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The Tekko-kagi (Ultimate Equipment p. 38) can be used defensively like a buckler.

- Does that mean a monk could use it to gain a shield bones while retaining his monk AC bonus, seeing that is not a shield, even though used like one? A mithral Tekko-kagi would have no ACP and thuswould need no shield proficiency.

- Could a Tekko-kagi be enchanted with shield enhancement, like a shield that can also be used as weapon can also be enchanted as weapon?

Hi there,

I thought I had grappling all figured out, but along comes a new character and suddenly I stumble about new questions. Hope you guys/gals can help me figure them out.

Two separate issues:
1) I stumbled about the difficulty to actually maintain a pin against someone. Now we all know that escaping a pin or a grapple goes against your CMD, not your grapple combat maneuver check, and that is often not very high and hard to boost. But that's not what tripped me up. It was when I noticed this:

Despite pinning your opponent, you still only have the grappled condition, but you lose your Dexterity bonus to AC.

Any penalties to a creature’s AC also apply to its CMD. A flat-footed creature does not add its Dexterity bonus to its CMD.

Any situation that denies you your Dexterity bonus also denies you dodge bonuses.

If you are grappled, you can attempt to break the grapple as a standard action by making a combat maneuver check (DC equal to your opponent’s CMD;

Let me get this straight: When I have someone pinned, to escape he only has to roll against my CMD WITHOUT MY DEXTERITY MODIFIER, without any dodge bonuses and with an additional -4 to my Dexterity from being grappled? (The latter only has an effect if my Dex is 12 or below). Is that supposed to be that way?

To make things worse, almost no effect seems to improve my chances of actually keeping someone pinned. All of the grapple feats, items etc only give a bonus to grapple checks, not to defense against escape. Even the Improved Grapple feat is worded vaguely enough that I am not sure it applies when someone wants to escape my pin.
Is the DC to escape my pin really practically only 10 + my BAB + Strength bonus? (A ring of protection won't make much of a difference there.)
That seems trivial after a few levels, when I look at the opponents CMBs.

2)

Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll.

Does this penalty also apply to the Combat Maneuver check to escape a grapple or a pin that an opponents has to do, if they e.g. don't want to drop their sword help in one hand?

I just stumbled across the Flying Talon.
I thought that was only from the previous edition, e.g. the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting (PZO1111).

- Is that an actual Pathfinder weapon allowed under the current rules?

- The Wording is strange. Are the +2 to disarm in addition to the +2 granted from the disarm weapon special feature? It grants +2 to trip, and the trip special feature doesn't, although I suspect that that is a relict of the 3.0 rules.
Also, does "The talon gives its wielder a reach of 10 feet." just mean it's a reach weapon, so you cannot attack adjacent, or does it actually give you reach?

It seems a departure from all other weapons, being a light reach weapon.
Mages could really use that for spellstrike at 10 feet, and for reaping AoOs from closing medium enemies.

Now that the Bestiary 4 includes the Kasatha, a player race with four arms, I am curious what other DMs would allow such a character to do with that. I know that the rules strictly RAW give you more off-hand attacks and nothing else, but of course players would like to use those hands for other things, too. And many limitations only exist because almost any race has only two arms, so that's what developers thought about.

So would you allow e.g. the following things?

1) The character has multi-weapon fighting and wants to draw 4 weapons or weapon-like objects as one move action. The rules only allow drawing two when you have two-weapon fighting.

2) Wielding a weapon to make AoOs, a shield, a metamagic rod and casting a modified spell with somatic components at the same time.

3) In a grapple, characters can only do things that require one haand, probably because the other has to hold the enemy. As this character has more hands, would you allow actions that require more hands, e.g. spellcasting with a metamagic rod? Attacks using multiweapon fighting with three hands? Wielding a greatsword?

4) If I have a Kasatha Magus, would you give spell combat more attacks? Spell Combat is like Two-weapon fighting, but a Kasatha uses multiweapon fighting in place of two-weapon fighting.

