Magic can do anything, but good tactics are the key to using it effectively. Hone your methods of spellcasting to a razor edge with Pathfinder Player Companion: Magic Tactics Toolbox! This handy volume includes effective spell strategies to augment allies, control the battlefield, or just blast foes—along with plenty of new spells and other rules options designed to work with these eldritch tactics.
Inside this book, you'll find:
Archetypes designed to increase a character's access to specific magic tactics, including the dimensional excavator, havocker, spell trapper, and more!
Magical options for characters of any class, including penalizing rods and rods of hindrance, new item mastery feats, and an array of wondrous items.
A multitude of new abilities, including investigator and rogue talents, metamagic feats and other types of spell-augmenting feats, and bloodline mutations.
This Pathfinder Player Companion is intended for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can easily be incorporated into any fantasy world.
But what I love the MOST, is that this book made vanilla fighters great again. You might be saying, hold on, how can a book about magic make fighters great? Well, it introduces a new Martial Mastery option that lets fighters get "on the fly" supernatural abilities multiple times per day, such as flight, darkvision, see invisibility, and all sorts of cool options. It really revolutionizes fighters.
To check it out, just Google "Pathfinder Iron Caster".
There are a few things that are neat, but not solid thought out.
For example the pit alchemist. He is cool, but he can not use any of the other new pit mechanics in the book. They have a magical item to make pit more deadly, and a new pit spell that they can not use. This is a poorly edited document to not notice this.
Somethings are stupidly too powerful, like the blood mutations.
Despite being a magic splat book has no wizard or sorcerer archetypes, but 3 investigators!
In the end it feels like Paizo had a ton of magical like items that were scrapped from other books and plopped them into this.
This is a pretty typical Paizo product, with several useful options and a few great ones.
Standouts:
1. Dimensional Excavator (Alchemist) archetype, use Create Pit line of spells as throwable extracts.
2. Questioner (Investigator) archetype, Bard casting in place of alchemy.
3. Divine Scourge (Cleric) archetype, hexes in place of channel energy, must choose the curse subdomain regardless of deity.
4. Bloodline Mutations, blaster support options for Sorcerer and Bloodrager.
5. Manifold Stare (Mesmerist feat), use your painful stare more than once per round. Can be purchased with Bold Stare improvements rather than feats, and you don't need more than one or two of those anyway.
6. Rod of Perilous Pits, add a 3rd level or below spell effect to anyone who falls into your pit spell.
7. Secluded Grimoire (spell), protect a spell book that you can remotely summon at any time.
8. Lore Needle (item), 3/day use your highest Knowledge skill ranks to answer any other Knowledge skill you're trained in.
9. Impenetrable Veil (spell), allows high level casters to stealth at any time, get a bonus on stealth checks, avoid blindsense or similar effects, and avoid divination trying to locate them.
There's also some of the usual bad: most of the feats are bad and many of the spells are meh. The new Blood Hexes are awful, with bad action economy, bad effects, and 1/day unless you're a Witch/Shaman who has better options than trying to damage people in order to (later!) trigger these things.
Overall, however, the gems outweigh the stinkers, and I'm glad I spent my money to support more work like this.
Would anyone be willing to go into a bit more detail on the Questioner and/or Divine Scourge? Particularly interested in what the Questioner gives up, and how the Divine Scourge's Hexes work.
Would anyone be willing to go into a bit more detail on the Questioner and/or Divine Scourge? Particularly interested in what the Questioner gives up, and how the Divine Scourge's Hexes work.
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Pounce wrote:
Brew Bird wrote:
Would anyone be willing to go into a bit more detail on the Questioner and/or Divine Scourge? Particularly interested in what the Questioner gives up, and how the Divine Scourge's Hexes work.
Seconding Divine Scourge. Hypehypehypehypehype
The Questioner alters Inspiration, and give up Alchemy and Poison Lore.
Divine Scourge has to pick the Curse subdomain as one of their domains, even if they normally can't get it. And the Hexes go off of either WIS or CHA.
Thank you very much! I'm presuming that the cha-based hexes are the witch ones, which is a bit of a bummer, but I might end up being pleasantly surprised :)
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Pounce wrote:
Thank you very much! I'm presuming that the cha-based hexes are the witch ones, which is a bit of a bummer, but I might end up being pleasantly surprised :)
Actually the CHA ones are any Hexes that specifically call out their DC as being INT based, all the rest are WIS.
Question for the writers: Sagas say that only Skalds can take them. However, like one paragraph later it says Bards can also get them. Que?
