Your GM needs to compare it to stoneskin, not false life. Stoneskin grants DR X/adamantine, which is more comparable than false life's temporary hp. Also, remind him that monsters can do blunt damage as well via slam attacks, tentacles, tail slaps, etc.
Lets compare it to another 2nd level spell. How about Blur?
Blur gives any attack hitting you a 20% chance to miss. Your spell gives you DR 5 provided it isn't one of the most common sources of damage in the game: bludgeoning.
At level four, the average weapon attack will do 1d8 + 4 points of damage... granted smaller/lighter weapons do less, larger/heavier weapons do more, but we are talking averages here, so 1d8 is about right...and the +4 represents strength bonus, sneak attack, etc etc that a level 4 character will have available to them.
so, 1d8 does 4.5 damage on average, add our +4 and you are getting about 8 points of damage per round on an attack.
Lets use 100 attacks (and say your spell is up for all of them, and NONE of those attacks are bludgeoning)
8 damage - 5 DR = 3 damage x 100 attacks = 300 damage.
For Blur, 20 of those attacks miss...so it is
8 damage x 80 attacks = 640 damage
So, on the surface, this makes it appear that your spell is more effective than Blur (which is a super handy spell). The problem is all of the assumptions we have to make in order to get there.
Bludgeoning is a VERY common damage type as Lathiira has mentioned, in fact. Most smart melee types bring a secondary weapon just for this eventuality.
Secondly, everytime your spell soaks physical damage, it loses 5 points off of its "life" span, rather than having a longer lasting buff...like say...mage armor.
Third, and most important, the Armor of Bones gives you DR 5/Blugeoning at level 13 anyway. So, you can use one of your precious FEW spell slots, for a spell that is going to be obsolete later.
As a GM I would say "take it" better than you taking some of the other level 2 spells that are much stronger :)
I'm pretty sure bites do all types of damage, as well, don't they?
The God-specific spells are a little more powerful for their level... because they're God-specific.
I don't see anything unbalancing about DR5/Bludgeoning for 5xCL points of damage. It's good, but not broken.
Now, the carrying around bones is a whole different issue... maybe you should only use the remains of convicted criminals or heretics as a neat piece of flavour.
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I'm pretty sure bites do all types of damage, as well, don't they?
They can do any type of damage. It is so that the GM can apply appropriate damage types depending on the teeth of the monster in question. A wolf would probably do P&S but a horse would bite for B.
Back on topic, I don't think that the spell is overpowered. DR/Bludgeoning doesn't apply to bludgeoning weapons as noted above but also doesn't apply to spell damage or energy damage. While it might be useful for a few levels, eventually the bigger damagers are going to be from Harm, Finger of Death, save or sucks.
By RAW, all bites are considered all three types of damage for overcoming DR.
Currently, he still has some reservations about allowing the spell as written. He does raise a good point that even though bludgeoning is fairly common, piercing/slashing weapons (including claws/bites) are much more common. What do you guys think?
Oh, and I love your idea Casey about carrying around the skulls of convicted criminals or heretics. I think I'm just going to burn a Death Touch to "melt the face" to where I have a skull and keep it as a grisly trophy until it is ready to be used. Almost makes me think of Mystery Men. Now if I could only find a magic bowling ball....
Cheers,
The reality is "common" is only as "common" as the setting. If one adventure has many creatures with bite or claw (P/S) attacks another could have many creatures with clubs, maces, quarterstaves (majority of "simple" weapons - B). Perception is something that we all fight with but you really do have to look at the bigger picture when attempting to "balance" something. What it comes down to is at times it may seem more powerful because of circumstance, and circumstance has nothing to do with actual balance.
The DM has the general overall knowledge of what will happen in the game. If they know that there are going to by many more creatures this is beneficial too, it is of course going to seem more powerful. The other side of that is, as a DM they can change things. An enemy uses a sword? Find an appropriate comparable weapon that deals blunt damage. It isn't that difficult as many things in the game are the same mechanic with different "fluff."
Blur vs. analysis.
But don't forget that Blur has a short duration, and this spell doesn't. That's not a small thing.
(And I'm saying that as a *huge* Blur fan.)
