1) There's nothing that stops you from putting a rime spell on a spell without cold damage, however it simply won't work if it doesn't do cold damage, because you say haven't used the versatile evocation.
2) Unless the discovery says it does something, it doesn't do something. This includes changing or removing damage from the normal use.
3) Undead are immune to any effect that an object would be immune to. Constructs are objects and can be blinded, so to are undead. However, what you have quoted is not the text of the blinding bomb discovery, this is:
Blinding Bomb (Su)* (Ultimate Magic pg. 15): When the alchemist creates a bomb, he can choose for it to detonate very brightly. Creatures that take a direct hit from a blinding bomb are blinded for 1 minute unless they succeed at a Fortitude save. Creatures in the splash area that fail their saves against the bomb are dazzled for 1 minute. This is a light effect. An alchemist must be at least 8th level before selecting this discovery.
Perhaps you have mixed up the 2e and 1e sources or are in the wrong forum, but you seem to have been using other 1e rules.
4) Technically by RAW no, as the ability for the Exploiter Wizard is different, but it is functionally the same class feature (only with fewer picks) and imo should be allowed.
5) You do not gain any bloodline feats unless you have an actual sorcerer level high enough to have been granted them. The feats listed on each bloodline are simply a selection you can choose from when the class itself grants you one. Again, technically by RAW the crossblooded bloodline is a different ability and would disqualify the exploit, but it can be looked at as a build-your-own-bloodline. In such a case, only any abilities you have already selected will benefit from the increase in bloodline. (You do not gain later abilities from having an effective bloodline level higher than your sorcerer bloodline, you only gain them from actually being granted them by the sorcerer class or directly otherwise such as the Eldritch Heritage feat line.)
6) Being able to dominate a construct is not quite nothing, they can still be compelled to fall on the floor laughing, they can still be suggested to aid you or even think of you as an ally for whatever they might be guarding. The Arcane arcana is one of the most powerful arcana's there is for anyone wanting actually wanting to use metamagic spells as the entire name of the game is creating saves and pumping their DC's.
As a general point of comment, you seem to not know a lot about the game's wording systems, which isn't a problem in of itself, but it is ill advised to be trying to look this deeply into crossing things over one another like this with overly niche ways to get what you could essentially get by just playing a sorcerer in the first place. Just my 2c from someone who has a Chinese drycleaner's laundry list of things I hate about Paizo's inconsistency with wording and thus rules.
It is going to depend on the caster. Wizards have to apply a metamagic feat when it is memorized. The section on Metamagic feats state that “Metamagic feats cannot be used with all spells. See the specific feat descriptions for the spells that a particular feat can't modify.” Rime spell specifically states it only affects spells with the cold descriptor. Since fireball does not have the cold descriptor when you memorize it, a wizard cannot add Rime Spell to it, when it is memorized.
An Arcanist can apply a metamagic feat to a spell as it is cast so an arcanist with the School Savant archetype could apply Rime Spell to a fireball. A sorcerer who somehow got versatile evocation (maybe a single level dip to wizard) could also do the same thing. Preferred Spell and a Rod of Rime spell should work. Both of these allow you to add the metamagic to the spell as it is being cast.
Sunlight bomb is a clear case of the specific trumping the general. Generally undead are not affected by things requiring a fortitude save. Since Sunlight Bomb specifically calls out it affects undead it does.
See "Chinese drycleaner's laundry list of things I hate about Paizo's inconsistency with wording and thus rules."
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(1) I would argue that a wizard can't prep a rime fireball because rime doesn't work with fireballs; although admittedly the wording is ambiguous. And yes, it would work with a rod.
(2) Yes, they do. Bomb discoveries add to the base bomb effect (i.e. damage) unless they state otherwise.
(3) They affect undead because the blinding bomb specifically calls out that they do. Specific trumps general.
(4) Yes, because a design principle is that options should be really the same OR really different (so not "more-or-less the same but with unstated exceptions").
