Drop Dead Studios Ask Me Anything #3

[AlienFromBeyond]

Q279: Is it intended that the nonlethal damage from the Draining Casting drawback can be reduced to heavily mitigate the drawback, since it's not technically healing? Things such as Anesthetic Wine, Zon-Kuthon's Kiss, the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian archetype, or even just plain DR in general!

[Lucas Yew]

Q280: If I take the formulae package when first gaining the Alchemy sphere, does the extra formulae talent nab me another 5 Craft (alchemy) ranks for free?

[Ualaa]

Q279: Is it intended that the nonlethal damage from the Draining Casting drawback can be reduced to heavily mitigate the drawback, since it's not technically healing? Things such as Anesthetic Wine, Zon-Kuthon's Kiss, the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian archetype, or even just plain DR in general!

I rule in my game, the spell is being powered by your life energy. Therefore the non-lethal that you're taking is not from an external source, so DR wouldn't help. Similarly, normally non-lethal is healed along with lethal when you receive curative magic, but the drawback states you're only recovering that with natural rest. So essentially, you're similar to an Aes Sedai, who physically gets more tired as they use the one power.

I think that's the intended rules.

If a player wanted to argue that the rules as written differ, they could. I'd then probably go with, the spell should have cost you 4 non-lethal, but after DR you actually only took say 1 non-lethal. The drawback costs 1 non-lethal, for a given caster level range, so your spell is only that powerful. Or if the DR is sufficient for no damage to have been taken, then the DR prevented the spell from casting entirely.
But I'd give the player the option to suppress it, for their spherecasting.

[Ualaa]

Q280: If I take the formulae package when first gaining the Alchemy sphere, does the extra formulae talent nab me another 5 Craft (alchemy) ranks for free?

The skill points are dependent on number of talents within the sphere; I don't see it specifying anywhere how the talents are acquired, just how many talents you have.

I'd say, if you get an extra talent within the sphere, it adds the ranks.

[kkplx]

Q281

a) If a creature uses a magical at-will ray or ranged touch attack as its attack mode (for example a lantern archon), can they use barrage and sniper sphere sphere with it (and dual wield if their entry distinguishes 2 separate weapons)?
b) If so, what kind of damage does the sniper sphere additional d6 deal?
c) If so, what damage does the precision damage from Fencing deal?
d) Could the creature apply the bleed from duelist?
e) How do all of the above interact with a ray/ranged touch attack that deals ability damage, stun or similar, nonstandard effects (like a nereid for example)?

[Mehangel]

Q279: Is it intended that the nonlethal damage from the Draining Casting drawback can be reduced to heavily mitigate the drawback, since it's not technically healing? Things such as Anesthetic Wine, Zon-Kuthon's Kiss, the Invulnerable Rager Barbarian archetype, or even just plain DR in general!

A279 While not strictly RAW, I believe that the nonlethal damage from Draining Casting is not subject to DR. Personally, I would allow anesthetic wine, zon-kuthon's kiss, and similar items to work with the drawback, as it is similar to a caster with the Verbal Casting drawback using the Silent Spell metamagic feat (see Spheres of Power, pg 153, Using Casting Traditions, paragraph 8).

[Zsaber0]

Q282

Does Earthlord's radius increasee affect Melt Earth?

[Mehangel]

Q282 Does Earthlord's radius increase affect Melt Earth?

A282 Melt Earth is an earth (and fire) geomancy talent, and thus qualifies for Earthlord's radius increase.

[freduncio]

Q283 Sphere-specific bonus to caster level (like some mid-caster classes that threat one sphere as having full caster level) counts towards feat requisites?
The answer is obviously No for unrelated feats, but, let's say, can my 5th level shifter take the Cursed Form feat?

Cursed Form
Prerequisites: Alteration sphere, 5th caster level or higher.

Benefit: You may grant your shapeshift effects the [curse] descriptor. They can only be removed by the Life sphere Break Enchantment talent, spells such as break enchantment, limited wish, miracle, remove curse, or wish, or similarly powerful magic or abilities. If you possess the Unnatural Transformation drawback, failing the save granted by the drawback still ends the effect.

[stack]

Q278: Can a Wraith with Somatic Casting cast while passively possessing something?

A278: Not without still spell or similar. The benevolent passenger wraith haunt helps with this.

Spoiler: Benevolent Passenger

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When possessing an object or a willing creature, the wraith gains the benefits of the Silent Spell and Still Spell metamagic feats. If the wraith already possesses either of these feats, reduce the spell point cost of the possessed feat by 1 (minimum 0).

Q280: If I take the formulae package when first gaining the Alchemy sphere, does the extra formulae talent nab me another 5 Craft (alchemy) ranks for free?

