Interesting stuff in Pathfinder

[Amechra]

The Busker archetype for the Bard is... well, it basically replaces Inspire Courage with "I experience the sweet, sweet benefits of Haste."

Too bad it doesn't really combo well with any other Bard archetype.


On the other hand, Lotus Geisha is essentially Song of the Heart: Pathfinder Edition. Too bad it doesn't combo with Words of Creation: Pathfinder Edition (the Dervish, if I remember correctly.)

Edit: Forget your Familiar being smarter than the party Barbarian - a Scholar Familiar has an Intelligence of level + 5. That means that it can potentially be smarter than you are.

[Mogkiller]

Naah, made a mistake, can't find erase button, sorry

[MrWolfe]

Okay, this is interesting: Conductive is a +1 weapon ability that lets you expend two uses of a SLA or Supernatural ability that relies on a touch attack to channel it through the weapon on a successful hit. If the ability has an unlimited number of uses you can do this once per round. Only stipulation is that conductive melee weapons can only channel melee touch attacks, and conductive ranged weapons only channel ranged touch attacks.

So...

...build a character with an at-will ranged touch attack, firearms proficiency, and the conductive firearm of your choice.

Off the top of my head, a kineticist with EWP: Firearms could channel their simple and composite blasts though a conductive firearm. You get extra damage plus whatever other enchantments you've put on the gun, can potentially use feats and abilities that wouldn't ordinarily apply to a kinetic blast, and depending on the type of gun you can more than double your range or turn it into a cone.

I'll have to look into it more but it seems like there's great potential for shenanigans here.

[deadkitten]

Okay, this is interesting: Conductive is a +1 weapon ability that lets you expend two uses of a SLA or Supernatural ability that relies on a touch attack to channel it through the weapon on a successful hit. If the ability has an unlimited number of uses you can do this once per round. Only stipulation is that conductive melee weapons can only channel melee touch attacks, and conductive ranged weapons only channel ranged touch attacks.

So...

...build a character with an at-will ranged touch attack, firearms proficiency, and the conductive firearm of your choice.

Off the top of my head, a kineticist with EWP: Firearms could channel their simple and composite blasts though a conductive firearm. You get extra damage plus whatever other enchantments you've put on the gun, can potentially use feats and abilities that wouldn't ordinarily apply to a kinetic blast, and depending on the type of gun you can more than double your range or turn it into a cone.

I'll have to look into it more but it seems like there's great potential for shenanigans here.

Yea, bow Kineticists are probably the highest damaging ranged Kineticist build at the moment and are only eclipsed by the kinetic blade or whip users.

[MrWolfe]

Yea, bow Kineticists are probably the highest damaging ranged Kineticist build at the moment and are only eclipsed by the kinetic blade or whip users.

A) How does the blade/whip build work? A conductive melee weapon can only channel SLA/SA's that use melee touch attacks, does the kineticist get a melee version of their kinetic blast?

B) I'm less enamored with the raw damage potential and more with the ability to effectively apply weapon enchantments to you spell-like or supernatural abilities.

For instance, I'm playing a 3.5 warlock in my group's current 3.X/Pathfinder mashup campaign. Say you channeled a Frightful Blast (will save or be shaken on a hit) through a +1 Conductive Cruel ranged weapon?

You could do a crapton of damage and make the target sickened and shaken on a failed save for a total penalty of -4 to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, and -2 to weapon damage rolls. That's some serious debuffing to lay out, even without blasting at the same time--and you get 5 Temp HP if you drop somebody with it. Being able to do that every round at will is just nuts.

Use Distance to increase the range of your powers even further, or Dispelling/Dispelling Burst to hose enemy buffs and spellcasters while still blasting. Use a weapon that deals piercing or slashing damage and you can effectively make your SLA/SA's Keen--and get a better threat range than you could achieve through Imp. Crit.

Honestly there's a ton of neat rider effects you can apply to your abilities this way that would either be very difficult or downright impossible to get any other way.

[deadkitten]

Yea, bow Kineticists are probably the highest damaging ranged Kineticist build at the moment and are only eclipsed by the kinetic blade or whip users.