(for context, non-subscribers, Sagas are basically Masterpieces).
Mea culpa.
Sagas were supposed to be skald-only. My apologies for allowing an errant piece of text to come in and directly contradict that.
But weren't Skalds allowed access to Bardic Masterpieces?! If so, that is the very definition of "double standard". Once again, Bards are shafted, if this is so (the 1st time was when Skalds got Spell Kenning...I've been arguing that is very Bardic).
Liking the book thus far, by the way.
Hey, there is some Kineticist love in here! Feat called Expanded Metakinesis: apply select metamagic feats to your kinetic blast! WOW.
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Dragon78 wrote:
So how does the expanded metakinesis feat work? feat requirements? I take it the burn cost is equal to the spell level cost of the metamagic feat.
Any magic items?
No feat requirements, it just locks into one metamgaic feat (there's a small selection to pick from) when you select it (you can select it multiple times), and there's only 1 burn.
There's a couple of magic items yes, but I don't time at the moment to go around rounding them all up unfortunately.
For 1 point of burn, you can apply a metamagic feat. Each time you choose the feat, you may select one metamagic to apply (Disrupting/Ectoplasmic/Furious/Merciful/Piercing).
New rods are interesting, but nothing for Kineticists thus far...
I like merciful and ectoplasmic but I don't remember what the other three do or what books they are from?
You've shamefacedly looked this up at pfsrd by now, but Merciful is for nonlethal damage and piercing gives you a +5 bonus to your CL check to beat SR.
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Dragon78 wrote:
I like merciful and ectoplasmic but I don't remember what the other three do or what books they are from?
Disruptive Spell (which I presume is what Disrupting is meant to be?) is from Advanced Player's Guide, and forces people affected by the spell in question to make a concentration check to use spells or spell-like abilities for 1 round.
Furious Spell is from Occult Adventures, and deals extra damage, as well as allowing it to be used when raging, whether due to the spell or the class ability.
Piercing Spell is from Ultimate Magic, and treats the spell resistance of a target as if it were 5 lower.
Slithery D wrote:
You've shamefacedly looked this up at pfsrd by now
Or used Archives of Nethys, like the cool kids do. ;D
Investigator Talents
Eldritch Conduit
Innocent Facade
Just a Face in the Crowd
Occult Dungeoneer
Rapid Perception
Spell Storing
The Whole Time
Magic Rods
Gravitic Force Rod (60,000 gp)
Rod of Hindered Healing (30,000 gp)
Rod of Minor Curses (20,000 gp)
Rod of Perilous Pits (25,000 gp)
Rod of Spellsight (12,000 gp)
Rod of Subtle Menace (12,305 gp)
Rod of Tangling Ectoplasm (18,000 gp)
Ninja Tricks
Eldritch Conduit
Just a Face in the Crowd
Occult Dungeoneer
Spell Storing
The Whole Time
Rogue Talents
Dampen Presence
Eldritch Conduit
Glib Facade (Advanced)
Innocent Facade
Just a Face in the Crowd
Occult Dungeoneer
Rapid Perception
Spell Storing
Superior Sniper
The Whole Time
Unlock Ki (Advanced)
Sagas
Lay of the Scholar-King (Oratory, Sing)
Saga of the Witch Queen (Oratory, Sing)
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Xethik wrote:
That's a lot of Ninja Tricks! Woah.
Any quick details for those?
Ninja Tricks:
Eldritch conduit lets you take either two potions, two scrolls, or two wands, expending a use of both, and gain the benefits of one of them with the caster level of the other.
Just a Face in the Crowd gives you a bonus equal to half your level on Disguise and Perception checks when there's at least ten creatures of your size category within thirty feet of you.
Occult Dungeoneer lets you use spell-trigger and spell-completion items for five specific spells as if they were on your spell list...even if you don't have a spell list.
Spell Storing lets you store a harmless spell of second level or lower that takes a standard action to cast that's been cast on you, and store it indefinitely until you take a standard action to have it take effect as if it had just been cast; you need a rank of Use Magic Device to take this one.
Finally, The Whole Time is pretty similar to Occult Dungeoneer, except the spells are different and there's only three, but it adds the ability to make a Bluff/Disguise check after becoming visible due to attacking someone, sheathing your weapon as a free action, and if successful there's no obvious sign that you were the source of the attack.
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Slithery D wrote:
Quote:
Arcane Discoveries
Psychic Preparation
Does this allow you to prepare all spells with T/E and no cheap M components like a psychic caster would? Because that would be pretty amazing.
