RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Quick question about creating a petitioner. When adding that template, pretty much everything gained from character levels is specifically called out as being lost, except ability score increases. Are they meant to keep ability score increases?
I can see the rational for keeping the score increases, more power in life leads to a minor advantage compared to other petitioners.
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Question for you Mr. Mark Seifter! (And thank you for answering my other questions!) Does the Trample Monster Ability beat Concealment or Total Concealment?
This came up because Trample is an Overrun maneuver that auto-hits anyone in it's path.However, a normal Overrun is still affected by Concealment, so would Trample maybe?
Thanks for taking the time to review this question!
Ah, that's a neat question. Basically it comes down to the question of whether obviating the combat maneuver check is sufficient to obviate connected rolls like concealment. I would tend to say yes (but something like blink that works against attacks with no attack roll should still work).
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Thanks Mark for playing Dark Yoon, any chance we'll see her again ?
I guess it's possible, but she's based on a series of alternate events that never happened, so probably not in any official capacity. It was more of a just-for-fun thing I made up for the twitch stream.
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I've had a lot of ideas rattling around in my head. If I wanted to write content under the pathfinder rule set is there any advice you could offer?
I'd say go for it! If you don't want to have to deal with getting art, doing layout, etc and/or if you want more exposure for your work, you'll want to contact a 3rd party publisher with your idea. In most cases, if you have a good idea, it shouldn't take you more than a few tries to find one that fits you and that wants to publish your idea.
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While I see no other way to play for most skills and spells that rely upon Dim Light (shadow), doesn't this ruling negate the benefits of Low Light Vision and Darkvision of targets in relation to abilities such as Hide in Plain Sight (Shadowdancer & Assassin versions) even though there is no such mention of doing so in those Hide in Plain Sight abilities?I have a question about your blog post Illuminating the Darkness.Yeah, "actual light" vs "perceived light" is pretty annoying, particularly for features that rely on the exact position of "shadows". I would tend to agree that anything that depends on the absolute light level of an area should just use the way it works for normal vision; the existence of a creature with darkvision shouldn't negate the shadowdancer's ability to shadow jump, for instance (or else the poor thing would never be able to do it, since she gains darkvision).
Not necessarily; hide in plain sight in particular gets more complicated yet, since its claim to fame is the ability to hide while being observed at the time. If you couldn't do that while any creature with darkvision was nearby (like your own shadow companion), it wouldn't really help much.
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Can a kineticist with the void element use draining infusion to harm undead and negative energy based creatures?
Fire's fury says you add your elemental overflow bonus to damage, does that mean it only adds the bonus when you have taken the right amount of burn or does it add the bonus based on what overflow bonus you can get regardless of burn? Also why is the ability a level 1 ability when you do not get elemental overflow until 3rd level.
You can drain negative energy creatures.
It adds the current bonus, and it shows up as a level 1 ability so you can take it at level 2 and have it at level 3 if you want to, or take it at 6+ with Extra Wild Talent.
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It may be suboptimal as a PC option, but a DM could still use it to build an unusual adversary.Except for people who want to play a White-Haired Witch.I'm at a loss at why you wouldn't take the hex rather than the archetype post clarification.
I've seen a few PC builds of it that are pretty strong too, though they don't usually look like standard witches at all.
As to an adversary, I made one for Jade Regent that was essentially an animated hair white-haired witch with the ability to generate a replaceable (and regenerateable) dummy body to use to travel around; you had to kill the hair to actually kill her.
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Any chance of a ">>Ask *Dark Yoon* All of your questions here! <<" thread?
Just ask those questions to Yoon here framed as being about Dark Yoon. She'll know what you're talking about ;)
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Being the kineticist master that you are, what are your thoughts on this question? link Is any cover granted by the wall total cover? Or does it work like a normal wall and thus grants partial cover as appropriate.
