A player's Android Qi Adept Soldier


Advice


I have a player who likes to play unique but rather munchkin characters. I have gotten used to his antics by this point and allow all my players to play however they want even if 'breaks the game', my only rules about it is that IT MUST MAKE SENSE and CLEARED BY THE OFFICIAL RULING.

This time he is playing an Android Qi Adept. Unarmed Fighter with the Android feat Arm Extensions. The problem I feel that does not add up is they synergy of a few abilities and feat. So I hope everyone can help me clear it up.

Arm Extensions + Improved Unarmed Strike - Although pretty clear cut in that with this you can punch someone 15ft away. He says that because he is not 'wielding' a weapon and instead using a part of his body (his fist) to attack someone, he does not get affected by the penalty. What is the ruling for this? Also With his arm extended out, does his range of Attack of Opportunity increase to 15ft as well? I feel there is a problem here because Improved Unarmed Strike says he can get an Attack of Opportunity in his natural reach so this is also something I feel has some loophole.

Spinning Cleave + Living Ladder + Arm Extensions - My take on how Living Ladder works is that you are using someone to get yourself up from a prone position and if you do so with an attack that is +5 more than the target's AC, you drag him down prone as you are going up. He however uses this with his arm out to hit everyone within a 15ft radius of him. This by itself I am still all right with but he insists that everyone he attack during his spinning cleave will all drop prone as long as he refuses to get up from prone and exceed their AC by 5. This... does not seem right. Really need a ruling on this.

Oh there is also this tidbit I need clarification with as well.

Hat of Disguise + Morphic Skin - He has been stacking the two's disguise bonus a few times now but I feel they should not be able to stack.

Can anyone advise?


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

The argument that he should ignore the penalty of arm extensions isn't even worth considering.

Arm extensions increase natural reach while active, so they do increase threatened radius.

Knocking prone with living ladder... is part of using living ladder. If your player doesn't get up, he isn't using living ladder, and can't just use the other half of the feat.

Disguise self, from the hat and morphine skin are both circumstance bonuses to disguise. The written rule on circumstance bonuses is that they stack unless the effects are basically the same, at GM discretion . If it doesn't make sense to you for those to stack (which is very reasonable) , then they don't stack.


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Jiubei wrote:

This time he is playing an Android Qi Adept. Unarmed Fighter with the Android feat Arm Extensions. The problem I feel that does not add up is they synergy of a few abilities and feat. So I hope everyone can help me clear it up.

Arm Extensions + Improved Unarmed Strike - Although pretty clear cut in that with this you can punch someone 15ft away. He says that because he is not 'wielding' a weapon and instead using a part of his body (his fist) to attack someone, he does not get affected by the penalty. What is the ruling for this? Also With his arm extended out, does his range of Attack of Opportunity increase to 15ft as well? I feel there is a problem here because Improved Unarmed Strike says he can get an Attack of Opportunity in his natural reach so this is also something I feel has some loophole.

Unarmed Strike is a Basic Melee Weapon. You don't have to "wield" it in your hands, but if you don't, how are you getting Reach with your Arm Extensions? The penalty is based around it being hard to attack someone when your arms are super long and dangly. I wouldn't let a player get away with this one on semantics. I would let someone use Unarmed Strike to avoid the penalty on an enemy within the "normal" reach; kicking someone while your arms are extended makes sense.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

The wording on the feat is unclear, but given it affects strength and dexterity skill and ability checks...

They also missed any arm-mounted melee weapons that aren't wielded, claw implants, etc. Badly worded feat, but the intent seems plain that it affect any action with your arms. Definitely could use errata, assuming there isn't any, it is not futureproof.

Dracomicron's argument that Unarmed Strike is a Basic Melee Weapon should quiet any rules lawyer unwilling to follow the spirit of the rules. He's arguably being kind in permitting it not to affect kicks, given the wording doesn't remove the disadvantage for non-arm skill checks. I'd probably go with that one myself, though.

It seems unlikely that Hat of Disguise and Morphic Skin would stack fully. Use the best bonus. Or maybe permit a fraction (Morphic Skin lets you change body dimensions, which makes it harder to pierce an illusion). Hat of Disguise appears faster and doesn't require acquiring a disguise outfit. Hat of Disguise/Disguise Self doesn't say anything about fooling biometric scanners, unlike Morphic Skin. Then there's piercing an illusion only to have them look the same underneath...

There's a point where game rules fail to cover every possibility, and that combination certainly has some things to think about. I can find arguments for both directions, but +20 is a ridiculous amount of bonuses to one skill. I'd probably go with fractional stacking, if at all. Or roll once for disguise self without the skin bonus, and another time for morphic skin without the disguise self bonus. Use latter for biometric, and if the illusion is pierced.


Despair wrote:

It seems unlikely that Hat of Disguise and Morphic Skin would stack fully. Use the best bonus. Or maybe permit a fraction (Morphic Skin lets you change body dimensions, which makes it harder to pierce an illusion). Hat of Disguise appears faster and doesn't require acquiring a disguise outfit. Hat of Disguise/Disguise Self doesn't say anything about fooling biometric scanners, unlike Morphic Skin. Then there's piercing an illusion only to have them look the same underneath...

There's a point where game rules fail to cover every possibility, and that combination certainly has some things to think about. I can find arguments for both directions, but +20 is a ridiculous amount of bonuses to one skill. I'd probably go with fractional stacking, if at all. Or roll once for disguise self without the skin bonus, and another time for morphic skin without the disguise self bonus. Use latter for biometric, and if the illusion is pierced.

I think the point of circumstance bonus stacking is that they stack based on the circumstances.

As in, every time he rolls a disguise check, you decide how much it stacks according to the circumstance it happened in.

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