The Gaming Den

I don't really get why people shit their pants over Summoners. All the advantages that I really see is how they get certain spells generally a level earlier than full casters in some cases. Like the haste being a 2nd level spell for the Summoner.

Summoner Unchained seriously pisses me off. In like a livid, animalistic way. Because they tried to appease the people who wanted to pretend that their characters are viable life choices.

Kaelik wrote:1) Planeshift material component is changed from a tuning fork of a specific size for the plane to a tuning fork "attuned" to a specific plane, whatever the fuck that means. So now DMs can hose you with bullshit about how you don't have a tuning fork to a plane and no one can ever get one without the wish spell, because no one has ever been to this plane and back, and so the tuning forks don't exist because you have to go to the plane to attune it.

If there there is just downright no way to get to a place, isn't that functionally equivalent to the place just not existing? Surely, dictating whether a place exists or not is a really obvious prerogative that the DM should have, isn't it? I personally do not feel like entertaining a cosmology that includes the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Smoke. Or even the Demonweb Pits, necessarily. Maybe I'm running a Norse-styled setting and the only available options for planar travel all end in "gard" or "heim." No, of course there isn't a tuning fork for Carceri, fuck you!

Eikre wrote:

Kaelik wrote:1) Planeshift material component is changed from a tuning fork of a specific size for the plane to a tuning fork "attuned" to a specific plane, whatever the fuck that means. So now DMs can hose you with bullshit about how you don't have a tuning fork to a plane and no one can ever get one without the wish spell, because no one has ever been to this plane and back, and so the tuning forks don't exist because you have to go to the plane to attune it.

If there there is just downright no way to get to a place, isn't that functionally equivalent to the place just not existing? Surely, dictating whether a place exists or not is a really obvious prerogative that the DM should have, isn't it? I personally do not feel like entertaining a cosmology that includes the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Smoke. Or even the Demonweb Pits, necessarily. Maybe I'm running a Norse-styled setting and the only available options for planar travel all end in "gard" or "heim." No, of course there isn't a tuning fork for Carceri, fuck you!

Aside from your intense desire to be a huge fuck off dick for some reason, I have no idea what you are talking about. If a plane doesn't exist, then it doesn't exist, and no size or shape tuning fork can get you there, on the other hand, no one else can go there either. That is what it fucking means to decide on a setting, but if your DM has planeshift SLA monsters run away to a plane, but then tells you how no spellcaster has ever been able to go there and attune a fork, so fuck you, that is fucking dumb. And the DM can just keep making up more and more bullshit reasons why attuning a fork is impossible without Wish or Gate, because there is no possible definition of attuning the fork. You could straight up have a DM declare that it takes 500 years of ritual, and that would be as legal as any other stupid thing.

As for Carceri, you get that people go there all the time right? It is leaving that is supposed to hard.

Alright, I understand. When you said, "nobody has ever been there and back to attune a fork," I framed a situation in which... Nobody has ever been there and back.

AcidBlades wrote:I don't really get why people shit their pants over Summoners. All the advantages that I really see is how they get certain spells generally a level earlier than full casters in some cases. Like the haste being a 2nd level spell for the Summoner.

The problem with the Summoner spell list is that other classes can get spells earlier because of spell list plundering.

The problem with the Summoner itself is that having one will fuck over your game as every fight gets bogged down in hordes of shitty summons and all noncombat problems get solved by infinite monkeys with typewriters.

MisterDee wrote:

AcidBlades wrote:I don't really get why people shit their pants over Summoners. All the advantages that I really see is how they get certain spells generally a level earlier than full casters in some cases. Like the haste being a 2nd level spell for the Summoner.

The problem with the Summoner spell list is that other classes can get spells earlier because of spell list plundering.

The problem with the Summoner itself is that having one will fuck over your game as every fight gets bogged down in hordes of shitty summons and all noncombat problems get solved by infinite monkeys with typewriters.

