Sean K Reynolds's page

All the currently-verified errata is in the Player Pack and GM Kit PDFs (and if we add more, that's where we'll put it).

There are a couple of other things that I've noted for corrections, but none are significant enough to affect gameplay.

I really like this ruling, and think it was long overdue. Can we get errata to either section that Grick quoted above to make this clear?

I don't think it needs errata, as the Feats chapter doesn't say anything about restricting how you meet the Prerequisites for the feat.

Also, would this let a monk take feats based his flurry BAB, since he actually has that BAB while flurrying? Obviously, they'd only work on his flurries until his regular BAB got high enough.

Yes and correct.

Not to add insult to injury, but even without Construction requirements, there's always a chance that your item was so good, the judges might have forgiven you the slight and let it through. But by advertising your mistake, you've shattered anonymity, and even if your item is the best item in the history of items, there's nothing they can do for you now.

"This person broke anonymity because they said they just submitted" isn't really an issue, because we have better things to do than to cross-check the timestamps on posts and submissions. Especially as "I just posted" could be anywhere from 1 minute to 1 hour ago, and odds are we'd have multiple submissions during that time period.

Contrariwise, "I just submitted my item about crystallized alien grubs" does break anonymity.

Double-contrariwise, "I didn't include the construction section" isn't going to disqualify you because of an anonymity issue. Instead, your item is probably going to just be rejected because you'd have to have the Best Item We've Ever Seen to make us overlook that sort of omission.

Not only that, but you'd have to do it all over again to reactivate the Power Attack feat.

The "24 hour activation" doesn't have anything to do with qualifying for feats. If you have a Str 13, you can take Power Attack. It doesn't matter if you have it naturally, or a +2 from a belt, or even a +4 from a barbarian rage or bull's strength spell--the instant you have the required ability score, you can learn the feat, and you can use the feat as long as you're meeting all the prerequisites (which means you could have a character who can only PA when he's under the effect of a rage or bull's strength spell).

Jacobs and I agree about "fluff" vs. "flavor."

Calling it fluff is basically saying, "everything but the game mechanics doesn't really matter."

It started with Map Pack: Shops.

BTW, from the "it's so obvious you should know better" department:

If, when previewing your entry, you notice that it's over the word count, don't trim required elements like the word "Cost" or the words "Craft Wondrous Item" to make it fit the word count.

Neil will notice that sort of thing. :)

3) The Oread's composite longbow is not listed as granting a +2 Str bonus (and if it was, it'd be well over the money a 1st level character gets); yet, there is a +2 listed in the bow's damage.

NPCs don't use the same gear allotment that PCs do.

Core Rulebook page 450:
If the NPC possesses levels in a PC class, it is considered a heroic NPC and receives better ability scores.

That's the point of the Heroic Level column in Table 14-9 on page 454.

LIKE A BOSS.

"Pinpoint" is the term is used in the Pathfinder RPG.

In real life, you can pinpoint a person's location to a particular street, building, or room, so I don't have a problem with the game saying you "pinpoint" someone's location to a particular 5-foot-square, considering that most creatures on a 5-square-foot gridded map take up 1 square and you never need to be more precise than that.

Unless I'm having major bubble issues, I really don't care about it. Bubbles become places where an adventure stuck a piton, or there was some erosion, or it's where some common spiders live. I just work with it.

I let my Excalibur air-dry for 24 hours. It's actually a chemical reaction, not simple drying, and while you can accelerate it a bit with heat, I usually just cast stuff and set it aside to use for building later. IIRC, people on the HA boards recommend waiting 24 hours before gluing because the curing process does give off a tiny amount of heat that could interfere with glue (perhaps because of the heat, perhaps because of expansion and contraction).

Here's a very general answer: Your R1 submission should impress us with your item, not who made the item, why they made the item, what classes are fond of using the item, or what the item is typically used for.

Who originally made the item isn't relevant, because Ezren can make a copy of it and that copy doesn't come with that backstory.

Why he made the item isn't relevant, because that's in the past, and the campaign is about what the PCs are doing in the present.

What classes are fond of the item isn't relevant because not all members of that class may think that way, and members of other classes or archetypes may also think the item is cool, so why bother spending words saying "class X really appreciate having this item" when you could be telling me about the item instead of its fanboys?

What the item is typically used for isn't relevant because (1) a cool item's uses are obvious, and (2) a smart player will use it for something you never thought of.

