Ectar's page

Choose an implement from the options to which you have access. You begin play with a mundane item of that type, and you gain the initiate benefit for that implement. While an implement is useful to you, it typically has no value if sold. If you acquire a new object of the same general implement type, you can switch your implement to the new object by spending 1 day of downtime with the new item.

So the implement we start with is mundane. And an implement typically has no value if sold. Additionally, if we acquire a new, similar item we can make that our new implement with a day of downtime.

Suppose I have a wand implement and our group happens upon a wand of Fireball. Can that be my new wand implement?

6th level Sure Footing does indeed counteract petrified.

You're the best, thanks!

Ravingdork wrote:

I hadn't considered walking along the bottom. Is there anything preventing that?

It is a GM call in the movement rules

I wouldn't do it but over to you.

This is the whole point of a Wall of Water. It takes a spell slots and 3 actions from the caster. It really is just a one round delay tactic. A spell that is unpopular as it is and you want to nerf it? Doesn't really make any sense from a balance point of view.

I think it's a GM call as to if a particular creature would "sink to the bottom" or not.

Related thread from a while back

Petrify has replaced Flesh to Stone. I don't see a Stone to Flesh equivalent, and Petrify doesn't say anything about being able to remove its own effect or anything.

I've long believed that Dispel Magic wouldn't work, since the spell ends when the creature becomes fully petrified. I could be wrong about that, tho.

If I am correct about Dispel Magic not working, how does one remove the fully petrified effect of Petrify or similar effects using only Remastered content?

Can you use an action to lift a prone ally back up to their feet? I was thinking this might be a good third action in some situations.

After the wheel chair was released, which allows for exactly that functionality, I've been allowing any pc to do the same for a conscious ally.

My suggestion is that if you want to house rule this in you limit them to lores. It is easier to limit lore scope to prevent them from becoming unbalanced.

Another option to consider is bonus feats, which are easier to track than skill increases.

To the second point "skill training" let's a character become trained in a skill. The higher level the group, the less impactful hashing a few people just Trained in a few extra skills is, anyway.

In fact

A number of tables allow the Free Archetype system. Not doing that and throwing a few Skill Training feats at the group as a result of character experience or significant downtime would be somewhat similar in how much it unbalanced the game. Actually, it almost certainly unbalances things less than Free Archetype, and people love that system.

Ectar wrote:

Finoan wrote:

Ectar wrote:

3.) They're both circumstance bonuses to AC, so only the highest applies.

4-3.) Definitely RAW.

I would agree with that when only considering the AC bonus. I am curious how you rule considering the bonus to Reflex saves, and stealth skills.

Gains the bonus to Reflex as per normal from cover.

No benefit to stealth as the location is obvious. They're behind the big ol' shield.

Hey Ectar, since your giving him cover, what type of cover would you be giving him? What bonus to reflex would you give him for holding up his tower shield? He is gaining a +4 bonus to AC for taking cover while holding up his tower shield, would you treat the +4 as greater cover and give him +4 to reflexes as well?

"When you have a tower shield raised, you can use the Take Cover action (page 471) to increase the circumstance bonus to AC to +4."

Thanks

mmmm, I think I've actually changed my mind. I feel like the cover bonus to reflex wouldn't be unwarranted, per say, but it's not called out as being a benefit you get. So I don't think it's actually RAW; I had thought incorrectly.

And now having looked through the rules, I'm really surprised there isn't an archetype or a feat that does it. Feels like something that should exist.

More important than the fire healing, they dropped the slow on cold damage. If Golems end up with just a resistance to spells, this is plain bad to casters. Against golems casters were able, by targetting the proper element, to be very strong. So there was a real place to casters in Golem fights, as long as RK checks were a success. Now if the only thing you can do is debuff them then that's lame.

Agreed; although a rules headache, some of the principles of the old golem antimagic were cool.

Now by targeting the golem's "weakness" they can be exactly as effective as they would normally be expected to be.

