Creative Director
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Will their be any stuff on rune magic or runelords? I would like to see some. Thanks
There's already quite a lot. Check out Rise of the Runelords or the hardcover coming out next year, or Inner Sea Magic. We'll be doing even more about this stuff in the upcoming Adventure Path, Shattered Star, and other earlier APs, like Curse of the Crimson Throne and Second Darkness, had some runelords tidbits in them.
James,
Up thread you mentioned you had a hand in both Dervish Dance and the Agile weapon quality. Personally I like the concept of being able to build a character using something other than strength to boast damage. Do you think you can get the developers to add more? Say something called Cayden's Gambit for rapiers and functioning exactly like Dervish Dance and Cat's Paws for a two weapon style using matched short swords.
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Creative Director
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Have you seen Dagon? I liked it sorta, although it annoyed me that it seemed like 90% of it was in like Italian or whatever and it wasn't subtitled (at least when I saw it on Sci-Fi Channel it wasn't). While I understand the main characters didn't speak Italian so therefore maybe it added to the mystery, 90% of a movie being unintelligible was kinda breaking for me.
3) I've seen a LOT of Lovecraftian movies. The BEST of them are Alien, The Thing, The Mist, and 2001, and of course any movie actually inspired by Lovecraft (such as "Re-Animator" or "Call of Cthulhu" or "Whisperer in the Darkness").
I actually had the good fortune to see Dagon screened by Stuart Gordon, the director; he hung around to answer questions too. It was neat! Living in Seattle is awesome!
Anyway, I liked the movie quite a lot, and I don't remember it being 90% in Italian at all... especially since it was a Spanish production...
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Creative Director
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James,
Up thread you mentioned you had a hand in both Dervish Dance and the Agile weapon quality. Personally I like the concept of being able to build a character using something other than strength to boast damage. Do you think you can get the developers to add more? Say something called Cayden's Gambit for rapiers and functioning exactly like Dervish Dance and Cat's Paws for a two weapon style using matched short swords.
I'm sure more things along this line will come along eventually... be they feats or class abilities or whatever. Stay tuned!
I've got a brand new group of players, 3 of them have never played pathfinder, 2 of them have never played an rpg period. We sat down and made characters that fit the world, story, etc.
Now I only have one question. Slow, medium, or fast advancement track, and why?
*Edit*
i guess that's 2 questions....
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Was the Gunslinger class inspired by the Dark Tower series?Yes.
More details: I have a post-apocalyptic d20-based RPG that I've been writing for a decade or so now: it's a combination of "what happens if Lovecraft's mythos comes back and takes over the earth?" mixed with a huge dose of Fallout, Road Warrior, and the Dark Tower books. I've got a LOT of base classes in that game that are built to fit to the setting—classes like scavengers and snipers and espers and mercenaries and what-not. One of those base classes is the gunslinger, which was VERY much inspired by the Dark Tower AND by old westerns.
Is there any possibility that we might be able to see such d20-RPG based setting in the next few years!?!
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Creative Director
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I've got a brand new group of players, 3 of them have never played pathfinder, 2 of them have never played an rpg period. We sat down and made characters that fit the world, story, etc.
Now I only have one question. Slow, medium, or fast advancement track, and why?
*Edit*
i guess that's 2 questions....
It's actually not even one question, since you don't specify what it is you're asking about the three XP tracks... are you asking which one I prefer? Which one you should use? It's probably best, I would guess, to use the fast track for the first game, in any case, since that gives your players quicker chances to level up and thus more chances to find out how fun it is to level up.
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Creative Director
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Is there any possibility that we might be able to see such d20-RPG based setting in the next few years!?!Was the Gunslinger class inspired by the Dark Tower series?Yes.
More details: I have a post-apocalyptic d20-based RPG that I've been writing for a decade or so now: it's a combination of "what happens if Lovecraft's mythos comes back and takes over the earth?" mixed with a huge dose of Fallout, Road Warrior, and the Dark Tower books. I've got a LOT of base classes in that game that are built to fit to the setting—classes like scavengers and snipers and espers and mercenaries and what-not. One of those base classes is the gunslinger, which was VERY much inspired by the Dark Tower AND by old westerns.
Yup. Possibility increases DRAMATICALLY if you look to additional publishers other than Paizo.
But an actual publication of these rules I wrote? (I call the game "Unspeakable Futures".) Unclear...
It's actually not even one question, since you don't specify what it is you're asking about the three XP tracks... are you asking which one I prefer? Which one you should use? It's probably best, I would guess, to use the fast track for the first game, in any case, since that gives your players quicker chances to level up and thus more chances to find out how fun it is to level up.I've got a brand new group of players, 3 of them have never played pathfinder, 2 of them have never played an rpg period. We sat down and made characters that fit the world, story, etc.