Much like a tower shield, it grants the total cover to very particular attacks (though it doesn't have the tower shield's limitations limiting to one character or allowing targeted spells to pass through). It's at its most powerful around doors and narrow corridors, in which venue I've seen it work to incredible effect. You could conceivably block someone from progressing down a 5-foot corridor for a very long time by readying actions to put up kinetic cover during their movement (or by pre-calling a series of them).
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I suppose I'll ask this here, since I honestly don't know who wrote the archetype. :P This question was actually asked in a Familiar Folio thread back in the day and was never answered.
The Chosen One archetype for paladin from the Familiar Folio states that:
Religious Mentor (Ex): The familiar’s sworn duty is to help train the chosen one for her future glory. The familiar is treated as having a number of ranks in Knowledge (religion) equal to the chosen one’s paladin level. The chosen one doesn’t gain Knowledge (religion) as a class skill.So the familiar has all of the ranks in Kn.: religion because they're supposed to be teaching their young paladin. Okay, cool. Only one problem: Familiars can't talk to their masters until 5th level. Until that point, it's a lot of vague, empathic communication and glaring at one another.
My question is thus: Based on the fluff of the archetype, would it be reasonable to move the Speak With Master special ability for the familiar from 5th to 1st level?
I wrote the familiar archetypes and almost all the character archetypes in that book. It's intended that the Chosen One's familiar can communicate its lessons in other ways until level 5 through empathic link, gestures of approval or disapproval, or even slowly scratching something in the dirt; generally subtly guiding as it can. However, it wouldn't really be disruptive at all if that was extended to allow the familiar to quote appropriate lines from the deity's holy text or something like that, as long as it wasn't being used as a coded language in order to communicate complex topics (a la "Melodies of Inner Beauty Chapter 4, Verse 5? Looks like there's 5 orcs in there!")
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Quick question about creating a petitioner. When adding that template, pretty much everything gained from character levels is specifically called out as being lost, except ability score increases. Are they meant to keep ability score increases?
I can see the rational for keeping the score increases, more power in life leads to a minor advantage compared to other petitioners.
It seems like they should lose them conceptually, especially since they seem to replace all other things and gain the appropriate results for a 2HD outsider. However, as written they don't, and that's probably for usability: if you're applying the template to a published NPC, how do you know where it put the ability score increases? If you're a whiz at reverse-engineering, you can probably figure it out by guess-and-check in an attempt to get the starting statistics to add up to the right point buy (though if they have a floating racial bonus it makes it even harder), but otherwise, you're at a loss.
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Mark, How often to the other devs check the boards? about as much as you, less but check in on it, occasionally, hardly ever.
Like I know you're the only one that posts, so we know you're looking at them. But it makes me wonder if you're like the forum guy, bringing the forum info and question to the other devs, or if they are looking at threads much too.
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Mark, How often to the other devs check the boards? about as much as you, less but check in on it, occasionally, hardly ever.
Like I know you're the only one that posts, so we know you're looking at them. But it makes me wonder if you're like the forum guy, bringing the forum info and question to the other devs, or if they are looking at threads much too.
Though you said devs, I assume you instead mean designers based on the context of your question (since among developers, obviously John and Linda check the PFS boards a whole lot). I don't really know exactly how much everybody on the PDT checks the boards, but it's true that it's certainly less often than I do, since I'm weird and check them maybe too much. The exception is during playtests, when they all check the board a huge amount too but sometimes don't post as often (Jason, in particular, reads playtest posts in a giant info-gathering phase just before he creates his next iteration where he gives them a lot of attention, but he doesn't post as much, which has sometimes led playtesters to really underestimate how much he's listening).
yeah, I knew during playtests they are reading them and I was curious if you knew how much when it wasn't playtest.
Thanks for the answer.