A) How does the blade/whip build work? A conductive melee weapon can only channel SLA/SA's that use melee touch attacks, does the kineticist get a melee version of their kinetic blast?

B) I'm less enamored with the raw damage potential and more with the ability to effectively apply weapon enchantments to you spell-like or supernatural abilities.

For instance, I'm playing a 3.5 warlock in my group's current 3.X/Pathfinder mashup campaign. Say you channeled a Frightful Blast (will save or be shaken on a hit) through a +1 Conductive Cruel ranged weapon?

You could do a crapton of damage and make the target sickened and shaken on a failed save for a total penalty of -4 to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks, and -2 to weapon damage rolls. That's some serious debuffing to lay out, even without blasting at the same time--and you get 5 Temp HP if you drop somebody with it. Being able to do that every round at will is just nuts.

Use Distance to increase the range of your powers even further, or Dispelling/Dispelling Burst to hose enemy buffs and spellcasters while still blasting. Use a weapon that deals piercing or slashing damage and you can effectively make your SLA/SA's Keen--and get a better threat range than you could achieve through Imp. Crit.

Honestly there's a ton of neat rider effects you can apply to your abilities this way that would either be very difficult or downright impossible to get any other way.

A) Just using Kinetic blade/Whip by itself is likely to be the most damaging option. Although, there is some ambiguity that the kinetic blade/whip form infusions turn the blast into melee touch and allow you to use it with a melee conductive weapon, so you could grab an off hand weapon to use that way. But again, that's a grey area that hasn't really been discussed or clarified by developers.

B) Apparently with how Conductive works is that it turns your blast into a rider effect, so it would essentially be something like a big ass flaming or corrosive ability on one hit.

There is definitely some contention on weather you can apply any kind of infusion to a kinetic blast and use it through a conductive weapon, there is no clear answer at the moment over on the Paizo boards. It is definitely a hot topic on the Kineticist Handbook thread.

Also since the Blast from conductive is additional damage, it apparently will not share the benefit from the weapons threat range.

[MrWolfe]

A) Just using Kinetic blade/Whip by itself is likely to be the most damaging option. Although, there is some ambiguity that the kinetic blade/whip form infusions turn the blast into melee touch and allow you to use it with a melee conductive weapon, so you could grab an off hand weapon to use that way. But again, that's a grey area that hasn't really been discussed or clarified by developers.

Ah, so there are abilities that turn it into a melee touch attack. Haven't taken a really good look at the Kineticist yet, so I wasn't sure.

B) Apparently with how Conductive works is that it turns your blast into a rider effect, so
 it would essentially be something like a big ass flaming or corrosive ability on one hit.

There is definitely some contention on weather you can apply any kind of infusion to a kinetic blast and use it through a conductive weapon, there is no clear answer at the moment over on the Paizo boards. It is definitely a hot topic on the Kineticist Handbook thread.

Why would there be contention? Conductive works with any SLA/SA you have. Going back to my warlock example (because I'm more familiar with blast shape and eldritch essence invocations than whatever equivalent the kineticist gets) even if you considered Eldritch Blast and Eldritch Chain or Beshadowed Eldritch Chain to be separate abilities, it doesn't matter because conductive doesn't require being keyed to a specific power. It works with whatever you choose to channel into it, provided it meets the requirement of using either a ranged or melee touch attack.

Now, if a warlock were to try and channel an Eldritch Cone or Hideous Blow through his ranged Conductive weapon, he'd be SOL--the first doesn't use a touch attack and the second uses a melee touch attack instead of a ranged one.

Also since the Blast from conductive is additional damage, it apparently will not share the benefit from the weapons threat range.

That's an...interesting way of interpreting it. Thing is, it isn't precisely extra damage. You are affected on a hit as though struck by the SLA/SA as well as the weapon. Basically, you're using one attack roll for both attacks. If that attack roll is a crit, then it should be a crit for both. You could argue that it only allows you to affect them as though struck normally (ie: not critted), but that seems like inferring a restriction that isn't actually present in the wording. Either way, it's definitely not "extra damage"--in fact it it doesn't have to be damage at all.