Now I only have one question. Slow, medium, or fast advancement track, and why?
*Edit*
i guess that's 2 questions....
Thanks for the input, Mr. Jacobs. Next time i'll remember to be more clear with my wording.
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Creative Director
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Best art show ever?
It's certainly up there! Although the Lovecraft art show I'm going to tomorrow will likely trump it...
Will there be a moment in Shattered Star which might allow the PCs to interact with PCs (or stand ins) from Rise of the Runelords? Obviously such a thing would be tricky to write, but if there were an opening and a sidebar to the effect of "use old PCs as NPCs here!" I think that would be well received.
More generally, can we expect Shattered Star to contain any kind of obvious Easter-eggs like that?
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Creative Director
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Will there be a moment in Shattered Star which might allow the PCs to interact with PCs (or stand ins) from Rise of the Runelords? Obviously such a thing would be tricky to write, but if there were an opening and a sidebar to the effect of "use old PCs as NPCs here!" I think that would be well received.
More generally, can we expect Shattered Star to contain any kind of obvious Easter-eggs like that?
Since we'll be assuming Rise of the Runelords has taken place several years before Shattered Star, and since we have no way of knowing what level any one group's Runelords PCs ended up at when they finished that campaign (or indeed if they even FINISHED it), we won't be putting much at all in Shattered Star to allow new PCs to meet/interact with old PCs. That's something that each GM will need to do on his own if he wants it to happen.
Since Shattered Star is gonna be a sequel to Rise of the Runelords (and to a lesser extent a sequel to Curse of the Crimson Throne AND to Second Darkness), there'll be a LOT Of easter eggs and ties to the previous APs.
A LOT.
But they'll all be tied to NPCs and events and locations and elements from the adventures... none will be tied to previous PCs, if any.
Have you seen Dagon? I liked it sorta, although it annoyed me that it seemed like 90% of it was in like Italian or whatever and it wasn't subtitled (at least when I saw it on Sci-Fi Channel it wasn't). While I understand the main characters didn't speak Italian so therefore maybe it added to the mystery, 90% of a movie being unintelligible was kinda breaking for me.
3) I've seen a LOT of Lovecraftian movies. The BEST of them are Alien, The Thing, The Mist, and 2001, and of course any movie actually inspired by Lovecraft (such as "Re-Animator" or "Call of Cthulhu" or "Whisperer in the Darkness").I actually had the good fortune to see Dagon screened by Stuart Gordon, the director; he hung around to answer questions too. It was neat! Living in Seattle is awesome!
Anyway, I liked the movie quite a lot, and I don't remember it being 90% in Italian at all... especially since it was a Spanish production...
Ah lol ok it was a long time ago, so yeah Spanish. But, on Sci-Fi Channel they didn't subtitle it, so it was kinda like... hard to follow. Great special effects though.
As for Seattle, yeah I visited Seattle back in 2001, and I didn't want to leave. In fact, the tour bus guy said "The way to tell a tourist from a native is the natives don't have umbrellas" and I thought it was especially and funny cause I didn't mind the rain at all and didn't borrow an umbrella.
Hello, everybody.
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I invite anybody to share there opinions on the topics addressed below.
Thank you in advance for your civil and insightful commentary. =P
Regarding the Dimensional Agility chain and one Synthesist question that snuck in my brain that follows it, I have several questions, I have decided to post here for some reason early in my day here. I like many who have came before am curious because I'm currently playing a level 9 Magus that info is directly pertinent to in the next month of the current campaign.
1. Was the decision to classify the Dimensional chain as a general feats instead of a combat feats* or meta-magic feats** made specifically to limit the usage of Dimensional Savant to level 15+ characters?
*(such as the Nightmare fist chain)
**(as it directly effects the use of a spell)
As it is the only class that I can imagine with my limited ability, using it before 15 without cross classing is the Synthesist Summoner archetype.
A yes or no answer in this case would be okay (and hilarious). But, I was wondering if it was oversight or focused design decision to limit power.
2a. Does the abilities that act as Dimension door, qualify as the pre-req to learn Dimensional Agility?
And in the same vein:
2b. Do items (I.E wands/or staves)that allow the casting/or effect that acts as Dimension Door able to be used with the dimensional feats?
I've debated the issue both ways with GMs I've played with in that past and currently. My ruling (as a GM) is the first yes and the second no. My current GM stated he would allow the second but not the first.
