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Ugh.... that is so stupid...
So how are they going to explain Spellsong? If magic creates very obviously magical effects, how can you possibly hide it in a simple violin song? or a speech? How can you possibly HIDE THE MAGIC?
This is dumb....
It is beyond dumb, especially since it also applies to spell-like abilities.
A succubus can no longer cast charm person on a guard without giving herself away.
Does ranks in the stealth skill count as high investment now?
The only way to truly conceal your magic now is to do the following...
- Shell out money for the new Heroes of the Streets book- Pick up the following feats
- Cunning Caster
- Deceitful
- Eschew Materials
- Silent Spell
- Still Spell
- Min/max your Bluff skill
- Cast every spell using slots 2 higher than the spell you likely want to cast discreetly
- Beat everyone's Perception check
Cunning Caster doesn't need Escew Materials, Silent Spell, and Still Spell to function; but since it applies a -4 penalty to your Bluff check to conceal your casting PER COMPONENT, as well as an additional -4 penalty for obvious spells (like fireball as opposed to charm person), it's basically useless without that heavy investment.
As far as I could tell, she never could before either.
There were no components and no observable stimulus before shown anywhere in the rules for spell-like abilities.
So tell me, how would you have witnessed her using a non-obvious spell-like ability?
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A succubus can no longer cast charm person on a guard without giving herself away.
As far as I could tell, she never could before either.
I think he meant "Since 3rd edition." Yeah, that must be it.
I've seen RD on these forums for half a decade, at least. He's always pretty clear on the rules and takes great delight in finding actual rules loopholes and bringing them to our attention, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt this time that he was also clear on this rule too, and merely complaining about how 3rd edition ruined it for the poor succubus nearly two decades ago.
The composite longbow does not require nearly the same amount of investment as a gun does. It gets a flat bonus to damage by default, and with the adaptive weapon property makes an excellent ranged option even for characters who don't want to specialize in ranged.
An odd statement, considering that even with the non-proficiency penalty, a character that just picks up a gun and shoots it is still ignoring all armor, natural armor, and shield bonuses to the target's AC. In most cases, this comprises the overwhelming majority of a target's armor class. So, if this is just gonna be a 'sometimes' weapon and they're not specializing in ranged attacks, why wouldn't they want something that just lets them ignore all those defenses in a desperate moment? The logic here just doesn't track. Do I want the thing that's gonna make me hit the dragon in just the right spot for a 1-in-a-thousand chance of actually hurting it, or do I want the other thing that will hurt it as long as I can hit the broad side of a barn? That's not a tough call.
As far as damage bonuses go, let's not forget that second, third, even fourth iterative attacks are FAR more likely to land and deal damage with a firearm against most targets than they are with a bow. That more than makes up for the no damage bonus part, especially if this weapon is in the hands of a class with sneak attack. And again, for those who do specialize in ranged combat, Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim MORE than make up for not getting Strength or whatever to damage when you're targeting touch AC. Again, speaking from experience here, if you care.
By default advanced firearms receive no bonus to damage, will break on a natural roll of 1, and require several feats and at least a 5 level dip in the gunslinger class to work well. Additionally, a rifle will run you 5000 gold before you factor in things like masterwork, enhancements, and special materials; and the ammunition for it costs another 26 gold base!
You use a gun's misfire value, which is not always 1, to determine misfires. It's always at least a 1, but not always just that. On the matter of cost, a metal cartridge is 15 gp, not 26. That's only 4 gp more than a shot from an early firearm, or 3 gp more than an alchemical cartridge for such a gun would cost. It should be noted that unlike with their alchemical cousins, metal cartridges don't raise the misfire value of a weapon. Lastly, the making a gun masterwork or magical is the same as a bow. Same feat requirements, same caster level scaling, most of the same enchantments are available, etc. Remember, I said early firearms are not overpowered (despite my misgivings on how unfair they are to dragons and the like); if advanced firearms are that much better, there should be a significant price increase to their use. There isn't, it's all front-loaded to the gun itself which is a FAR superior specimen of it's type than an early firearms. A few thousand extra gold is a pittance for such a magnificent weapon. While it's true these costs are still somewhat of a pain at low levels, you tend to grow out of that quickly as you level. In the case of a campaign where the GM is hyper-stingy with treasure, well, that's why Gunsmithing and/or archetypes that grant it for free exist.