Ectar wrote:

3.) They're both circumstance bonuses to AC, so only the highest applies.

4-3.) Definitely RAW.

I would agree with that when only considering the AC bonus. I am curious how you rule considering the bonus to Reflex saves, and stealth skills.

Gains the bonus to Reflex as per normal from cover.

Cover is always relative. There's no way that a wall behind a person is going to provide cover relative to someone in front of said person.

1.) I would not allow that player to get standard cover relative to the people in front of them.

2.) Two things: the +4 vs ranged really works out to a +2 because gaining greater cover vs ranged doesn't negate the off-guard penalty of -2.
Second, absolutely not. Again, cover is relative. It doesn't matter how low to the ground you get, when the opponent is almost directly above you.

3.) They're both circumstance bonuses to AC, so only the highest applies.

4-1.) You might find some GMs that accept that degree of wiggle room, but I certainly don't think it's intended, and I doubt most would accept that reasoning.
4-2.) Definitely RAW. Prone says you can take cover vs ranged attacks, not take cover in general.
4-3.) Definitely RAW.

For anyone who had run this, did your players connect the various dragon statute clues to the Breath, Bones, and Spirit? Or even the necessity of the Celestial Dragon, itself?
The AP says "Upon piecing together these inscriptions, the player characters realizes this Celestial Dragon is clearly something more primordial than a common wyrm and that their power is likely sufficient to open a way
to Syndara’s Island and Hao Jin with it."
Are the players supposed to realize this at all? Or is it just kind of the GM saying so?

It feels like the kind of thing that, as the GM, I will have to explicitly tell them, which never feels great.
Related, reading out a list of clues and moments later having to tell them "Actually, one of those hints I just gave you was mistranslated, here's the actual hint" seems super weird.

It's been established repeatedly that Hao Jin has lived for centuries, but also that she isn't truly immortal. What I haven't come across is how she has lived for centuries already.

Even the 1e version of the Phoenix Bloodline's capstone worked like True Resurrection, so it wouldn't stop her from dying of old age. It's technically possible she's imbibed the sun orchid elixir a bunch of times, but that probably would've been established by now if that were the case.

If there has been a canonical answer, I'd love to hear it <3

Of course it wasn't evil. Evil doesn't exist anymore.

.
.
.

;P

That's the least contrarian take I've seen you post recently.

That makes sense. Though unlikely, it's entirely possible the Shield Block could prevent taking any damage altogether, and therefore prevent Metal Carapace from going down.

I mean, this seems fine? If your shield's hardness prevents you and the shield from taking damage, why would the carapace break?

Almost irrespective of who it is, I have tepid interest in what changes in Arazni to make her popular enough to be one of the new core 20.
As she currently is, her portfolio is rather on the narrow side.

Link to a 3D printer file for a Pathfinder-esque Kobold

The actual download links are embedded within the posts linked there. They are free to download, but if you like their work you can support them on Patreon.

I am in no way affiliated with the individual I linked above; I just think they have cute minis.

Calliope5431 wrote:

But I still think this tilts things in favor of PFS-illegal deities dying.

Only very, very slightly. Alex's post was expertly worded.

Killing off one of the PFS-legal deities is still very much a possibility. The only promise is that it wouldn't invalidate existing character builds. There are plenty of other options for handling it than that though if it does end up being one of the PFS-legal deities that dies.

And I am not entirely sure that the PFS organized play leaders even know which deity is getting dropped.

Related, there's no promise it won't invalidate future character builds.

Reminder that it's been confirmed that more than 1 deity is dying, just only 1 of the core.

My current character's deity is Apsu, who could use some love.
I wouldn't care if he died, but Tik would be totally distraught. Lose a lot of faith in probably everything. Maybe ends up a nihilist.
Would make the rest of Age of Ashes real different for him.

And my group's favorite is def. Milani, who hasn't had much content lately. They'd probably find it lame, since it'd be a low-impact kill.