Not quite, it only allows you to do that with one spell. Prepared in a spell slot one higher than its normal spell slot. Which must be two levels lower than the maximum spell level you can cast. But yeah, that one spell does use thought and emotion components instead of verbal and somatic components, and only has expensive material components...
Does this allow you to prepare all spells with T/E and no cheap M components like a psychic caster would? Because that would be pretty amazing.
Not quite, it only allows you to do that with one spell. Prepared in a spell slot one higher than its normal spell slot. Which must be two levels lower than the maximum spell level you can cast. But yeah, that one spell does use thought and emotion components instead of verbal and somatic components, and only has expensive material components...
Sounds pretty handy at high levels. Make it a dispel or teleport to deal with situations preventing you from casting normally.
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djones wrote:
May I ask for a rough description of Faith Magic, please? It sounds like it may synergise well with the Spell Sage
Pick a spell offered by one of the domains of a god you worship, which must be two levels lower than the highest level wizard spell you can cast, and you can prepare that spell once (und ONLY vunce) using a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level. When you cast it, it counts as a divine spell.
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Brew Bird wrote:
Does the Questioner get any Bard powers besides spells?
Not that I can see. They alter inspiration so they can use Inspiration on any Knowledge, Linguistics, or Stealth check without spending a use on it, alchemy for Intelligence-based bardic spellcasting, poison lore for a scaling bonus on Knowledge checks they're trained in (which with Perceptive Tracking can be used on Perception checks to find/follow tracks), as well as eiditic recollection for free, and can't take the Alchemist Discovery investigator talent.
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Thomas Seitz wrote:
Thanks for that update Luthorne! :) Especially the spell list with more details.
No problem! :) There's some fun spells in this book, I can say that. I'm just a little sad earsend wasn't a mesmerist spell just because the idea of taking it on an eyebiter mesmerist amuses me. "Head out, my trusty eye! And my ear will go with you!" Or would that be...Gogh with you?
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Eric Hinkle wrote:
Has anyone mentioned just what 'blood hexes' are yet?
Blood hexes are a series of feats that can be taken by anyone, but shaman and witches get the most out of them. They can only be used against someone you've damaged recently - how recently depends on the individual feat - and can be used once per day on a single target. You get a number of uses equal to the number of blood hex feats you have, plus an additional use at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level, but a shaman or a witch can still use them at-will as normal, though they're still bound by the only once per day per target thing. They're mostly fairly minor/niche debuffs - though as I mentioned, shamans and witches get a little extra effect from each - but one of them would really ruin a kineticist's day.
Biting Words is a 1st level spell that duplicates the pre-FAQ'd Sound Striker (Bard Archetype) Weirdwords ability. I am very intrigued that it is only for Bards and Bloodragers...I like that.
Flashforward and Phantasmal Reminder seem very fun! Flashforward allows a charge and attack then sends you back to where you were.
Phantasmal Reminder seems to me it may be better than Phantasmal Killer by doing damage rather than a (slim) chance of outright death.
The Whole Time may be a Talent I consider for my Lamplighter Investigator the next time I can choose...
If your Bloodrager/Druid uses natural attacks, then Bone Fists is a spell for you!
Release the Hounds?! Wow. That is a fun swarm spell.
Did not think I would like the Blood Hexes...but I do! Nifty and available to other classes! Just need to meet the pre-reqs.
For instance, Hinder reqs are Int 13 and UMD 5. With it, you force an enemy you wounded to make a Reflex save or have a -10 Initiative penalty for the next minute.
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cavernshark wrote:
Would anyone be willing to offer a few highlights on the Drovier and Spell Trapper? I'd be much appreciative!
The drovier archetype for the druid is fairly simple, yet intriguing. They must choose the Animal, Eagle, or Wolf Domain with nature bond, and trade wild shape for the ability to buff all allies within thirty feet with animal aspect at first, followed by many of the other aspect spells as they level up.
The spell trapper magus trades Disable Device for Knowledge (planes) on their class spell list, counts as three levels lower for determining what magus arcana they can select, but can also select a new trap instead of a magus arcana, replace spell recall with the ability to create magical traps by sacrificing a spell slot, and finally trade out fighter training for the ability to magically create traps at a distance.
Any options for clerics or wizards looking to improve their summoning?
There's a new Conjuration (summoning) spell. Unleash the Hounds, 5th level, standard action cast, get a swarm of wolves. It's exactly as awesome as it sounds.
