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"Finding the Path" for 3 February 2012
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<blockquote data-quote="Viktyr Gehrig" data-source="post: 5805598" data-attributes="member: 9249"><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Hello and welcome to the 3 February 2012 installment of <span style="color: DarkOrange"><strong>Finding the Path</strong></span>, E.N. World's monthly Pathfinder advice column. My name is <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/viktyr-korimir.html" target="_blank">Viktyr L. Korimir</a> and each month I'll be choosing a handful of your questions about the <a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG" target="_blank">Pathfinder Roleplaying Game</a> and answering them to the best of my ability-- what the rules say, what the rules mean, and how to get the most out of them-- plus a heaping spoonful of my own half-baked ideas, unfounded opinions, and baroque house rules. If you like what you read here, you should check out my <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/viktyr-l-korimir-s-house-rules-lab" target="_blank">House Rules Lab page</a> on <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com" target="_blank">d20PFSRD</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">This month: More Musings on the Mechanics of the Magus, some Strange Swarm Shenanigans, Double Dipping Dragon Disciple, Conditional Cavalry Combat Calculations, and as an Appendix, an Arrangement of Adventure Paths.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">After last month's column, I really caught a lot of flak for my response to the Magus question-- in fact, more than half of the correspondence I received about the column was about the Magus.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: DarkOrange">#1: Aren't you only allowed to enchant a weapon once with the Magus' Arcane Pool? And doesn't adding <em>flaming</em> and <em>frost</em> cost two points from your Arcane Pool?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">You're missing something <strong>very</strong> important about how <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus#TOC-Arcane-Pool-Su-" target="_blank">Arcane Pool</a> works, and if you're playing this way at the table you're seriously nerfing the Magus:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">At 5th level, the Magus can spend one (1) point from his Arcane Pool to gain up to +2 enhancement bonus to the weapon he's wielding. That means that, assuming the Magus is already wielding a magical weapon, he can add <em>flaming</em> and <em>frost</em> to it just fine. What he <strong>can't</strong> do is activate his Arcane Pool twice to give it +4 in special abilities.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Yes, I totally assumed that a 6th level Magus would have a magical weapon-- and I should have made that clear last month. If the Magus doesn't have a magical weapon, he has to use +1 of that enhancement bonus on making the weapon magical before adding any other qualities. <em>Mea culpa.</em></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: DarkOrange">#2: Your answer seems to imply that a weapon can have the <em>flaming</em> and <em>frost</em> enchantments active at the same time. Isn't there a rule against this?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">I heard this question a lot. Enough that I started to question my own judgment on the matter, read and re-read my primary sources, and finally came to one final, inescapable conclusion:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>You're making that up.</strong></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">That's the text, in its entirety, for both the <em><a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons#TOC-Flaming" target="_blank">flaming</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons#TOC-Frost" target="_blank">frost</a></em> properties. There's no rule saying you can't have both enchantments on a weapon. There's no rule saying that a given attack cannot do both fire damage and cold damage at the same time, no matter how illogical that might seem.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Now, I've had this conversation privately numerous times, and it's gone one of two ways. The first way happens a lot, and the second... happened all of once, ever, in the entire time I've played this game.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">The first way, is that people say that it doesn't make sense and that common sense dictates that you can't do that. Thing is, folks, common sense ain't Rules As Written; that's a House Rule, and while you may think it's a <strong>good</strong> House Rule, it pays to always know the difference.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">For the record, while I don't think this is a <strong>bad</strong> House Rule, I see absolutely no need for it. I simply don't see any benefit whatsoever to taking the time to make this rule, write it down, and explain it to other people. And, really, I can imagine how a magical effect can cause fire damage and cold damage at the same time. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">The second way this conversation goes... baffled me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">[MENTION=82944]R.C, Jr[/MENTION] points out, going back to the earlier quotes, that <em>flaming</em> and <em>frost</em>-- and every other elemental damage enchantment-- require a command word to activate. (Not that anyone I know ever actually played it this way.) Once activated, the energy aura around the weapon persists "until another command is given." Now, I've always taken that to mean that the enchantment has two command words: one command turns the aura on, and the other command turns it off.