Ultimate Mercy in PFS play

[Rycaut]

So my Dragon Disciple / Paladin / Bard just leveled up to 9th level and I need to choose a feat for him.

He has 11 uses of lay on hands and a 20 CHA (though both are via magic items - bracers of the merciful knight that boosts his effective Paladin level for lay on hands by 4 to 8th level and a headband of alluring CHA+1) he also has greater mercy and extra lay on hands.

So he qualifies for the feat Ultimate Mercy (though I gather if he loses his extra lay on hands from the bracers he won't be able to use the feat since he won't have 10 uses of lay on hands).

My questions are:

How does using ultimate mercy work in PFS play? Especially after a scenario's end (can I assume my paladin uses ultimate mercy the next day(s) to raise his allies?

What level would my paladin be for the purposes of ultimate mercy? Ie does the 4 level boost for his lay on hands use via bracers of the merciful knight apply for ultimate mercy? (If is does his CL for raise dead would be 8 so he could raise a character dead for 8 days if not it would be 4 and he would only have 4 days to raise someone so likely only 3-4 people he could raise after a particularly ugly battle if he ever encounters it.

At higher levels taking this feat seems useful especially in module play but also most helpful for other players at a table ( since he can't raise himself) it definitely would make him a popular traveling companion... If his tanking and smiting and hitting things really really hard didn't already do that)

[CRobledo]

Rycaut wrote:

How does using ultimate mercy work in PFS play? Especially after a scenario's end (can I assume my paladin uses ultimate mercy the next day(s) to raise his allies?

Yes, you could use it between scenarios on multiple people (one every day).

Rycaut wrote:

What level would my paladin be for the purposes of ultimate mercy? Ie does the 4 level boost for his lay on hands use via bracers of the merciful knight apply for ultimate mercy? (If is does his CL for raise dead would be 8 so he could raise a character dead for 8 days if not it would be 4 and he would only have 4 days to raise someone so likely only 3-4 people he could raise after a particularly ugly battle if he ever encounters it.

I believe that the bonus would apply, as your caster level for this is your paladin level, which is boosted by the bracers.

I know quite a few Paladins with Ultimate Mercy (mine included), I think it is quite a popular choice.

The one thing to remember when raising allies with they still need to pay for their Restorations.

[Jiggy]

Hrm...

Well, as to the mechanics, the bracers only say they increase your effective level for the purposes of two specific things (uses per day and amount of healing), so nothing else is affected: your CL for the raise dead is going to be your paladin level, unmodified.

As for the PFS-specific part, I don't think there are specific rules in place, but personally I would definitely allow PCs to use condition-removal spells/abilities on each other after the scenario (while we're still at the table, of course).

[Magnus Landros]

I know that I am planning on getting Ultimate Mercy for my Paladin of Abadar... makes good fiscal sense (though, doesn't work for him :()

The only requirements for the feat are:

prd wrote:

Cha 19, Greater Mercy, lay on hands, mercy class feature.

Since items could for all of that, as long as you can meet the CHA 19 and already have Greater Mercy, you are fine. As for the level, I would say he is a 4th level paladin, still, since the item only increases the number of dice and number of uses per day. At least that is what I would say.

prd wrote:

When worn by a paladin, he is considered four levels higher for the purposes of determining the uses per day and healing provided by his lay on hands class feature. Additionally, once per day, the wearer can infuse a use of lay on hands with additional power, providing relief as a lesser restoration spell.

This seems pretty specific to me.

[David knott 242]

You don't need 10 uses of Lay On Hands to qualify for the Ultimate Mercy feat -- you need that many uses to get any benefit from it, as you have to expend 10 uses of Lay on Hands when you use the feat. That feat becomes useless to you as soon as you are down to 9 or fewer uses of Lay on Hands for any reason and only becomes useful again when you regain those expended uses.

[Mergy]

The issue here is that there is a definite end to scenarios. A GM could feasibly say that you either have to purchase a raise dead or be pronounced dead, because the scenario will be over before the next day.

It would be nice to know how much leeway we have in downtime. If I can prepare remove disease tomorrow, do I have to pay for it today or be pronounced dead?