There are some really fun Item Mastery feats. One lets you add 1d4 to your weapon element damage, one allows a 'Symbolic Bolt' which does damage according to your faith...any type your faith allows (according to domains the deity has). Another allows you a +2 Ability increase lasting 24 hours!
Any options for clerics or wizards looking to improve their summoning?
There's a new Conjuration (summoning) spell. Unleash the Hounds, 5th level, standard action cast, get a swarm of wolves. It's exactly as awesome as it sounds.
Would anyone be willing to offer a few highlights on the Drovier and Spell Trapper? I'd be much appreciative!
The drovier archetype for the druid is fairly simple, yet intriguing. They must choose the Animal, Eagle, or Wolf Domain with nature bond, and trade wild shape for the ability to buff all allies within thirty feet with animal aspect at first, followed by many of the other aspect spells as they level up.
Thanks for the response on Blood Hexes, Luthorne. You are indeed a scholar and a gentleman.
And this about the drovier... When I first heard about the archetype, I disliked it simply because I consider wild shape to be one of the best things about the druid class. But now? Now I've got to get this book for the archetype. Having read those Aspect spells, seriously, aside from the great buffs, this druid gets to turn their pals into animal people!
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Eric Hinkle wrote:
And this about the drovier... When I first heard about the archetype, I disliked it simply because I consider wild shape to be one of the best things about the druid class. But now? Now I've got to get this book for the archetype. Having read those Aspect spells, seriously, aside from the great buffs, this druid gets to turn their pals into animal people!
Yeah, I think it's a pretty neat archetype myself.
Souphin wrote:
Can anyone explain what Eldritch Assault does?
Basically, when you're attacking from magically-provided total concealment - such as via displacement or invisibility - your first critical threat each round is automatically confirmed.
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I like Channeling Variance and Extra Variance. They allow you to swap between normal channeling and one or more of the variant channeling options. Can get some really nice flexibility that way.
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Rysky wrote:
Fighter doesn't get any Archetypes but it does get a nice Advanced Weapon Training ability, that basically works like a Paladin's Divine Bond, only the Fighter isn't limited to what special abilities they can pick.
Wait - does this mean a fighter can choose to add Bane?!
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Porridge wrote:
Wait - does this mean a fighter can choose to add Bane?!
Cuz that would be AMAZING.
Yes, but they only get 1 + weapon training bonus 'points' per day to spend on enhancements, and any such enhancements applied only last for one minute. So, if you had an existing +1 weapon you could eventually add bane (that thing) to it up to 5 times a day.
Wait - does this mean a fighter can choose to add Bane?!
Cuz that would be AMAZING.
Yes, but they only get 1 + weapon training bonus 'points' per day to spend on enhancements, and any such enhancements applied only last for one minute. So, if you had an existing +1 weapon you could eventually add bane (that thing) to it up to 5 times a day.
Technically seven, 'cause Gloves of Dueling makes your weapon training bonus two higher. :D
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Ashram wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:
Porridge wrote:
Wait - does this mean a fighter can choose to add Bane?!
Cuz that would be AMAZING.
Yes, but they only get 1 + weapon training bonus 'points' per day to spend on enhancements, and any such enhancements applied only last for one minute. So, if you had an existing +1 weapon you could eventually add bane (that thing) to it up to 5 times a day.
Technically seven, 'cause Gloves of Dueling makes your weapon training bonus two higher. :D
Yep, and while Divine Bond lasts a minute per Paladin level it has a limited amount of bonuses to grant.
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Rysky wrote:
Ashram wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:
Yes, but they only get 1 + weapon training bonus 'points' per day to spend on enhancements, and any such enhancements applied only last for one minute. So, if you had an existing +1 weapon you could eventually add bane (that thing) to it up to 5 times a day.
Technically seven, 'cause Gloves of Dueling makes your weapon training bonus two higher. :D
Yep, and while Divine Bond lasts a minute per Paladin level it has a limited amount of bonuses to grant.
Warrior spirit doesn't so Bane away!
Hmmm?
As above, my reading is that Warrior Spirit only gives you 1 + weapon training bonus (1 to 5, 7 with Gloves of Dueling) points to spend per day for one minute of benefit(s).
Paladin's get 1 to 6 points which they can spend 1 to 4 times per day on a limited list for one minute per level of benefit(s).
Thus, they work fairly differently, but both are limited. You can't use Warrior Spirit to make your weapon bane against every creature you meet.