Not necessarily; hide in plain sight in particular gets more complicated yet, since its claim to fame is the ability to hide while being observed at the time. If you couldn't do that while any creature with darkvision was nearby (like your own shadow companion), it wouldn't really help much.While I see no other way to play for most skills and spells that rely upon Dim Light (shadow), doesn't this ruling negate the benefits of Low Light Vision and Darkvision of targets in relation to abilities such as Hide in Plain Sight (Shadowdancer & Assassin versions) even though there is no such mention of doing so in those Hide in Plain Sight abilities?I have a question about your blog post Illuminating the Darkness.Yeah, "actual light" vs "perceived light" is pretty annoying, particularly for features that rely on the exact position of "shadows". I would tend to agree that anything that depends on the absolute light level of an area should just use the way it works for normal vision; the existence of a creature with darkvision shouldn't negate the shadowdancer's ability to shadow jump, for instance (or else the poor thing would never be able to do it, since she gains darkvision).
Thank you for answering and I don't want to keep beating a dead horse, but your answer seems to miss the question by implying that having anyone with darkvision in the area would limit HiPS against everyone. That is not what I am asking. I am pretty sure we all agree that would not be the case.
All stealth rolls are based on the observer's senses vs. the person hiding. An elf would see a rogue trying to hide 25' from a torch because of LLV and the fact that the area is not Dim Light to that elf, therefore the requirements for stealth do not exist against that elf. But the rogue would be able to hide in the same square from a human standing next to the elf. The rogue's ability to hide from the human is not negated by the presence of the elf.
Since the elf sees that area as normal light, still 15' from dim light, does HiPS follow the observer v. stealther model, or can the shadowdancer with HiPS hide from the elf 25' from the torch because HiPS ignores the senses (LLV or Darkvision) of the observer? And if so, would HiPS ignore any or all other senses like blindsense and blindsight?
Thanks again.
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We came up with this specific outline of the question from the discussion that sparked it.
If a shadowdancer is 20ft from a torch or similar light source, meaning they are 5ft from the beginning of dim light, does the fact that low light vision doubles the effective radius of light levels for the observer mean the shadowdancer can not use Hide in Plain Sight against that observer, as the effective dim light is now 25ft away? What if the observer has darkvision and sees through all dim light?
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Does the trait Wayang Spellhunter stack with the trait Magical Lineage?
From what I've seen on the forums, the argument has gone back and forth. Some feel like it shouldn't stack because they're both traits and they both basically do the same thing. The other side often claims that they do stack because they don't provide a "trait bonus", or any other kind of "bonus" for stacking to even come into effect.
I doubt this will get an actual FAQ, because even the campaign clarification haven't touched it. Still, if you'd be willing, I'd like to hear your view on it.
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We came up with this specific outline of the question from the discussion that sparked it.
If a shadowdancer is 20ft from a torch or similar light source, meaning they are 5ft from the beginning of dim light, does the fact that low light vision doubles the effective radius of light levels for the observer mean the shadowdancer can not use Hide in Plain Sight against that observer, as the effective dim light is now 25ft away? What if the observer has darkvision and sees through all dim light?
Yup, looks like you've got a bunch of FAQ clicks on it too.
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Out of curiosity, why doesn't the Elemental Ascetic allow you to use Wisdom in place of Constitution for combat maneuvers with wild talents like Pushing Infusion or Toppling Infusion?
Actually it should replace it there. It was meant to replace it for pretty everything except damage rolls (which kinetic fist doesn't have anyway).
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Another question!
Does Kinetic Fist require an open hand to use? This might seem like an obvious "well, you have to use an unarmed strike for it right" question, but let's say as an example you have a kitsune with a greatsword (or two scizores to prevent him from temporarily releasing a hand on his/her weapon) trying to use kinetic fist with his bite attack.
The kinetic blast class feature says you need a free hand to use the kinetic blast, but does that apply if you infuse it with Kinetic Fist?
To take this to an extreme, can you use kinetic fist if you have no hands whatsoever? If you are a fox with kineticist levels, could you use kinetic fist with your chomp attacks? Even better, if you are a fox with monk and kineticist levels, could you make a flurry (furry?) of blows with your soft, fuzzy paws and also apply kinetic fist?
You might see where I'm going with this :P
You don't need to make the fist attack with a hand, but you need a free prehensile appendage to aim any blast as part of kinetic blast's general rules.
