Fantasy Craft Q&A Thread!

[Crafty_Alex]

Hmmm, It's a good change, I think. Though for my purposes I'd be inclined to use the house rule outlined above. Instead of giving them a whole school at path level 1 however, I'd break it up so they choose one discipline at 1st path step, one at the third step and one at the fifth step. That way they ironically get versatility if they specialize in the path of magic.

prototype00

That's an interesting idea. My concern, of course, is that a priest with Path of Magic becomes increasingly like a specialist caster, not his own thing.

Just totally out of curiousity, what is a Priest of Magic's own thing? What is the vision that you guys have for someone with the path of magic? I'm not in any way trying to be snarky here, I really don't know. He's not a full blooded mage, that we know. Is he like a dabbler then?
prototype00

I think the goal with Path of Magic was to give a Priest access to spellcasting and to shape something that fits his alignment. Most of that is handled through Paths, which set those paths down pretty solidly; what I'm not looking to do is make the Priest (or even worse, any character who accesses this Path) simply a specialist caster (or an unlimited caster) + their own schwa instead. That was never the goal. For balance reasons, dialing back the Path of Magic to be an alternative spellcasting path which grants greater flexibility in a narrower set of options at the cost of skill ranks is very much in line with the rest of the Path system.

[prototype00]

Hmmm, It's a good change, I think. Though for my purposes I'd be inclined to use the house rule outlined above. Instead of giving them a whole school at path level 1 however, I'd break it up so they choose one discipline at 1st path step, one at the third step and one at the fifth step. That way they ironically get versatility if they specialize in the path of magic.

prototype00

That's an interesting idea. My concern, of course, is that a priest with Path of Magic becomes increasingly like a specialist caster, not his own thing.

Just totally out of curiousity, what is a Priest of Magic's own thing? What is the vision that you guys have for someone with the path of magic? I'm not in any way trying to be snarky here, I really don't know. He's not a full blooded mage, that we know. Is he like a dabbler then?
prototype00

I think the goal with Path of Magic was to give a Priest access to spellcasting and to shape something that fits his alignment. Most of that is handled through Paths, which set those paths down pretty solidly; what I'm not looking to do is make the Priest (or even worse, any character who accesses this Path) simply a specialist caster (or an unlimited caster) + their own schwa instead. That was never the goal. For balance reasons, dialing back the Path of Magic to be an alternative spellcasting path which grants greater flexibility in a narrower set of options at the cost of skill ranks is very much in line with the rest of the Path system.

Interesting.

Well, I guess fantasycraft has conditioned me to think about how the mechanics supports the character concept, except that that is a bit different with path of magic and the current spell list. Its kind of like, "I worship a mighty god of magic!" "Wow, what does that get you?" "Three spells"... hmm..

Still, I suppose that will be fixed with spellbound.

Curious though, for my suggested house rule, would it be stepping on the specialist mage's toes too much, you think?

prototype00

[pawsplay]

It seems a shame if not all Priests on the Path of Magic could detect magic.

[Sletchman]

It seems a shame if not all Priests on the Path of Magic could detect magic.

7/8 of the new specialist mages won't be able to either.

The Alignment break already exists in the game - PoM is not available if you don't attach it to any alignment - but that has been repeatedly proven by the fans to not be enough of a limitation. I'd say play a Reaper if you want to be a Reaper. A Priest of Death can (and IMO should) feel different.

As written, if you attach PoM to an alignment the player can pick any discipline, or a mage can take the feat to gain any discipline.  I'm going to have it be specific to the alignment - in effect, PoM will become 8 different paths, one for each school and each will be attached to specific alignments.  So a priest of a highly magical order who's alignment is thematically suited to it might gain access to Path of the Channeler, along with other thematically appropiate paths.

I don't think this will step on the toes of the specialist mages because the priest will only get up to 4th level spells without multiclassing, will have less spellpoints, will have less spellcasting based class abilities, and will almost certainly have different strengths and weaknesses [the Channeler class having full base attack for instance, unless this has changed].  If the priest does go into an expert class, they will still never get access to CoP 9, unlike the specialists.

The big reason I will be house ruling the proposed PoM is because as it stands I think it's simply too weak when not taken via blessed.

[Crafty_Pat]

The big reason I will be house ruling the proposed PoM is because as it stands I think it's simply too weak when not taken via blessed.

Even in comparison to the other Paths? The thing I think folks get hung up on here is the idea that walking the Path of Magic should somehow grant access to ALL of magic. I think we can all agree that's pretty broken. The School argument has merit but only in a vacuum. As soon as you hold it up alongside the rest of the Alignment system it's still pretty clearly out of bounds. At least in my opinion. It's your game, and you absolutely should do what you feel works at your table.

[Sletchman]

The big reason I will be house ruling the proposed PoM is because as it stands I think it's simply too weak when not taken via blessed.

Even in comparison to the other Paths? The thing I think folks get hung up on here is the idea that walking the Path of Magic should somehow grant access to ALL of magic. I think we can all agree that's pretty broken. The School argument has merit but only in a vacuum. As soon as you hold it up alongside the rest of the Alignment system it's still pretty clearly out of bounds. At least in my opinion. It's your game, and you absolutely should do what you feel works at your table.

Actually the only time I think it's weak is when compared to other paths.  It's more versatile, because you have up to 10 spell points [and can choose how to spend them], rather then specific spells / abilities, but I don't think the player will have more power.  Of course actual play will show how it all works out once spellbound is out.

[Crafty_Pat]

The big reason I will be house ruling the proposed PoM is because as it stands I think it's simply too weak when not taken via blessed.