I feel I should point out there is an erroneous assumption in your argument about the downsides of advanced firearms. You're assuming the campaign world is 'Emerging Guns' state by default, which isn't necessarily the case. Remember, we're not talking Golarion-centric, we're talking about the rules system as a whole removed from regional specifics as printed in Ultimate Combat. The campaign settings could be one of 'Commonplace Guns' or 'Guns Everywhere', where firearms are martial weapons, not exotic. Heck, 'Emerging Guns' really isn't much of a proper state to talk about advanced firearms by default, since it's more or less assumed that such things are almost 100% unheard of, the equivalent of a rare magic item or technological artifact that's only found in a high-level treasure trove. For discussing the impact of advanced firearm mechanics, that leaves the other two setting categories. The latter state assumes that the costs for ALL firearms and ammunition are reduced to 10% of normal. A discussion of guns in Pathfinder has to set a specific tech level with regards to these weapons, but the range of acceptable options makes it clear that cost is not always a major factor for someone determined to use them.
While it's true that advanced firearms are far more accurate, they also demand that you specialize in them in order to wield, which is more than fair as a trade-off. Being strong in the hands of a class whose usefulness begins and ends with pointing guns at things and killing them does not make them overpowered.
Again, not true, as I've laid out above. Take EWP (guns), Gunsmithing, and/or Amateur Gunslinger and you're more than set. Being a gunslinger or a class with a similar archetype just makes this even easier. You don't even have to be a full BAB one; my black-powder inquisitor rarely missed and absolutely murdered enemies with a full-round attack once he picked up his revolver. Gods forbid I had decided to use two of them, like a rogue in a previous game of ours did. The rest of the ranged combat feats work just fine with guns and make things that much more powerful, as they did with these two character examples. Some extra gold and a couple feats do not anywhere else in Pathfinder allow hitting touch AC at such usable ranges with such limited drawbacks. There's a reason for that: because doing so, however cool it is, is overpowered compared to the other options that exist in the game at this time.
As far as I could tell, she never could before either.There were no components and no observable stimulus before shown anywhere in the rules for spell-like abilities.
So tell me, how would you have witnessed her using a non-obvious spell-like ability?
By saying: "My wizard uses Spellcraft to identify what she's casting." and then proceeding to follow the rules presented in the Core Rulebook regarding Spellcraft and, if applicable, Counterspells.
Does anyone else find it highly suspicious that this FAQ wasn't released until Heroes of the Streets (with its Cunning Caster feat) and Occult Adventures (with all of the psychic, componentless spells) casters became a thing?
A succubus can no longer cast charm person on a guard without giving herself away.As far as I could tell, she never could before either.I think he meant "Since 3rd edition." Yeah, that must be it.
I've seen RD on these forums for half a decade, at least. He's always pretty clear on the rules and takes great delight in finding actual rules loopholes and bringing them to our attention, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt this time that he was also clear on this rule too, and merely complaining about how 3rd edition ruined it for the poor succubus nearly two decades ago.
I've been aware of the "clarification" since the devs first posted about it on these forums.
Prior to that, I was firmly set in my interpretation that if you could not see the components, you couldn't identify the spell.
By saying: "My wizard uses Spellcraft to identify what she's casting." and then proceeding to follow the rules presented in the Core Rulebook regarding Spellcraft and, if applicable, Counterspells.As far as I could tell, she never could before either.There were no components and no observable stimulus before shown anywhere in the rules for spell-like abilities.