The Limp Lash FAQ showed me that I do not really understand one game concept: What kinds of spells end when the line of effect is broken after they have been cast?

The FAQ says breaking the line of effect ends the spell, so if a target moves around a corner or behind a column, the spell would be over. Does that apply to other spells as well? My understanding always was that as long as you had line of effect when casting a spell, what happens later doesn't matter, neither regarding line of effect nor range. You cannot outrun a charm spell or curse or a summoned creature. The only similar example I know is Flaming Sphere that winks out if out of range.

Or am I mistaken, and spells only last if you keep near enough?

Here is my question regarding the Create Pit spell:

"Reflex negates"... What happens when I create a pit under someone and he makes his save?

- Does the spell fail (the text "Any creature standing in the area where you first conjured the pit must make a Reflex saving throw to avoid falling into it." does not sound like that)?

- Does he get moved from the area (where)? What if there is nowhere to move (the famous 10'x10' room with an orc and a chest...)

- Does he hover in place?

Also, do you have to bull rush opponents into the pit fields, or the surrounding sloped fields to make them fall down automatically?

This spell would be SO MUCH FUN with Improved Trip and Ki Throw...

Say my magus casts Elemental Touch in one round and then Chill Touch the next. The former grants him a touch attack, the latter a couple of touch spell charges.
If I now make the free touch attack from the Chill Touch spell and hit, do I deal both Chill Touch and Elemental Touch damage?

It is clear that Elemental Touch damage is added to unarmed strikes. But does it add to other touch attacks, too?

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.

This question is about the Ready action. As a standard action, you can ready a standard action to trigger to a certain event. My question concerns readying spells to trigger when an opponent casts a spell.

Say I am fighting a wizard. On my turn, I ready casting Scorching Rays on him if he casts a spell. He does, I hit with my two rays and deal 28 points of damage. Does he have to make a concentration check against 38 + spell level for being damaged while casting, or not?

The confusion arises from the fact that on the one hand, Readying is described as happening before a trigger, so one could say the spellcaster has not yet started casting the spell and thus doesn't have to make a concentration check. On the other hand, you can explicitely ready an attack to disrupt the spellcaster while he is casting a spell. And making an attack is that same action as casting a spell: A standard action. The Ready description explicitely says "If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character." Does that mean he has to make a concentration check if interrupted while spellcasting?

So another ways of asking this questions seems to be: Is the proceding described under "Distracting Spellcasters" on Core p. 203 just an explanation to the ready mechanics and you can do the same with other standard actions, or is it a special rule that works differently?

If this is legal, it seems to be a much more effective way of dealing with spellcasters that counterspelling, as you both deal damage and stop them from casting.

In my group, there is some confusion about how and with which action you use certain things in spellcasting. I would appreciate if someone could clarify these to me and point me to where these things are explained in the rulebook.

1) Material components. On the one hand, it seems that you have to have those in a hand to use them, since you can't cast spells with material components when pinned, on the other hand you do not seem to need to draw them as an action. Is my understanding correct that you have to draw them with a free hand, but that that is part of the spellcasting action (even for a quickened spell) and uses the same hand used for somatic components? But you cannot cast a spell with material components if both hands are full, even if that has no somatic components (e.g. from the Still Spell feat).

2) Metamagic rods. Do you need to hold them in another hand than the one doing the somatic and/or material components, or do you wave the rod Harry-Potter-style for the somatic component? Asked differently, can you cast a somatic components spell using a metamagic rod when you only have one hand free? How about a material component spell?

3) Potions, Wands and other items that effectively cast spells. Is my understanding correct that you first need to draw these as a separate action before using them as standard actions? Wands are drawn like weapons, but how about potions? Are they drawn with the 'Retrieve an item' action, provoking AoOs, or is there a way to draw them safely like weapons? What is the effect of a bandolier, seeing that getting stuff out of a backpack is the same action?

4) Scrolls. Is drawing a scroll part of using it, or is that a separate action?

Dragoncatch Guisarme : "A dragoncatch guisarme can be used to make a special trip maneuver against creatures using wings to fly. If the maneuver succeeds, the target's wings are fouled and the creature is knocked off balance, falling to the ground and gaining the entangled condition."