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Thank you very much for your reply, Mr. Mark Seifter.
Here i got some other questions to bother you~1.Does the spell storing weapon/armor automatically hit, if a Shocking Grasp is storing in it and activated on a hit? In other words, do I have to make another touch attack to deliver Shocking Grasp on activation of a stored spell?
2.Etheric Shards spell says "......the minor movements involved in attacking or defending in combat force a stationary creature to attempt a Reflex save......", does that mean a character within shards should take a reflex save every time when she makes an attack, as well as her target if it is also within the shards?
1) Since you've triggered it after the weapon hit the enemy or the enemy hit (and thus touched) you, I think it hits automatically.
2) It's in the next line right after the part you excerpted "If a stationary creature succeeds at this save, it avoids damage completely for that round..."
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Does the trait Wayang Spellhunter stack with the trait Magical Lineage?
From what I've seen on the forums, the argument has gone back and forth. Some feel like it shouldn't stack because they're both traits and they both basically do the same thing. The other side often claims that they do stack because they don't provide a "trait bonus", or any other kind of "bonus" for stacking to even come into effect.
I doubt this will get an actual FAQ, because even the campaign clarification haven't touched it. Still, if you'd be willing, I'd like to hear your view on it.
This leads into two separate questions. Let's start with the easier one first: should it stack? Having played around with what would happen if it stacked, I can definitively say that the answer is no. Unless you go out of your way to pick a poor spell choice for it, the combination generally wreaks havoc (and in fact probably even the single trait is too strong) like by putting persistent spell on a save or lose for no cost (among other things, but this is something that particularly exacerbates it because in general spell level 1-3 has save or sucks that are probably too crippling for their level, so it's one of the more disruptive ones). Having actually used it, I would never recommend a group that's considering this question to decide that it stacks, even if they are bleeding edge optimized already, since it makes casters more disruptive and they're already probably pretty disruptive in a bleeding edge game (and it could easily wreck a low-op game completely).
Now does it stack? That's a tougher question. I see the ambiguity there, but I actually think that the fact that they are worded slightly differently (one changes the spell's effective level, one changes which slot you use) lends itself in a strict as-written analysis towards them stacking. But that said, even if you buy my reading just now, it's still very much max level not recommended.
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I've been plotting a sha'ir occultist for PFS recently, and I wanted to check on one thing...the sha'ir's earth jinn loses earth glide (as well as earth mastery). Does losing earth glide means it loses a burrow speed, or is earth glide something that just modifies a normal burrowing speed? I lean a little towards the former out of conservatism, but it doesn't seem clear based on the way the earth glide ability's written...
Should lose the burrow as part of earth glide. Use augment jin to get it back. Anyway, hope it's a blast in PFS!
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Potion Glutton: The “Normal” line says that drinking potions is normally a move action. Isn’t it normally a standard action? And if so, the feat text seems to be based on the move action assumption, so what should I do?
Normally, drinking potions is a standard action, not a move action. To bring it in line with that, change the text of potion glutton to the following: “Benefit: You can drink potions, elixirs, or other potables (but not extracts) as a move action without provoking an attack of opportunity.
Normal: Drinking potions is a standard action that provokes an attack of opportunity.”
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Mr. Mark Seifter,
As you recall I have a great desire for the Harrowed Medium to be published. As I recall there was some movement with it in that regard. I don't suppose you could update us on that?
Also, how well would a setting were Master Craftsman and the kinesticist replaced the normal spell casters? and spell casting work?
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I've been plotting a sha'ir occultist for PFS recently, and I wanted to check on one thing...the sha'ir's earth jinn loses earth glide (as well as earth mastery). Does losing earth glide means it loses a burrow speed, or is earth glide something that just modifies a normal burrowing speed? I lean a little towards the former out of conservatism, but it doesn't seem clear based on the way the earth glide ability's written...Should lose the burrow as part of earth glide. Use augment jin to get it back. Anyway, hope it's a blast in PFS!
