Drop Dead Studios Ask Me Anything #3

[AncientSpark]

Edit: These are under assumption that you have an ability to deliver touch spells through a weapon, such as with Spellstrike, and that method does not require a blast shape.

Q535: Energetic Response lets you AoO with Destructive Blasts with the treat range scaling further than 5 ft based on CL, with an option of that Destructive Blast being melee touch. Doesn't this mean that threaten range of your melee attack delivering the touch attack could exceed your natural reach by utilizing a Spellstrike (or similar effect) with the Destructive Blast as an AoO?

Q536: Can the range of Energetic Response be extended with abilities that extend reach/threaten range normally? Not size, but abilities that say "Your reach is extended by 5 ft?"

[Macwrath]

Q495 Tonight our group had a bit of a disagreement. one of our player's with the creation sphere wanted to basically seal a 5x4 pool with a attached slab of steel. 6th level incanter w/ wall master, Larger Creation and Expanded Materials... there was a creature in the pool. would this have worked as he intended? (he said it would have been 4 inches thick)

did not get an answer to this... the wall creation rules are a bit confusing.

[EldritchWeaver]

Q534 What happens if features would give you Basic Magical Training in the same sphere twice? For example, a Fetchling with the Darkness Adept racial trait who becomes a Shadow Boxer Monk.

A534: The general rule is that you get instead a bonus talent in the same sphere.

[Llyarden]

Q537: Does the increased BAB from Combat Sphere Specialisation (or other similar abilities, like the Conscript's Sphere Specialisation) count when qualifying for legendary talents?

Q537b: Ditto any effect that permanently increases your caster level with a magic sphere (eg the Gift for Magic trait) and advanced talents?

[Ruethgar]

I just wanted to say thank you to you and your team for all the work you do. Spheres of Power and Might are wonderful resources for making a character flesh out a thematic in short order and in normal 3.5 I had been jumping through hoops to get that similar feel from level 1. And while PF is better about it, they are largely surface fluff that’s not very impactful rather than character defining like Spheres can be.

[inuyasha]

I'd like to reiterate that as well. Spheres is an amazing system, and a total rewrite of a game I already love. Both systems (Spheres and Core) have a real place in my heart now, and I can't wait until I get to actually use this one in a game.

I look forward to everything DDS puts out in the future

[LuminousWarrior]

Q538: A small clarification on the Fortified Casting boon. Does Fortified Casting allow you to add Constitution to everything that would normally be covered by your CAM, such as a Soul Weaver's Bound Nexus or a Symbiat's Battlefield Sense, or only to your actual Spherecasting? And if so, does it also count for core classes using Spheres, such as a Sphere Bard's Bardic Performance or a Sphere Paladin's Lay on Hands or Divine Grace?

[Ssalarn]

Q537: Does the increased BAB from Combat Sphere Specialisation (or other similar abilities, like the Conscript's Sphere Specialisation) count when qualifying for legendary talents?

No. This only affects the BAB-related scaling or threshold-unlocked effects of the chosen sphere, it does not change your effective BAB for the purposes of meeting prerequisites.

It is theoretically possible (I don't believe there's an example of this currently) where a prereq that required you to have e.g. X amount of bonus damage from a sphere like Sniper could be met by this ability if it raised your BAB high enough to tip your bonus damage into that threshold, but that would be an effect of the bonus damage hitting the required number and not a direct effect of the BAB bump.

[decamonos]

Q539 If a Technician has one of the insights that allows them to add a template to an independent invention, but not the Golemsmith insight, but still possess the Craft Construct Feat, can they add those templates to a construct they create?

Q540 If a Technician can apply the templates to any construct she creates, does this extend to Animated Objects created through the enhancement sphere?

[AncientSpark]

Q541 For the Knave archetype for the Bard, the wording on Fool's Play is unclear; is it intended to be its own bardic performance or is it intended to be used in combination with other bardic performances? The question is here, with the words supporting the former in bold and the words supporting the latter underlined.

The knave can engage in a form of combat performance, in which he can effectively fight his enemies while also making them look (and feel) foolish. A combination of taunting, feinting, and inflicting minor (but embarrassing) injuries demoralize the opponent, while the performance increases the knave’s martial skill. While performing, the knave receives a +2 competence bonus on all melee attack and damage rolls, and a +2 dodge bonus to AC. Each of these bonuses increases by +1 every 4 class levels after the 1st to a maximum of +6 at 17th level. In addition, whenever the knave hits an opponent who can understand and hear what he is saying, he may use a free action to taunt them. A taunted enemy gets a -2 penalty to AC and attack rolls and can not benefit from any morale bonuses for 1 round.

