Interesting stuff in Pathfinder

[Amechra]

The Elemental Annihilator Kineticist has a pretty nice capstone.

You get a special Composite Blast that deals 10d6 + 10 Bludgeoning, 10d6 + 10 Cold, 10d6 + 10 Fire, 10d6 + 10 Electricity, and 10d6 + 10 Force damage as a Standard action at-will. It deals 4 points of Burn, which is reduced to 3 thanks to one of their class features, and they can reduce it down to 0 if they are careful (Gather Power + Supercharge and Internal Buffer).

Then again, 50d6 + 50 damage more-or-less at will is just fine for anyone who has just taken 20 levels in a class for the express purposes of dealing craploads of damage, but still...

[zook1shoe]

Earlier it was mentioned that Monstrous Graft works great with Racial Heritage.

But looking more closely at the discovery, and it doesn't require you to choose the same type or graft (arm for an arm, leg for a leg,  tentacle for a tentacle, etc.). You can swap out limbs for anything, like 4 slam tentacles or 4 fast cheetah feet. Downside? Depends on if you kept at least 1 leg or hand. Just hop around as a monk doing unarmed strike/slam/slam/slam/bite (orc adopted tusked freak).

Youre already an alchemist, so throw in a pair of Vestigial Arms discoveries (or even a Tentacle discovery), now you have more limb options to swap or keep. You can have a pair of normal arms, a pair of slamming tentacles, and a pair of cheetah feet.

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Weapons made of noqual weigh half as much as normal, and gain a +1 enhancement bonus on damage
rolls against constructs and undead created by feats or spells.

Does this apply to stuff that doesn't even include the weapon, like Magic Missile?

[Gazzien]

Weapons made of noqual weigh half as much as normal, and gain a +1 enhancement bonus on damage rolls against constructs and undead created by feats or spells.

Does this apply to stuff that doesn't even include the weapon, like Magic Missile?

If you can get your DM to think that you can attack a Magic Missile, and that it's a Construct or Undead. (It deals +1 damage against [Construct or Undead], if and only if that [Construct or Undead] was created by a feat or spell. Or that's how I read it.)

[zook1shoe]

oooooooh i see.... yeah i was totally confused, now i see

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not sure if this was previously posted.... but a Dirge Bard's Secrets of the Grave appears to use whichever arcane spell you want (usually the lowest)

Secrets of the Grave (Ex): At 2nd level, a dirge bard gains a bonus equal to half his bard level on Knowledge (religion) checks made to identify undead creatures and their abilities. A dirge bard may use mind-affecting spells to affect undead as if they were living creatures, even if they are mindless (though spells that affect only humanoids do not affect them, even if they were humanoids in life). In addition, he may add one necromancy spell from the spell list of any arcane spellcasting class to his list of spells known at 2nd level and every four levels thereafter.
This ability replaces versatile performance.

[MrWolfe]

Saw that feat while hunting PFSRD for aids to aid.

Just being a helpful 'witch' nets +4-12 CL. That's fucking amazing.

Do you have to use that aid on that spellcaster in particular?

I must be missing something, how does this:

Bloodline Arcana: You count as a hag for the purpose of joining a hag's coven. The coven must contain at least one hag. In addition, whenever you are within 30 feet of another sorcerer with this bloodline or a witch with the coven hex, you can use the aid another action to grant a +1 bonus to the other spellcaster's caster level for 1 round.

translate into a +4-12 bonus?

[zook1shoe]

+1 -》+4 × 3 = +12

Aid another stacks

[MrWolfe]

+1 -》+4 × 3 = +12

Aid another stacks

Could you unpack that a bit? I'm afraid I'm still not following.

It seems like you're talking about having three people with this ability all use aid another to boost a caster's CL, but you also seem to be treating it as giving a +1d4 boost to caster level instead of the flat +1 CL that the ability states.

Though I will say, that hex/bloodline arcana could get really nasty with enough people behind it. I wonder what the maximum number of sorcerers and witches you could pack into a 30' radius is... 