Good to know. For anyone building a Sha'ir, I've updated my online Jin statblocks to match this.
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Thank you again for your well worded response. I absolutely don't allow them to stack in home games. It's too abusable.
There are probably FEATS less powerful than either trait, so I can see how they could be too powerful.
I better see how they stack with that reading of it. So, I'll just stay away from the forum posts with the optimized blaster characters, so I can keep ulcers from forming ^__^
And last, I always really appreciate you answering these questions.
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And with the last hour and twenty-ish minutes, I'm back. How does the feat Bladed Brush work?
It differs in wording from the Phalanx Soldier ability, which allows a character to use a polearm as a one-handed weapon. Bladed brush lets a user treat the glaive as a one-handed weapon.
1. Does it actually change the handedness, or just allow you to treat it that way for feats and abilities?
2. Can you select glaive with Slashing Grace if you already have bladed brush?
3. If yes to #2, does it do dex to damage or 1.5 dex to damage?
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Hi！
When I use the Spellslinger,can I fire the projectiles (bullets and pellets) and cast magic at the same time?
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What's your favorite PC of all time? (As a player or as a DM)
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Good to know. For anyone building a Sha'ir, I've updated my online Jin statblocks to match this.Gah, I didn't have to do all that myself?! Ah, well.
Maybe not, but I like having your stats to check my own. I was able to fix a few of my errors. I think you might have a couple as well.
Check your CMD for the Earth Jin. I have 10 + (+2 BAB) + (+1 STR) + (+1 DEX) + (-2 SIZE) = 12.
Also check your flat-footed AC for the Water Jin. I have 10 + (+4 NATURAL) + (+2 SIZE) = 16.
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These short, blunt sticks are held in the hands to enhance unarmed martial techniques.
Benefit: They provide the wielder with the ability to lock an opponent and target pressure points that grant her a +2 bonus on her combat maneuver to grapple.
Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll.
Question: Does wielding a Dan Bong in one of your hands actually make it harder to attempt a grapple, or are you supposed to be counted as having two free hands when using a Dan Bong in a grapple?
If the latter, could I request that it be added to the FAQs at some point? =D
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Thank you very much for your reply, Mr. Mark Seifter.
Here i got some other questions to bother you~1.Does the spell storing weapon/armor automatically hit, if a Shocking Grasp is storing in it and activated on a hit? In other words, do I have to make another touch attack to deliver Shocking Grasp on activation of a stored spell?
2.Etheric Shards spell says "......the minor movements involved in attacking or defending in combat force a stationary creature to attempt a Reflex save......", does that mean a character within shards should take a reflex save every time when she makes an attack, as well as her target if it is also within the shards?
1) Since you've triggered it after the weapon hit the enemy or the enemy hit (and thus touched) you, I think it hits automatically.
2) It's in the next line right after the part you excerpted "If a stationary creature succeeds at this save, it avoids damage completely for that round..."
2)what if he fails the save?
and a sationary creature within should make this save at the beginning of his turn, or on his attacking or being attacked?
It looks like it should be a once-per-round deal assuming you stay in your spot. I'd have them roll it the moment they first triggered it (such as by attacking or being attacked) and then succeed or fail, they've figured it out for that round.
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Mr. Mark Seifter,
As you recall I have a great desire for the Harrowed Medium to be published. As I recall there was some movement with it in that regard. I don't suppose you could update us on that?
Also, how well would a setting were Master Craftsman and the kinesticist replaced the normal spell casters? and spell casting work?
There was that answer on reddit (which surprised me because I didn't know about it until then) of "any time now" but then to my knowledge, nothing big past that. However, my knowledge on the matter is incomplete, so don't trust it. It's been a maybe for long enough now that I'm not going to be convinced it has a set date until I see a product page (and in that case, you'd be able to see it too!)
I think that setting could work. If it's for the setting that it has no casters and kineticists make the items, just change the item creation feats to have kineticist level prereqs instead of caster level and then don't bother with Master Craftsman.