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Is this something you can cast on other people? Or is it self only? If it's self-only, that would be a large, important weakness.It is self-only.
Well then, that's a large, important weakness. ;-)
Self-only spells are nice, but DR for a caster is not nearly as powerful as DR for a melee character. Blur might not last as long, but you can cast it on whomever is most likely to take damage soon.|
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By RAW, all bites are considered all three types of damage for overcoming DR.
It might seem that way but a closer look will reveal that not to be true. Here's a quote:
Some attacks deal damage of more than one type, depending on the creature.
Depending on the creature is the important section. One section is called other. It has all three damage types. You really think that any attack other than those listed deals all three damage types? It lists typical types of damage done by that attack not every one in all cases.
By RAW, all bites are considered all three types of damage for overcoming DR.It might seem that way but a closer look will reveal that not to be true. Here's a quote:
Some attacks deal damage of more than one type, depending on the creature.
Depending on the creature is the important section. One section is called other. It has all three damage types. You really think that any attack other than those listed deals all three damage types? It lists typical types of damage done by that attack not every one in all cases.
The problem with that is if you look into a creatures description you won't see it listed as a damage type. There may be some that do, but they become the exception rather than the rule. I was just searching through the bestiary pdf and even in the description of the abilities like "savage bite" I didn't fine one that listed damage type in the description before saying "the hell with it." The way the bestiary is organized it lists the attack in the stat block and then you go to the "weapon table" to find out more about the attack. In the table it is listed as all 3 so unless there were something in the description of the creature to indicate otherwise the attack properties in the table are what you'd use. Even though the wording would indicate otherwise, a bite that didn't use all 3 would actually be the exception to the rule.
It gives a definition of the ability, tells you to look someplace else for the details and if the details aren't there you default back to the definition.
Just like a weapon table anywhere else, you see B/S, go look at the weapon description and come to find out it is a double weapon which says one end does B and the other does S. If the description said nothing regarding the type, it would in fact do B AND S on any attack performed with it as listed in the table. Or take a spell that gives you a bite attack, if that spell said it did P damage it would override the table. If it doesn't mention the type of damage you go to the table and would do all 3.
I think Skylancer is exactly right here in the way that section is to be interpreted.
Absent a note in a specific creatures entry, a natural weapon will do all the types of damage listed for that weapon type. Thus a 'bite' deals B and S and P on each attack, and the creature does not need to choose which type of damage it is, since it will do all of them.
In further support, I would suggest looking at the 3.5 Monster Manual under "natural attacks." The wording in this section was changed in PF, particularly as natural attacks work somewhat differently now, especially with regard to 'primary' and 'secondary' attacks. However, there does not seem to be any real change made with regard to the damage types of natural attacks.
For reference, the 3.5 MM lists each category of natural attack (e.g. bite, claw, gore, etc.) and specifically says what each type of damage does. For instance, it says that a bite attack deals "piercing, slashing, and bludgeoning damage," which would mean that it deals all three types at once. So the default rule in 3.5 was that a bite attack deals all three types (barring some specific reference in an individual creature's entry).
There is no reference to a change to this in the PF Bestiary, even though the section was completely rewritten (meaning that the developers did indeed look over this section thoroughly) and some rules regarding natural attacks were specifically changed (specifically the distinctions of primary and secondary natural attacks). Also of note is that the PF Bestiary added the chart listing damage amounts and damage types whereas the 3.5 MM had no such chart. My point here is that if this was intended to be changed from 3.5, said change would have been much easier to deduce because this section was rethought and rewritten by the developers. Thus one can conclude that since no change to the damage type of natural attacks was mentioned, that no such change was intended.
Having played a lot of 3.5 both as a GM and a player, I can say that having natural attacks do multiple types of damage was never an issue from a balance perspective. And furthermore, I would suggest that having natural attacks do multiple damage types is actually a good thing. Most natural attacks do not overcome damage reduction such as DR/magic or DR/material or DR/alignment; being able to overcome more types of DR/physical is a necessary bonus to using a natural attack in order to compensate for the inability to overcome the other types of DR.
