

OK, I think the point has been argued enough, everybody knows everybody's positions, even if they differ. The devs do not seem likely to change the wording again soon, so lets give it a rest and go back to the rules questions.

A few other things are still unclear to me regarding spell combat:
- Core rulebook p. 182 describes natural attacks, and how they can be combined with regular attacks (mind the errata). Bizarrely, this is done in the section for standard actions, not for full-round actions.
That in turn leads to the description of combining natural attacks with regular attacks not referencing the full-attack action. Am I right to assume that that still means I cannot use spell combat with a spell and a weapon and add a bunch of secondary natural attacks from my polymorphed form? (And that although this is written under Standard Actions, you only get one natural attack with a Standard action unless you can pounce?)

- When I cast a touch spell, I get a free touch attack (or weapon attack with spellstrike). Core rulebook p. 185 says "You may take your move before casting the spell, after touching the target, or between casting the spell and touching the target." Do I understand this correctly that when using spell combat with spellstrike, I can cast a touch spell, take a 5-foot step, attack with the free weapon attacks including the touch charge, and then make my other normal attacks? Or does "take your move" only mean "use a move action to move", which we don't have in a full-round action?

- The FAQ cleared up that natural attacks and unarmed strikes can be used with spellstrike. Do we have an official word yet about whether the Arcana Pool enhancement can be used with unarmed strikes? With a natural attack? With a monks unarmed strike, whose "counts both as natural and manufactured" rules is seen by some as implying it should be treated like any other weapon attack?

- When I cast Shocking Grasp with spellstrike, does my weapon attack also get the +3 to attack vs. metal-clad or wielding opponents? Seems counterintuitive that wielding a metal weapon makes it easier to hit someone wiith a sword.