[David knott 242]

That sounds like a more general issue. The scenario ends today, and you do not have the resources (in terms of spells) to raise somebody from the dead or to remove a PFS lethal condition today -- but you can easily do so tomorrow, and the condition in question will not worsen enough in that time to make a serious difference. Surely this issue has come up many times before?

[Jiggy]

As I see it, if the GM were to say "Once the scenario is over, we're done, no more spellcasting" then I don't see why the PCs couldn't respond with "In that case, we don't return to the Lodge to report our mission status until sometime next week. We'll explain that we were vulnerable and couldn't afford the risk of traveling until we had recovered a bit, so as good and responsible field agents, we made sure we were fighting fit before venturing out to report back here."

[Silbeg]

Generally speaking, most GMs will allow you to have PCs cast restorative spells on characters with conditions and ailments. This includes things like Remove Curse, Remove Disease, Restoration, etc.

While I don't have any documentation to prove this (yet), I would say that the scenario is not complete until all conditions on all characters have been resolved (i.e., castings of the above).

Since, for example, the typical disease will do its damage on a daily basis, you should easily have the chance to memorize Cure Disease the next day. Additionally, you can but antitoxin/antiplague and apply it, etc.

A GM should not prevent PCs from using their spellcasting abilities to do this, but YMMV. I have not seen this being an issue, locally, though.

[Rycaut]

I guess the question here is if Ultimate Mercy is "healing" from a use of your Lay on Hands?

As a GM in a home game I would let a character in the edge case of my PC use a CL of 8 for Ultimate Mercy - ruling that it is modifying the healing of Lay on Hands (like other Mercies) but i can see an argument that RAW for PFS play it just has a cost of "uses of lay on hands" but isn't actually a "lay on hands" effect itself.

But RAI I think it clearly is meant to be a modification of Lay On Hands since it is described as "Ultimate Mercy" (so a modification of both Lay on Hands and Mercy) - and since Mercies are delivered via a use of Lay on Hands I think the intent is that it is a special use of lay on hands.

And in game balance terms the difference really is pretty minor. In PFS play however it is also pretty specific - it would only come into play if I was the sole survivor of a 6 person table and had to choose which of the 5 other dead PC's I would not raise (assuming I had used my lay on hands for that day - likely the case if I'm the surviving PC) and also assuming that I managed to recover all of their bodies - i.e. I killed the BBEG but the party didn't survive.

In most cases the more likely scenario is that a PC or two will have died but most of the party survived at the end.

(and if the party has a full divine caster is is possible that a cleric could prepare Nap Stack so the Paladin could recover his lay on hands and/or raise dead an additional party member)

[Jiggy]

Rycaut wrote:

But RAI I think it clearly is meant to be a modification of Lay On Hands

That's not even the question. It doesn't matter whether Ultimate Mercy counts as a modification of LoH or not; the Bracers don't even let us get that far:

Bracers of the Merciful Knight wrote:

he is considered four levels higher for the purposes of determining the uses per day and healing provided

It doesn't treat you as +4lvl for LoH in general, only for two things:

• Determining uses/day
• Determining healing provided
Uses per day isn't part of the question, and the healing provided by raise dead is not tied to your level (the subject is raised with 1HP per HD, regardless of caster); therefore, the Bracers don't affect Ultimate Mercy at all.

[David_Bross]

Adam Mogyorodi wrote:

The issue here is that there is a definite end to scenarios. A GM could feasibly say that you either have to purchase a raise dead or be pronounced dead, because the scenario will be over before the next day.

It would be nice to know how much leeway we have in downtime. If I can prepare remove disease tomorrow, do I have to pay for it today or be pronounced dead?

It would be nice to know. I was scouring the guide and the only guideline is one given specific to death.

Guide to organized play wrote:

All conditions gained during an adventure, except for permanent negative levels, ability drain that does not reduce an ability score to 0, and conditions that provide no mechanical effect, must be resolved before the end of the session; if these are not resolved the character should be reported as ‘dead.’ Permanent negative levels, ability drain, and non-mechanical conditions being carried over to the next session should be recorded under the Notes section of the Chronicle sheet. An unplayable character should be marked as dead when reporting the session. See additional rules under Dealing with Afflictions in Chapter 7.
Death is a part of any RPG, and unfortunately it can happen in Pathfinder Society Organized Play just like in a regular Pathfinder RPG game session. The basic rule for Pathfinder Society is that if a PC dies during the course of a scenario, he can be raised by a PC of appropriate class and level seated at his table (paying all expected costs), he can be raised by an NPC in an appropriately sized settlement (see “Purchasing Spellcasting Services”), or he can be raised by his faction if he has sufficient Prestige Points.

