Cut from the Air in Iron Gods


Iron Gods


I'm running Iron Gods for a party that is heavily into ranged attacks -- arrows, bullets, lasers, and ranged spells. Kind of annoying since I prefer to fight with melee based monsters, but that's way the my players are: challenging. Rather than use spells like wind wall or feats like deflect arrows, I'm interested in trying a new approach -- cut from the air. Just a few questions though.

1. Cut from the air from the air can be used against any ranged attack, other than massive ranged weapons and spell effects. So any other source of ranged attacks -- thrown weapons, ranged weapons, firearms, and tech weapons-- can be deflected by cut from the air, correct??

2. Cut from the Air plus Combat Reflexes allows a PC or NPC to make multiple attempts to deflect attacks in a turn. Does that apply against multiple ranged attacks from the same source?? Example: The laser slinger with his laser pistol makes a full attack and shoots 3 times in a round at the PC with Cut from the Air and Combat Reflexes. So the PC gets an Attack of Opportunity at each shot at the PC's highest bonus?

3. Smash from the Air improves upon Cut to include massive ranged weapons and spell effects that don't need an attack roll. This means a powerful enough PC (or NPC) could deflect each ray from scorching ray or each meteor from meteor swarm if I understand it. Yes or No??

Thanks for any input, need to get this figured out before any of the PC's gets access to a railgun.


I can sympathize. My Iron Gods party is hard to pin down in melee, too. The strix skald and the human bloodrager with Air Elemental bloodline take to the air, the half-elf magus knows ranged spells, and the gunslinger is a gunslinger. Fortunately, the bloodrager still prefers to attack in melee and the fighter also seldom pulls out a ranged weapon.

The fighter's player is inexperienced with Pathfinder's massive list of feats, so I look up good feats for him. I already recommended Cut from the Air. He has not yet taken it.

Cut from the Air does work against beam weapons, such as lasers, even though the laser pistol shoots an energy beam rather than a projectile. An arc beam, laser beam, or zero beam is not an unusually massive ranged weapon nor is it generated by a spell. It might be easier to envision the deflection as dodging the beam, but "dodge" means a particular kind of bonus to AC in Pathfinder, so feats don't say "dodge" unless they mean an bonus to AC.

Using Cut from the Air costs an attack of opportunity, so the character can use it only once per round unless he has Combat Reflexes with good Dexterity. So long as the character can take more attacks of opportunity, he or she can keep using Cut from the Air, even against the same source.

Smash from the Air specifically says, "Spell effects that do not require attack rolls cannot be deflected." However, the rays from Scorching Ray require attack rolls, so they can be deflected. Several rays will consume several attack of opportunity.

Finally, though rail guns create a line-shaped area of effect, they still use attack rolls and, therefore, can be deflected by Cut from the Air. However, deflection does not stop the hyperdense shell from continuing down its line of effect to hit people behind the Cut-from-the-Air fighter.


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Not sure if it can work against something like a laser. It specifically states that it cuts "the weapon (or ammunition) out of the air, deflecting the attack so the target takes no damage." Energy weapons do not fire any ammunition. From a quick glance through the technology guide, it doesn't appear any mention of "ammunition" at all. This probably falls in the "Discuss with your GM" classification.

You cannot use Smash from the Air against spells that DO NOT require a to-hit roll. So, you could use it against Scorching Ray (requires a ranged touch attack) but only against Meteor Swarm if they targeted an individual with each meteor. If the meteors do not target a creature, there is no to-hit roll, so the Feat cannot be used.


Saldiven wrote:
Not sure if it can work against something like a laser. It specifically states that it cuts "the weapon (or ammunition) out of the air, deflecting the attack so the target takes no damage." Energy weapons do not fire any ammunition. From a quick glance through the technology guide, it doesn't appear any mention of "ammunition" at all. This probably falls in the "Discuss with your GM" classification.

As a GM who recommended that feat to a player, I pondered the matter and decided it would work against beam weapons. My reasons are as follows:

1) The first sentence of a feat usually describes an easy-to-envision case with the later sentences giving the exact mechanical details. This is to make the feats easier to understand on a quick read. Only the first sentence of Cut from the Air mentions ammunition.
2) No feats call out beam weapons, since such weapons exist only in the Iron Gods adventure path and the Technology Guide.
3) Smash from the Air says, "You can use Cut from the Air against unusually massive ranged weapons (such as boulders or ballista bolts) and ranged attacks generated by spell effects," without also saying, "... even if the spells don't conjure thrown weapons or ammunition."


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I would still say it's going to be a "check with the GM" type of thing because the rules are unclear on whether or not Cut from the Air works on lasers. I don't have a position either way, personally.


In my game, I'd require Smash from the Air to be effective versus beam weapons; if it's not an explicit anti-magical/technology effect, I can't see treating a laser beam differently than a Scorching Ray.


Thanks for the responses. Since I'm the one DMing this campaign, reaching a conclusion satisfactory to myself and my players is going to be important and difficult to make. After considering all the responses, I've come up with a working conclusion. First, consider anything that is heavy weaponry (ex railguns) as an unusually massive ranged weapon, thereby requiring Smash from the Air. Second, consider any weapon that has a damage type that is energy, sonic, or force to be similar to a spell effect and require Smash from the Air. So simply having Cut from the Air will only be useful vs a few tech weapons (ex dart gun, autograpnel). Since any NPC I create or modify will probably have both feats, this won't cause any issues from my side of the table. So far none of the PC's have either feat (probably because my players know I don't do a lot of ranged attacks), but if that changes I can use this as a guideline for them.

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