[Champion of the Spheres] A few questions

[ShadowcatX]

1) When using the spell strike feat, does the person using the feat provoke an attack of opportunity? I assumed they did not, because it changes the cast a spell action into an attack action (I think) but I'm not 100% sure.

2) For the prodigy, do the integrated techniques give me abilities or do they simply make abilities you already have count as links? Take the fencing ability feinting set-up, do you gain the ability to make a feint as a move action, or do you need to already have the ability to feint as a move action?

2b) If the answer is that it gives you the ability, do you only have the abilities that make links when you have a chain active? Such as with the above mentioned ability is the ability to feint as a move action a regular ability that the character now has or is it only granted while there's an open chain?

3) This isn't actually from champion of the spheres but from your chronomancer handbook. The rogue archetype time thief replaces features that the unchained rogue also gets, can unchained rogue take that archetype? I assume so, but chronomancy came out after unchained so I just want to double check.

[GM Rednal]

1) You still provoke. You're still casting a spell, and nothing about the Spell Attack feat (which can change your attack into a special attack action, and what I think you meant?) overrides that. Of course, there are lots of ways to increase your concentration and not provoke - especially with the Destruction sphere - so that's not as bad as it may sound at first.

2) Both. In general, anything that says you "may" do something gives you the ability to do it, while anything that simply describes an action requires you to be able to perform that action. Fencing Set-Up requires you to be able to do it as a Move Action, which is something you can learn to do with the Fencing Sphere (specifically, the Fast Feint talent).

2b) I'll actually have to check with a dev on that one.

3) I believe Time Thief is normal rogue only. They usually specify if an archetype works with the Unchained version of a class. (Other archetypes in the handbook line do)

[ShadowcatX]

On 3, that's why I was asking. It seems a shame if so, but if that's what's intended I'll go by it.

[GM Rednal]

2b) All right, I asked. Looks like you have to be making a sequence to use any abilities it grants you (but this doesn't apply to things you can already do outside of sequences).

[Michael Sayre]

Time Thief should be Rogue/Unchained Rogue.

[ShadowcatX]

Awesome. Thank you all for the responses.

Does that mean other archetypes that can be qualified for by unchained can be used by them? Specifically I'm looking at the Street Fighter monk archetype (which the unchained monk qualifies for). Or is that a specific case of Time thief?

And while (kind of) talking about monk, I came across another question. Let's say I've dipped monk and got unarmed damage from that class. Then I go into striker and take a bunch of boxing / open hand / wrestling talents. Does the unarmed damage from monk prevent me from advancing my unarmed damage based on the number of talents I have?

The reason I ask is that it says if you have 3 or more talents you can increase your damage as though you were a size larger but gain no other benefit. I'm curious if that is meant as a benefit or a draw back.

For example if I have 20 talents normally my damage would be 2d10, but if it is a draw back the monk would cap it at 1d8.

[Michael Sayre]

ShadowcatX wrote:

Awesome. Thank you all for the responses.

Does that mean other archetypes that can be qualified for by unchained can be used by them? Specifically I'm looking at the Street Fighter monk archetype (which the unchained monk qualifies for). Or is that a specific case of Time thief?

And while (kind of) talking about monk, I came across another question. Let's say I've dipped monk and got unarmed damage from that class. Then I go into striker and take a bunch of boxing / open hand / wrestling talents. Does the unarmed damage from monk prevent me from advancing my unarmed damage based on the number of talents I have?

The reason I ask is that it says if you have 3 or more talents you can increase your damage as though you were a size larger but gain no other benefit. I'm curious if that is meant as a benefit or a draw back.

For example if I have 20 talents normally my damage would be 2d10, but if it is a draw back the monk would cap it at 1d8.

You actually don't need to list "Unchained Rogue" or "Unchained Barbarian" in an archetype entry because it's redundant. It says right in Pathfinder Unchained that other than the unchained monk the unchained classes work with any archetypes for the core class as long as they still possess all the traded features.

In the case of the Street Fighter monk archetype it's an oversight and yes, it was intended that unchained monks should be able to take it.

The rules about size increases for brawlers and monks means that a monk uses their normal unarmed damage progression, but if they have at least three unarmed talents they treat their unarmed strikes as a size larger than they actually are. So if your monk is dealing 2d10 damage based on their class progression and they have three or more talents, they'll instead deal 4d8.

[ShadowcatX]

Michael Sayre wrote:

ShadowcatX wrote:

And while (kind of) talking about monk, I came across another question. Let's say I've dipped monk and got unarmed damage from that class. Then I go into striker and take a bunch of boxing / open hand / wrestling talents. Does the unarmed damage from monk prevent me from advancing my unarmed damage based on the number of talents I have?

The reason I ask is that it says if you have 3 or more talents you can increase your damage as though you were a size larger but gain no other benefit. I'm curious if that is meant as a benefit or a draw back.

For example if I have 20 talents normally my damage would be 2d10, but if it is a draw back the monk would cap it at 1d8.

The rules about size increases for brawlers and monks means that a monk uses their normal unarmed damage progression, but if they have at least three unarmed talents they treat their unarmed strikes as a size larger than they actually are. So if your monk is dealing 2d10 damage based on their class progression and they have three or more talents, they'll instead deal 4d8.

Thank you for the answers, but this one doesn't quite answer my question. Let's say I dipped one level of monk and got 1d6 unarmed damage of that. Let's also say I have 20 talents that go towards my unarmed damage. Is my unarmed damage 2d10 (as per what it would be without the monk level) or is it 1d8 (from my monk + 1 size increase)? Basically will monk unarmed damage penalize higher level builds?

[Michael Sayre]

If your damage from talents is higher than your monk unarmed damage progression, you'd use the higher progression. The rule isn't intended to debuff a brawler or monk's damage, it's intended to keep the two progressions from stacking while still giving the monk and brawler some compensation for the talents kind of infringing on their class feature.

[ShadowcatX]

That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure.