omegamage's page

You are absolutely right about the inventor feat: it does specify common only. Still, the uncommon and rare formulae had to come from somewhere.

Maybe I should add in Master or Legendary proficiency in the magic type to develop uncommon or rare items. Thank you for the correction.

So I just finished going line by line through the item crafting and spell learning rules, and I noticed that there is no way to research spells on your own. The only way currently listed to learn new spells is to level up or to copy from someone else.

Is there an official rule for this?

My current thoughts for home rules are to require the inventor and magic crafting feats and use the formula system as is. The formula level for a spell would be double the spell level. Uncommon spells get +1 to the formula level, and Rare spells get +2.

So, I love the airgun. Silent sniper is best sniper, but how do we refill the compressed air capsules?

19. Use Baleful Polymorph to open a pet store - keep a chicken coop in the back for source material.

Meh. I finished the book. No answers to my questions so I will be treating it as a minute per level effect that doesn't stack with itself.

So I just received the book of the damned in the mail (well worth it), and I realized that there is no listed duration for the untyped bonuses granted by angazhan's final sentinel boon. The feat in the book says that this means it has an unlimited duration unless uses per day have been specified. The ability is three uses per day.
Can someone please let me know what I am missing? Does the ability stack with itself as an untyped bonus? How long does it last? Very confused on this one.

Omegamage--

I still find your calculations to be mind-bogglingly ridiculous. No medieval shield, tower or otherwise, was made to deal with modern high-velocity rifle rounds. As someone else already noted-- typical thickness for a steel shield (including tower shields) is probably 1/8" thick. Or, in the case of shields from the middle ages-- still wood with a thinner layer of metal over the top (usually). Also, try the calculations on just how freakin' heavy a "heavy" shield would actually BE if it were steel 1" thick!!!!!!!!

People made shields to resist sword and mace strikes, and maybe hits from arrows and crossbow bolts-- strong enough to do that? Strong enough to do the job.... figure THAT out, then figure a realistic thickness to accomplish that, and then let the rest of us know what you've found out-- maybe it'll make sense, maybe we'll find more holes in your conclusions.

A very fair request, and one I have a basic answer for. The best comparison I have been able to find rates a 300 pound draw crossbow (common in the late middle ages and a workable equivalent for a high STR rated composite longbow) as possessing similar penetrating capabilities to a 7.62 NATO round. Said rounds can be stopped by 3/8 inch mild steel. This would halve the weight.

I will go one better though, and point out that since mithral is half again as hard as steel, an equally defensive shield would only need to be 2/3 as thick. This would be a final result of 4 feet by 2.5 feet by .25 inches and would only weigh about 59.3 pounds.

While this is nowhere near as protective as I would like, a hardening spell and a nice enhancement bonus would resolve most of my worries. The new base price of 30030 gold is much nicer too.

So after doing some research, the minimum thickness of steel which will consistently stop rifle rounds at 100 yards is 1 inch. Note that this is for mild steel, which is the most common variety of steel and is what I used for the density calculation.

The tower shield is based on the Roman septum, which was 4 feet by 2.5 feet. I will therefore keep those measurements. If I set a minimum of 10% of the total weight aside for handles and mounting, while remaining as close to one inch as possible within the previously calculated weight, I get a result of .77 inches thick.

Given the capacity of high STR characters to use piercing weapons, I feel this is not unreasonable. Final result: steel tower shield of 356 pounds 4 feet by 2.5 feet by .77 inches. Mithral tower shield of 178 pounds same dimensions.

Final price for mithral shield 89030 gold.

Steel, being much stronger than wood, would make the tower shield thinner for the same level of protection. A 1 inch thick steel shield (or for that matter, a 1 inch thick wood shield, except for maybe the center of the shield but not the whole thing) is ridiculous. Plate armor varied in thickness, but you were looking at around 1/8th of an inch at most.