So tell me, how would you have witnessed her using a non-obvious spell-like ability?
Prior to the dev "clarification" where is the rule that says you can even identify spell-like abilities? If I remember correctly, there wasn't one.
Does anyone else find it highly suspicious that this FAQ wasn't released until Heroes of the Streets (with its Cunning Caster feat) and Occult Adventures (with all of the psychic, componentless spells) casters became a thing?
Some people just see malice when they want to I suppose.
Prior to the dev "clarification" where is the rule that says you can even identify spell-like abilities? If I remember correctly, there wasn't one.
That would be because it's redundant, since SLA's use spell rules unless noted. So that doesn't point to either interpretation of the rules.
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Prior to the dev "clarification" where is the rule that says you can even identify spell-like abilities? If I remember correctly, there wasn't one.
Come on RD, you're better than that.
You've practically made a career of pointing out weird rules combinations. Surely one so savvy in reading, parsing, understanding, and exploiting rules (and their interactions and/or loopholes), surely you know that SLAs work exactly like spells except as noted. The rulebook goes on to note a few exceptions. It does NOT call out an exception to the Spellcraft rules to identify them.
Surely you know that lack of a such a rule means we default to the baseline general rule, that the SLA works like the spell so you don't need me to point you to the default rule, but rather, you need YOU to point out the exception.
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(Side note: doesn't the fact that there IS spellsong feat PROVE that you, and everyone else, CANNOT hide their spellcasting through other means - and that it was even true before the fact?)
No more than the existence of a necklace of fireballs proves that you can't cast fireball through other means. Spellsong offers a one feat way for bards to hide their spell casting. Without vaguely defined magic sparkles, a wizard would have to take three metamagic feats to completely hide their spell casting, but they could still do it.
Prior to the dev "clarification" where is the rule that says you can even identify spell-like abilities? If I remember correctly, there wasn't one.Come on RD, you're better than that.
You've practically made a career of pointing out weird rules combinations. Surely one so savvy in reading, parsing, understanding, and exploiting rules (and their interactions and/or loopholes), surely you know that SLAs work exactly like spells except as noted. The rulebook goes on to note a few exceptions. It does NOT call out an exception to the Spellcraft rules to identify them.
Surely you know that lack of a such a rule means we default to the baseline general rule, that the SLA works like the spell so you don't need me to point you to the default rule, but rather, you need YOU to point out the exception.
I'm really not better than that. I've really believed that for the better part of a decade.
I guess it got changed in Pathfinder and I never really caught on.
Ugh.... that is so stupid...
So how are they going to explain Spellsong? If magic creates very obviously magical effects, how can you possibly hide it in a simple violin song? or a speech? How can you possibly HIDE THE MAGIC?
This is dumb....
Maybe because Spellsong is a feat. You know, those things that represent spending extra time training to do something special that other people don't know how to do. Like when a fighter takes Power Attack to learn how to hit things harder - nobody else can do that unless they also spend the time to learn this feat.
That's what feats are for - specifically, to allow your character to do something that otherwise breaks general rules. You know, like taking a penalty to attack gives you bonus damage on your attack rolls - totally breaking the general rules of attack and damage, but that's what the Power Attack feat lets you do, break the general rule.
So take the feat and learn how to do something special. Something that other people cannot do. Learn how to break the general rule about visible spellcasting.
(Side note: doesn't the fact that there IS spellsong feat PROVE that you, and everyone else, CANNOT hide their spellcasting through other means - and that it was even true before the fact?)
(Second side note: can we now take this back to the actual open and ongoing thread where people are discussing this simple clarification and how it ruins Pathfinder?)
Except that the feat simply says you can weave your spell into your performance. This I saw before as hiding the verbal in the lyrics or sounds and the somatics in movement. Now, if you got sparkles or things that are VERY OBVIOUSLY MAGICAL makes it much harder to figure out how to hide it. I mean, how do you hide sparkles? I mean, if all magic makes special effects that even a lay person can tell is magic, how can you possibly hide it? Unless you are suggesting that all bardic performances come with pyrotechnic shows....