A280: Formulae is basically saying 'here is how this works, pick which option to start with'. I would not count the free formulae talent separately from the base package for counting skill points. Ssalarn can correct me if his intent was otherwise.

Q283 Sphere-specific bonus to caster level (like some mid-caster classes that threat one sphere as having full caster level) counts towards feat requisites?
The answer is obviously No for unrelated feats, but, let's say, can my 5th level shifter take the Cursed Form feat?

A283: It would probably have been better if sphere-focused feats said Xth caster level in the Example sphere, but they aren't written that way. I believe this has been asked it a previous thread and it is my recollection that Adam clarified that in these cases, the caster level in the relevant sphere is what counts.

[viperwolf306]

Does anyone know if the devs are making a Warp Handbook?

[AmberVael]

Does anyone know if the devs are making a Warp Handbook?

All magic spheres will be getting a handbook, and they're all currently being worked on.

Warp is my project, as it happens. I don't have an exact timeline to give, but its the assignment I'm currently working on, and I plan to have it finished Soon^TM.

[digiman619]

All magic spheres will be getting a handbook, and they're all currently being worked on.

Warp is my project, as it happens. I don't have an exact timeline to give, but its the assignment I'm currently working on, and I plan to have it finished Soon^TM.

Ooh. I've been waiting on that one for at least a year now. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

No pressure, though.

[Arcueid]

This is less of a rules question and more of a "how to run this" sort of question, especially now that SoM is around.

Casting traditions are setup so the GM and/or players can customize how they cast.

While the rules kinda suggest that you can leave it up to the players, generally i find this results in alot of players picking up the "non drawbacks" like magical signs and such, or drawbacks that fit in with their character well enough that they aren't a problem (like somatic on people dipping into those stat to AC classes).

While i don't have a huge problem with this when the GM, but i've seen this taken to some extremes in some games so i'm looking at options.

So my main questions are:

• Are the sample drawbacks that are published in the various books made in mind that everyone "should" use them, or as more of an option for the GM who doesn't want to spend time on them?
• Alot of casting traditions like Ascetics contain some or all sphere specific drawbacks. I always thought of the basic drawbacks and the sphere specific drawbacks as two separate pieces of the casting tradition. So it made me wonder if someone is doing one of these sample casting traditions if players should be allowed to pick additional drawbacks and or sphere specific drawbacks.

I mostly wonder about this because with martial traditions firstly the sphere specific drawbacks are treated as a separate thing (in the base SoP rules sphere specific drawbacks are also supposed to be taken when you make your casting tradition, while SoM stuff only comes into play when you first gain a sphere.).
Its really important considering in SoP sphere specific drawbacks are probably the most important thing for the 1/2 casters as many times its best to highly specialize and limit yourself in favor of gaining the necessary talents to get the build online at any reasonable pace.

Unified traditions seem to complicate this even further as they usually pre-determine your 2 free sphere talents, general drawbacks, sphere specific drawbacks, as well as containing your usual 4 martial talents, though sometimes these are replaced with feats. (though not all of these follow this rule as some seem to lose out on talents).

I'm currently looking at doing a thematic campaign around the terrain casting drawback, but i guess the main issue is i'm wondering how much/little freedom spheres intends for me to give to the players on this stuff to determine if i should be designing full traditions or just saying "you have to take terrain casting, but the rest is up to you".

This is also something highly debated in our group on how much the GM should limit the players, as I have some who think it should only be the sample traditions and players shouldn't even have the power to chose their own sphere specific drawbacks, and others thing it should just be left wide-open.

[wildmonsters]

Q284-For the redirecting shield talent, can an opponent's Melee attack hit themself due to this talent?

[khadgar567]

Q285 how does vacuum cut from duelist sphere and impale from lancer sphere work as impale needs weapon to be left with the opponent but technicly we never touch them with weapon. so do target impaled with what.

[Mehangel]

• Are the sample drawbacks that are published in the various books made in mind that everyone "should" use them, or as more of an option for the GM who doesn't want to spend time on them?

It is good to remember that casting traditions are "a GM's tool first and a player's tool second" (SoP, pg153). GMs should decide whether or not there are any preestablished casting traditions depending upon the games setting. In settings w/ very clearly defined casting traditions, having the different casting traditions premade and available to players before character creation may aid both parties. In a setting w/ a limitless (or very large) number of casting traditions, allowing a player to work with the GM to create their own casting tradition is likely more appropriate.

Many of the individual general drawbacks were written to help GMs emulate casting traditions from different settings such as: full metal alchemist (diagram magic) or dark sun (terrain casting). With this in mind, it may not be appropriate to a particular setting such as Dragonlance if a caster had diagram magic or terrain casting.