So, for the HERO X'S Quill of Clarity, it doesn't matter who HERO X is, or why they made it, or which classes like it, or what the item is used for. Tell me what the item DOES.

Think of it like selling a car. You can tell me about the car company's history of "precision engineering," you can tell me this car will recapture your youth and get you hot girls, you can tell me this model is driven in famous races. But that's all trappings--none of that tells me anything about the actual car. Instead, you can tell me how many people it holds, its MPG, it's acceleration, and its safety features... that's info about the car. RPG Superstar is telling me about the car.

But I really think you judges should take up the decaf. Needlessly inflammatory titles like the one you're posting make you all look like Raving Dork. And one of him is enough for any board.

If someone can't follow the incredibly easy-to-understand 300-word rule for R1, that's unbelievable. And by submitting their too-long item, they're wasting my time. They're spending extra time to waste my time on something that'll never advance. So, like seeing the guy who shows up for the American Idol audition and does a mime performance, yeah, the judges are gonna vent a bit, because we're reviewing submissions on our own time, during a holiday.

BTW, one person submitted an item this week that was over 500 words. Really.

Hi.

If you want to learn how to play using the Beginner Box, you should use the Beginner Box. NOT the Core Rulebook.

The Beginner Box was designed from the ground up to teach a new player how to play Pathfinder.

The Core Rulebook is a reference book that isn't designed to teach a new player how to play. In fact, it's not really good at teaching ANYONE how to play. It's not a teaching book, it's a reference book.

Put away your Core Rulebooks and start over with the Beginner Box. It's designed to let you play with it and not need any other game materials for a full 5 levels of play. When you've played a few sessions and have the hang of how things work (which may be after 1 level, or after 5), THEN you can consider looking at the Core Rulebook for what else you can do with the game. This isn't like skipping the tutorial in a video game and going right to the full game--what you're doing is like skipping the tutorial and using a friend's saved game to play from halfway through the full game, where there's already a plot, your character has 20 abilities, and a bag full of items you don't know how to use.

Take it easy. The Beginner Box was written to make it easy for you to get started. I worked my butt off for 5 months to make it like that. Give it a chance. :)

I agree, but B2 is not the place to introduce changes for B1.

Magma Ooze, page 184

1) The Split defensive ability says "cold and slashing"; I think it should read "cold or slashing". Attacks that deal cold and slashing damage at the same time are quite rare.

Look at how the UMR listing is formatted.

Considering that the three lantern archons Rob summoned in our climactic Shadows Under Sandpoint campaign big boss battle really helped turn the tide against a 10th-level villain, yeah, lantern archons are really powerful compared to other improved familiars.

Dragnmoon wrote:

And 'we are too busy' is not cutting it for me anymore after 2+ years.

Bingo; and make it 3+ years now, since I'm necro'ing this thread (whose most recent post before mine was over a year earlier).

May 2010 --> Dec 2011 = 3 years? Gotcha.

I like all the races, but i prefer much the opportunity to play a Lizardfolk, neutral race, not necessary hostile to humanity, than a pseudo demi-vampire Dhampir. I like vampires, but demi_ vampires i dislike the idea of vampires having living children.

I guess you hate folklore from all over the world that talks about vampires having children with mortals...

I don't get worked up much over fantasy grammar, but I do flinch when someone says 'elfs' or 'dwarfs' as a plural.

"Elfs" and "dwarfs" were the commonly used plurals until Tolkein came along.

Wikipedia:
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwerrow.)

Bear with me, total newbie to Pathfinder, just received my BB two days ago.

Welcome! :)

In the Hero's Handbook on page 26 (Wizard class description), the class feature called Arcane Bond states one should choose a "masterwork dagger", "masterwork quarterstaff", ring or wand. Then later on page 44 (Equipment), in the section entitled "Masterwork Weapons", it states they receive a +1 for attack.

Does this mean the pregen wizard should have a +2 (+1 for STR, +1 for masterwork weapon) for his attack bonus when using his quarterstaff?

Technically, yes, his staff and hand of the apprentice attack bonuses should both be +1 higher, though we simplified some things on the pregens so they're easier to understand right away, and explaining that his arcane bond gives him an extra +1 to hit for those abilities is added complexity the player doesn't need to deal with in the first 15 minutes of the game.

It also seems odd that a wizard can replace his arcane bond item for 200 GP, yet to buy a masterwork weapon costs 300 GP.