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">What R.C, Jr suggests is that each energy enchantment has a separate command-- and that giving the command word for a second enchantment is "another command", thus allowing weapons to only have a single active energy enchantment at any given time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Perfectly accurate to the Rules As Written, and it never even occurred to me to read it that way. Since I've never <strong>heard</strong> of it, I'm guessing most people don't play it that way, and I really have no idea how to contact the original SRD authors to ask what they meant, so... your guess is as good as mine. If you really have a problem with multiple energy types on the same weapon-- whether it's a balance problem, like the original poster had, or a thematic issue with conflicting energy types, that's one way of handling it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: DarkOrange">#3: [MENTION=475]NiTessine[/MENTION] wanted to know about swarms, specifically about whether or not swarms were vulnerable to torches and weapons with energy enchantments.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">This is a tricky one. D&D 3.5's SRD had this in its entry on <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/swarm.htm" target="_blank">Swarms</a>:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">But Pathfinder's PRD... doesn't list Swarm as its own Bestiary entry. It reprints the rules for the <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types#TOC-Swarm" target="_blank">Swarm subtype</a> but not the specific rules about the vulnerabilities of swarms... making your torches and your energy weapons useless against the engulfing numberless hordes of vermin with their dripping mandibles and their tiny hearts full of hate--</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">-- Sorry. Some of us couldn't afford to get into the <strong>good</strong> daycare.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Way back in <a href="http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz1prg?Vulnerabilities-Of-Swarms#0" target="_blank">2009</a> someone asked James Jacobs about this, and he first said that the designers did this on purpose and then later took it back and said this should go into the Errata. Two printings later... and it's still not there.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">So, by the Rules As Written, torches and flaming swords don't do squat to swarms. And in this case, the Rules As Written are wrong. Really, really wrong. If you're running a Pathfinder game and you're planning on using swarms against your players, I would very highly recommend that you add the 3.5 rule quoted above to your game as a House Rule.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: DarkOrange">#4: Does a sorcerer of the crossblooded archetype (dragon/something) from Ultimate Magic qualify for the requirements of the Dragon Disciple PrC by RAW? If so, what happens to the Bloodline Powers from the dragon bloodline and/or the other bloodline?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Kind of a nice followup to last month's question about <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/archetypes/paizo---sorcerer-archetypes/crossblooded" target="_blank">Crossblooded Sorcerers</a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Let's look at our relevant rules here:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">So... yeah. A Crossblooded Sorcerer selects two different bloodlines. As far as I can tell, having part of a bloodline as a Crossblooded Sorcerer counts as having the bloodline. Like I said last month, by the Rules As Written, a Crossblooded Sorcerer can't use <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/eldritch-heritage" target="_blank">Eldritch Heritage</a> to gain the bloodline powers he passed up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Which is what makes the following <strong>really</strong> messed up:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Dragon Disciple doesn't say that it only advances your <strong>Draconic</strong> bloodline powers. So every level of Dragon Disciple you take allows you to take bloodline powers from your other bloodline instead. Which really seems like it isn't much of a big deal, except for one little thing:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">... Okay, <strong>three</strong> little things. You might recognize those as the 9th and 15th level bloodline abilities from the Draconic Bloodline, and the best part of the 20th level ability. You get those from your Dragon Disciple class features, so you're free to pick your other bloodline ability at the appropriate levels; the best part is:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Doesn't say <strong>anything</strong> about actually gaining that ability through the bloodline, only being high enough level to. So you can give up your breath weapon-- say for <em>Strength of the Abyss</em> or <em>New Arcana</em>-- and still get to use it twice a day. You can give up Wings, you <strong>must</strong> give up Wings, and still get a 90 foot fly speed. Give up <em>Power of Wyrms</em> for <em>Demonic Might</em> and you still get your blindsense <strong>and</strong> your telepathy. Perfectly legal.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">And there's no way in Hell I'd allow it. Now, a smarter rules lawyer than myself might argue that the Crossblooded archetype's "select two bloodlines" isn't the same thing as picking a bloodline-- since you get <strong>some</strong> of the abilities of each-- and thus doesn't qualify for Dragon Disciple, but that seems kinda weaselly and I'm more of a Viking Hat DM. A more common sense approach might be to say that the Rules As Intended were for the Dragon Disciple class to advance the Draconic bloodline only, which is a pretty good House Rule.