And if they ARE having a way to hide it, why can't anyone else? Unless, of course, they are going to force a new meta magic feat to suppress this non existant sparkle in the new book...
Oh and this makes playing any sort of stealth mage damn near impossible until said feat is created...
I suppose it's a matter of perspective whether incompetence is an adequate explanation. It's certainly not a good ruling. Just another in a long line of feats that instead of providing new capability take something that everyone could do last year and restricting it heavily.
Except they've been saying it for years so that's b%&#$$+%. I seriously don't get how you guys are surprised by this and think it's a sudden change. Whether it's a good ruling is very subjective, many have said they approve of the FAQ and many have said they dislike it, so saying "It's certainly not a good ruling" is blatantly false.
Yeah... I'm not sure why y'all would think magic has no outward appearance when all media I can think of has magic have some outward appearance. It takes a spellcraft roll with no special vision like detect magic to identify a spell.
Not all media has visual magical effects BEFORE the spell is cast. Some do, some don't. Please be more careful when making blanket statements (and really, just try to avoid making them at all, as such sweeping absolutes almost always end up being wrong).
Yeah... I'm not sure why y'all would think magic has no outward appearance when all media I can think of has magic have some outward appearance. It takes a spellcraft roll with no special vision like detect magic to identify a spell.
Even if it is subtle, pupil-less eyes or a magical rune appearing or just a visual distortion like a mirage all would be subtle magical effects. If you have Spellsong, then the feat specifically overwrites the general rule of outward appearance - just like Tricky Spell or combining Still and Silent.
Hiding a spell requires roleplay and guile, and magic is strong enough without saying casting Charm Person isn't an obvious casting.
Except how come only bards can hide their spell? Are you suggesting only bards can suppress the sparkles? and they can only do it while performing? If you interpret spell song as they are hiding the COMPONENTS within their performance (as in hiding the words in a song or message and the somatic components within regular movements involves[i.e. sweeping arm movements for a speech, moving your bow of your violin, dramatic movememnts for acting, ect]) then Spellsong makes sense (especially since Bards cannot take Silence spell).
Also remember, they said it is an obvious effect that even a lay person can tell is magical. Which means something like sparkles, Avatar:the last airbender kung fu movements, glowies, floating runes, ect. Things you cannot confuse for glare in your glasses or a mirage. The fact they call out their artwork further shows they are thinking along these lines...
Also, most media tends to have the obvious signs of spell casting (outside stuff like fireballs) as the WORDS and the movements to cast (Swish then flick). Of the other ones, a lot of time it has visual effects so that the audience knows SOMETHING is happening. It is put in to enhance drama.
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Let's be fair, bards probably keep reflective confetti on their person at all times for (fabulous) reasons.
Are you saying that all bards are friends of Dorothy?
If so...
I agree.
Probably elves too.
I don't see how spellsong could conceal the visual effects of a spell, I mean, do violins normally give off sparks?
Or is it a flaming trombone?
Saxophone rainbow-chucker?
I would like to see an example explaining this ability.
I don't see how spellsong could conceal the visual effects of a spell, I mean, do violins normally give off sparks?
Or is it a flaming trombone?
Saxophone rainbow-chucker?
I would like to see an example explaining this ability.
No, quite the opposite. The Spellsong feat gives him the ability to create magic WITHOUT the tell-tale visible energy. He suppresses it. Prevents that visual stuff from even happening. Through many hours of learning how to play his music or dance his dance or tell his jokes just right.
Now that bards have figured out how to suppress the swirling pink sparkly unicorns dancing around their heads while they cast spells, pretty soon every other spellcaster will learn some feat to do the same thing - I understand such feats are imminent in upcoming books to be released.
I suspect those feats will be all the rage among your level one world-breaking enchanters.