(5) Yes, this works. Since you actually do have a sorcerer level, you ignore everything the exploit says, except its last sentence. So your wizard levels stack with sorcerer levels for the purpose of the bloodline ability. And getting bloodline feats is part of that ability, so you get those too.
(6) Your interpretation is correct; some abilities in the game are just lacklustre.
(5)... And getting bloodline feats is part of that ability, so you get those too.
This is emphatically incorrect. Not only is when you get the feats not even listed on the bloodline, only the list of what can be taken is, but the actual gaining of abilities, including bloodline feats, is directly linked to sorcerer level, not effective bloodline level.
The levels for the actual abilities can be thought of as essentially a second check that your bloodline is also high enough to have them. (At the moment and thus without looking to 3pp even in the future, there is no way to have a lower bloodline level than your sorcerer level, i.e. you cannot be of a high enough sorcerer level to have an ability but too low a bloodline level to use it, so this distinction is mostly moot, except that it does not go in the opposite direction.) Further expanded powers of each bloodline ability does check your actual bloodline level (and not your sorcerer level, e.g. draconic bloodline's scaling natural armor bonus and energy resistance), but an Exploiter 9/Sorcerer 1 does not for example get the 9th level bloodline ability.
Even the Bloodline Development exploit calls out explicitly this is the case, although this is not a case of specific overriding a general, simply the rare time that Paizo takes significant space for a clarification.
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(5)... And getting bloodline feats is part of that ability, so you get those too.This is emphatically incorrect.
Let me quote the sorcerer's "bloodline" ability in its entirety, emphasis mine.
Bloodline: Each sorcerer has a source of magic somewhere in her heritage that grants her spells, bonus feats, an additional class skill, and other special abilities. This source can represent a blood relation or an extreme event involving a creature somewhere in the family's past. For example, a sorcerer might have a dragon as a distant relative or her grandfather might have signed a terrible contract with a devil. Regardless of the source, this influence manifests in a number of ways as the sorcerer gains levels. A sorcerer must pick one bloodline upon taking her first level of sorcerer. Once made, this choice cannot be changed.
At 3rd level, and every two levels thereafter, a sorcerer learns an additional spell, derived from her bloodline. These spells are in addition to the number of spells given on Table: Sorcerer Spells Known. These spells cannot be exchanged for different spells at higher levels.
At 7th level, and every six levels thereafter, a sorcerer receives one bonus feat, chosen from a list specific to each bloodline. The sorcerer must meet the prerequisites for these bonus feats.
So yes, gaining bloodline feats IS part of the bloodline ability, not a separate ability. Arguably that's not what the writer intended, but it is what the class description says.
It literally says "Sorcerer" in the ability, not "anyone with a bloodline". Regardless, this is just clarifying/redundant text for when the sorcerer actually gains their abilities Reprinting text does not change how it works.
You're simply grossly misinterpreting the actual exploit (which says this isn't how it works) and the actual ability which is just giving you a list of X, when your sorcerer level hits Y, not effective bloodline level hits Y.
Read the ability:
The arcanist selects one sorcerer bloodline upon taking this exploit. The arcanist gains that bloodline’s 1st-level bloodline power as though she were a 1st-level sorcerer. The arcanist must select an ordinary bloodline with this ability, not one altered by an archetype. As a swift action, the arcanist can expend 1 point from her arcane reservoir to bolster her latent nature, allowing her to treat her arcanist level as her sorcerer level for the purpose of using this ability, which lasts for a number of rounds equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1). She does not gain any other abilities when using this exploit in this way, such as bloodline arcana or those bloodline powers gained at 3rd level or higher. If this ability is used to gain an arcane bond and a bonded item is selected, the arcanist can only use that item to cast spells of a level equal to the level of spell that could be cast by her equivalent sorcerer level (limiting her to 1st level spells unless she spends a point from her arcane reservoir). If the arcanist already has a bloodline (or gains one later), taking this exploit instead allows her arcanist levels to stack with the levels of the class that granted her access to the bloodline when determining the powers and abilities of her bloodline.