Conductive works with any touch attack SLA/SA--not just blasty ones. There are probably some much more interesting things one could do with the right abilities, I'm just not that familiar with the what and how of getting at-will SLA's outside of going Warlock.

Certainly a conductive melee weapon channeling Curse of Despair would be nifty.

[deadkitten]

Critical Hits wrote:
Exception: Precision damage (such as from a rogue's sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon qualities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit.

The effects from conductive are additional damage from the weapon ability, so you would not be able to crit with the blast channeled.

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. This weapon special ability can only be used once per round, and only works with magical abilities of the same type as the weapon (melee or ranged).

And on the infusion abilities, you apply infusions when you use your SLA Kinetic Blast, and the wording on conductive can be interpreted in a way that you.are not actually using your SLA in the normal sense, so you would not get the chance to apply infusions.

Honestly, the existence of Kineticists will probably cause conductive to get nerfed at some point, and that makes me sad.

[MrWolfe]

Critical Hits wrote:
Exception: Precision damage (such as from a rogue's sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon qualities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit.

The effects from conductive are additional damage from the weapon ability, so you would not be able to crit with the blast channeled.

The rules for the conductive property say the target "suffers the effects of both the weapon attack and the special ability." One of the effects of most damaging touch attacks is that they deal double damage on a crit. Specific trumps general, so the specific rules for conductive weapons trumps the general crit rules. This is why you can actually use the conductive property in the first place, when doing so requires expending two uses of a spell like or supernatural ability as a non-action following a successful melee attack--which breaks the hell out of the general rules for how your SLA/SA works and what you can normally do on your turn.

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. This weapon special ability can only be used once per round, and only works with magical abilities of the same type as the weapon (melee or ranged).

And on the infusion abilities, you apply infusions when you use your SLA Kinetic Blast, and the wording on conductive can be interpreted in a way that you.are not actually using your SLA in the normal sense, so you would not get the chance to apply infusions.

Honestly, the existence of Kineticists will probably cause conductive to get nerfed at some point, and that makes me sad.

I don't see the problem. You are using your Kinetic Blast--technically you're using it twice--you're just using it in a new way that wouldn't be possible without the conductive property. It's true that the wording could be interpreted differently, but that isn't much of an argument. Wording can always be interpreted wrong.

As for being nerfed, eh, it might happen. People flipped their shit in 3.5 when Warlocks came out and they'll probably do the same for the Pathfinder Kineticist. Always struck me as more of a knee jerk reaction that something that was actually warranted, though. At-will SLA's are cool, but they're really not any better than what the other classes can do. Besides, as long as your party has a healer (or any other caster) the at-will thing becomes moot pretty quickly, since you'll still be taking a break along with everyone else once the Vancian casters run out of slots.

[Eviltedzies]

So I haven't really seen too much online regarding this so I thought I'd throw it up here for good measure. I've found Warlords to be one of the best party support classes ever and in some categories they even ecplise casters.

* Warlords use their Charisma modifiers in place of the usual Aid Another bonuses.
* Warlords can use Aid Another as a move action on allies up to 30ft away.
* Warlords use their Charisma modifiers in place of the usual Flanking bonuses.
* Warlords can share teamwork feats with allies.

You can do some crazy stuff with that.

* Harrying Partners - Aid Another bonuses last an entire round. Sweet.
* Bodyguard - Better Action Economoy for Aid Another at the cost of being forced to remain adjacent.
* Golden Commander Stance - Makes it much easier to flank and syngergizes with Bodyguard in needing to be adjacent.

So lets say a Warlord has a +5 Charisma modifier and the above feats and stance. He then shares Harrying Partners with his team at the start of battle. Any ally standing next to the Warlord who is attacked gets practically a free +5 to AC against one foe for the entire round. If the Warlord uses a move action then they also get a +5 to attack on ALL their attacks against that same foe for one round. Add to this, any ally adjacent to the Warlord fighting the same foe also get ANOTHER +5 to hit since the are considered flanking with the Warlord. All of this for relatively little action economoy on the Warlord's part and he and his melee allies are basically doing the same thing they would normally do in a fight.

The new Path of War Expanded stuff makes this even more crazy.

