Just Some General Questions..

[*cryptc]

Interesting tidbit: the ability score buff spells can in some cases be useful if you're not allowed to pick a class or feat because you don't have high enough score to cast a spell level (such as level 6 spells to pick Persistant Spells), useful when levelling up with bad equipment to get the feats you need in your build.

[*Swami Monsoon]

Is spellcasting level tied to base attributes only? So a Shaman with a 14 wisdom can't bootstrap himself to casting > Level 4 spells by using Owl's Wisdom or a +wisdom item?

[*Bogus]

Spellcasting level?

If you mean 'caster level', then it's not tied to attributes at all (just the level of the class/classes that give you spells; well, not exactly, some don't give full casting progression).
If you mean 'spell dc' for some spells, then afair it uses base and all bonuses.
Also, I think shamans use charisma for dc.

But you probably mean level of available spells. Yes, I think this also uses all bonuses. But how are you going to 'rest' with a temporary bonus? Items work.

[*Swami Monsoon]

To clarify... I have a character with a natural 14 wisdom who can't cast above 4th level spells even when his wisdom is buffed to 18 (Owl's Wisdom). I'm trying to figure out if this is a bug or a feature...

[*Gazoo]

Yes, items(with + to stats) can be used to allow access to spell levels you may not be able to access with base stats.

Spells won't do it as you need to rest for it to reset, which removes the buffing spell.

[*Calletjump]

no, with owl's wisdom you should be allowed level 8 spells, HOWEVER!!! since you have not picked any of the spells as a spirit shaman (go figure) you won't have any spells to cast and therefore, when you rest again (assuming that your character is ONLY using owls' wisdom) your wis would drop to 14 again THE INSTANT YOU REST. meaning you can't use your level 8 spells, until you get an ITEM with +4 wisdom (I would look for a +5 priapt of wisdom to get the level 9 spells, if you're going to try to be a caster, or consider re-rolling and putting points into wisdom)

[*RyzaJr]

Techinally, you can unequip your creature weapon, use stunning fist, then re-equip your creature weapon. In practice, you aren't going to be stunning anything with only one level of monk, because your DC will be terrible.

It's not exactly the same, but Stone Dragon III will let you Root someone, and will actually work without needing a ton of monk levels and / or WIS.

Those gloves I mentioned add a good bit of attack bonus, also +10 to the DC so they're actually pretty neat.

So you have to be unarmed huh? Bah. That ruins things. Alright, thanks for the info.

[*RyzaJr]

The questions continue!

Do feats that depend on being unarmed, like the monk's flurry of blows, work with a race's creature weapons such as the golem?

Also, I noticed there are some gloves that come with improved stunning fist. Does this require the original stunning fist feat? Or could you gain the ability without it?

[*Mick64]

For question 1, no the creature weapons you equip do not count as unarmed. There is another kind of creature weapon though, the one you can't see that you get from polymorphing that does count as unarmed for some things. But in general, no, creature weapons count as normal weapons.

[*RyzaJr]

Thanks Mick64.

Hmm, so my dilemma is this: I'm making a tanky golem character and I want to stun! He is mostly a fighter and I'm thinking of getting one level as a monk to get the Stunning Fist feat. My golem uses creature weapons. Can he still stun?