Finally, I would add that I think the damage types listed for natural attacks doing all the listed types makes sense for the types given for each attack. For instance, a claw attack does B and S. This makes sense in that the typical claw attack would obviously do slashing damage from the sharp claws, and would also do raw brute force (i.e. bludgeoning) damage from the power behind the attack. (And further, how could a claw attack do bludgeoning damage but NOT slashing damage...claws are really freaking sharp!). Likewise, a typical bite attack would do P from the penetration of sharp teeth, S from the sharp teeth being dragged over the flesh of the creature, and B from the force of the bite itself (think of how strong the jaws of a pit bull can be). So I would think that thematically it makes sense as well. (i.e. if you removed the teeth from a pit bull a bite would still damage you very much, possibly even breaking bones).
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Well written defense of position...
And that is all super nice but it doesn't tell me why it specifically says "depending on the creature" in the natural attacks section. If the GM were not intended to use his or her judgement as to appropriate damage types, why would they call out that it can vary? Why does "Other" have all three types listed? Do you really think that some alternate natural attack should have all three types instead of determining what is appropriate?
Well written defense of position...And that is all super nice but it doesn't tell me why it specifically says "depending on the creature" in the natural attacks section. If the GM were not intended to use his or her judgement as to appropriate damage types, why would they call out that it can vary? Why does "Other" have all three types listed? Do you really think that some alternate natural attack should have all three types instead of determining what is appropriate?
Because "depending on the creature" means that the description may have contrary information to what the table has (this creature's bite does P/S damage, unlike the normal B/P/S bite). It is a very simple statement that allows for a case by case exception to the table through every creature's description. Elegant because it works so well with so few words and allows for so much to be done. It has nothing to do with a judgment call on the DM's end, it has to do with the way a creature was designed/written and to cover possible exceptions to the "rule."
As for the "other" attack, maybe it is like a bite and so it does all 3 types of damage OR maybe it is like a claw and in it's description it states it does B/S damage. As an "other" attack it is a catch all, it is there as a place holder as you cannot know what else may come to be in the future.
Oh, and with regards to the natural weapons debate, several good points have been made, but I am still unsure whether certain natural attacks could be considered to deal all types of damage. As Yuengling pointed out it makes sense that it would vary based on the creature. Bites make sense doing all types of damage, but certain other natural attacks don't fit that rule as easily. For example, it is hard for me to imagine a tail attack doing piercing or slashing damage or even some claw attacks from certain creatures doing bludgeoning damage.
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Likewise, an unarmed strike ( a natural attack) dealing piercing damage seems odd.
Hopefully this will help clarify it for you:
The Damage Type column refers to the sort of damage that the natural attack typically deals: bludgeoning (B), slashing (S), or piercing (P). Some attacks deal damage of more than one type, depending on the creature. In such cases all the damage is considered to be of all listed types for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.
But if you read the descriptions the vast majority (and possibly all of the Bestiary, at least none I skimmed through) don't have anything listed. The only listed information is the table and the table says what it does. A tail slap is listed as B, HOWEVER that doesn't mean a creature might be created that is described as having spikes along the tail and is mentioned that the tail slap now does B/P damage. The description would over ride the table.
It verey Balenced. I use it on my cleric the hard part was getting clean and keep the bones. Weight and room they took up was some thing I had to Deal with. He had me make survial roll DC 12 come up with bone and prep it.Pluss a heal Check DC 15 clean it so I did not get sick form the Biohazard aspect. If I Failed the Heal then Fort or get sick.
Just something to file under: "Spell Component Pouch" wonkiness.
Technically, since there is no cost listed for the focus, your SCP contains as many femurs and skulls as you need. Where else do you think the live spiders for Spider Climb live? ;P
Just something to file under: "Spell Component Pouch" wonkiness.
Technically, since there is no cost listed for the focus, your SCP contains as many femurs and skulls as you need. Where else do you think the live spiders for Spider Climb live? ;P
I know and when I read the post when they mentioned it, I half wanted to say something, but honestly if they want to put the effort into describing where/when/how they get the mats as a GM I'd totally be cool with the idea. If the player got stuck (because they were keeping tally or something) and they had the pouch on the character sheet (like any caster should) I'd point it out to them then so they weren't "screwed."
The player was having fun with it obviously, no need to rain on the parade ;)