And the Synthesist question
3.In your personal opinion, allowing a synthesist to take 1 combat feat per four summoner levels that eidolon qualifies for when effective only when using Fused Eidolon appear to be a balanced house-rule?
A Synthesist using the eidolon-suit the eidolon gains no feats or skills. The skills one I can see being extremely overpowered and thus removed. but the having no feats seems harsh as the summoner must burn feat slots AND qualify for feats to perform in combat and in most good campaigns ([personal bias) combat is only 40% of the focus, unless you're fighting a war.
I've fallen in love with the synthesist concept after reading about it in my search for info about Dimensional feat chain, I have spent much time thinking about the options and items for a summoner.I will most likely will attempt to play one in my next campaign.
For the next one I GM, I'm already drafting up a campigan with evil Synthesist group giving up there bodies and souls to outsiders that are intent on destroying linear time......
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Creative Director
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...asked about synthesists...
Alas... I'm even less of a fan of the synthesist archetyhpe than I am of the summoner itself.
I'd suggest posting this question to the rules forums... because I think it's either too late or I drank too many of Jeff Alvarez's special tequila drinks to make sense of it...
Okay, thanks.
But did you like Aliens? That was my favorite. It also got me into a lot of the fiction.
you might've answered this one already but here goes, can an alchemist craft constructs?, i think so but one of my players does not (its not an argument starter or anything just good ol' lively debate).
you might've answered this one already but here goes, can an alchemist craft constructs?, i think so but one of my players does not (its not an argument starter or anything just good ol' lively debate).
You're implying that you're the GM. You win. Automatically. Mr. Player can go cry in a corner about his interpretation of the rules if he likes, but he ain't the one on the dice-rolling side of the screen. B-)
Dear James Jacobs,
Since the sling is considered a thrown weapon for the purpose of a fighter's weapon groups, does this mean that the sling benefits from feats that specifically work with thrown weapons, such as Hurling Charger (Ultimate Combat) or Close-Quarters Thrower (Ultimate Combat)?
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Creative Director
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Dear James Jacobs,
Since the sling is considered a thrown weapon for the purpose of a fighter's weapon groups, does this mean that the sling benefits from feats that specifically work with thrown weapons, such as Hurling Charger (Ultimate Combat) or Close-Quarters Thrower (Ultimate Combat)?
Yup.
...asked about synthesists...Alas... I'm even less of a fan of the synthesist archetyhpe than I am of the summoner itself.
I have no real issue with the Summoner, but detest the synthesist.
</threadjack>Hmm...guess I'd better ask a question: if you weren't designing games, what would you be doing for a living?
(That's boring. Sorry. How about, instead -- or in addition to -- can we get a snapshot of the aboleth flowchart mentioned at PaizoCon 2011? :-D)
In our game last night we had encounters with several different types of lycanthrope and noticed that weretigers do not have the curse of lycanthropy. Is there a mythological reason behind this or is it just for design variety, or is it something else entirely?
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Creative Director
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...asked about synthesists...Alas... I'm even less of a fan of the synthesist archetyhpe than I am of the summoner itself.I have no real issue with the Summoner, but detest the synthesist.
</threadjack>Hmm...guess I'd better ask a question: if you weren't designing games, what would you be doing for a living?
(That's boring. Sorry. How about, instead -- or in addition to -- can we get a snapshot of the aboleth flowchart mentioned at PaizoCon 2011? :-D)
In theory... I would be writing novels for a living. In practice... who knows? Probably working in some dead end data entry job...
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Creative Director
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In our game last night we had encounters with several different types of lycanthrope and noticed that weretigers do not have the curse of lycanthropy. Is there a mythological reason behind this or is it just for design variety, or is it something else entirely?
That's probably because the weretiger in question wasn't statted up as a natural lycanthrope... although it should have said so.
Have you seen Dagon? I liked it sorta, although it annoyed me that it seemed like 90% of it was in like Italian or whatever and it wasn't subtitled (at least when I saw it on Sci-Fi Channel it wasn't). While I understand the main characters didn't speak Italian so therefore maybe it added to the mystery, 90% of a movie being unintelligible was kinda breaking for me.
3) I've seen a LOT of Lovecraftian movies. The BEST of them are Alien, The Thing, The Mist, and 2001, and of course any movie actually inspired by Lovecraft (such as "Re-Animator" or "Call of Cthulhu" or "Whisperer in the Darkness").I actually had the good fortune to see Dagon screened by Stuart Gordon, the director; he hung around to answer questions too. It was neat! Living in Seattle is awesome!
Anyway, I liked the movie quite a lot, and I don't remember it being 90% in Italian at all... especially since it was a Spanish production...
