Drop Dead Studios Ask Me Anything #3

[Llyarden]

Q628: Mythic Material Maker (advanced Creation talent) says that you "treat your CL as 1/2 for determining both size and duration for effects" when using it. Is this supposed to say '1/2 of what it actually is' or are there some rules about how much you can create with half a caster level that I've missed somewhere?

[Anachronity]

Two questions...

(someone else can probably answer this one): Is there somewhere that answers in these threads are condensed? Into a FAQ or something?

Q629: Am I correct in understanding that Fatal Thrust (and other 'attack action' riders) applies to all attacks from a Barrage, even though it specifically doesn't apply to the second attack from a Dual Attack? If so, what's the rationale behind this? Is there a particular balance reason why this is the case?

[Elisianthus]

Q630: In regards to the Abjurer's Handbook Marshal Controller Archetype, what is the intended interaction between the Mystic Combat "Never Defeated" and the Guardian sphere powers "Durable" and "Cold Iron Call"? If you empty the pool of effects before the end of the turn where they would be applied, are the effects negated entirely?

[Suika]

Just realized there was an FAQ x)

Q631: Does Clinging Darkness (from the Dark Sphere) produce an area of darkness that follows a creature/item, or does it localize the effect to only affect the creature/item, and no longer produce an area of darkness?

Clinging Darkness states "You may center an area of darkness or blot on a creature or item rather than an area. If targeting a creature or its attended item, that creature may attempt a Will save to negate the effect initially and again each round at the end of its turn. A successful save ends the darkness or blot immediately."

[A.J.Gibson]

Q630: In regards to the Abjurer's Handbook Marshal Controller Archetype, what is the intended interaction between the Mystic Combat "Never Defeated" and the Guardian sphere powers "Durable" and "Cold Iron Call"? If you empty the pool of effects before the end of the turn where they would be applied, are the effects negated entirely?

This has been answered in this thread already by stack. I believe the answer was 'no'?

[jff362]

Q632:
The alchemy sphere allows crafting improved acid flasks, &etc. Each has a DC, and each allows an additional benefit for the cost of increasing the DC. Each takes 30m to craft (or 15 with the right tools). What happens if one misses the roll? Just loss of the 15 minutes? Since there was no material cost, I assume there's no financial risk.

For example, could one with +15 craft (alchemy) (and enough time to kill) just keep trying until they roll a 20 to beat a 35 DC?

[Elisianthus]

This has been answered in this thread already by stack. I believe the answer was 'no'?

My bad, somehow missed it on my original search. For the benefit of those who come after, this was the original response:

A215 Wow, no one caught this interaction. I'm going to pawn this off on the others, because the correct answer should be: whatever happens if you use magic to overheal and reduce the damage count in your pool, since that is what this is.

So let me ask everyone: if I use Cure from the Life sphere to completely heal myself and then heal damage from my delay damage ability, can it remove conditions placed in there by Durable? If the answer is yes, then the Never Defeated ability can as well.

More A215:Removing any delayed conditions requires an effect that removes those conditions. They cannot be removed by healing hit points.

[Feliaria]

Q632:
The alchemy sphere allows crafting improved acid flasks, &etc. Each has a DC, and each allows an additional benefit for the cost of increasing the DC. Each takes 30m to craft (or 15 with the right tools). What happens if one misses the roll? Just loss of the 15 minutes? Since there was no material cost, I assume there's no financial risk.

For example, could one with +15 craft (alchemy) (and enough time to kill) just keep trying until they roll a 20 to beat a 35 DC?

A632:
If you miss the roll, the item is made at its minimum potency (so without the benefits of your ranks in Craft (Alchemy)). A Salve made at a DC lower than 15 would heal for 1d8+Int, an Improved Acid Flask would deal 1d6 damage to its initial target, half that to those in 5ft, and 1 damage to those in 10ft. Technically the only thing preventing someone from taking 20 on a check like this is it taking 10 hours (5 with the proper tools). That's hardly worth making one consumable that lasts forever until used, much less on something that only lasts for 24 hours once made.


Q 633:
I know Vital Strike was given special provisions to make it worth with Spheres of Might, but what about other feats similar to it, like Focused Shot?

[Ssalarn]

Q 633:
I know Vital Strike was given special provisions to make it worth with Spheres of Might, but what about other feats similar to it, like Focused Shot?

A633: Vital Strike wasn't really given special consideration, beyond the fact that it's the mechanic that originally defined the attack action. Many talents in SoM key off the attack action, so that anything compatible with that particular action can be brought together in a variety of different ways.
Focused Shot, as it's own standard action, automatically excludes itself from attack action compatibility, as does anything else that is its own standard action. Some specific mechanics were reworked as talents to ensure they transferred to the new system the way we wanted, but a major design goal of SoM was for it to work with the core rules rather than creating new terms and subsystems, so outside of some hypothetical SoP mechanics that might get updated with some kind of attack action compatibility, we were actively trying not to create a list of exceptions.