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Or you might just let it go, because RAW knows there's no other reason to ever take Crossblooded.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: DarkOrange">#5: How about answering what kind of bonuses you get if you go into combat mounted?</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Well, there's a whole lot of them... but they all come from feats and class abilities, and without knowing the character's abilities, I can't answer that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">You get the +1 to melee attacks for being on higher ground. I would normally say that you gain the +4 AC bonus for soft cover, but...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">... so, yeah. No cover unless you can make a Ride check and you're willing to give up an immediate action and your move action for next round.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">On the other hand? You're <strong>sitting</strong>. That's +2 to your AC versus ranged attacks, but -2 to AC versus melee attacks. (Makes sense. You ever try fencing with a horse? Their footwork sucks.) Unless your horse <strong>really</strong> hates you-- I get that a lot-- it's not considered an enemy so you don't get the +4 AC bonus versus ranged attacks.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">So when mounted, you get a +1 bonus to melee attacks and a +2 bonus to your AC against ranged attacks, but you take a -2 penalty to your AC against melee attacks. Your mount gets nothing unless you have the Mounted Combat feat.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">By the way... did you know that you can ride creatures "ill-suited" as mounts with only a -5 to your Ride check? Friend of mine-- hey, Mike!-- always wanted to build a character around this concept: a Goblin with the Leadership feat, with an Ogre cohort, using <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/mounted-combat-combat---final" target="_blank">Mounted Combat</a> and <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/indomitable-mount-combat-local" target="_blank">Indomitable Will</a> to negate attacks. Turns out a Goblin's Ride check is a Hell of a lot higher than an Ogre's Will save.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">One of many, many characters I refused to let him play.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: DarkOrange">#6: A simple question: Can you advise what Paizo adventure paths one can follow i.e. what adventure names sit within published campaigns and what are those published campaigns called. I have tried to find out on the Paizo website, but have been unable to simply buy a whole campaign. While the information is there, I got exasperated and bored before finding this out.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><a href="http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventurePath" target="_blank">Paizo Adventure Paths</a>: all in chronological order, with links to the product page in the Paizo store.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Well, folks, that's it for this month. See you next month with another fresh batch of PC problems and DM dilemmas, vivisected for your entertainment. If you have any comments or questions you'd like to ask, you can send an email directly to me at <a href="mailto:viktyr.korimir@gmail.com">viktyr.korimir@gmail.com</a> with <strong><span style="color: DarkOrange">[Finding the Path]</span></strong> in the subject line and make sure to include whether or not your message is okay to publish.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">Your friendly neighborhood rules lawyer,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">VLK</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Archive:</strong></span></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><span style="font-size: 12px"><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/316054-finding-path-saturday-7-january-2012-a.html" target="_blank">"Finding the Path" 7 January 2012 - The limits of readied actions; psionics; challenging a stealthy party; comprehend languages and tongues; mixed heritage Sorcerers; and the Magus class.</a></span></li> </ul></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Viktyr Gehrig, post: 5805598, member: 9249"] [size=3]Hello and welcome to the 3 February 2012 installment of [COLOR="DarkOrange"][b]Finding the Path[/b][/COLOR], E.N. World's monthly Pathfinder advice column. My name is [url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/members/viktyr-korimir.html]Viktyr L. Korimir[/url] and each month I'll be choosing a handful of your questions about the [url=http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG]Pathfinder Roleplaying Game[/url] and answering them to the best of my ability-- what the rules say, what the rules mean, and how to get the most out of them-- plus a heaping spoonful of my own half-baked ideas, unfounded opinions, and baroque house rules. If you like what you read here, you should check out my [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/viktyr-l-korimir-s-house-rules-lab ]House Rules Lab page[/url] on [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com]d20PFSRD[/url]. This month: More Musings on the Mechanics of the Magus, some Strange Swarm Shenanigans, Double Dipping Dragon Disciple, Conditional Cavalry Combat Calculations, and as an Appendix, an Arrangement of Adventure Paths. After last month's column, I really caught a lot of flak for my response to the Magus question-- in fact, more than half of the correspondence I received about the column was about the Magus. