I don’t have any intention of bringing in the Pathfinder pantheon, but if someone has a particular desire to follow a god in the Pathfinder multiverse, I’ll allow it as a pagan minority religion.
One other thing that I should have added to the opening flavor text-- arcane magic is strictly forbidden by most religious authorities, and each religious authority has declared for itself a monopoly on divine magic. Of course, the advantages of arcane and illicit divine magic are too good to pass up, and every petty baron worth his salt employs a wizard on the sly, or at least attempts to, and every village has a witch with plausible deniability. Still, the use of magic by anyone other than the Church’s appointed agents is very illegal.
That’s perfectly fine. I don’t intend to force anyone to interact with the religion system if they don’t want to. It’s there as a plot or character hook if you want it, and avoidable if you don’t.
Also, with respect to reminding the DM about minutia about how your attacks work, and the bonuses that you should get-- I consider that a time-honored part of the D&D tradition. Please do it, and there’s no bonus to obvious to point out or too obscure to attempt to claim.
Can I retcon a whip into my equipment? I somehow missed that it was included in the bard’s starting proficiencies and thought I’d have to spend a feat to get the exotic weapon proficiency.
Question: would changing my weapon focus to whip give me a +1 bonus to my CMB when doing trips and whatnot with that weapon? If so, do you guys think it would make better sense to have the weapon focus on the whip rather than the longsword (it’s not like I’m ever going to be doing much weapon damage).
I’ll let someone who knows what they’re talking about answer the bonus question.
I don’t know how sturdy you are, I see the whip draws an attack of opportunity each time you use it so that might be a problem until you get Whip Mastery.
For roleplaying purposes I say go for it just don’t use it in a gunfight.
For the weapon focus question, it all depends on how the GM interprets the rules. The text of the feat says it gives a +1 to all attack rolls with it ; a trip is a combat manoeuver… that is also an attack roll. A combat manoeuvre attack roll. I’d say yes myself on the sound legal principle of “sure, why not” :).
That said, you’d get more mileage out of Improved Trip, since that’s a +2 instead, and you don’t provoke AoOs when you do them (if you don’t have the feat, you can still use your whip’s reach to trip and not get hit back, but have to be more careful around people who also have reach).
But that’s not what I came here to say : Appleciders, since that whetstone is a 1/day, 24h duration item, even if I don’t say so explicitly it is understood that Harald lovingly polishes his axe first thing every morning (that’s not a euphemism, you pervs !). That would include today.
Featwise, I’d probably get a bit more mileage out of the one that lets me sub my dex bonus for my strength bonus when calculating CMB (also a net +2 bonus, but to all maneuvers), but that has to be later; if I give up my weapon focus altogether I also lose dazzling display, which is something I’m going to be using a lot of when we aren’t fighting creatures who are immune to intimidate.
“Disarm, sunder, and trip are normally the only kinds of combat maneuvers in which you’re actually using a weapon (natural weapons and unarmed strikes are considered weapons for this purpose) to perform the maneuver, and therefore the weapon’s bonuses (enhancement bonuses, feats such as Weapon Focus, fighter weapon training, and so on) apply to the roll.”
In a violation of the complementary D&D tradition that one should never remind the DM of factors that work against you, I feel compelled to point out that I don’t get my sneak attacks against undead, though I still get my normal d4+6 from my daggers, plus hopefully flanking bonuses if Valente is actively defending himself.
Undead aren’t immune to sneak attacks in Pathfinder - only oozes, elementals, and swarms are immune to precision damage. Also incorporeal creatures, unless you have a ghost touch weapon.
just don’t use it in a gunfight.