I am fairly well aware of the issue of having a bunch of tokens out on the field. It is frankly a drag to hear another iteration of "I do a full attack", or "claw, claw, bite. The standard" without any sort of variation at all. I know we all have our retinues but jesus.

On the other hand, the fact that this doesn't give any shit to say the various Animal Shaman druids, Clerics and Wizards is rather confusing.

Druids who buff up themselves and their companion, and then cast summoning spells before every fight, and then get 3-5 turns during each fight of charging around full attacking are widely hailed as super great in optimization forums. And then never played in actual games. Because it is a huge fucking hassle and not as good as people say it is.

Antariuk wrote:With enough splatbooks in the game you can add Cha to pretty much anything you want, sometimes even twice thanks to PF's terrible power descriptions.

Actually you can't since the PF faq that claims ability scores are sources now and same source stuff doesn't stack.

Kaelik wrote:A friend on minmax just pointed out to me two minor changes in pathfinder spells:

1) Planeshift material component is changed from a tuning fork of a specific size for the plane to a tuning fork "attuned" to a specific plane, whatever the fuck that means. So now DMs can hose you with bullshit about how you don't have a tuning fork to a plane and no one can ever get one without the wish spell, because no one has ever been to this plane and back, and so the tuning forks don't exist because you have to go to the plane to attune it.

Except that they don't have a gold component listed and thus are in every spell component pouch.

ishy wrote:Except that they don't have a gold component listed and thus are in every spell component pouch.

That's a fine thing to say, but if the DM was the kind of asshole who is going to tell you that you can't find one, then he is going to also say they aren't in spell component pouches.

Although, I guess Eschew Materials still gets you to all the planes. So whatever. But still, you have to admit, the literally just removed content from the game by switching "tuning fork that's size determines plane" to "tuning fork that wargarbargarlargal plane"

ishy wrote:

Kaelik wrote:A friend on minmax just pointed out to me two minor changes in pathfinder spells:

1) Planeshift material component is changed from a tuning fork of a specific size for the plane to a tuning fork "attuned" to a specific plane, whatever the fuck that means. So now DMs can hose you with bullshit about how you don't have a tuning fork to a plane and no one can ever get one without the wish spell, because no one has ever been to this plane and back, and so the tuning forks don't exist because you have to go to the plane to attune it.

Except that they don't have a gold component listed and thus are in every spell component pouch.

That is retarded.

I love it.

There's a summoner in the group that has a spell that requires a drop of the caster's blood. I told him that by RAW he had an infinite supply of his own blood in his component pouch.

The tuning fork isn't a material component, but a focus, so it isn't accessible via Eschew Materials, and hasn't been in 3.5 or 3.0, either. The bullshit DM shutdown of the spell isn't new.

Aharon wrote:The tuning fork isn't a material component, but a focus, so it isn't accessible via Eschew Materials, and hasn't been in 3.5 or 3.0, either. The bullshit DM shutdown of the spell isn't new.

But having a tune of the appropriate size doesn't require you to have been at the plane in the first place. The Pathfinder focus requires you to go to the plane (presumably?) and then do some unstated ritual to "attune" it.

Now, it's possible the DM could rule you can attune the fork in your own living room, but that's not stated, so the DM can be as permissive or restrictive as he wants.

That's no change to the previous situation, IMO. The spell in the 3.5 PHB reads

Focus: A small, forked metal rod. The size
and metal type dictates to which plane of
existence or alternate dimension the spell
sends the affected creatures. Forked rods
keyed to certain planes or dimensions may
be difficult to come by, as decided by the
DM.

which basically encourages a certain kind of DM to make access very difficult
(type of metal could be "Metal found on that plane", for example).

So here is the thing, the 3.5 version said that it was the size of the tuning fork, and that some were hard to find at DM's Discretion. That isn't that terrible, because it gives you some actual content.

I also don't care, because a level 9 Druid can planeshift the party without focuses anyway.