It's a quirk of the Beginner Box that it works that way. In the full Pathfinder RPG, it's 200 gp per wizard level plus the cost of the masterwork weapon. However, the classes in the Beginner Box are written from the perspective of making a 1st-level character, and the higher-level stuff is later, so the arcane bond section is just talking about a 1st-level wizard replacing his bonded item. Replacing an arcane bonded item is uncommon enough that it's not important to detail out all of the costs of it in the Beginner Box--for example, it's more important to make sure spellbooks and preparing spells get all the words they needs, because those are things wizards do every day.

FAQ!

Likewise, the template doesn't tell you to capitalize feats, but you should.

The template also doesn't tell you to spell the spell names correctly, but you should.

There's more to the competition than what's explicitly called out in the stat block format.

Because the template provided in the round one rules doesn't have commas in cost and price

BTW, that's because the ZZ in the wondrous item template isn't a number. If you were to put a number there (like for an item submission), you'd add the comma separators (which you can see is done in the Core Rulebook, and most American publications).

1) Ultimate Magic says on page 14:
If an archetype replaces a class ability that is part of a series of improvements or additions to a base ability (such as a fighter's weapon training or a ranger's favored enemy), the next time the character would gain that ability, it counts as the lower-level ability that was replaced by the archetype. In effect, all abilities in that series are delayed until the next time the class improves that ability. For example, if an archetype replaces a rogue's +2d6 sneak attack bonus at 3rd level, when she reaches 5th level and gains a sneak attack bonus, her sneak attack doesn't jump from +1d6 to +3d6—it improves to +2d6, just as if she had finally gained the increase at 3rd level. This adjustment continues for every level at which her sneak attack would improve, until at 19th level she has +9d6 instead of the +10d6 of a standard rogue.

So the question is, "Does instant alchemy fall into this category?" It's certainly an improved version of swift alchemy, and uses similar language. However, it's not quite in the same category as something like sneak attack +1d6, sneak attack +2d6. Part of this uncertainty stems from this clarification text being written after the APG, and we might have named the APG abilities differently if we had that rule in mind, such as accelerated alchemy (double speed) and accelerated alchemy (full-round action). Lacking clear language that says instant alchemy is a direct upgrade of swift alchemy, we should proceed as if it isn't. Therefore, when you hit alch level 18, you get instant alchemy.

This doesn't affect swift poisoning at all, because I consider crafting and applying poison to be very different skills/abilities.

2) Extracts only affect the alchemist unless you have the infusion ability.

3) Throw anything refers to the class feature, not the feat, so he loses both. Internal alchemist is based on Asian philosophy of regulating bodily energy and essence, which is a very monk-like idea. The feat is listed there for alchemist/monks or other multiclassings involving ki.

4) The psychonaut gets them early. He can add them at level 5 if he wants to, but there's little point in doing that.

5) Yes, it counts as a familiar.

6) Alchemists don't cast spells, so if the feat or ability says it requires you to be able to "cast summon spells," he doesn't qualify. The ability specifically calls out Augment Summoning as applying to this ability, so it's an exception (he's not really summoning anything).

7) Where is this rage mutagen class feature?

"And given that even if this crazy plan worked,"

Does it or doesn't it?

Even as an all-powerful game developer, I do not have the power to accurately predict whether an eidolon will make its save against planar binding. That's the "if" I was referring to.

Whether or not you can use these spells to conjure someone else's eidolon isn't clearly defined in the rules, and I think it's more interesting if the answer is up to individual GMs.

Time with a chamber pot yes but bathing not so much. Prestidigitation is a handy spell.

And you wondered why wizards all have that "crusty old man" smell...

The wizard isn't helpless at all unless you remove his spellbook when he's out of prepared spells. He can use spells he has prepared to make a new spellbook,

Which is time-consuming and costs money. And, as he writes them down, they're wiped from his mind, so there's a time when he has no spells at all. And, as wizards generally know more spells than what they can prepare each day, you've still wiped out much of his spell selection.

or just to kill you and take yours.

My point is some guy with access to 5th-level spells can just as easily have the wizard's spellbook stolen while he's taking a bath or on the toilet. If you're the jerk sort of GM who likes to screw PCs.

Also, you can't destroy his spellbook without him getting a chance to prevent it.

Even Ezren has to poop and bathe now and then, and while he may like to read on the throne, I suspect he doesn't read his expensive spellbook in the bath. One mage hand and that 3-pound spellbook flies out the window and into the hands of BBEG's sneakthief.