Not all media has visual magical effects BEFORE the spell is cast. Some do, some don't. Please be more careful when making blanket statements (and really, just try to avoid making them at all, as such sweeping absolutes almost always end up being wrong).Which is why I specifically said I can't think of any. Spells involve trances, writing, glowing bits, etc. If you would provide counterexamples it would refute what I said, and would be welcome but just dismissing it outright isn't exactly useful.
Just some examples from various sources :
- Lords of the Rings- Harry Potter
- The Sword of Truth/Legend of the Seeker
- Witcher
- Naruto (well, jutsus, not spells but that is close enough)
- ...
A great many people think it's a bad ruling, and have stated their reasons for it, hiiamtom.
You shouldn't discount that out of hand just because you disagree.
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So to add back to the original topic:
Counterspell rules. I wish there was a more cut and clean way to perform this spell-maneuver. The way it stands, it's practically worthless. I've maybe countered a spell once, across my journey of 3.5 to Pathfinder today.
I've always disliked the settlement rules, simply because it doesn't take into account fantastically sized cities on the planes. I mean, one plane in golarion is just one city, and yet it has the same rules as a metroloplis on golarion.
The same for witcher signs. The main example being Axii (the "charm" sign), that you can use several times in front of many people without them noticing (although some very rare time someone notice there is something wrong). Very close to the Jedi mind trick.
Considering your hand glows when he casts Axii that is in flavour of the FAQ not against. -.-
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I love when people complain about "errata disguised as FAQ" or the like. Why? Because you ran it incorrectly for so long, as it never dawned upon you that you were wrong until they stated it?
I love when people complain about "errata disguised as FAQ" or the like. Why? Because you ran it incorrectly for so long, as it never dawned upon you that you were wrong until they stated it?It wasn't incorrect until the FAQ.
Says who? People who don't want it to work that way?
It was already at least implied with the fact that even a stilled silent xyz'd spell still allowed for Spellcraft checks to be identified.
People may not have liked it or thought it made sense, but it was still there.
This is nothing more than explanation of why they rules that way, way back when.
It wasn't "right" it was being run incorrectly because people wanted it to work that way and there wasn't anything to point to and say "you are doing it wrong". Now there is, and they are up in arms?
So here are the things I have found to grind my gears about pathfinder.
I don't like the lack of a hard cap for stats in the game. I unfortunately have far too many people who pride their ability to have ridiculous statistics in all the campaigns I see run here in my hometown (Like someone back before the Errata changed it using a feat to add Charisma to their saves, giving them a 42, 35, 43 to their saves at level 10). You can house-rule it or bump up all the monsters and encounters, but it doesn't solve the problem and honestly I would just want Paizo to post in their rulebook "No, you cannot raise your AC/Ability Scores/Saves/Skills past a hard cap. You can't. Deal with it."
Alignment. I think we have enough people talking about it.
Feat Pre-Reqs and Martial Woes: I think we have enough people talking about it, so I'll just add that I agree, and martials should be able to use a swift action to add one attack after moving and using a standard attack, provided they are of the level when they get multiple attacks.
Have Diplomacy and Intimidate not work on Creatures that are 2-3 levels higher then you. Problem solved, all those bonuses mean nothing if you don't have the power scale to utilize it on things that really will or should not care (Currently having higher then a +11 to diplomacy can allow you to change the attitude of an Ancient Dragon. Which should instead chuckle before quickly enjoying a low level snack)
Most of this stuff may just be personal problems as I have to deal with so many min-maxing alignment-derping diplomancers, but having an actual statement or rule that reduces that to manageable levels would be fantastic.
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Says who? People who don't want it to work that way?
Says the fact that they had to point out in their very FAQ that the CRB doesn't say that spellcasting does this. Oh, sure, you can infer something to that effect, but that is pure RAI. What they did was explicitly make a particular RAI ruling into RAW. it may have been their intention to make spells have sparkles all along (certainly seems that way given the FAQ), but that doesn't matter because they didn't put it in the dang book.