My favorite 1e monster that never made the jump is the Gate Archon

They were, to my remembrance, the only monster with a conductive weapon and at-will spell-like abilities, including: Bestow Curse, Dismissal, and Dimensional Anchor.
Add to that: 9th level Cleric spellcasting, constant true seeing, and reasonable melee combat abilities, and the Gate Archon was a cool outsider with a suite of unique on-hit effects with its weapon attacks that wasn't a slouch in just casting, either.

No need to search more; I found the twitch stream where James mentions it. Check out the 20 minute mark.

https://m.twitch.tv/videos/1831877743

Aaaaand I was wrong. His statement there makes it much clearer that they do have an in-world unreliable narrator thing, though that article doesn't sound likeit tmentions drow specifically. Sorry gang. I'll say it louder for the people at the back.

CAPTAIN MORGAN WAS WRONG.

*small fist pump*

Overworm

I have to say, I genuinely prefer PF2's use of unreliable narrators, rather than the book telling you exactly who is living in the scary place under the ground or what exactly happens when you die or whatever.

Like it's okay if people reading the books and running games don't know what exactly happened to the Drow when they were in old books and aren't in the new books. There are lots of things that have come up in Pathfinder in the past that have not come up since then, and no one knows what's going to come up the the future. There's little to be gained from telling people "here are the things that we will never talk about again."

A more nuanced version of my original take would be that I like unreliability in the narration, when it's at least reasonably clear to the IRL audience that the narrator might be unreliable.

In the case of Koriah Azmeren, it's not that she is merely incorrect or uninformed; it's that she lied to the audience without any ability for the audience to ferret out the existence of the lie. Which I fully understand is almost certainly because she wasn't meant to have been lying originally, but it still rankles. But I also understand that my feelings on the matter aren't likely to change, so Ima step out so as not to continue to stir the pot.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Ectar wrote:

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.

Gods, I hate this as the in-world explanation. And I really don't think Pathfinder benefits from unreliable narrators.

It's not an unreliable narrator, as the Grand High Dino explained. It is a retcon. Sibelius used a poor choice of words there.

Ack, my bad. I ended up conflating the explanation for the in-universe Pathfinder Chronicles with the larger drow question in the game as a whole. Indeed, the drow are just ret-gone--no in-universe necessary explanation because they were just never there. This works better than any amount of justification or explanation that could never have made it to print in any ORC product, or simply pretending their empire is still there off-camera any time we go below the surface.

James Jacobs literally used Koriah Azmeren, the one who reported on the (now-retconned) existence of Drow, as an example of an unreliable narrator.

This is a case of "things can be two things". Drow were retconned out of existence. Part of the in-lore explanation for this happening is the use of an unreliable narrator as the original font of knowledge about the Drow.

Either way, reports of the drow empire were greatly exaggerated, and in their place is the sekmin empire which actually rules below the surface.

Gods, I hate this as the in-world explanation. And I really don't think Pathfinder benefits from unreliable narrators.

I once ran a session that involved the PCs adventuring deep underwater. As part of setting the scene I described a bioluminescent fish.
Party spent upwards of 20 minutes trying to figure out how to surmount this clearly dangerous fish obstacle. It was just a couple of deep sea fish, no danger at all.

Ever since, I've been occasionally picking a random detail about the dungeon/environment and slightly over explaining it.

If you pay attention, this is not something exclusive to the kineticist archetype. If you compare just the dedication feats you will find a wide variation from very good feats to very bad feats.

In fact, the feeling I have is that the whole thing is based on the function of the archetype as a whole, after all, in the vast majority of them you need to get 3 feats to free up access to another archetype.

For example, the fighter archetype is known as one of the worst dedications within the archetypes. Even so, many players pick it up for the feats it provides. While other archetypes like the witch, psychic, sentinel, beastmaster/cavalier archetype are considered very good. But you still take them knowing that you will have to invest in other feats or you will be stuck with that archetype.