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Thank you again for your well worded response. I absolutely don't allow them to stack in home games. It's too abusable.
There are probably FEATS less powerful than either trait, so I can see how they could be too powerful.I better see how they stack with that reading of it. So, I'll just stay away from the forum posts with the optimized blaster characters, so I can keep ulcers from forming ^__^
And last, I always really appreciate you answering these questions.
No problem!
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And with the last hour and twenty-ish minutes, I'm back. How does the feat Bladed Brush work?
It differs in wording from the Phalanx Soldier ability, which allows a character to use a polearm as a one-handed weapon. Bladed brush lets a user treat the glaive as a one-handed weapon.1. Does it actually change the handedness, or just allow you to treat it that way for feats and abilities?
2. Can you select glaive with Slashing Grace if you already have bladed brush?
3. If yes to #2, does it do dex to damage or 1.5 dex to damage?
My closest reading of the feat seems to imply that it doesn't cover those situations (like Slashing Grace), but then it also somewhat seems to want to cover them. Then again, it explicitly lists precise strike, which is a damage boost that boosts one-handed damage up to two-handed damage and thus is not meant to be added with two-handed weapons, archery, TWF, or other styles that already do more damage than one-handed free hand. As a major Shelyn fan (my first PFS character is a cleric of Shelyn), I like seeing stuff for Shelyn more than the next person, so maybe the easiest way to handle it is to just remove that section of the feat, thus just making it a two-handed reach weapon that you can finesse (like the popular exotic weapon elven branched spear, which also requires a feat to gain but doesn't do as much damage as the glaive and has the same crit multiplier) and change the grip from reach to non-reach; that still seems like plenty for a feat to do (it provides a more powerful weapon than taking EWP elven branched spear while also doing more than EWP), while removing the ambiguous section. Otherwise, you're going to have to decide how you want to handle the middle section, both the ambiguity/seeming to not quite do what it wants to do as well as the damage-spiking from two-handed+precise strike.
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Hi！
When I use the Spellslinger,can I fire the projectiles (bullets and pellets) and cast magic at the same time?
They each are separate actions, though if you fire a spell out of your gun with enough enhancement bonus, you can raise the spell DC in a big big way. You lose a lot of schools though, so it doesn't play much like a normal wizard; you're basically going to have blast/area spells that opponents need to roll nearly a natural 20 to save against (and for blast spells, you might have a kicker on them with metamagic that ruins their day for failing the save, or use persistent spell to make it less likely that your gun breaks too).
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What's your favorite PC of all time? (As a player or as a DM)
Oh, this one is so hard. So many games, so many characters, so good in so many different ways. So I think I'll go with the character who gets the most stories. Perhaps the most legendary character was Dhistan Moonshadow, a wizard I GMed for who was actually legendary for his poor decision-making and epic failures; they aren't boring, though. He always failed forward.