In Pathfinder, they deleted the part about DM Discretion, and also the part that explained how a tuning fork took you to a different plane. So now, the default rule is that a spell component pouch has all focuses except "focuses that wouldn't fit in a pouch." So while the RAW is probably that you can go to any plane, in practice, if your DM wants to stop you he's going to start calculating the volume of the pouch and then say you can only have X focuses. And that is fucking stupid. And then, once he says that, you have no fucking idea how to actually get a Tuning Fork, because you have no idea what the everloving fuck attuning is.

Also they removed Janni from the Summon Nature's Ally list and then nerfed their planeshift on top of it, so now only level 9 Wizard's can planeshift the party without focuses.

Kaelik wrote:Also they removed Janni from the Summon Nature's Ally list and then nerfed their planeshift on top of it, so now only level 9 Wizard's can planeshift the party without focuses.

Worse than that ...

PF Summon Monster wrote:A summoned monster cannot summon or otherwise conjure another creature, nor can it use any teleportation or planar travel abilities.

So no Plane Shift via summoning at all, you need (Lesser) Planar Binding.

Ironically, while they were reinforcing the requirement for Plane Shift, they pretty much removed it for Simulacrum. Instead of hair/blood, it now just requires an ice statue of the target. So as long as you've seen a picture of someone, you can make copies of them.

Speaking of spell nerfs, I see that Paizo did their best to kick directly generating wealth from spells out of core. However, a simulacrum of a genie is still high enough level to create more simulacra with its wish SLA. Does Pathfinder have any good wealth or construction spells left to dupicate with wish, or should I just settle for taking over someone else's castle with my exponentially growing horde of efreet? I'll have over 4000 within a week.

Each one can create 75 five-foot square of 1" wall per day via wall of stone. I haven't checked the numbers on move earth but they can probably make large earthen ramparts that way much easier. I could always have one polymorph any object a rock into a castle, but I'd rather not have my entire fortress die to anyone that can make a DC 16 caster level check.

Ice9 wrote:So no Plane Shift via summoning at all, you need (Lesser) Planar Binding.

Yes, that is why I said only a Wizard, because only Wizards have access to Lesser Planar Binding. Unlike Clerics and Druids.

Ironically, we had this exact scenario come up two sessions ago (late october?). Wonder if my shitty dm is lurking. We had a player attempt to planeshift to hell in a 3.5 game, and the DM asked them if they had a tuning fork. They broke out a character sheet all proud and pointed at the line item "tuning fork for planeshift" on their sheet.

The DM smiled and asked where it was attuned. When they said "what do you mean", he ass pulled a ritual that required decades to do, and then said "but since I'm nice, you can say you attuned yours to a single plane ahead of time".

Krusk wrote:he ass pulled a ritual that required decades to do

SEE WHAT I FUCKING MEAN!

I underestimated the amount of bullshit that Dumb Assholes will do to spite players.

Krusk wrote: The DM smiled and asked where it was attuned. When they said "what do you mean", he ass pulled a ritual that required decades to do, and then said "but since I'm nice, you can say you attuned yours to a single plane ahead of time".

Do these things have a price listed? If there's no appreciable cost, the player similarly fuck with the DM by writing down 20 different tuning forks on their sheet at char-gen.

"My uncle, the archmage gave these to me."

Yeah, lets write down every single spell component and focus in the book because the DM might say screw the rules, I'm the DM. (but then (s)he might just say plane shift doesn't work for unspecified reasons)

RobbyPants wrote:

Aharon wrote:The tuning fork isn't a material component, but a focus, so it isn't accessible via Eschew Materials, and hasn't been in 3.5 or 3.0, either. The bullshit DM shutdown of the spell isn't new.

But having a tune of the appropriate size doesn't require you to have been at the plane in the first place. The Pathfinder focus requires you to go to the plane (presumably?) and then do some unstated ritual to "attune" it.

Well, no it doesn't require you do it. It requires that someone did it and you got the tuned fork sometime down the line. Really, all you need is Planeshift as a SLA (or a creature with it) to either take you there, or bring back attuned forks since spell-like abilities negates the need for components and focuses.

Does anyone have the Bestiary 5?

I have a copy in the store. Why?