A RAI interpretation on power level doesn't help very much here because this doesn't stack with Inspire Courage anyway, so a Fool's Play stacking with other performances for combat would be powerful, but not insane.

[Feliaria]

Q542:
Is the roll for Ladder Strike supposed to be attack or Acrobatics? It doesn't specify.

Ladder Strike
Whenever you are within melee range of a battered creature, you can make a single roll as a standard action; this roll is treated both as an athletics check to jump vertically or horizontally (being treated as though you had a running start) and an attack action against that creature which must be made with an unarmed strike. Any movement from this talent does not provoke an attack of opportunity from the creature.
At +10 base attack bonus, if you end the movement from this talent within melee range of another creature, you may use it again as a move action, but the attack granted from this talent is not treated as an attack action.

[SwordChucks]

Q542:
Is the roll for Ladder Strike supposed to be attack or Acrobatics? It doesn't specify.

Ladder Strike
Whenever you are within melee range of a battered creature, you can make a single roll as a standard action; this roll is treated both as an athletics check to jump vertically or horizontally (being treated as though you had a running start) and an attack action against that creature which must be made with an unarmed strike. Any movement from this talent does not provoke an attack of opportunity from the creature.
At +10 base attack bonus, if you end the movement from this talent within melee range of another creature, you may use it again as a move action, but the attack granted from this talent is not treated as an attack action.

I'm just a guy off the street and not a developer, but that seems to imply making one D20 roll and applying your bonuses separately. So the roll gets your total attack bonus added, then you use that same roll and add your total Acrobatics skill bonus so you end up with two separate totals.

[A.J.Gibson]

Q541 For the Knave archetype for the Bard, the wording on Fool's Play is unclear; is it intended to be its own bardic performance or is it intended to be used in combination with other bardic performances? The question is here, with the words supporting the former in bold and the words supporting the latter underlined.



A RAI interpretation on power level doesn't help very much here because this doesn't stack with Inspire Courage anyway, so a Fool's Play stacking with other performances for combat would be powerful, but not insane.

A541 Fool's Play is a performance by itself (and replaces a performance: countersong). It's meant for when the bard is more interested in just buffing himself.

[Feliaria]

Q543:
What happens if an Antiquarian Armiger switches Customized Weapons while a Magic Talent the weapon is granting them is active (as in, they spent the spell point to allow it to persist without concentration)? Does the effect stay there, or is it dismissed early?
Q543a:
When the Antiquarian Armiger has a Magic Talent in their active Customized Weapon, and they have spherecaster levels from another source (as per multiclassing), do the casting levels from Mystic Bond only apply to the abilities learned through that ability, or to all of their spherecasting spells?

Mystic Bond: When customizing a weapon, the antiquarian may choose to have the weapon grant magic talents, replacing granted martial talents at a 1 for 1 exchange. When such a talent is granted, the antiquarian is considered a Mid-Caster, counts her class levels as casting class levels, and uses her practitioner modifier as her casting ability modifier. These caster levels stacks normally with caster levels gained from other sources. When not wielding such a weapon, she does not gain any caster levels from her antiquarian levels. She does not count as possessing the casting class feature for the purpose of the 2 bonus talents gained from the casting class feature.
This modifies customize weapon.

[Biolink22]

Q: 544

If you are playing a race (or class) that gets claw attacks naturally (in my particular case such as through the Dragonblooded Mortal Hedgewitch archetype) and you give yourself extra arms through the Alteration Sphere, do those arms come with Claw attacks since it is part of their natural physiology?

[stack]

Q543:
What happens if an Antiquarian Armiger switches Customized Weapons while a Magic Talent the weapon is granting them is active (as in, they spent the spell point to allow it to persist without concentration)? Does the effect stay there, or is it dismissed early?
Q543a:
When the Antiquarian Armiger has a Magic Talent in their active Customized Weapon, and they have spherecaster levels from another source (as per multiclassing), do the casting levels from Mystic Bond only apply to the abilities learned through that ability, or to all of their spherecasting spells?

Mystic Bond: When customizing a weapon, the antiquarian may choose to have the weapon grant magic talents, replacing granted martial talents at a 1 for 1 exchange. When such a talent is granted, the antiquarian is considered a Mid-Caster, counts her class levels as casting class levels, and uses her practitioner modifier as her casting ability modifier. These caster levels stacks normally with caster levels gained from other sources. When not wielding such a weapon, she does not gain any caster levels from her antiquarian levels. She does not count as possessing the casting class feature for the purpose of the 2 bonus talents gained from the casting class feature.
This modifies customize weapon.