In general, the feeling I have is that there is much less care in balancing archetypes than in classes, for example, but this is partly done precisely because we know the limitations of the core (special) mechanics of archetypes already limit them a lot, in addition Many of them are more themed than power/flexibility boosts.

Anyway, returning to the kineticist archetype, whoever takes this archetype knows that it is limited to the kineticist class DC and that therefore no offensive impulse of attack or save will be able to stand out, instead the dedication kind of works as a kind of TAX to gain access to the most powerful impulses, and things like Elemental Blast are a kind of bonus that can be useful from time to time in some exceptional situation.

It is exclusive to the kineticist, as compared to the other multiclass archetype dedication feats.

Heck, I meant Inquisitor, not Investigator.
But now it's too long to edit.

Bane was always a mediocre option for a permanent item, but a fantastic option for a temporary buff.

Heck, it was one of the things that made the Investigator a worthwhile class.

Dark_Schneider wrote:

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Atalius wrote:

My GM is the worst, he doesn't even allow a wand of longstrider because he says it's "one of the most broken things in pf2e".

It is though? I ran it myself in a campaign that went to 20 where the whole party had them, it was extremely powerful. Disproportionately so.

Try asking your GM about subsequent turn activation... or maybe leave their game if you truely feel like they are "the worst".

Yeah, the problem is that expending machine which you insert money and it returns the exact thing you have in mind.

Without that, tell me a way for all the party to have it apart from one character having Crafting with Inventor feat and spending extra money for creating the formula.

A Wand of Longstrider is a common level 3 item that costs 60 gp.

In comparison an Armor Potency (+1) Rune is a common level 5 item that costs 160 gp.

So other than concerns about Longstrider being too powerful, why would a GM bar access to Wand of Longstrider, but have no problems with everyone in the party having Armor Potency (+1) runes?

Because baseline mathematical assumptions about what the players have access to assume a scaling bonus to their armor.

I make these assumptions based upon the boons granted by automatic bonus progression.

I think people here are interpreting this the wrong way.

A Reaction is a must for every character as it is a massive boost in action economy.

The fact that you get an unusable one as a Fighter is a "feels-bad moment" that should be avoided.

Fighters should have been allowed to pick up a thematic reaction, whether it is a Dueling Parry, a 2H Block, or a Shield Block.

Same goes for Paladins, and hell, why not Monks, Rogues and Rangers?

Fighters already get Reactive Strike. Having a second, less generically useful reaction doesn't take anything away from that.

Supposing your assumptions are correct, the 20% of fighter player who DO want to use a shield would probably be pretty annoyed having to spend a general feat for it.

You aren't LOSING anything for having gained Shield Block as a starting feat.

Is an extra 3gp really breaking the bank? It might make a tiny difference at character creation, but this feels like such a small complaint.

HammerJack wrote:

You wouldn't expect to see them not trigger Reactions in PFS, either. The campaign rules do not, in fact, have people run the game by tortured "technically, there isn't a formal enough description of how this obvious thing (with clear intent) works, so jump to wild consequences, instead" logic instead of by their honest understanding of how the rules are supposed to work.

Nevertheless that doesn't change the fact that, so far, nobody has been able or willing to show me a rule that explicitly covers this.

Why should there be rules covering it?

Suggesting anything otherwise is obdurate at best and belligerent at worst.

Personally, I almost never challenge the players to challenges that cannot be overcome by character actions if they so wished.

Some players will like being personally challenged by out-of-character things. Some people will not.
To accommodate those who will not, I try to plan out character-focused answers to such challenges. Like intelligence checks for a logic-based clue or maybe a society check for a linguistics clue. Perhaps the answer has to be input into a number pad or some such; perception could allow a PC to notice a particular key or set of keys had been previously pressed.
And if they get really stuck (or just don't want to engage with puzzles) they can try and fight their way through. If it's a Sphinx, it's got stats, and if it's got stats it can be killed.

Skill Feats are whack. It's a franken-system that breaks the rules...