[Biolink22]

Reposting this again because it sort of got buried.

Q596: My question is whether or not the Doomblade's Destructive Blade provokes an attack of opportunity? The reason for this question is that in base pathfinder a Swift action spell doesn't provoke but in the Using Spheres section there is this quote "Using a sphere ability provokes an attack of opportunity (unless cast defensively)" full stop.

Edit: I specifically mean the summoning of the blade or refreshing of the blade.

[stack]

Reposting this again because it sort of got buried.

Swift action sphere effects don't provoke. This will need to be clarified in USoP.

[Zsaber0]

Q634
What are the answers to these questions?

Q624

The weather sphere has a ton of stuff that I can't seem to find reference too anywhere in the sphere itself or in the pathfinder rule set. For example the higher levels of precipitation reference "Flash floods" and "Great Floods", do these actually have in game rules or are they meant to be interpreted by the GM on a case by case basis?

Q601
Through the course of the game , through levels, custom rewards from the GM, and items, the general drawbacks my incanter took are no longer detrimental as I can no longer fail the concentration checks that occur with the Focus drawback. The area for drawbacks say that if they dont actually count as drawbacks they dont grant more spell points. Are there any rules for just overcoming the drawbacks midgame or do I just lose a bunch of spell points?

Q563

Does the choke hold wrestling talent interact with a Garrote's choke ability in any way?

Q489

When using the Earthlord talent can you make the area smaller than the maximum radius?

[Mehangel]

Q489

When using the Earthlord talent can you make the area smaller than the maximum radius?

A489: RAI, when using the Earthlord talent, you can make the area smaller than the maximum radius.

[Llyarden]

Q635: The wunderkind has the ability to take Greater emotion powers at 7th level, using their fey adept level as their eliciter level. However, because they get emotion powers faster than the class the powers actually come from, a large number of the Greater emotion powers - maybe even all of them at the time the wunderkind was published - either explicitly only start working at 8th level or are usable 1/day at 8th level (with more uses available at higher levels), so at 7th level the wunderkind can't use them despite getting access to them. Is this intended?

[pythor]

Q636: Not sure if this has been asked. If a caster has no drawbacks, and no casting tradition, is the fact that they are using a talent detectable? How hard would it be to detect if so? What skill/talent/action would be required to use a talent without being noticed?

Q637: Is there a consolidated list of all the questions and answers from these threads? I try using GitP's search function, but I'm not good at it. Having all the questions/answers in one place would be nice.

[jff362]

Q638 With Barrage: Suppressing Fire, which attacks count as an "additional extra attack augmented with the suppressing fire"?

I'll use an example to help. Please correct me if I've got this wrong:

Janet, a BAB 12 archer with Barrage + Suppressing Fire, could choose to
a) Use suppressing fire to shoot 3 arrows at a foe. If the foe chooses to dodge, 2 of those auto-miss...but in exchange the foe takes -3 to various rolls.
b) Use suppressing fire + expend focus to shoot 5 arrows at a foe (1 standard +1 barrage +2 expend focus (@ BAB 12) +1 suppressing fire). If the foe chooses to dodge, 4 of those auto-miss...but in exchange the foe takes -5 to various rolls.

Is that right?

[Hunter Noventa]

Q639 Would having gained the Shadow Stash talent via the Shadow Armory arsenal trick preclude me from later taking the actual Dark Sphere with the Meld into Dark drawback? Conversely, if I took the Dark Sphere with the Meld Into dark drawback first, would that preclude me from gaining Shadow stash via the Shadow Armory Arsenal Trick?

Q640 Does the AC bonus from the Unarmored Training equipment sphere talent stack with the Armored Magic Aegis talent from the Protection Sphere? The former sounds more like the Monk AC Bonus (and doesn't stack with it either), while the latter is clearly like Mage Armor.

[zlefin]

Q641

How does the feat Advanced Magical Training work for creatures which only have racial HD?

[Mehangel]

Q641

How does the feat Advanced Magical Training work for creatures which only have racial HD?

A641 I am on my phone, so while I am unable to link you directly to the official response, the page where multiple questions regarding the feat can be found here. Long story short, while RAW the feat Advanced Magical Training doesn't work with racial HD, Adam Meyer's sees little issue with allowing the feat to work it.

[Serafina]

Q642 Does the magical sleep induced by the 5th-level upgrade of a Dreamwalker Hedgewitch's Tradition Power work similar to the Sleep spell, or the Slumber Hex? Specifically, is it normal sleep and a target will rouse from normal combat noises, or is it magical sleep and the target will only wake on taking damage, or being woken by allies as a standard action (or of course on succeeding on the save)?