Even in comparison to the other Paths? The thing I think folks get hung up on here is the idea that walking the Path of Magic should somehow grant access to ALL of magic. I think we can all agree that's pretty broken. The School argument has merit but only in a vacuum. As soon as you hold it up alongside the rest of the Alignment system it's still pretty clearly out of bounds. At least in my opinion. It's your game, and you absolutely should do what you feel works at your table.

Actually the only time I think it's weak is when compared to other paths.  It's more versatile, because you have up to 10 spell points [and can choose how to spend them], rather then specific spells / abilities, but I don't think the player will have more power.  Of course actual play will show how it all works out once spellbound is out.

I beg to differ. More versatility is more power. Most Steps offer 1, perhaps 2 spells and/or other comparable effects. This gives you less individual effects over the course of the entire Path but frontloads more at Step 1 and will grow substantially in power once Spellbound's out. By that time it'll offer you more options than any other Path out there, plus the Spellcasting skill (which is a big deal - it's not available to most characters), plus skill points to boot. That's nothing to spit at.

[mind flayer]

So, I was reading through the Force of Nature class (which is extremely cool, by the way), and it left me with a couple of questions.

First and foremost, the Wrath of Nature ability says that you deal melee and unarmed damage of the same type as your blast in Berserker stance.  Is this optional?  I mean, it is fine if you deal fire damage, but if you are a darkness elemental, you can only deal stress damage.  I'm not saying that stress damage isn't useful... but there are a lot of cases where I'd like the extra STR boost to damage some scenery.

Speaking of Darkness, the Darkness elemental heritage feat grants Darkvision I and the Darkness path grants Darkvision II.  Is there a Darkvision III, do you get a different option, or does one just overwrite the other?

Lastly, you can't make skill checks in Berserker stance.  Does this include Athletics checks?  I ask in case I wanted to jump/swim in a combat sequence.  Would I have to drop out of the stance and take the Fatigued condition?

Edit:  I am dumb.  I also meant to ask if opponents get to save vs. the FoN's altered melee damage, as well.  For instance, does a metal FoN's Explosive melee attack get cut in half with a successful reflex save?

[Mister Andersen]

At Darkvision III and above, I personally just start doubling visual increments in low-/no-light conditions to hark back to the way that you used to get a standard 60' darkvision in D&D unless you were really good at seeing in the dark and then you got 90'.

Alternatively, DV III gives you blindsight within your reach and DV IV extends it out to close quarters distance.

[aegis]

First and foremost, the Wrath of Nature ability says that you deal melee and unarmed damage of the same type as your blast in Berserker stance.  Is this optional?

It is not worded that way but I would rule that yes.

Speaking of Darkness, the Darkness elemental heritage feat grants Darkvision I and the Darkness path grants Darkvision II.  Is there a Darkvision III, do you get a different option, or does one just overwrite the other?

Darkvision II overwrites darkvision I.

Lastly, you can't make skill checks in Berserker stance.  Does this include Athletics checks?  I ask in case I wanted to jump/swim in a combat sequence.  Would I have to drop out of the stance and take the Fatigued condition?

No, you can jump or swim, but you cannot make Jump or Swim checks - i.e. any action of the sort that is sufficiently difficult for you to require focus and attention, which you can't have during Berserker Stance of course. If you do want, you have to drop out of the stance or take the Rage Supremacy feat.

Edit:  I am dumb.  I also meant to ask if opponents get to save vs. the FoN's altered melee damage, as well.  For instance, does a metal FoN's Explosive melee attack get cut in half with a successful reflex save?

Good question... If no blast radius is given, I would say no. If there is one, I would say yes, since it becomes an area attack.

[Crafty_Alex]

First and foremost, the Wrath of Nature ability says that you deal melee and unarmed damage of the same type as your blast in Berserker stance.  Is this optional?  I mean, it is fine if you deal fire damage, but if you are a darkness elemental, you can only deal stress damage.  I'm not saying that stress damage isn't useful... but there are a lot of cases where I'd like the extra STR boost to damage some scenery.

I'd let you choose.

Speaking of Darkness, the Darkness elemental heritage feat grants Darkvision I and the Darkness path grants Darkvision II.  Is there a Darkvision III, do you get a different option, or does one just overwrite the other?

Since there's no DV III, it just stops there.

Lastly, you can't make skill checks in Berserker stance.  Does this include Athletics checks?  I ask in case I wanted to jump/swim in a combat sequence.  Would I have to drop out of the stance and take the Fatigued condition?

Actually, Rage Supremacy lets you make skill checks in Beserk Stance. It also removes the penalty of gaining fatigued if you drop the stance

Edit:  I am dumb.  I also meant to ask if opponents get to save vs. the FoN's altered melee damage, as well.  For instance, does a metal FoN's Explosive melee attack get cut in half with a successful reflex save?

Though the save for 1/2 damage is built into the damage type, since the attack doesn't have a range, I'd say it probably doesn't apply (int eh same way that the tapering off rule wouldn't affect this damage.

[his dudeness]

Learning new spells.

The book says:

When an arcane caster gains his first Casting
Level he immediately learns a number of spells of any level equal
to his Wisdom score + his Spellcasting ranks.

So, when I level up and my spellcasting ranks go up, do I learn a new number of spells equal to the number of spellcasting ranks I've gained?

If not, how do I learn new spells?

Thanks.

[EloiseCartwright]

Yes, your spells are always equal to Wis + Spellcasting ranks. you learn more when you get a permanent increase to either.

[Crafty_Alex]

Yes, your spells are always equal to Wis + Spellcasting ranks. you learn more when you get a permanent increase to either.

Bingo. This will be clarified very explicitly in the oh-so-near errata

[his dudeness]

Another question, will it imbalance the game a lot if I give my first level mage access to SOME level 1 spells before reaching level 3?

Thanks!