[deadkitten]

There are a couple of traits that boost the bonus from aid another.

The investigator class CAN get the ability to perform aid another three times in a turn. 1 standard, 1 move, and 1 swift.

Since aid another has language saying "similar bonuses stack" it would be safe to assume multiple aid another actions from the same person are similar enough to each other to stack.

So you just have a investigator 4/ sorcerer 1 use aid another 3x in a turn for a hefty bonus.

[zook1shoe]

I guess I assumed that you had read the aid another stuff a half-dozen or so posts back.

Yeah, Investigator 3 and a trait or two is amazing.

Just used my helpful investigator a couple games ago to great effect. It's such a versatile buff, just amazing.

[MrWolfe]

Actually, I had. Thought the ruling on that was that multiple aid another actions taken by the same character don't stack, since they're all from the same source? (Same way casting a spell multiple times doesn't stack, even if the bonus type does.)

I guess part of what threw me was that you said "Just being a helpful 'witch' nets +4-12 CL." Not "being a witch, plus an investigator, plus whatever is making it a +1d4 instead of a flat +1 bonus." Hence why I asked how you were going from just what the text of the accursed bloodline arcana/coven hex gives you to the +1d4 x3 bonus.

As to the earlier thing, it turns out the answer to the question of "how many sorcerer/witches can you fit within 30'" is: "Quite a f$#&ing lot."

According to the SRD, up to 100 fine creatures can share the same square, and a 30' radius contains (I think) 96 squares--and that's just working in two dimensions. Even if you were to stick to something relatively sane, (as opposed to, say, a swarm of miniature pixies with class levels) a 30' radius crammed full of medium, 1st level witches and accursed bloodline sorcerers could effectively produce a spell effect at well over +100 caster level. 

[zook1shoe]

An arcanist can get an indestructible spellbook... downside? Witch spells instead of sorcerer/wizard spells

(click to show/hide)

UNLETTERED ARCANlST (ARCHETYPE)
Some arcanists store their spells as whispered secrets within familiars instead of on paper.
Familiar: An unlettered arcanist does not keep a spellbook. Instead, she gains a familiar in which she stores her spells as a witch does, though she does not gain a witch's patron. Treat her arcanist level as her witch level for determining the abilities and benefits granted by the familiar. Anything that would allow an unlettered arcanist to add spells to her spellbook allows her to add spells to her familiar instead. This ability replaces spellbooks.
Witch Spells: An unlettered arcanist follows a different arcane tradition. She uses the witch spell list instead of the wizard/sorcerer spell list. This ability alters the spells class feature.

Figment (Familiar Archetype)
Figments are born from their masters’ imaginations rather than awakened from ordinary creatures.
Recurring Dream (Su): A figment has a total number of hit points equal to 1/4 the master’s total hit points. If the figment dies, it vanishes, appearing again with 1 hit point after its master awakens from a full night’s sleep. If a figment ever strays more than 100 feet from its master, a figment enters an antimagic field, or a figment’s master is rendered unconscious or asleep, the figment disappears until the next time its master prepares spells or regains spells per day. Because it is a being of its master’s own mind, a figment can never serve as a witch’s familiar, andit can’t use any divination spells or spell-like abilities it may possess. This ability replaces improved evasion.
Manifest Dreams (Su): At 3rd level, a figment is shaped by its master’s dreams. Each time the master awakens from a full night’s rest, he can apply to the figment 1 evolution point worth of eidolon evolutions that don’t have a base form requirement. At 7th level, he can apply 2 points worth of evolutions; at 13th level, he can apply 3 points worth of eidolon evolutions. This ability replaces deliver touch spells, speak with animals of its kind, and scry on familiar.

