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D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder / Re: BEHOLD!
« on: January 29, 2024, 03:08:03 PM »
Man it do be some whiplash going from basic stuff like a Spiked Chain build straight to Pun-pun lol.
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Well, time for another entry: the Impundulu familiar, which seems to be a must-have for Witches (just be 7th level and have Improved Familiar to qualify). Cannot be bothered to give the whole familiar description, but will cite the most interesting parts:QuoteFamiliar Service A mortal of 7th level or higher with the Improved Familiar feat can summon an impundulu to serve as her familiar; an impundulu familiar appears as a birdlike imp or quasit, has the normal statistics of an imp or quasit, and loses all of its own abilities except its subtypes, alignment, and damage reduction. If its master is slain, the impundulu seizes its former master’s soul, retreats to a hidden place, and consumes the soul, after which it metamorphoses over the next 24 hours into its natural form, regains all of its normal abilities, and becomes free; most aging masters pass on their impundulu familiars to younger family members rather than let the creatures turn on them.
Witchcraft An impundulu serving as a witch’s familiar gives its master additional spells known, just like a witch’s patron. The master must choose from one of the following patron themes when binding the impundulu, and this choice cannot be changed without dismissing and re-summoning the impundulu: Agility, Elements, or Transformation. These patron spells known are in addition to any granted by the witch’s actual patron.
Yep, bonus patron for a Witch, and these patrons are not bad. Transformation is pretty weak (If it'd given Beast Shape IV instead of Form of the Dragon I, it'd be a lot better), especially for the low levels, and generally outclassed by Agility (unless you want Form of the Dragon, which is not that bad as far as buffs go), but Agility and Endurance (mostly for the MIracle finisher) both have some real prizes there.
Use a Collar of Sacrifice and you should be fine. While a sulking familiar is probably not much use, Witches generally prefer the use of a familiar satchel rather than risk their living spellbooks in combat anyway (unless they are level 10+ Beast-Bonded Witches, which do not need to worry about having their soul consumed by the Impundulu anyway, since their soul auto-possesses their familiars when they die, unless they're both dead).
Alternatively, you can Geas your familiar into not consuming your soul, or use a Clone to preempt the possibility at even higher levels. Whether or not Lesser Geas works would require GM adjudication, since the base form of the Impundulu has 14 HD, but the familiar forms it turns into have less than 8 HD. Familiars use their master's level as their HD if it is higher, however, so you would only be able to cast this at level 7 (when you get Lesser Geas) or lower (with a scroll or similar).
You can always use a pickaxe, especially if it's adamantine. People underestimate the power of mundane items.
From Tome and BloodQuoteSecret Component Compartment/Pocket: This is a secret compartment or hidden pocket large enough to hold the components for one spell. A pocket is added to a garment, while a compartment is built into a tool, weapon, or other item. The compartment or pocket must be added when the item is first made. Finding a secret pocket or compartment (if you don’t already know where it is) requires a successful Search check (DC 20).
What's the physically largest thing (instead of variable things like any piece of equipment that was used by a xth level fighter) that's explicitly listed as a spell component?
I just had a thought. Conductive weapons have always been a little lackluster, because it converts touch attacks to normal attacks and can only be used once per round. However, that would be once per round per weapon. So, you could make a kineticist with half a dozen +1 conductive javelins and a blinkback belt and deal more damage at 0 burn than you would maxing it out every round. Stick a conductive AoMF on a natural weapon build and hit your enemies with half a dozen touches of cruelty.