Mostly I'm asking because if it's the latter, this works as a much more interesting version of the Slumber-Hex.
You have the option to activate it as a free action, and then disconnect from the dream as a full-round action, to have it work pretty much the same way.
But you could also pull someone into a shared dreamspace, and cast spells that affect their mind, or steal their on-person possessions, which is an interesting and unique effect. You can already do that out of combat anyway, but having that option in combat is kinda hillarious.

[Naoki00_]

Q643 I'm a little confused on this because the language is really catching me up.

When using the Counterpunch ability, it states the following:
"You may ready an action to make an attack with a light melee weapon against the next enemy who makes a melee attack roll against you before the beginning of your next round; this attack is treated as an attack action for the purposes of talents as well as the Vital Strike feat and occurs before the attack that triggers it, gaining a +2 competence bonus to damage rolls. For every 4 points of base attack bonus you possess, this bonus increases by +2. Using this ability does not change your place in the initiative order."

Can you use the whirlwind knockdown talent of the lancer sphere in place of the attack? I was under the impression because it specifically says "As an Attack action" in its activation you couldn't as you already used your action to name the counterpunch readying which is a special form of readying a Standard action. Am I incorrect in this?
I just assumed that unless it lists an actual trigger like "Whenever you make an attack action" it would not count and thus you couldn't replace the Counterpunch with the Whirlwind, especially since the counterpunch itself applies effects that wouldn't function on that talent (IE, the damage bump).

[kkplx]

Q 644
Can you use Alchemical Creation to create and use alchemical items that function as buffs? Like an antitoxin or a Hound's Blood?
It seems only when using it in conjunction with Divided Creation is it restricted to Alchemical Weapons.
If it can be used that way, d othe alchemical buffs have a normal duration, or equal to your create duration?

Q 645
Can you create formulae or poisons you know with Alchemical Creation?
My guess is no, partially for balance, partially because Alchemical Creation does not involve any kind of craft check.

[Profbob]

Q646

As a gladiator who has Prowess, self confidence, trash talker and bloodthirst, can you as a standard action boast, trash talk both prowess and bloodthirst and then regain the martial focus you spent on the trashtalk?

[LuminousWarrior]

Q647: In Spheres of Might, when you take an unarmed sphere with a drawback (eg the Open Hand Sphere and the Savage Combatant drawback) does it still count as two talents for the purpose of unarmed damage progression? Thus would a character who has all four unarmed spheres with thier corresponding drawbacks count as having 8 unarmed talents?

[TheGSE]

Q648: Why are there still Low Caster archetypes that have a -3 level penalty on top of being Low Casters? Is this going to be rectified in the Ultimate SoP publication?

Q649: Can a Vajrahasta begin concentrating on a shroud effect after a target stops being impaled?

Q650: Why no Champion archetypes for the Elementalist?

[CactusAir]

Swift action sphere effects don't provoke. This will need to be clarified in USoP.

I thought Swift actions don't provoke by default?

[Ssalarn]

I thought Swift actions don't provoke by default?

There's no listed rule that swift actions don't provoke by default (unless it was added in an errata I missed). Casting a quickened spell as a swift action does not provoke, and Extraordinary and Supernatural abilities inherently don't provoke. That tends to cover the vast majority of swift action abilities, but anything that doesn't fall under that umbrella technically still has the potential to provoke.

[geekintheground]

Q 651

idk if this has been asked, or is just blatantly obvious (i've read so much, but not everything and if its been asked my googlefu has failed me): for spheres that have multiple packages (specifically asking about alchemy, but question can be just in general) is there a way to get multiple packages? using alchemy as an example, i know alchemist has an archetype that gives both, but is there a non-class specific way to get both formulae and poison?

[Ssalarn]

Q 651

idk if this has been asked, or is just blatantly obvious (i've read so much, but not everything and if its been asked my googlefu has failed me): for spheres that have multiple packages (specifically asking about alchemy, but question can be just in general) is there a way to get multiple packages? using alchemy as an example, i know alchemist has an archetype that gives both, but is there a non-class specific way to get both formulae and poison?

A651 In the case of the Alchemy sphere, it's the Master Chemist talent which grants you a different package than the one you first selected. For Athletics it's Expanded Training. The ability to obtain an additional package from spheres that require you to choose a package is typically built into a talent within the sphere itself.

[geekintheground]

A651 In the case of the Alchemy sphere, it's the Master Chemist talent which grants you a different package than the one you first selected. For Athletics it's Expanded Training. The ability to obtain an additional package from spheres that require you to choose a package is typically built into a talent within the sphere itself.

im sure you and the rest of the multiverse heard my facepalm right now, but i wanted to say in words that it did happen...
thanks for pointing that out!