From a rules standpoint, we do have2 things to work from. Light and heavy shields come in both wood and metal forms. Do a bit of math, and you see that the steel versions weigh between 1.2x the wood version (for light shields) to 1.5x (heavy version). Even if the ratio is larger for a steel tower shield, you are probably only looking at something 2x as heavy, so 90 pounds for a steel tower shield.

I have to disagree with you slightly. Bear with me for a second. The formula I obtained, see above, was by using the variable weight difference between wood and steel on all three shields listed (light, heavy, and quick draw). I didn't want to just arbitrarily create a ratio for wood to steel so I ran a best fit curve through those three points and extrapolated for a 45 pound tower shield. Then I checked density values to make sure my results were in the right ballpark.

Next, while you are sort-of right about armor thickness values, you are also sort-of wrong. Yes, full plate would have to be thin - especially around the joints - in certain areas and thicker in others. Equally, some shields would have a much thicker center than rim. Those would be round shields and would be designed that way to be well balanced and easy to carry. The variable thickness would also help reflect the force of blows by directing it away from the center. All correct and I agree with your point for them.

This is a tower shield. Effectively it is a mobile door (albeit a small one) and is intended to be able to cover you entirely from enemy fire (often literally in Pathfinder). Having any part be thinner would be to have a weak point immediately in front of some (hopefully non-essential) body part. That is the reason I gave the dimensions I did.

Double checking my math I did miss a dimension by a bit. The shield is actually only 4 feet by 2.14 feet by 1 inch. You may well be right that that is quite thick. Let me alter this a bit to 4.5 feet by 2.5 feet by .5 inch and use the remaining weight for grip and mounting. That does look better to me.

Absolutely it does. Per mithral rules a standard item primarily made of wood gains no mechanical bonus for being made of mithral. That is why I did the calculation to make a steel shield first. It is also why I am posting in this forum rather than any of the rules questions or gameplay ones.

Because a mithral tower shield only weighs 22 pounds in pathfinder...

Also, I doubt that a tower shield is a solid hunks of steel.

Oh sure, realism makes this ridiculous. I was just laughing that at the listed weight of that shield it would be thinner than the tablet from which I am posting.

Actually, after checking carrying capacity lists, 178 pounds isn't that bad for a character with 24 STR or higher. This may actually be feasible.

So I have been reading through the posts on desire for mithral tower shields and I decided to do the math to amuse myself. I plugged the three shields listed that are either wood or metal into a graphing calculator and ran a best fit line. .2x^2 - 1.2x + 7 if you care. Using this, I got a weight of about 358 pounds for the steel shield. This would be a steel shield 4 feet tall by 2.5 feet wide by 1 inch thick, based on the density of steel. Value for density taken from aqua-calc .com. Mithral is listed as half the weight of steel. Thus a mithral tower shield should weigh 179 pounds.

Or you could get the unique +1 ghost touch arrow deflecting mithral tower shield that somehow only weighs 22 pounds in Ultimate Equipment.

Of course, that being a custom item, it cannot be augmented further, but it is a heck of a lot lighter!

The things I am willing to do for a +2 permissable Dex bonus to AC.

Two questions: The spell has a listed effect of a ten foot radius emanation, but the material component is a three foot diameter circle of powdered silver. What is the price of the silver and does the effective area of the binding on called creatures use the three foot diameter or the ten foot radius? The first option would appear to make the spell less than useful when calling any creature of medium or larger size categories.

Honestly I am not sure what you are trying to do, so I will give a couple possibilities.

1) Wall of Fire - yes you have to make the check to cast it underwater, it will take a while, and you have to keep concentrating the whole time, but there really is no better way to boil a large body of water for an extended duration at your level.
2) Fabricate - water to steam. Perfectly legitimate strategy - so long as the effect does not need to be continuous.
3) Geyser - already boiling water: make your own pool!

Without a greater understanding of the situation, these are the wizard options. Hope it helps!