I think the intent of this is fairly clear. If a member of your party can do so, then use their ability and pay the associated costs and write their PFS number on your sheet to indicate so, for condition which would remove your character from play.

[Cameron Ackerman]

David knott 242 wrote:

That sounds like a more general issue. The scenario ends today, and you do not have the resources (in terms of spells) to raise somebody from the dead or to remove a PFS lethal condition today -- but you can easily do so tomorrow, and the condition in question will not worsen enough in that time to make a serious difference. Surely this issue has come up many times before?

Gentle Repose would circumvent this issue, and presumably allow for an unlimited ressurrection time. It doesn't make sense to me to have the session end immediately upon the end of the scenario. A lot of the time people will want to make purchases and stuff after the scenario itself is over or would like to get raised as described here. I've never seen anybody say that they have a time limit for the session after the scenario is over.

It seems a little bit cheesy to me to effectively have one paladin eliminate the need for a 5450 spell casting service for potentially several people, though. I've seen this be used to raise 3 people, and I still have mixed feelings about it.

[Jiggy]

Cameron Ackerman wrote:

It seems a little bit cheesy to me to effectively have one paladin eliminate the need for a 5450 spell casting service for potentially several people, though. I've seen this be used to raise 3 people, and I still have mixed feelings about it.

What would be a non-cheesy use of Ultimate Mercy?

[Cameron Ackerman]

Jiggy wrote:

Cameron Ackerman wrote:

It seems a little bit cheesy to me to effectively have one paladin eliminate the need for a 5450 spell casting service for potentially several people, though. I've seen this be used to raise 3 people, and I still have mixed feelings about it.

What would be a non-cheesy use of Ultimate Mercy?

Spoiler:

Raising of a Gug to use in a sacrifice for a ritual to summon an evil creature to fight a dragon?

But seriously, that's a good point. Haha

[David_Bross]

Good non-cheesy use:

Raising the good dragon who attacked the party because Walter's magus was annoyed at it and decided to provoke a fight?

Honestly if someone has invested two feats and some equipment in raising their allies, a more apt question is why is everyone dying so much? A feat can cost between 5k to 20k gold to get for free, and many aren't available at all, but that should be worth a few powdered diamonds.

[CRobledo]

I have actually used Ultimate Mercy on an NPC before...

[Rycaut]

non-cheesy uses:

- raising PCs in the middle of a scenario (which is more viable for Paladins than Clerics since most people and many Clerics even high level ones who can prepare Raise Dead don't carry around the material components... though if you prepare Raise Dead you probably should have the components as well or that's a waste of a spell slot)

- raising an NPC or enemy killed by the party before key information was gained or killed by accident (the good dragon attacked by characters not realizing that it was good - though most Paladins in those circumstances should have been trying to save the dragon in the midst of the fight)

But it is also worth considering that to have it is a pretty hefty investment on the part of the Paladin player - it requires two feats (Paladins don't exactly get a lot of feats - though Greater Mercy is a very good feat itself) and a CHA of 19 (which Paladins certainly benefit from having but it takes planning)

and since it requires 10 lay on hands it likely requires a third feat - Extra Lay on Hands

all to save other players gold and/or prestige

[Chris Mortika]

Let's say that a scenario ends with the party not in a big city. (That is to say, most scenarios.) A PC dies, but has enough gold or prestige to pay for her raising.

I would have issues with a GM who announces, "The adventure is over. Did you want to pay for a raise dead? Aww. Too bad. You're underwater / in a demi-plane / in a jungle / on a lonely mountaintop in Taldor. There's nobody here to cast the spell / buy the equipment you need to pay for the spell / let you call in that favor."

Likewise, I would have a problem if the GM said "The party's cleric wants to heal you, and you have 5000 gp in diamond dust, but she doesn't have the spell prepared. The adventure ends before she can prepare spells tomorrow, so you're just dead." I don't think that's the right way to run the campaign.