Conductive
Price +1 bonus; Aura moderate necromancy; CL 8th; Weight —
DESCRIPTION
A conductive weapon is able to channel the energy of a spell-like or supernatural ability that relies on a melee or ranged touch attack to hit its target (such as from a cleric’s domain granted power, sorcerer’s bloodline power, oracle’s mystery revelation, or wizard’s arcane school power). When the wielder makes a successful attack of the appropriate type, he may choose to expend two uses of his magical ability to channel it through the weapon to the struck opponent, which suffers the effects of both the weapon attack and the special ability. (If the wielder has unlimited uses of a special ability, she may channel through the weapon every round.) For example, a paladin who strikes an undead opponent with her conductive greatsword can expend two uses of her lay on hands ability (a supernatural melee touch attack) to deal both greatsword damage and damage from one use of lay on hands.
A given character can use this weapon special ability only once per round (even if she has several conductive weapons), and the power works only with magical abilities of the same type as the weapon (melee or ranged).
Spellscribed Armor
Source: PZO9467
The myriad of threats that adventures face often go well beyond mere weapons, so many spellcasters trained in the use of armor seek to augment it with spells.
Any spellcaster with both Craft Magic Arms and Armor and either Scribe Scroll or Brew Potion can create spellscribed armor. A single suit of armor can be inscribed with a number of spells equal to its base armor bonus (not including its enhancement bonus).
For example, a suit of breastplate armor (which has a +6 armor bonus) can have up to six spells inscribed on it. If you are using the piecemeal armor rules, only a piece of armor that grants an armor bonus can be spellscribed.
The maximum level for spells contained in spellscribed armor depends on the type of armor being inscribed.
Light armor, a buckler, or a light shield can hold up to 3rdlevel spells; medium armor or a heavy shield can hold up to 6th-level spells; heavy armor or a tower shield can hold up to 9th-level spells.
An inscribed spell is a spell-completion item that only the wearer of spellscribed armor may activate, and only if he is proficient with the type of armor worn. The inscribed spell vanishes when activated. The inscribed spell must be visible to the wearer and must be touched as part of its activation. Otherwise, suits of spellscribed armor are treated as scrolls (except that using them doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity) and use the rules for spell-completion items.
The process to create spellscribed armor requires access to expensive etching and scribing materials worth an amount of gold pieces equal to the inscribed spell’s level × the creator’s caster level × 100 (plus the price of any expensive material components).
Spells inscribed on armor can be dispelled as if they were separate magic items (treat them as scrolls), wholly independent of the suit of armor on which they are etched.
Table: Magic Armor and Shields
The Coven Caster feat can be used to give a caster level bonus as a special Aid Another action. Caster level bonus can be boosted further with the Azlanti Inheritor race trait (Adopted social trait circumvents racial requirements) and Ring of Tactical Precision. This also has a special stunt for self-buffing by using Ally Across Time or its greater version, Army Across Time, to give yourself Aid Another checks and boost your own caster level. Aid another bonuses stack so this can result in quite a fairly high caster level. Especially seeing as nothing is stopping you from casting these spells multiple times and benefiting from all of them simultaneously (only limit appears to be how many adjacent spots there are for aid-another perks), because these are summoning spells, not self-buffs.Oh that is pretty nifty actually
That and level loss from stuff like being raised from the dead being turned into negative levels instead. In-fact, the official forums have comments by authors that giving the entire group XP for a single character's personal accomplishments in certain APs was to avoid disparate XP totals in the group.
Speaking of APs, 3E's first party module support was pretty weak. The only notable ones I can recall are Sunken Citadel, Red Hand of Doom, that Eberron series, and Expedition to Demonweb Pits. Of those, only the first two are celebrated as good modules while the other two are notable more for being a good introduction to how an Eberron adventure is supposed to look, and for the fact that it's the sole Planescape book of the system than anything actually in the module respectively. PF had some really bad AP volumes (all of Wrath of the Righteous for one...) and modules but far more good ones both in total and percent.
- I really like the Vigilante, but a couple of the archetypes SUCK soo bad.
- I wish they continued Epic, with Mythic as a different system.
- Making most of the playable races fairly comparable across the board, removing LA for the most part (outside a couple races).
...
- Lack of rules on playing monsters.
What do you mean by #8 about giving people the same EXP number?