A543: There is no special provision that the effects end early and the general rule is that all parameters are set at the time of casting, so losing CL/talents access after casting has no effect on the ongoing effect.

A543a: There is no provision specifying that the CL only applies to talents granted by the weapon, so RAW the CL applies generally. Not sure that I like this from a fluff perspective, but that is how it is written.

Q: 544

If you are playing a race (or class) that gets claw attacks naturally (in my particular case such as through the Dragonblooded Mortal Hedgewitch archetype) and you give yourself extra arms through the Alteration Sphere, do those arms come with Claw attacks since it is part of their natural physiology?

A544: No, extra limbs to not inherently get claw attacks. You could describe them as having claws, but you don't get attacks you don't pay for.

[vegetalss4]

Q495 Tonight our group had a bit of a disagreement. one of our player's with the creation sphere wanted to basically seal a 5x4 pool with a attached slab of steel. 6th level incanter w/ wall master, Larger Creation and Expanded Materials... there was a creature in the pool. would this have worked as he intended? (he said it would have been 4 inches thick)

did not get an answer to this... the wall creation rules are a bit confusing.

I'll try answering this question, but as a tip, it is a bit vague since you haven't actually *said* how your player intended it to work, so I might be wrong about what you want to know the answer to.

A495: So, a 5x4 wall 1 inch thick would require 5 small objects worth of creation (because one 10 ft by 10 ft wall is a small object and 2x2 = 4 while 5x4 = 20), so even without Wall Master and Larger Creation he could have covered the pool with a slab anchored to the sides.


So how thick could this wall be given that he has both Wall Master and Larger Creation?

Here there are two answers depending on how you read Wall Master.

First Wall Master, does a wall have to be (more or less) vertical to be a wall? If yes, then Wall Master wouldn't work on the covering at all and only Larger Creation is relevant.
Meaning that the player could make a 2 inch thick slab of steel anchored to the sides, since their max size is 12 small objects and it takes 5 per inch of thickness.
If wall master does work on non-vertical walls the player could make a 4 inch thick slab, and is in fact only 1 small object from being able to make one that was 5 inches thick. (note here that strictly speaking the rule about multiplying a multiplier only counts for dice rolls and their modifier not for other formula, but that even if it did it wouldn't matter since the thickness is also two doublings)



(Personally as a GM I'd have given the creature a reflex save to jump out of the pool and land on the slab if it was adjacent to the surface, based on the rule for encasings but that is not something I can support within a strict reading of the RAW.)

[decamonos]

O545 Do feats, talents, traits, and class abilities that reduce the time to produce Alchemical or Mundane items reduce the amount of time required to make a Formulae from the Alchemy Sphere?

[AlienFromBeyond]

O545 Do feats, talents, traits, and class abilities that reduce the time to produce Alchemical or Mundane items reduce the amount of time required to make a Formulae from the Alchemy Sphere?

My understanding is yes, because they are still alchemical items. How much are you stacking up for this? I'm going to be making an Alchemy sphere character soon and want to bring down that craft time a bunch and if you've already done the work compiling a list of effects that would be quite handy instead of needing to repeat all the same work myself.

Q546: I recently noticed some wording on the Mobility talent in Athletics that results in some that I believe is not the intended behavior compared to RAW, so I wanted to confirm. In it, it says this:

For every 4 ranks in a skill associated with a package you possess, this dodge bonus increases by +1.

By RAW this seems to mean if you have say 3 packages, and 12 ranks in the skill associated with each package, the dodge bonus from Mobility would increase by a total of +9. Is this actually the intention (maybe because it was felt that regular PF Mobility was very bad?), or should it be something more like this:

For every 4 ranks in a skill associated with a package you possess, this dodge bonus increases by +1 when using the movement mode corresponding with that package.

[stack]

Q546: I recently noticed some wording on the Mobility talent in Athletics that results in some that I believe is not the intended behavior compared to RAW, so I wanted to confirm. In it, it says this:
By RAW this seems to mean if you have say 3 packages, and 12 ranks in the skill associated with each package, the dodge bonus from Mobility would increase by a total of +9. Is this actually the intention (maybe because it was felt that regular PF Mobility was very bad?), or should it be something more like this:

A546: You only count the highest relevant skill ranks, ranks from multiple packages don't stack to increase the bonus.

[Eldaran]

Q505: How do you determine the size of creatures you can affect with Telekinetic Maneuver (from Telekinses sphere)? Is it based on the caster's size or the size they can affect with lift (or neither)?

Q506: How does Quick Force (from Brute sphere) interact with Telekinetic Maneuver? Does it let you use it as a move action or swift action by expending focus, or are you still limited by normal cast time and would need to use Quicken Spell or similar?