For example (and this is but one of many tales), after the party's azer cleric went off by himself and fought a (vastly lower level than the party) juvenile red dragon, winning handily due to fire immunity, Dhistan decided that he should do that too. He researched red dragons until he found 4 possible choices. He chose the ancient red dragon who had defeated an ancient silver dragon for her lair and thus had a double-sized hoard. This dragon was known for being canny and paranoid and defeating all adventurers who challenged it so far. Now Dhistan was high enough level that he could theoretically beat the dragon, especially since he was an incantatrix, which was a prestige class back in 3.0 that gave massive benefits to wizards with essentially no losses. So he buffs up and sets off into the dragon's lair. The dragon notices him and uses a spell to tell him that it's bored of killing adventurers and to just turn around. Dhistan refused and continued through the cave, not using any precautions to look for traps, as he also refused to bring along any characters that were good at finding them (he wanted all the treasure for himself). He hit an antimagic field while flying and fell into a simple greased pit trap, which, since he didn't bring any rope or any sort of object that would help with climbing, he couldn't climb out of, even with a natural 20 (low Strength). He died of starvation in the pit, and had the erinyes watching over him to ensure he didn't screw up on his deal with Bel, Lord of the First to team up against demons (another long story of poor decisions) secure him a rez from his leftover wealth. Thus began a series of roadrunner vs Wile E. Coyote style hijinks where Dhistan kept dying to the dragon without learning his lesson (after the first time, he mostly wanted to get back the gear he had on him the first time). Eventually, it culminated with Dhistan piling on something like 500 cold damage to the actual dragon with a spell that (oddly enough, and because of the PrC) was pretty low level, at which point the spell turning bounced it back to kill Dhistan (despite being an abjurer because the PrC required it, he didn't really cast any abjurations to protect him or divinations either for that matter), and the dragon trapped his soul because seriously this wasn't going to stop otherwise. So the player was like "Oh crap. I have to get my soul back" and I said "I guess I'll let you play your erinyes ally for this until you." So he thought about it for a few minutes and said "OK, new plan. She's going to forge a contract with Bel. Dragons don't care about souls but Bel does, so I can just offer the dragon money with the forged contract for the soul, and it'll probably agree. She'll just forge Bel's signature on the bottom." I said "Alright, but remember dragons generally take Spot with all their many hit dice, so their bonuses are usually ridiculous. It's likely to spot the forgery." He paused for a few seconds and then with a cunning grin "Oh, but that won't be a problem. She works for Bel. She can just go back to Avernus and get him to forge the signature in his real handwriting, and then the dragon has no chance to spot it." I was like "Yeah, actually that seems like something she would do. Let's go for it." As you probably suspect, the so-called 'forged' contract with the real signature and notarization from Avernus was legally binding, and thus began Dhistan's secret servitude on behalf of Bel.
As I said above, this is just a tiny fragment of his dubious legend. The foresight spell leaves some people dubious to whether it deserves to be 9th level, and I was one of them, but I must tell you, when Dhistan got that spell, which warned him just before he did something catastrophic, it was the single most powerful gain the party ever had.
As to characters I've actually played, I haven't had many that made it through a full campaign, so I'll say three-way tie between Elysiel, from Council of Thieves, Rell, from Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Edward Sangriev from Kingmaker. Maybe slight edge to Edward at the moment, but my mood on those changes day by day.
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These short, blunt sticks are held in the hands to enhance unarmed martial techniques.
Benefit: They provide the wielder with the ability to lock an opponent and target pressure points that grant her a +2 bonus on her combat maneuver to grapple.Humanoid creatures without two free hands attempting to grapple a foe take a –4 penalty on the combat maneuver roll.Question: Does wielding a Dan Bong in one of your hands actually make it harder to attempt a grapple, or are you supposed to be counted as having two free hands when using a Dan Bong in a grapple?
If the latter, could I request that it be added to the FAQs at some point? =D
As written, you do take a penalty, though less of one than if it had been another weapon in there I guess, unless you have used one of the options to remove that -4 penalty. It's a little weird, if you ask me. ideally I'd like there to be a solution that was somehow a middle ground between the way it stands and the situation all the way on the reverse side where people might be bullying others with grapple builds to the tune of "Why doesn't your grappler have a dan bong, you fool? It doesn't cost you your hand anyway, which you would have needed free, you can put a bunch of enhancements on it if you like that you normally wouldn't with a free hand, and it gives you a +2 bonus right away for almost no gp cost; you don't even need to be proficient!"
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I was recently pursuing the rule set looking for blood magic options (I even set up a thread to elicit options I may have missed). I could not find many options where an opponent's blood could be used against them. Besides scrying, blood biography, nightmare and ganji dolls I could not find any.
Using a bit of the blood of your enemies to power your magic against them has a long history in fantasy. Are there any plans to expand blood magic beyond the bloat mage stuff to include using the blood of your enemies against them? (Perhaps similar to the ganji dolls effects, but built into feats, spells, or archetype)
Or perhaps something like this already exists and my search foo is terribe.