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]#1: Aren't you only allowed to enchant a weapon once with the Magus' Arcane Pool? And doesn't adding [i]flaming[/i] and [i]frost[/i] cost two points from your Arcane Pool?[/COLOR] You're missing something [b]very[/b] important about how [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus#TOC-Arcane-Pool-Su-]Arcane Pool[/url] works, and if you're playing this way at the table you're seriously nerfing the Magus: At 5th level, the Magus can spend one (1) point from his Arcane Pool to gain up to +2 enhancement bonus to the weapon he's wielding. That means that, assuming the Magus is already wielding a magical weapon, he can add [i]flaming[/i] and [i]frost[/i] to it just fine. What he [b]can't[/b] do is activate his Arcane Pool twice to give it +4 in special abilities. Yes, I totally assumed that a 6th level Magus would have a magical weapon-- and I should have made that clear last month. If the Magus doesn't have a magical weapon, he has to use +1 of that enhancement bonus on making the weapon magical before adding any other qualities. [i]Mea culpa.[/i] [COLOR="DarkOrange"]#2: Your answer seems to imply that a weapon can have the [i]flaming[/i] and [i]frost[/i] enchantments active at the same time. Isn't there a rule against this?[/COLOR] I heard this question a lot. Enough that I started to question my own judgment on the matter, read and re-read my primary sources, and finally came to one final, inescapable conclusion: [b]You're making that up.[/b] That's the text, in its entirety, for both the [i][url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons#TOC-Flaming]flaming[/url][/i] and [i][url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons#TOC-Frost]frost[/url][/i] properties. There's no rule saying you can't have both enchantments on a weapon. There's no rule saying that a given attack cannot do both fire damage and cold damage at the same time, no matter how illogical that might seem. Now, I've had this conversation privately numerous times, and it's gone one of two ways. The first way happens a lot, and the second... happened all of once, ever, in the entire time I've played this game. The first way, is that people say that it doesn't make sense and that common sense dictates that you can't do that. Thing is, folks, common sense ain't Rules As Written; that's a House Rule, and while you may think it's a [b]good[/b] House Rule, it pays to always know the difference. For the record, while I don't think this is a [b]bad[/b] House Rule, I see absolutely no need for it. I simply don't see any benefit whatsoever to taking the time to make this rule, write it down, and explain it to other people. And, really, I can imagine how a magical effect can cause fire damage and cold damage at the same time. The second way this conversation goes... baffled me. [MENTION=82944]R.C, Jr[/MENTION] points out, going back to the earlier quotes, that [i]flaming[/i] and [i]frost[/i]-- and every other elemental damage enchantment-- require a command word to activate. (Not that anyone I know ever actually played it this way.) Once activated, the energy aura around the weapon persists "until another command is given." Now, I've always taken that to mean that the enchantment has two command words: one command turns the aura on, and the other command turns it off. What R.C, Jr suggests is that each energy enchantment has a separate command-- and that giving the command word for a second enchantment is "another command", thus allowing weapons to only have a single active energy enchantment at any given time. Perfectly accurate to the Rules As Written, and it never even occurred to me to read it that way. Since I've never [b]heard[/b] of it, I'm guessing most people don't play it that way, and I really have no idea how to contact the original SRD authors to ask what they meant, so... your guess is as good as mine. If you really have a problem with multiple energy types on the same weapon-- whether it's a balance problem, like the original poster had, or a thematic issue with conflicting energy types, that's one way of handling it. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]#3: [MENTION=475]NiTessine[/MENTION] wanted to know about swarms, specifically about whether or not swarms were vulnerable to torches and weapons with energy enchantments.[/COLOR] This is a tricky one. D&D 3.5's SRD had this in its entry on [url=http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/swarm.htm]Swarms[/url]: But Pathfinder's PRD... doesn't list Swarm as its own Bestiary entry. It reprints the rules for the [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/rules-for-monsters/creature-types#TOC-Swarm]Swarm subtype[/url] but not the specific rules about the vulnerabilities of swarms... making your torches and your energy weapons useless against the engulfing numberless hordes of vermin with their dripping mandibles and their tiny hearts full of hate-- -- Sorry. Some of us couldn't afford to get into the [b]good[/b] daycare. Way back in [url=http://paizo.com/forums/dmtz1prg?Vulnerabilities-Of-Swarms#0]2009[/url] someone asked James Jacobs about this, and he first said that the designers did this on purpose and then later took it back and said this should go into the Errata. Two printings later... and it's still not there. So, by the Rules As Written, torches and flaming swords don't do squat to swarms. And in this case, the Rules As Written are wrong. Really, really wrong. If you're running a Pathfinder game and you're planning on using swarms against your players, I would very highly recommend that you add the 3.5 rule quoted above to your game as a House Rule. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]#4: Does a sorcerer of the crossblooded archetype (dragon/something) from Ultimate Magic qualify for the requirements of the Dragon Disciple PrC by RAW? If so, what happens to the Bloodline Powers from the dragon bloodline and/or the other bloodline?