Still interested in answers for these.

[Llyarden]

Q547: If you have multiple casting traditions and take the Advanced Magical Training feat, what happens? First, does it only benefit one of your two traditions? Second, do your levels in casting classes with separate traditions count as non-casting classes in the same manner as Vancian casting classes (I believe?) do?

For the sake of having an example, let's say that for some fluff reason you're a thaumaturge 2 [Tradition A] / soul weaver 2 [Tradition B] / fighter 2, and you take Advanced Magical Training. At 6th level, somehow, because that makes sense. Maybe you were breaking out the retraining rules. Which of the following is right? (Assuming that if you do have to specify which tradition you want to augment, you augment Tradition A.)
- Tradition A gains 2 levels of low-casting for your fighter levels.
- Tradition A and Tradition B each gain 2 levels of low-casting for your fighter levels.
- Tradition A gains 4 levels of low-casting (2 for your fighter levels and another 2 for your Tradition B levels.)
- Tradition A gains 4 levels of low-casting (2 for your fighter levels and 2 for your Tradition B levels) and Tradition B gains 4 levels of low-casting (2 for your fighter levels and 2 for your Tradition A levels).

[Shigure]

Q548: What stat are you using for the Aid Another Trick portion of the Mage Feint Illusion Talent? Its a ranged effect so one would expect Dex or a mental stat but standard Aid Another rules for aiding in combat seem to indicate its just a strait BAB check. Can you clarify how this is supposed to be used?

[Mehangel]

Q548: What stat are you using for the Aid Another Trick portion of the Mage Feint Illusion Talent? Its a ranged effect so one would expect Dex or a mental stat but standard Aid Another rules for aiding in combat seem to indicate its just a strait BAB check. Can you clarify how this is supposed to be used?

A548: The trick from the Mage Feint talent looks straightforward to me. But I asked the handbook's author and his official answer is as follows: It let's you make 'aid another' checks at illusion range (instead of melee range). So, you make a melee attack against AC 10. If you succeed, you either grant the ally a +2 bonus to his next attack or a +2 bonus to AC against the next attack made against them.

[Graadich]

Q549 With the critical genius talent from SoM Equipment sphere, are ray's a legal choice?

Q550 Another critical genius question, are the crit ranges 'locked' at the specified ranges (19-20, then 18-20 at +10 BAB) or can the ranges be further expanded by feats/class abilities/etc that increase the range more.

[Llyarden]

Q551: Experienced a bit of table variation on this recently, so: how is the Shadow Magic feat supposed to work? Do you have to choose a sphere when you take it and only give yourself talents from that sphere, or are you allowed to choose from the whole list whenever you use the feat?

[Mehangel]

Q551: Experienced a bit of table variation on this recently, so: how is the Shadow Magic feat supposed to work? Do you have to choose a sphere when you take it and only give yourself talents from that sphere, or are you allowed to choose from the whole list whenever you use the feat?

A551: You choose the spheres / talents from the whole list whenever you use the feat.

[Skaia]

Q: 552

I know technically nothing changed but the name between "Staff" and "Implement of Power" with the new item book, but I'm just wondering if the implement has to be wielded in a hand or occupy a slot in order for it to grant its benefit to its bearer.

[Llyarden]

A551: You choose the spheres / talents from the whole list whenever you use the feat.

Q551b: This being the case, what happens if you take the feat multiple times? Can you add (eg) Telekinesis or Mind to the list? (And what's the point of saying you can add geomancing packages when the entire Nature sphere, including Expanded Geomancing, is already available to the base list)?

Q551c: And similarly, how does the interaction between Illusionary Admixture and Shadow Magic work, since you don't actually 'select' Destruction when you take Shadow Magic? Do you have to spend a shadow point to give yourself something in the Destruction sphere and then also spend a spell point to get the benefits of combining the two feats?

[Mehangel]

Q551b: This being the case, what happens if you take the feat multiple times? Can you add (eg) Telekinesis or Mind to the list? (And what's the point of saying you can add geomancing packages when the entire Nature sphere, including Expanded Geomancing, is already available to the base list)?

A551b: The Shadow Magic feat should have the 'special' line removed. As such, you cannot take the feat multiple times.

Q551c: And similarly, how does the interaction between Illusionary Admixture and Shadow Magic work, since you don't actually 'select' Destruction when you take Shadow Magic? Do you have to spend a shadow point to give yourself something in the Destruction sphere and then also spend a spell point to get the benefits of combining the two feats?

Q551c: Yes. You spend a shadow point for Destruction, and a spell point to get the benefits of combining the two feats.