They spoke spanish (starring girl asf). One of the great things about the movie was that the Innsmouth people (starred by the late and great Paco Rabal) actually spoke galician, which along with catalonian and basque is another cooficial language in Spain. Galician is spoken in Galicia, northwesternest region of Spain, very famous for its rich fishing gastronomy. There are lots of small fishing villages there.
Dagon was therefore very fun to see here in Spain, at least for mysel, not being a galician speaker (which sounds similar to portuguese)
James, in one of my games here on the boards, there's some confusion with the Scorpion Whip from Ultimate Combat.
This line is the cause of said confusion: If you are proficient with whips, you can use a scorpion whip as a whip.
Does this mean if you are proficient with a whip, you are also proficient with a scorpion whip? or does it mean that if you can use a whip and scorpion whip, you can perform trip and disarm attempts with the scorpion whip, which according to the weapons chart appears you can not do normally??
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Creative Director
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James, in one of my games here on the boards, there's some confusion with the Scorpion Whip from Ultimate Combat.
This line is the cause of said confusion: If you are proficient with whips, you can use a scorpion whip as a whip.
Does this mean if you are proficient with a whip, you are also proficient with a scorpion whip? or does it mean that if you can use a whip and scorpion whip, you can perform trip and disarm attempts with the scorpion whip, which according to the weapons chart appears you can not do normally??
Yup; if you're proficient with a whip, you can use a scorpion whip. Doesn't mean you can use a scorpion whip to do all the things a whip can do, though... just what a scorpion whip can do.
Hey James, got another somewhat confusing issue for ya:
The feat Judgement Surge, from Ultimate Magic, has unclear pre-reqs. In the master list of feats in that book, it requires both the Judgement and Judgement 2/day class features. However, the feat's actual entry only lists the Judgement class feature.
Which is it supposed to be??
Also, a more interesting and personal question for ya:
What's the best piece of advice you ever got for writting and from whom??
Mine was "Always write as if your audience has no idea what you're talking about and never assume they do" from my 9th grade freshman english teacher.
Hi James,
Saw this around the tubes and thought you may appreciate it ;-)
Sorry about it not being all formatted and stuff, I know nothing of such things.
Fixed it for you.
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Creative Director
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Hey James, got another somewhat confusing issue for ya:
The feat Judgement Surge, from Ultimate Magic, has unclear pre-reqs. In the master list of feats in that book, it requires both the Judgement and Judgement 2/day class features. However, the feat's actual entry only lists the Judgement class feature.
Which is it supposed to be??
Also, a more interesting and personal question for ya:
What's the best piece of advice you ever got for writting and from whom??
Mine was "Always write as if your audience has no idea what you're talking about and never assume they do" from my 9th grade freshman english teacher.
Go with the requirements in the text; they're generally correct in cases like that.
The best piece of writing advice was "Write what you know." If you know about living in a small town as a kid, don't set your story about a kid growing up in the big city; set it in a small town.
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Creative Director
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James, in your first book, Villains:Rebirth published by Bastion Press, you included an item called the Beholder Rod. I understand that while this is probably referring to the phrase "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and not the WotC monster, what are your thoughts about a PFRPG update of this item. Are you happy with the name for the item, or would you prefer to change it to something else?
(Also, for the upcoming pirate AP, the Sea Reaver prestige class has been updated for PFRPG for those who want to play "a particularly nasty and vile breed of pirate".)
I was actually 100% referring to the WotC monster, in fact. Back when I wrote "Villains," The beholder (and all the others like him, such as the mind flayer and the githyanki) were allowed by the OGL—this was still when the OGL was effectively in it's "beta" test. Wizards didn't remove those few monsters until the final OGL went live. As such, I'm happy with the name of the item, and as such I wouldn't update it to PFRPG personally since it now uses closed content
Hi Sir!
Just curious. How can I go about seeing how the Sword of Subtlety was priced? Is there a formula in there that I'm not seeing?
Also, how could we deal with adding bonuses to this item?
Perhaps find an equivalent enhancement bonus to count this as?
It's a bit hard as it is to add anything to it or to make say a "dagger of subtlety" without knowing what we're dealing with.
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks!
Hello again, sir.
I was building a summoner akin to either a "Dragon Rider" or "Falcor" style Eidolon, and was working on a quadruped with pounce that could fly.
In order to do a Flying Pounce that would allow the Eidolon to move past without provoking an AoO, would I have to have the Eidolon get Flyby Attack and the summoner get Ride-By Attack or can I just get Ride-By Attack?
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Creative Director
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Hi Sir!
Just curious. How can I go about seeing how the Sword of Subtlety was priced? Is there a formula in there that I'm not seeing?