First thing I'd probably consider is when the other ancestries came in to being on Earth.
Did they all evolve together naturally? Or are some of them from somewhere else?
What is the distribution of those ancestries? Are things well-mixed? Or are there countries with primarily one ancestry?

I missed out on the previous kerfuffle on single action activities. For shame.

Also for shame, the remaster, to my reckoning, doesn't clear things up at all. "Activity" is still never properly defined.
"A category of action that typically takes more than a single action"
and
"usually take longer and require using multiple actions..."
and
"....typically involves using multiple actions to create an effect greater than you can produce with a single actiong or combining multiple single actions to produce an effect that's different from merely the sum of those actions. In some cases, usually when spellcsating, an activity can consist of only 1 action, 1 reaction, or even 1 free action"

But it never hard defines what an activity IS. Just what they typically are. So frustrating.

Finoan wrote:

Similarly you can have feats that modify Leap...and don't modify High Jump or Long Jump.

Isn't Leap used as the basis for High Jump and Long Jump? I suspect that abilities that effect Leap would likely effect High Jump and Long Jump as a result unless specifically called out otherwise. Note that nearly all the check results say "You Leap..."

I really wish the rules were clearer here.

Qaianna wrote:

Now I wonder ... at what point is something not an improvised weapon for throwing purposes? A gridiron football evolved its shape from rounder balls due to the forward pass, I thought, so would that change things?

GMing from the hip, I would say that an item that is designed to be thrown and caught (like a ball for a sport) would ignore the -2 penalty for using an improvised weapon when you are specifically using it in that way. You're still going to suffer the -2 item penalty if you're trying to like "harm someone with a basketball" but if you're trying to throw it to your buddy, ignoring the penalty seems like the right call.

Right now there's just one item in the game called "ball", but a GM is free to make this more granular with all sorts of balls with rules text that makes them suitable for their purpose (similar to how the ability of a 10' pole to allow you to seek up to 10 feet away is an ability granted by the item, it's not a default rule.)

There are plenty of items designed to be thrown. Preciously few are designed to be caught. Honestly, kind of an interesting design space.

Now I wonder ... at what point is something not an improvised weapon for throwing purposes? A gridiron football evolved its shape from rounder balls due to the forward pass, I thought, so would that change things?

New Item:

Fling Vial Item 1
5gp
Consumable
This particularly aerodynamic vial is designed to be thrown. A filled Fling Vial does not count as an improved thrown weapon when thrown to an ally and increases the vial's range increment to 20ft. The Fling Vial is fragile and loses its aerodynamic properties after its contents is consumed. Due to its flexible nature, it can be crafted by anyone with either the Alchemical Crafting feat or Magical Crafting feat, gaining the Alchemical trait or Magical trait, respectively. The creator chooses which trait it gets, if they possess both feats.

I play a Thaumaturge precisely because my group had a lot of holes in composition.
We have a Cleric, Barbarian, Rogue, Ranger, Monk, Thaumaturge.

We needed a support character with Recall Knowledge, and having a primary CHA class was nice, too.
Diverse Lore and Scroll Thaumaturgy were basically what ticked me over to Thaum from Bard.

In this case, I don't so much step on people's toes as fill in the gaps.

Most of my combat time is spent on RK, Cha skills, and occasionally Flinging Magic. I know the wand isn't optimal, but we're already so melee heavy (and I didn't want even the chance of outshining anyone in melee, so no Weapon Implement).
2nd implement is gonna be the Regalia for that status bonus to party damage.

Improvised Weapons are Simple Weapons.
So your proficiency in simple weapons + dex mod -2 because improvised
Plus range increment penalties

This does not sound normal to me.

Adding a +2 to all of a creature's modifiers is effectively making it an advanced creature, which is a level higher than the base creature.

So what was the level of the creature before modifying it and what level was the party?

Plus the hellscape attempting to damage and frighten 2 the whole party each round is a very significant bump in difficulty.