My question: If I trip a winged flying opponents hovering in front of me 5 feet off the ground with a dragoncatch guisarme, is he prone and entangled, or upright and entangled? Asked differently, is the entangled condition bestowed instead of the prone condition of a regular trip, or in addition to it?

Here is a weird idea: I have a monk/magus character.
Say I took the hexcrafter archetype and chose prehensive hair (UM p. 81) for my hex.
Can I make unarmed attacks with my hair?

My understanding is no, because the monks description says: "A monk’s attacks may be with fist, elbows, knees, and feet." Hair is not listed. (I wonder why...)

But I remember people says that a monk can attack with any part of their body. Is that just inprecise remembering of the text, a wider interpretation of the above passage, or it that officially written somewhere?

If it worked, it would obviously be great, the hair uses Intelligence instead of Strength for attack and damage and has 10 ft reach...

Here is a new point for the Pathfinder Advanced Players Guide Errata that is not yet included:
The feat list on p. 154 writes for the feat Perfect Strike:
"Roll twice for unarmed strikes and take the better roll"

The feat description on p. 166 however limits perfect strike to non-unarmed strikes: "You must use one of the following weapons to make the attack: kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, and siangham."

Since both cannot be correct at once, one of them should be taken up into the errata, to avoid confusion.

I have a few questions regarding rods. Say I am a magus wielding a Metamagic Rod of some kind.
1) Is my understanding correst that to use the rod, I have to hold it in one hand and cast the spells somatic component with the other, so I cannot hold anything else while trying this? Or can I wave the rod Harry-Potter-style for the somatic components?
2) Since it is not explicitely said, can I use the rod to attack like with a club, or does that only work for rods that explicitely say that? The rod descriptions seems a bit vague, saying that "many" funcion as mace or club. If I craft the rod myself, can I craft one to work like a club?
3) Can I quick-draw a rod, at least if it counts as a club, even if I use it to cast spells instead of hitting people with it?
4) If I have the Rod Wielder magus arcana from Complete Combat p. 55, does "when making a spellstrike attack channeled through a rod" mean using the rod as weapon to deliver the spell? Or is it enough to use the rod in casting the spell (e.g. attacking unarmed to spellstrike)?

Hi there,

does anyone know how I could make a wooden rapier per the rules that stays how it is? The stone age material rules provide rules for making one of obsidian, stone or bone, but for some reason not wood, although that has the same hardness as bone and thus could be just as suited/unsuited. The ironwood spell allows the making of one, but that only keeps for a few days.
Is there a way to make one that I can then have enchanted and use as my main weapon henceforth? E.g. can ironwood be made permanent somehow?

Thanks.

Hi there,

I read that changing from wielding a two-handed weapon to just holding it in one hand is a free action. Has theer been clarifications whether taking it back into a two-handed grip (wielding it again) is also a free action?

The reason for my asking in this: My character is a Monk 1/Magus X.
He would like to wield a reach weapon to threaten more than the surrounding squares when it is not his turn. Then, on his turn, he would let go of one hand as a free action, no longer wielding the polearm. That hand can be used for spellcasting when using Magus spell combat, while his attacks are made using the monk unarmed strike, which doesn't require hands. Effectively he uses one hand for somatic components, and one for holding the polearm, kicking with his feet (monks explicitely can attack with both hands otherwise occupied).
At the end of the round, he would wield the polearm again as a free action, threatening a wider area again.

Is that legal?

I realize that "wielding a light weapon in one hand" isn't exactly the same as making an unarmed strike with hands full. But my group agrees that the design intent of the monks ability to attack with hands full is to count in cases where normally you would wield a weapon in one hand, it is just a special case that is not reflected in every wording. We also allow the unarmed strike to be enchanted by the Arcane Pool, even it it is technically not a "weapon he is holding". Our view is that the wording isn't meant that exclusively.

So the main thrust of the question is what action it is to wield a weapon held in one hand.