Also, how could we deal with adding bonuses to this item?
Perhaps find an equivalent enhancement bonus to count this as?
It's a bit hard as it is to add anything to it or to make say a "dagger of subtlety" without knowing what we're dealing with.
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks!
The sword of subtlety does an unusual thing, so it's pricing was pretty much done completely ad-hoc by comparing it to similar items and then settling on a price that seemed about right when compared to other items.
You can change it to any other weapon without much fear, though—in fact, changing ANY of the unique weapons to any other weapon is such a minor change that pricing doesn't really care; when an item costs in excess of 10,000 gp, the change to the weapon's base price (dagger to short sword to flail to whatever) is negligible.
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Creative Director
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Hello again, sir.
I was building a summoner akin to either a "Dragon Rider" or "Falcor" style Eidolon, and was working on a quadruped with pounce that could fly.
In order to do a Flying Pounce that would allow the Eidolon to move past without provoking an AoO, would I have to have the Eidolon get Flyby Attack and the summoner get Ride-By Attack or can I just get Ride-By Attack?
In order to not provoke attacks of opportunity when you ride by a foe on a mount, you only need Ride-by Attack... but you can only use Ride-by Attack when you charge.
If you want to be able to move up to a foe, attack, and then move away, you and your mount both need Spring Attack. Fly-by Attack does NOT prevent attacks of opportunity; it's essentially a less-powerful version of Spring Attack that's easier to qualify for if you can fly.
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The sword of subtlety does an unusual thing, so it's pricing was pretty much done completely ad-hoc by comparing it to similar items and then settling on a price that seemed about right when compared to other items.
You can change it to any other weapon without much fear, though—in fact, changing ANY of the unique weapons to any other weapon is such a minor change that pricing doesn't really care; when an item costs in excess of 10,000 gp, the change to the weapon's base price (dagger to short sword to flail to whatever) is negligible.
Is there some recommended method you could suggest to figure out the cost of say, increasing the enhancement bonus on the sword from +1 to +2? Or perhaps just considering "subtlety" to be similar to some of the armor enhancements that do not affect enhancement total, and only incur a fixed cost?
Hey James,
Does the Magus Lose his held charge option if he uses spellstrike with an attack and misses?
Does a magus lose out on spells that have multiple charges (chill touch) if he uses spellstrike to release the first attack?
I guess the real question is how does Spellstrike interact or change the spell touch rules?
My thoughts are that all spellstrike does is change the wording from touch attack to melee touch attack. Follow all touch attack rules in regards to spells except that a magus may deliver them with a melee weapon attack instead of a touch attack. And of course the spell does not discharge because he is touching his weapon as the weapon has become part of the spell casting process.
Thanks in advanced.
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Creative Director
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Is there some recommended method you could suggest to figure out the cost of say, increasing the enhancement bonus on the sword from +1 to +2? Or perhaps just considering "subtlety" to be similar to some of the armor enhancements that do not affect enhancement total, and only incur a fixed cost?
Well... you could just look at it this way: without the unique properties, a sword of subtlety is just a +1 weapon, which is worth about 2,300 gp or thereabouts. Subtract that from the sword of subtlety's actual price and you get 20,000 gp, more or less. So that means that the subtlety power itself is worth 20,000 gp, and adding that ability to another weapon would thus cost 20,000 gp.
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Creative Director
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Hey James,
Does the Magus Lose his held charge option if he uses spellstrike with an attack and misses?
Does a magus lose out on spells that have multiple charges (chill touch) if he uses spellstrike to release the first attack?
I guess the real question is how does Spellstrike interact or change the spell touch rules?
My thoughts are that all spellstrike does is change the wording from touch attack to melee touch attack. Follow all touch attack rules in regards to spells except that a magus may deliver them with a melee weapon attack instead of a touch attack. And of course the spell does not discharge because he is touching his weapon as the weapon has become part of the spell casting process.
Thanks in advanced.
I would ask that question in the rules forum and hit it with the FAQ button. My gut reaction would be to treat holding the charge the same as normal, since that's less complicated.
I am not sure if this has even been answered since it was last asked. I am highly interested in a Gun Mage Archetype for the Magus class ever since seeing the new gun rules listed in Ultimate Combat.
The closest ive come is the Iron Kingdoms version that I and several other players have tried to convert using the pathfinder conversion rules. An official answer to this would be helpful as my DM is a stickler for official products and answers
James,
Will there be an updated set of RotR Gamemastery Item Cards to go along with the 'RotR' anniversary release?
Also, will the Eel's Skull and/or the Temple of The Ravenous Moon dungeon sites be featured in the S&S AP?