• Alot of casting traditions like Ascetics contain some or all sphere specific drawbacks. I always thought of the basic drawbacks and the sphere specific drawbacks as two separate pieces of the casting tradition. So it made me wonder if someone is doing one of these sample casting traditions if players should be allowed to pick additional drawbacks and or sphere specific drawbacks.

While this is not an official answer, when I GM using a setting with preestablished casting traditions, I first reveal what casting traditions are available. I then allow players to choose and slightly modify their casting tradition. For example, if the casting tradition has 2 general drawbacks, and lack a boon, they may choose one. If the casting tradition has an odd number of general drawbacks, the player can add another and a boon if they so desire. I generally don't allow players to remove general drawbacks from preestablished casting traditions. I also allow players to choose up to two additional sphere-specific drawbacks in any spheres they want.

[Arcueid]

It is good to remember that casting traditions are "a GM's tool first and a player's tool second" (SoP, pg153). GMs should decide whether or not there are any preestablished casting traditions depending upon the games setting. In settings w/ very clearly defined casting traditions, having the different casting traditions premade and available to players before character creation may aid both parties. In a setting w/ a limitless (or very large) number of casting traditions, allowing a player to work with the GM to create their own casting tradition is likely more appropriate.

Many of the individual general drawbacks were written to help GMs emulate casting traditions from different settings such as: full metal alchemist (diagram magic) or dark sun (terrain casting). With this in mind, it may not be appropriate to a particular setting such as Dragonlance if a caster had diagram magic or terrain casting.



While this is not an official answer, when I GM using a setting with preestablished casting traditions, I first reveal what casting traditions are available. I then allow players to choose and slightly modify their casting tradition. For example, if the casting tradition has 2 general drawbacks, and lack a boon, they may choose one. If the casting tradition has an odd number of general drawbacks, the player can add another and a boon if they so desire. I generally don't allow players to remove general drawbacks from preestablished casting traditions. I also allow players to choose up to two additional sphere-specific drawbacks in any spheres they want.

Makes sense. I mostly wondered as SoM the tradition system is fairly rigid with very little implications that players are supposed to have much level of control over what they do with it outside of the drawbacks, which even that system is very much down to specific talents gained.

As opposed to SoP where it seems to be fairly wide open from the start with no real consistency to it, just a series of premade stuff. As such i'm mostly wondering from the perspective of the developer if stuff was designed with the premade traditions in mind, or how they wanted it to work.

My personal idea is the GM should have some sort of baseline with general drawbacks and sphere specific should probably be left up to the player.
But even then i don't see a huge problem with letting players take on extra general drawbacks beyond the mandated drawbacks.

My main reasoning for this is really sphere specific drawbacks seem to generally benefit low casters who want to get up there and be a magus up in melee. On the other side full and some 3/4 casters tend to ignore many sphere specific drawbacks as most full casters tend to avoid limitations as it cuts into their utility as a caster. For example a mageknight is generally ok with taking the blast shape drawback to limit themselves to only energy blade in destruction because they can't really afford to branch out too greatly; as opposed to the incanter who probably wants to have different blast shapes available to handle different situations.

[Felyndiira]

With the alteration sphere, can you add subtypes to the forms that you choose? For instance, with anthropomorphic transformation, can you add the [halfling] or the [elf] subtype to the transformation if you want to turn the target into a halfling/elf? Can you use the outsider forms to transform someone into a [native] outsider like aasimar?

If not, then is it actually possible to use alteration to turn someone into an elf or aasimar?

Thanks,

[Nyaa]

Why did Bestial Training get axed while Barrage is a thing?

Spoiler: image

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[Mehangel]

Why did Bestial Training get axed while Barrage is a thing?

Spoiler: image

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Bestial Training got merged w/ Unarmed Training.

[Nyaa]

Lemme rephrase that...
Is there any support for natural attacks beyond "use exactly two claws with Dual Wielding" in SoM? If not, why was Bestial Training removed, given there seems to be no reservations about letting Barrage fire two to five times with attack action?

[Ssalarn]

Lemme rephrase that...
Is there any support for natural attacks beyond "use exactly two claws with Dual Wielding" in SoM? If not, why was Bestial Training removed, given there seems to be no reservations about letting Barrage fire two to five times with attack action?

Natural attacks are supported by every sphere that supports any other weapon. There's also additional natural attack support in the Martial Monster Talents for just about every natural attack. What we didn't include was talents that allow you to make more attacks with natural weapons than you can make with any other weapon. While the Barrage sphere allows you to make multiple extra attacks with ranged weapons by taking significant penalties and expending martial focus, that's a mechanic that exists within a specific design space using a particular array of weapons. Natural attacks, on the other hand, are not a "style" they're a type of weapon that has specific core rules for exceeding your normal attack limitations without penalty when full attacking, and that's fundamentally against the design goals of SoM.