And I don't see what the distinction is, between that tableau and the one under discussion.

[DesolateHarmony]

Rycaut wrote:

non-cheesy uses:

...Good uses omitted...

all to save other players gold and/or prestige

Seems like kind of a good thing to do to me.

[Rycaut]

that's my thinking as well - I'm leaning towards taking it now (at level 9) instead of taking something like Furious Focus which would have more of a personal benefit just because it seems very much like a Paladin thing to take - and to do. And even if with this level my character has more non-Paladin levels than Paladin levels, he still is a Paladin - as well as Bard and Dragon Disciple... and the flavor of a Nagaji that wields a big sword, hits really really hard, casts divine and arcane spells (while in heavy armor) and occasionally turns kinda dragon like in the midst of combat being able to also raise the dead with a touch is pretty nice.

And I figure if as is likely I play this character through Eyes of the Ten and then hopefully some special and high level modules he likely will find himself in situations where raising someone NPC or PC (or occasionally both) from the dead will be not just useful but exceptionally useful....

(makes me also think that buying a scroll of nap stack might not be a horrible idea) - give it to the party cleric or UMD it.

[Mike Lindner]

Chris Mortika wrote:

Let's say that a scenario ends with the party not in a big city. (That is to say, most scenarios.) A PC dies, but has enough gold or prestige to pay for her raising.

I would have issues with a GM who announces, "The adventure is over. Did you want to pay for a raise dead? Aww. Too bad. You're underwater / in a demi-plane / in a jungle / on a lonely mountaintop in Taldor. There's nobody here to cast the spell / buy the equipment you need to pay for the spell / let you call in that favor."

Likewise, I would have a problem if the GM said "The party's cleric wants to heal you, and you have 5000 gp in diamond dust, but she doesn't have the spell prepared. The adventure ends before she can prepare spells tomorrow, so you're just dead." I don't think that's the right way to run the campaign.

And I don't see what the distinction is, between that tableau and the one under discussion.

The guide says:

Quote:

Death is a part of any RPG, and unfortunately it can happen in Pathfinder Society Organized Play just like in a regular Pathfinder RPG game session. The basic rule for Pathfinder Society is that if a PC dies during the course of a scenario, he can be raised by a PC of appropriate class and level seated at his table (paying all expected costs), he can be raised by an NPC in an appropriately sized settlement (see “Purchasing Spellcasting Services”), or he can be raised by his faction if he has sufficient Prestige Points.

A direct reading indicates that paying in gold means you need to be in an appropriately sized settlement, but paying in prestige bypasses that requirement. So if you die out in the middle of the Mwangi expanse for example and it takes 15 days for the party to drag your body back to a settlement, then you can either pay the normal prestige cost or pay an above-minimum gold cost to get the necessary caster level for however long you have been dead.

Personally, several of my characters keep an unguent of timelessness on them for just such occasions.

[Tempest_Knight]

Let me see if I have the basics of the build right...

I'm running...

Str 16; Dex 10; Con 12; Int 10; Wis 10; Cha 19 (Human - Dual Talent)

Archetype: Warrior of the Holy Light

Feats;
Lvl 3 - Greater Mercy
Lvl 6 - Ultimate Mercy

Which gets me 9/day uses of Lay on Hands...

So I need Bracers of the Merciful Knight and/or a +2 Charisma item, correct?

[Angrish]

My Paladin is rolling towards Ultimate Mercy, however I have pushed my build back slightly because I took one level of gunslinger (mysterious stranger) for flavor.

His stats:

He's Aasimar (derp, I know. I am shooting for one character from every race though!), stats are currently: Str 10; Dex 16 (14+2 racial); Con 14 (12+2 belt); Int 10; Wis 8; Cha 20 (17+2 racial+1 @ lvl 4)

His feats:

Because of the first level dip into Gunslinger, my feat progression is 1: Rapid Reload; 3: Extra Lay; 5: Greater Mercy; 7: Ultimate Mercy; 9: Extra Channel...

I've built him into the Warrior of the Holy Light and Sword of Valor archetypes, as a very brash frontline support unit. 10 uses of Lay on Hands at level 5 (4th lvl Pally), and by level 7 when I get Ultimate Mercy he'll have 11 uses, without considering the gloves, a headband, or anything else.