*New Warlord Tactical Presence, Gladiators Presence, available at level 9. Adds the Warlords Charisma modifier as a morale bonus to allies CMB and CMD checks. Also allows allies to perform combat maneuver without provoking AoOps. It's like what Marshal aura's should have been in 3.5. (This can get even stupider if you have a bard in the party cast Moment of Greatness)

*New class template for Warlord called Bushi. One of their abilities reads:
-

Respect: The bushi respects all life, and knows that the strength of his allies support his own strength. Whenever the bushi uses the Aid Another action in or out of combat, he adds his initiation modifier (min +1) to the bonus that he grants his allies.

That bonus, is an addition to Aid Another, not a replacement, which means it stacks with the Warlords Tactical Assistance ability. (Effectively add x2 Charisma to Aid Another bonuses)

So a Bushi Warlord toting a +5 Charisma modifier who has shared his Harrying Partner teamwork feat with his allies can basically use a move action to grant any ally within 30ft a +10 to attack against one foe for the entire round. He can do this twice per round if he chooses and can do this indefinately so long as the teamwork feat lasts. In addition, should he be adjacent to attacking allies, he grants them another +5 bonus to hit for flanking AND he can use his Attack of Opportunity pool to boost their AC's by 10 as well.
That is what I call teamwork.

Another class that syngergizes well with this Aid Another theme is the Zealot.
* Recovers maneuvers by Aiding Another as a standard action.
* When recovering maneuvers, grants allies a scaling bonus to attack
* Can use Aid Another on himself!!!!!! <------
* Can use Aid Another on his ranged attacks
* Can Aid Another on any member of his collective regardless of range
* At 9th level, a Zealot who has chosen the Mission of Protection automatically succeeds at Aid Another checks to grant allies bonuses to attack/damage.

If your playing Gestalt, a Bushi Warlord || Zealot would be the ultimate Self-Help Samurai. x2 Charisma to all skill checks, attack rolls, and AC yes please!

Oh wait, lets not forget, Aid Another Bonuses STACK!

So if you really wanted to go balls to the walls, you could grant allies x4 Charisma modifier to Attacks, AC, or Skill checks.

[phaedrusxy]

Yeah, I briefly played a multiclassed bard (geisha/flamedancer, which works very well together BTW)/warlord and thought it was an awesome support character, and also decent combatant, as well as having a nice bag of tricks from spells and maneuvers.

[MrWolfe]

Surprised this hasn't been brought up before, but maybe my search-fu is just weak:

So, the feat Summon Guardian Spirit is rather nifty:

(click to show/hide)

Benefit: Select one creature that qualifies to be an improved familiar, and apply the guardian spirit template (see below) to it. That creature is added to either your summon monster III or summon nature’s ally III list as a summonable creature. When you summon your guardian spirit, the duration of the spell you use to summon it is 1 minute per level. A guardian spirit is always exactly the same creature, with memory of all the events that occurred while previously summoned; multiple versions of it can’t be summoned. If it’s killed while summoned, it cannot be summoned again for 24 hours.

If you’re capable of casting a higher-level summon monster or summon nature’s ally spell, you can perform a ritual to attune the guardian spirit to a higher-level version of the spell. This also allows you to change any selections made regarding the abilities the creature gains based on the level of spell used to conjure it (see the table on page 27). This ritual takes 24 hours, and once complete it moves the guardian spirit to the higherlevel list of creatures that can be summoned.

Interestingly, it doesn't say that you have to qualify to have the creature as an improved familiar, so nothing's stopping you from picking one that normally requires a higher CL than you have, or whose alignment doesn't match yours.

[zook1shoe]

Nice.... damn not PFS legal

[MrWolfe]

Hmm. So, does the damage from Life Link or a similar effect that heals allies by transferring some of their damage to you count as an "attack" for the purposes of the Flesh Wound rage power?

If so, that could be a nifty combo:

1) Set up life link on your party.
2) When your turn comes up make a fort save against the damage to cut it in half and make it nonlethal damage instead.
3) Heal, which restores an equal amount of lethal and nonlethal damage simultaneously.

Standard 4-person group means a max of 15 damage transferred to you at the start of your turn, which is a ridiculously easy fort save for a raging 10th level barbarian. (You need barb 10 to get Flesh Wound.)