If we created a "natural attack" sphere that allowed you to make more attacks without penalty, we'd be elevating natural attacks above every other "fighting style", because there'd be an entire sphere devoted to escalating that one particular type of weapon above every other weapon; natural attacks would still be supported by every other sphere as well, so it would be pure escalation. If we applied the kind of penalties that the Barrage sphere has, people would wonder why they should take those penalties when they could just full attack without penalty as normal (and rightly so). So we chose to treat natural attacks exactly like we treat every other weapon; if you want to full attack with them you still can and all the normal benefits apply, but if you want to use them with spheres they should fall into the same paradigm as every other melee weapon.

[khadgar567]

Natural attacks are supported by every sphere that supports any other weapon. There's also additional natural attack support in the Martial Monster Talents for just about every natural attack. What we didn't include was talents that allow you to make more attacks with natural weapons than you can make with any other weapon. While the Barrage sphere allows you to make multiple extra attacks with ranged weapons by taking significant penalties and expending martial focus, that's a mechanic that exists within a specific design space using a particular array of weapons. Natural attacks, on the other hand, are not a "style" they're a type of weapon that has specific core rules for exceeding your normal attack limitations without penalty when full attacking, and that's fundamentally against the design goals of SoM.

If we created a "natural attack" sphere that allowed you to make more attacks without penalty, we'd be elevating natural attacks above every other "fighting style", because there'd be an entire sphere devoted to escalating that one particular type of weapon above every other weapon; natural attacks would still be supported by every other sphere as well, so it would be pure escalation. If we applied the kind of penalties that the Barrage sphere has, people would wonder why they should take those penalties when they could just full attack without penalty as normal (and rightly so). So we chose to treat natural attacks exactly like we treat every other weapon; if you want to full attack with them you still can and all the normal benefits apply, but if you want to use them with spheres they should fall into the same paradigm as every other melee weapon.

I know its bit hard but savage sphere still might be needed as much of the might spheres need bit more talents to work then currently they have.

[Scowling Dragon]

Does anybody know how the shadow descriptor for the illusion sphere actually functions?

It says quasi real: what does that actually mean?

[Nyaa]

If we applied the kind of penalties that the Barrage sphere has, people would wonder why they should take those penalties when they could just full attack without penalty as normal (and rightly so).

Because Barrage is a standard action, and with 3 talents and 16+ BAB your attack routine looks like -6/-5/-4/-3/-2, which have DPR of 4 full-BAB attacks (and about 10% lower DPR than rapidshot-manyshot-haste full attack from the same archer) and gives focus back if at least two of them hit?

Natural attacks are supported by every sphere that supports any other weapon.

There's no incentive to use them for attack actions over greatsword or polearm though. Unarmed strikes at least have that weird unarmed training - gauntlet shield combo.
Speaking of which, can I make Dual Attack with both main and off-hand weapons being unarmed strike?

[stack]

I know its bit hard but savage sphere still might be needed as much of the might spheres need bit more talents to work then currently they have.

In what way would buffing natural attacks improve the system? Natural attacks are problematic in the base system, since they scale oddly (you can get more attacks that anyone else at a very early level, then may never get more, very different from iteratives) and are very optimizable (natural attack stacking to make pounce-blenders is one of the highest damage styles in the game), but are mediocre if you don't work to stack them. Ssalarn gave a good rundown of the relevant issues. They work as it is.

[Minion #6]

Speaking of which, can I make Dual Attack with both main and off-hand weapons being unarmed strike?

If Dual Attack has the same rules as TWF for unarmed, yes.

[Rokku]

Q286 The Sage's "Combat Form" esotery (Enhancer version) gives the Sage unarmed damage equal to a monk of their level. How are they supposed to make use of this damage, being that they have a 1/2 base attack bonus? Am I missing something obvious?

[Biolink22]

Q287? With the feat Watchful Companion

Spoiler: Watchful Companion [Companion

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Prerequisites: Conjuration sphere, Greater Summoning, Lingering Companion. Benefit: When summoned for 1 day, your companion does not disappear when you rest to regain spell points. When the 1 day duration is complete, you may pay the summoning cost again to renew the duration of the summon without your companion disappearing. Your companion may choose to wake you up as a free action as long as it is within long range.]

do you have to pay the full 3 spell points (1 for summon, 1 for Linger, 1 for Greater) to maintain the Companion, or just the 1 spell point for the summon past the first day?