[/COLOR] Kind of a nice followup to last month's question about [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/archetypes/paizo---sorcerer-archetypes/crossblooded]Crossblooded Sorcerers[/url]. Let's look at our relevant rules here: So... yeah. A Crossblooded Sorcerer selects two different bloodlines. As far as I can tell, having part of a bloodline as a Crossblooded Sorcerer counts as having the bloodline. Like I said last month, by the Rules As Written, a Crossblooded Sorcerer can't use [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/eldritch-heritage]Eldritch Heritage[/url] to gain the bloodline powers he passed up. Which is what makes the following [b]really[/b] messed up: Dragon Disciple doesn't say that it only advances your [b]Draconic[/b] bloodline powers. So every level of Dragon Disciple you take allows you to take bloodline powers from your other bloodline instead. Which really seems like it isn't much of a big deal, except for one little thing: ... Okay, [b]three[/b] little things. You might recognize those as the 9th and 15th level bloodline abilities from the Draconic Bloodline, and the best part of the 20th level ability. You get those from your Dragon Disciple class features, so you're free to pick your other bloodline ability at the appropriate levels; the best part is: Doesn't say [b]anything[/b] about actually gaining that ability through the bloodline, only being high enough level to. So you can give up your breath weapon-- say for [i]Strength of the Abyss[/i] or [i]New Arcana[/i]-- and still get to use it twice a day. You can give up Wings, you [b]must[/b] give up Wings, and still get a 90 foot fly speed. Give up [i]Power of Wyrms[/i] for [i]Demonic Might[/i] and you still get your blindsense [b]and[/b] your telepathy. Perfectly legal. And there's no way in Hell I'd allow it. Now, a smarter rules lawyer than myself might argue that the Crossblooded archetype's "select two bloodlines" isn't the same thing as picking a bloodline-- since you get [b]some[/b] of the abilities of each-- and thus doesn't qualify for Dragon Disciple, but that seems kinda weaselly and I'm more of a Viking Hat DM. A more common sense approach might be to say that the Rules As Intended were for the Dragon Disciple class to advance the Draconic bloodline only, which is a pretty good House Rule. Or you might just let it go, because RAW knows there's no other reason to ever take Crossblooded. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]#5: How about answering what kind of bonuses you get if you go into combat mounted?[/COLOR] Well, there's a whole lot of them... but they all come from feats and class abilities, and without knowing the character's abilities, I can't answer that. You get the +1 to melee attacks for being on higher ground. I would normally say that you gain the +4 AC bonus for soft cover, but... ... so, yeah. No cover unless you can make a Ride check and you're willing to give up an immediate action and your move action for next round. On the other hand? You're [b]sitting[/b]. That's +2 to your AC versus ranged attacks, but -2 to AC versus melee attacks. (Makes sense. You ever try fencing with a horse? Their footwork sucks.) Unless your horse [b]really[/b] hates you-- I get that a lot-- it's not considered an enemy so you don't get the +4 AC bonus versus ranged attacks. So when mounted, you get a +1 bonus to melee attacks and a +2 bonus to your AC against ranged attacks, but you take a -2 penalty to your AC against melee attacks. Your mount gets nothing unless you have the Mounted Combat feat. By the way... did you know that you can ride creatures "ill-suited" as mounts with only a -5 to your Ride check? Friend of mine-- hey, Mike!-- always wanted to build a character around this concept: a Goblin with the Leadership feat, with an Ogre cohort, using [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/mounted-combat-combat---final]Mounted Combat[/url] and [url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/indomitable-mount-combat-local]Indomitable Will[/url] to negate attacks. Turns out a Goblin's Ride check is a Hell of a lot higher than an Ogre's Will save. One of many, many characters I refused to let him play. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]#6: A simple question: Can you advise what Paizo adventure paths one can follow i.e. what adventure names sit within published campaigns and what are those published campaigns called. I have tried to find out on the Paizo website, but have been unable to simply buy a whole campaign. While the information is there, I got exasperated and bored before finding this out.[/COLOR] [url=http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventurePath]Paizo Adventure Paths[/url]: all in chronological order, with links to the product page in the Paizo store. Well, folks, that's it for this month. See you next month with another fresh batch of PC problems and DM dilemmas, vivisected for your entertainment. If you have any comments or questions you'd like to ask, you can send an email directly to me at [EMAIL="viktyr.korimir@gmail.com"]viktyr.korimir@gmail.com[/EMAIL] with [B][COLOR="DarkOrange"][Finding the Path][/COLOR][/B] in the subject line and make sure to include whether or not your message is okay to publish. Your friendly neighborhood rules lawyer, VLK [b]Archive:[/b] [list][*][url=http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/316054-finding-path-saturday-7-january-2012-a.html]"Finding the Path" 7 January 2012 - The limits of readied actions; psionics; challenging a stealthy party; comprehend languages and tongues; mixed heritage Sorcerers; and the Magus class.[/url][/list][/size] [/QUOTE]
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"Finding the Path" for 3 February 2012
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