The first bolded section is what tells you that you will never gain the 3rd+ level abilities of the bloodline, the second tells you that having levels in the exploiter with this exploit simply lets you add your levels to your effective bloodline level for the sake of giving the one ability you do have.
The exploit is not a "take this, then dip one level into sorcerer, and then you have all the abilities of your bloodline equal to your total character level", it's a "If you can already use your first level bloodline ability, now it uses your total level, and if not now you very limitingly can use just this one ability."
Again, by simple nature of how the actual class works, you certainly do not gain any bloodline feats available to the bloodline(and you certainly don't get to be a wizard taking this exploit in place of your once/5 levels feats to then gain this then 3 more bloodline feats). Similarly, you don't actually unlock bloodline powers unless you have an appropriately high Sorcerer class level.
Yes, it lets you use the powers you have (based on your sorcerer level), at your combined level's strength, but it does not grant you new abilities, new feats, etc. short of your sorcerer level being high enough.
What's easily curious is why they decided to switch from a shorter and more standard form of saying you *would* gain new abilities ("using his dragon disciple/arcanist level as his sorcerer level to determine the bonuses gained.") that was already used once in the rule, before being clarified it doesn't grant new abilities, to a much longer and less indicative wording ("instead allows her arcanist levels to stack with the levels of the class that granted her access to the bloodline when determining the powers and abilities of her bloodline.")
They simply could have said, "treat her arcanist level as her sorcerer level" instead of "stack" again if they were trying to skip their previous exception. But again, it is ridiculous to insinuate that in spending a feat and a single level dip into a class, one would gain several feats and powers, especially when without said single level dip, you would never gain more than a single ability, no matter the arcanist level. This is also especially when there is literally a line of feats existing for this exact purpose, and none of them grant more than a single ability.
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And, one more time: that's not what it says at all, read the ability.
The sorcerer has no ability called "bloodline feats" or anything like that. The sorcerer does have an ability called "bloodline", and this ability grants (among other things) bonus feats. You don't get to claim "but it says sorcerer" for those feats, because the bloodline ability also says "sorcerer" for everything else that it grants.
So yes, an exploiter/sorcerer multiclass gets everything from his bloodline that a pure sorcerer would get, and that includes bonus feats. And a class skill, but that's not really relevant.
an exploiter 9/sorcerer 1 does gain the bloodline powers of a level 10 sorcerer.
That's precisely it.
Again, you're ignoring the specific feature itself that says you get nothing but the first bloodline power from your arcanist side, beyond even ignoring how the actual class is put together. For semantics, Bloodline Powers and Abilities is just a way of being extra redundant on what the actual bloodline abilities are, as some "bloodline powers" are abilities like a dragonic's breath weapon but others are non-abilities like their Natural Armor/Energy Resist.
Bloodline feats, Bloodline powers, Spells Known, and Bloodline Arcana are all separate granted features of a single bloodline choice. Only Bloodline Powers have ever had anything that cares about boosting sorcerer level through items or multiclass/VMC(e.g. Robes of Arcane Heritage, Eldritch Heritage, etc.) because the text for each of them says "bloodline power/abilities". A feat also isn't an ability; unless you are insinuating simply wearing an Robe of Arcane Heritage can give you a bloodline feat early (which I would still say you're objectively wrong), there is no argument that Bloodline Development grants sorcerer's bonus feats. Then there's bloodline arcana, which boosting level doesn't care about because you actually need the bloodline proper to get it (but you get it immediately as soon as you have your first level in the proper bloodline). And finally spells know, which even if that could be boosted, only grants a marginal benefit in potentially one spell known for a level they could already cast but don't have the spell known for yet.