Ectar wrote:

Unfortunately, the Flying Broom was printed in the Player Core, whereas vehicle rules were printed in the GM core.

Player Core does not include any magic items, they are all in GM Core.

You right; totally brain farted which book I was referencing.

I think I agree with RavingDork, then.

Unfortunately, the Flying Broom was printed in the Player Core, whereas vehicle rules were printed in the GM core.

It depends on how you rule on other flying items if you leave them unattended I guess (like flying ships and flying cauldrons, which also don't mention anything about what happens when you don't spend an action Driving them- unless I missed such a mention)

Uncontrolled Vehicles

An uncontrolled vehicle in motion interacts with obstacles, other vehicles, and creatures using the effects of the Run Over action, except that the distance it moves is dictated by the factors above instead of the Speed specified in that action.

At a glance, the wording in the GM Core is identical, save for changing Attack of Opportunity to Reactive Strike.

Might be a funny alternative, but none of the the above applies RAW, since the flying broomstick isn't a vehicle.

Ectar wrote:

Seems to me like "permanent flight where you don't even have to spend an action to hover, at the cost of one free hand" falls squarely in the realm of "too good to be true".

Definitely going to be adjudicating the passive effect of the item to require a player to spend an action guiding the broom each round to prevent falling.

I'm not so sure "too good to be true" though. I mean this is a fairly high level class feat here.

It is one of the lowest level class feats granting something akin to permanent flight, with one very notable exception.

Levels:

8- Air Kineticist's Cyclonic Ascent. 2 actions grants 10 minutes of flight, with functionally infinite uses per day. Effectively permanent flight.

12- Witch's Broom and Dragon Barbarian's Dragon Wings (only usable while raging)

14- Armor Inventor's Soaring Armor and Summoner's Airborne Form.

16- Psychic's Constant Levitation and Thaumaturge's Implement's Flight.

18- Champion's Celestial and Fiendish Form and Air Kineticist's Crowned in Tempest's Fury.

20- Champion's Celestial and Fiendish Mount and Summoner's Bloodline Mutation.

Most notably, Cyclonic Ascent explicitly lets you stay in the air without using an action to Fly that turn, if you used an Air Impulse.

Not a single one of these other feats grants the ability to remain in the air without spending an action, despite many of them having much steeper feat acquisition requirements, except for Witch's Broom (as is being currently argued).
I just don't buy it.

Seems to me like "permanent flight where you don't even have to spend an action to hover, at the cost of one free hand" falls squarely in the realm of "too good to be true".

Definitely going to be adjudicating the passive effect of the item to require a player to spend an action guiding the broom each round to prevent falling.

If I'm wielding a two-handed melee weapon, can you ignore Trip's requirement that you have a hand free when trying to use this ability?

Only if you have a two-handed weapon with the trip trait.

Also can I wield a weapon that doesn't have the trip trait while attempting this ability?

Only if you also have a free hand.

Long story short: you need the ability to take the trip action to use the Topple Foe reaction.
This can include a free hand, a weapon with the Trip trait, or some other feat/ability/item that allows you to trip normally for some reason. (I dunno, maybe there's a feat that lets you trip using a tail or something?)

I sorta wish healing were a little more limited.
After level 4 or so, basically every group has access to once per 10 minutes healing, so rarely does a fight happen with someone even moderately injured.

It makes hitpoints a far less limiting resource to the length of ones adventuring day.

A consequence of this is that most fights assume the PCs are at or near full fighting capacity.
Heck, if you don't have a regular spellcaster, there's basically nothing the party loses to attrition.

Sounds right to me.

Link to table if this is same for remaster

Tiny PC in LOAG wrote:

They can purchase weapons, armor, and other items for their size with the same statistics as normal gear, except that melee weapons have a reach of 0 for them (or a reach 5 feet shorter than normal if they have the reach trait).

Sure, that table exists as-is in the Player Core.

But there are exceptions which violate either assumption.
I just want the Devs to tell us which it's supposed to be and to consistently print stat blocks that follow it.