Admittedly, it's a rare build that's going to have access to Life Link and Flesh Wound--but if memory serves there are other spells/magic items that have similar effects.

[deadkitten]

Hmm. So, does the damage from Life Link or a similar effect that heals allies by transferring some of their damage to you count as an "attack" for the purposes of the Flesh Wound rage power?

If so, that could be a nifty combo:

1) Set up life link on your party.
2) When your turn comes up make a fort save against the damage to cut it in half and make it nonlethal damage instead.
3) Heal, which restores an equal amount of lethal and nonlethal damage simultaneously.

Standard 4-person group means a max of 15 damage transferred to you at the start of your turn, which is a ridiculously easy fort save for a raging 10th level barbarian. (You need barb 10 to get Flesh Wound.)

Admittedly, it's a rare build that's going to have access to Life Link and Flesh Wound--but if memory serves there are other spells/magic items that have similar effects.

the barbarian must elect to use this ability after the attack roll is made, but before the damage is rolled.

Each round at the start of your turn, if the bonded creature is wounded for 5 or more hit points below its maximum hit points, it heals 5 hit points and you take 5 hit points of damage

Seems to me that you need an attack roll to use Flesh Wound, and for damage to be rolled. So since Life Link provides neither of those circumstances, it would not trigger the rage power.

[zook1shoe]

Agreed

[Snowbluff]

Seems to me that you need an attack roll to use Flesh Wound, and for damage to be rolled. So since Life Link provides neither of those circumstances, it would not trigger the rage power.

The worst part about that is that this ruling precludes spells, which are attacks, but don't necessarily need an attack roll.

Or is that somehow different in PF? 

[MrWolfe]

Nope. Most area damage spells like fireball use a reflex save rather than an attack roll. Quite a few single target spells work that way too, IIRC. Personally, I'd call shenanigans if a GM tried to interpret it that way, for exactly this reason.

That last line that Deadkitten quoted is a little out of context. The full text of the feat is:

Once per rage, the barbarian can try to avoid serious harm from an attack. The barbarian must make a Fortitude save with a DC equal to the damage that would be dealt by the attack. The barbarian’s armor check penalty applies on this saving throw. If the save succeeds, the barbarian takes half damage from the attack and the damage is nonlethal. The barbarian must elect to use this ability after the attack roll is made, but before the damage is rolled.

Poor wording, but it seems pretty clear that the intention was to force you to decide whether or not to use the ability before the damage is rolled--not to limit it to attacks that require attack rolls.

There are also some spells and attacks that do a set amount of damage, rather than making a roll. Personally, I'd say that you just need to declare that you're using Flesh Wound before the GM announces how much damage you take. My only concern is with whether or not damage transferred via Life Link counts as an "attack" or not.

[Edit]

Another interesting tidbit:

Weapon Focus + Dazzling Display + Hero's Display = Use Dazzling Display as a swift action.

Intimidating Glare + Terrifying Howl = Force all shaken enemies within 30' to make a will save or be panicked.

So, with one turn you can make a group of enemies panicked, and still have a move action available. If you have Disheartening Display and can convince your GM to let you use another swift action in place of that move action, you can make everyone within 30' cower with a single turn.

I realize I may be preaching to the choir here but barbarian intimidate builds can get insane.

[deadkitten]

[Edit]

Another interesting tidbit:

Weapon Focus + Dazzling Display + Hero's Display = Use Dazzling Display as a swift action.

Intimidating Glare + Terrifying Howl = Force all shaken enemies within 30' to make a will save or be panicked.

So, with one turn you can make a group of enemies panicked, and still have a move action available. If you have Disheartening Display and can convince your GM to let you use another swift action in place of that move action, you can make everyone within 30' cower with a single turn.

I realize I may be preaching to the choir here but barbarian intimidate builds can get insane.

Ya don't need to ask your DM squat, you just have to be an angry Barbarian.in drag.
http://archivesofnethys.com/MagicWondrousDisplay.aspx?FinalName=Corset%20of%20Delicate%20Moves

[MrWolfe]

Awesome. Totally have to run this character sometime.