Back to the part you're missing, you only get one Bloodline Power from the exploit, it does not say it grants extra abilities equal to your effective level, [bit says even the opposite[/b]. You need a sufficient actual Sorcerer Level to gain a higher level bloodline power, then the exploit only lets you combine sorcerer level and arcanist level to determine the efficacy of powers you already have.
You don't get the feats... the Bloodline Development says you gain "that bloodline’s 1st-level bloodline power as though she were a 1st-level sorcerer."
Bloodlines list "Bloodline Powers:" and says what they get at what level. Feats are not listed under the Bloodline Powers.
Am I missing something in the argument that would let you get all the abilities of a bloodline?
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It literally says "Sorcerer" in the ability, not "anyone with a bloodline".
This argument ignores context, explicitly extablished writing style, and evidence presented by other parts of the game.
Yes, it says "sorcerer"... and every single arcanist exploit says "an arcanist" or "the arcanist". Guess that Exploiter Wizard never gets to profit from its class feature. And it isn't even just archetypes - almost all Rage Powers say "the barbarian", guess that means that a Skald and their allies can't profit from 90% of Rage Powers!
The game is written to work, and thus any rule interpretation that breaks a significant part of the game must be incorrect. If class names used by class features accessed by another class wouldn't be overwritten (or treated as stand-ins for "character with this ability"), most of those wouldn't work.
They simply could have said, "treat her arcanist level as her sorcerer level" instead of "stack" again if they were trying to skip their previous exception.
No, that would've given a e.g. Sorc1/Arc8 an effective level of 8, as opposed to 9 with the wording they used. Worse yet, the wording used makes it compatible with Bloodrager Bloodlines, which your wording (or Dragon Disciple's) would not.
But again, it is ridiculous to insinuate that in spending a feat and a single level dip into a class, one would gain several feats and powers, especially when without said single level dip, you would never gain more than a single ability, no matter the arcanist level.
Not only are arguments based on "that would be imbalanced" faulty, as evident by the existence of e.g. Sacred Geometry, you aren't actually properly looking at the balancing here. A dip has a higher cost, but with it the exploit grants a higher reward - that's exactly how balancing works.
This is also especially when there is literally a line of feats existing for this exact purpose, and none of them grant more than a single ability.
Once again you're ignoring cost, resulting in faulty argumantation - a level dip is way more costly for a full, caster than a couple of feats. Also, selectable class features being stronger than feats is the norm in Pathfinder, as is class-locked options being allowed to be more powerful than those accessible to everyone (as feats are).
unless you are insinuating simply wearing an Robe of Arcane Heritage can give you a bloodline feat early
Robe of Arcane Heritage doesn't mention abilities at all, and thus cannot possibly indicate what counts or doesn't count as an ability.
Am I missing something in the argument that would let you get all the abilities of a bloodline?Dear lord, yes.
That bolded paragraph at the end is what you've been missing.The arcanist selects one sorcerer bloodline upon taking this exploit. The arcanist gains that bloodline’s 1st-level bloodline power as though she were a 1st-level sorcerer. The arcanist must select an ordinary bloodline with this ability, not one altered by an archetype. As a swift action, the arcanist can expend 1 point from her arcane reservoir to bolster her latent nature, allowing her to treat her arcanist level as her sorcerer level for the purpose of using this ability, which lasts for a number of rounds equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 1).
She does not gain any other abilities when using this exploit in this way, such as bloodline arcana or those bloodline powers gained at 3rd level or higher. If this ability is used to gain an arcane bond and a bonded item is selected, the arcanist can only use that item to cast spells of a level equal to the level of spell that could be cast by her equivalent sorcerer level (limiting her to 1st level spells unless she spends a point from her arcane reservoir).
If the arcanist already has a bloodline (or gains one later), taking this exploit instead allows her arcanist levels to stack with the levels of the class that granted her access to the bloodline when determining the powers and abilities of her bloodline.
Thanks!
Yeah, that makes it much more complicated because it does come down to "what counts as an ability?"Bloodline powers often say something along the lines of "You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to...." so clearly they count. (I don't think ANYONE would try to say they don't).