Says who? People who don't want it to work that way?Says the fact that they had to point out in their very FAQ that the CRB doesn't say that spellcasting does this. Oh, sure, you can infer something to that effect, but that is pure RAI. What they did was explicitly make a particular RAI ruling into RAW. it may have been their intention to make spells have sparkles all along (certainly seems that way given the FAQ), but that doesn't matter because they didn't put it in the dang book.
So the fact that they didn't explicitly tell you to couldn't do it?
Again, it isn't errata at that point. It is an FAQ expanding on the fact it doesn't work the way people have been running it and the mechanics are set up in a way that is appropriate for it to work that way, as explained.
RAW matches RAI, and this explains how and why.
FAQ is the appropriate place for it, it hasn't changed anything except a widely incorrect belief.
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So the fact that they didn't explicitly tell you to couldn't do it?
No, it's the fact that it doesn't say mystic sparkles happen when casting a spell anywhere in the rules. And it's not like this is a little thing, it's potentially a game changer. Until the FAQ it wasn't defined as being an obvious effect. YOU think of it as a clarification because YOU already thought that way. Fine, more power to you, in the end your view is more in line with what the devs wanted. That doesn't change the fact that before the FAQ mystic sparkles were an interpretation of the rules, not RAW.
So the fact that they didn't explicitly tell you to couldn't do it?No, it's the fact that it doesn't say mystic sparkles happen when casting a spell anywhere in the rules. And it's not like this is a little thing, it's potentially a game changer. Until the FAQ it wasn't defined as being an obvious effect. YOU think of it as a clarification because YOU already thought that way. Fine, more power to you, in the end your view is more in line with what the devs wanted. That doesn't change the fact that before the FAQ mystic sparkles were an interpretation of the rules, not RAW.
That there wasn't is just as much an "interpretation" despite the fact that a stilled silent eschewed spell still provoked a roll.
That there wasn't isn't any more RAW then there was. It was always obvious you were casting and it could be determined what (barring exception). If you want to ignore the fact the rules said that, sure I guess you could say it wasn't obviously casting. But the rules always said "something" obvious and tell tale was happening.
That there wasn't anything "happening" was never in line with what the rules said. That something that has always been happening, has just been defined. That is all.
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As for the group saying "well the effects are subtle like eyes whiting and such"... that makes Spellcraft REALLY FREAKING DUMB...
I mean, picture if you will... A wizard casts a silent Stilled Dominate Person with Eschew Materials... you say his eyes kinda go a little white or something (his eyes glow a little maybe?). Well, since there is no penalty to spellcraft with Silent+Still+Eschew, the spell is still very readily identifiable...
That means, you are some how saying that an opponent wizard could go "He is casting Dominate Person!!!", the fighter would ask "How the bloody hell can you tell???" and in reply the wizard would say "His eyes slightly glowed a Deep Sea green blue with a touch of magenta. Obviously Dominate. Charm is more a Light Sea blue green with a touch of hot pink"...
I mean... that just SOUNDS stupid... Now the glowing runes things solves the issue entirely (each spell has a unique set of runes) and is in line with Words of Power (as they are essentially more primal magic), but that opens a whole new can of worms. Now Illusion has an even HARDER time now (since glowing pretty runes makes things like invisibiity pointless...) and creates and even weirder time with stealth (if a wizard is behind a low barrier stealthed and casts a silent, still spell, would the glow give him away? Technically there is no listed penalty to stealth for casting a spell).
The other issue is Enchantment. Enchantment is also a school that is hosed enough (There is a reason why most people ditch enchantment with no worries...). Now a lot of its spells are rather pointless or lose all thematic value (how are you supposed to be a charming succubus using magic to charm your opponents without them even knowing when you glow eldritch runes eveywhere???)
So yes, the FAQratta is stupid and create ALL SORTS OF OTHER ISSUES....