[Gazzien]

An arcanist can get an indestructible spellbook... downside? Witch spells instead of sorcerer/wizard spells

(click to show/hide)

UNLETTERED ARCANlST (ARCHETYPE)
Some arcanists store their spells as whispered secrets within familiars instead of on paper.
Familiar: An unlettered arcanist does not keep a spellbook. Instead, she gains a familiar in which she stores her spells as a witch does, though she does not gain a witch's patron. Treat her arcanist level as her witch level for determining the abilities and benefits granted by the familiar. Anything that would allow an unlettered arcanist to add spells to her spellbook allows her to add spells to her familiar instead. This ability replaces spellbooks.
Witch Spells: An unlettered arcanist follows a different arcane tradition. She uses the witch spell list instead of the wizard/sorcerer spell list. This ability alters the spells class feature.

Figment (Familiar Archetype)
Figments are born from their masters’ imaginations rather than awakened from ordinary creatures.
Recurring Dream (Su): A figment has a total number of hit points equal to 1/4 the master’s total hit points. If the figment dies, it vanishes, appearing again with 1 hit point after its master awakens from a full night’s sleep. If a figment ever strays more than 100 feet from its master, a figment enters an antimagic field, or a figment’s master is rendered unconscious or asleep, the figment disappears until the next time its master prepares spells or regains spells per day. Because it is a being of its master’s own mind, a figment can never serve as a witch’s familiar, and it can’t use any divination spells or spell-like abilities it may possess. This ability replaces improved evasion.
Manifest Dreams (Su): At 3rd level, a figment is shaped by its master’s dreams. Each time the master awakens from a full night’s rest, he can apply to the figment 1 evolution point worth of eidolon evolutions that don’t have a base form requirement. At 7th level, he can apply 2 points worth of evolutions; at 13th level, he can apply 3 points worth of eidolon evolutions. This ability replaces deliver touch spells, speak with animals of its kind, and scry on familiar.

"a figment can never serve as a witch’s familiar"

RAW, yes... RAI... I can't think of anyone who would let you do this. At least, not from the people I know in person.

[zook1shoe]

Agreed

[ketaro]

Even when RAI, your class is still Arcanist, not Witch. In no reading are you a Witch when using the Arcanist archetype.......

[zook1shoe]

It's more the fact that your familiar spellbook is a figment of your imagination, which the main source of that is witches.

[Keldar]

Oh noes, someone actually memorized all his spells and stored them in Imagination Land!   
Not that the Arcanist isn't a great big wheel of cheese already.

[Ice9]

I guess part of what threw me was that you said "Just being a helpful 'witch' nets +4-12 CL." Not "being a witch, plus an investigator, plus whatever is making it a +1d4 instead of a flat +1 bonus."

Helpful is the name of a trait, and it makes it be +4, not +1d4.  I'm not 100% certain it works, since it's phrased as "+4 instead of the normal +2", but if it does it would give that result.

[zook1shoe]

That part was a little iffy.

If you want something lock tight, you can use the non-halfling helpful and inheritor to get +3 on these aid another, and so +9 in the end

[MrWolfe]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up guys.

Either way, it's still a really nice ability. Anybody know of a good, uncapped, spell/ability that scales by caster level? 

Also, since nobody seems to be mentioning it: Greyflame weapons are awesome for a character with UMD. A +1 ability that gives you +1 to hit, +1d6 untyped damage, and bypasses two types of DR at once? Yes please. Requires a swift action and a DC 21 UMD check (one higher than a wand) to activate for a round, but you can choose between two different modes to bypass either DR/Good and /Silver or DR/Evil and /Cold Iron. Slap this on an adamantine weapon and you're good.

The only drawback is that your GM might not let you UMD this, because of the way it's worded. Normally you have to use the channel energy class feature to channel either positive or negative energy into the weapon to activate it (hence the two modes), and UMD explicitly states that it lets you emulate class features for the purpose of activating a device but not actually use them. It basically comes down to whether your GM sides with the "I'm not actually channeling energy, I'm just using UMD to fake it in order to activate a magic item" argument or not.

Personally I think that line exists more to prevent rogues from "stealing" everyone else's class features and running around using them all day, but I really like greyflame weapons so that might be coloring my interpretation. 

[zook1shoe]

UMD wouldn't work, since it's powered by the channel itself.