So then it comes down to what else under the bloodline counts as an "ability"?
Class Skill
Bonus Spells
Bonus Feats
Bloodline Arcana
RAW, yes, I can see where the argument that you get all of those is coming from, especially since the Bloodline Arcana for the Astral Bloodline (and possibly others) says "The level of the enhanced spell must be lower than that of the spell used to activate this ability." But to take an exploit and one level of Sorcerer to gain a class skill, bonus spells, and bonus feats based off of your character level? That feels like too much.
It feels like the intention (bad word in the rules forum, I know) is that it allows you to use bloodline powers beyond the 1st level one but it isn't written in such a way that I can prove that.
To maybe help the argument that bloodline arcana, bonus spells, and bonus feats are "bloodline powers or abilities" there's THIS FAQ which says that bloodline powers, bloodline arcana, bonus spells, and bloodline feats are three separate sorcerer class abilities (even though it lists 4 things)...
Effective Level Increases From Magic Items: Several items in the APG increase a character's effective level for class abilities, such as the necklace of ki serenity for monks, robes of arcane heritage for sorcerers, and silver smite bracelet for paladins. What exactly does that entail?
The necklace says it affects "the size of his ki pool and the level-based effects of his ki pool ability (such as bypassing damage reduction)." Thus, increasing the monk's effective level for the ki pool ability just increases the number of ki points and what sort of DR the monk's unarmed strikes bypass. Other abilities that depend on ki points (wholeness of body, abundant step, and empty body) are not part of the ki pool ability, and the magic item doesn't affect those abilities or when the monk gets access to them.
The robes say "treats her sorcerer level as 4 higher than normal for the purpose of determining what bloodline powers she can use and their effects. Note that bloodline powers, bloodline arcana, bonus spells, and bloodline feats are three separate abilities of the sorcerer class; the robes only affect the bloodline powers.
The bracelet says "treats her paladin level as 4 higher than normal for the purpose of her smite evil class feature." As the only level-based aspects of smite evil are the bonus to damage rolls and how many times per day she can use it, those are the two things the bracelet affects.
that FAQ says the powers, bloodline feats, and bonus spells are all “abilities”, but only the “powers” are “powers”, so the Robes only affects the Powers because it just says “powers”.
But Bloodline Development says “Powers and Abilities” of the bloodline.
But it says they're Sorcerer abilities, not bloodline abilities.
Personally, I'd judge that bloodline powers and possibly bloodline arcana would count for the Bloodline Development but again, I have nothing that solidly backs that opinion.
Personally, I'd judge that bloodline powers and possibly bloodline arcana would count for the Bloodline Development but again, I have nothing that solidly backs that opinion.:scratches head:
If the sentence
Note that bloodline powers, bloodline arcana, bonus spells, and bloodline feats are three separate abilities of the sorcerer classindicates that Bloodline Feats are Sorcerer Abilities and not Bloodline Abilities, then it says that Bloodline Powers are also Sorcerer Abilities, not Bloodline Abilities.
I don’t agree with that.
Right? It's completely unclear and there doesn't appear to be a solid "this is what the answer is because of these rules laid out in the books" which is why I would go with Bloodline Development only granting the abilities listed under "Bloodline Powers" and possibly "Bloodline Arcana" because the rest of the Exploit clearly only grants the 1st level Bloodline Power (or allows you to use it at your character level*) and therefore it makes sense to me that if you already having a bloodline (or gain one later) it then allows you to use all of the "Bloodline Powers" at your character level*.
(*Assuming your CL is just your arcanist levels and the levels of the class that granted you access to the bloodline when determining the powers and abilities of your bloodline.)
Oh, and that it would have to be a Sorcerer Bloodline, and that it doesn't affect Bloodrager Bloodlines.
The secondary "powered up" version (in this case "if you have a bloodline") should at least fairly closely reflect what the original does.