If you were a PC party facing a powerful NPC Summoner, wouldn't you just love the chance to destroy its Eidolon separately, at a time of your choosing, in a place of your choosing, without having to fight the BBEG or any of his pals at the same time, knowing that when you kill the Eidolon, it stays dead forever?

And if the players did this, why would you try to stop their creative solution to a problematic NPC? (Assuming they know the eidolon's name, which, unless the summoner calls out its name in battle like a Pokemon, isn't automatically known.)

How is one 3rd level spell (magic circle) and one 5th level spell (planar binding) "a lot of effort" when it can be done from anywhere at all?

Because a 5th-level spell isn't trivial. And a 9th-level enemy caster with access to it has plenty of other means at his disposal to kill the PCs.

And given that even if this crazy plan worked, the summoner still has tons of summon monster SLAs at his disposal, so it's not like he's helpless. He's less helpless than a wizard with a disintegrated spellbook, for example.

Anything that provides enhancement, trait, racial, etc bonuses to skills usually get lumped into that misc column. Just keep in mind that bonuses of the same type don't stack and that you only take the strongest. So, if you get a +2 trait bonus and a +4 trait bonus to a single skill only the +4 applies and the +2 just sits there all alone not being used, poor guy. :P That said, untyped bonuses do stack. So, if that +2 were simply a bonus rather than a trait bonus the character in question would gain +6 to that skill.

The Beginner Box doesn't have types of bonuses, so you don't have to worry about whether or not certain bonuses can be used with other bonuses.

Sounds like a lot of work compared to just killing the summoner.

If they've got 12 now then they will end up with 80 in 5 weeks time, and the judging will be stricter. What is cool and a keeper now won;t be cool or kept in 2 weeks time.

Not necessarily true. We try to put reasonably good items in the keep pile throughout the round, and only filter them out at the end. So if an item on Dec 12 is just a B, and another comes in on Jan 4 that's just a B, they'll both make it into the temporary keeps. And then we winnow them down to 32, where the "weak keeps" have to fight it out.

Ugh. Just what we need. Another stupid, pointless Summoner nerf.

Now anyone with a high enough level Calling subschool spell can completely eliminate the primary class ability of a Summoner.

Yeah, because calling an eidolon automatically gives you all of the other summoner class features like life link, shield ally, master's call, and so on...

I wrote it yesterday afternoon. :p

My point is, given how weird the human mind is, creating a false memory that supports what you heard someone else say isn't that uncommon.

And, I'll repeat, two people I know from Gygax's home campaign pronounce it like "cow."

One of them is Skip Williams, the Sage of D&D.

The other is Jim Ward. You may have heard of his character, Drawmij.

TarkXT: I'll channel Clark and say, "how many items in the Core Rulebook do that?"

marv: What Standback said--anything you see in the book that looks like all caps is just regular text with a style applied. You never need to type in all caps.

See this is why I'm not entering. I'm not sure I want to win because that will turn my hobby into my job. I'm pretty sure that will suck the fun out of it.

I've been doing this full-time for about 12 years now, and I still I love going to work every day. Just sayin'. :)

Incidentally, for those who feel tempted to link the word with ancient Norse myth describing dark elves, it has no connection to those tales. Well, the creatures themselves do, but the name doesn't. I remember reading a fairly reliable article wherein it was revealed Gygax simply turned the word "word" around to create the name. That story was repeated later by other designers and people in the know.

Don't ask me to cite sources, it has simply been too long. But read it, I did.

The guy who works at the game store near me insists that you did not read that. And he's usually pretty reliable about countering sourceless claims. :p

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. It's not what you do during RPG Superstar, but what you do after that matters the most.

This idea is going to sound weird coming from me, but the first thing I thought of when I read this was, "Just like having a child."

We'll have more information on this soon.

IDK if this was reported of not ...

The defensive-shock spell (page 216) does not list any Saving Throw nor Spell Resistance entry...

That's because its range is Personal and its Target is you. The caster don't get saves or SR against those spells, and the spells don't even have a save or SR entry, even though the secondary effects of the spell affect other creatures.

Compare to fire shield, which is set up the same way.

Most of those are right, but I wouldn't take it as gospel -- for example, as I understand it, "Geas" is pronounced more like "gesh" in the original Gaelic.

But we're speaking English, not Gaelic.

Jim Ward and Skip Williams pronounce it like "how now brown cow," and they were in Gygax's campaign.

there is difference between learning how car works and handles, and tweaking engine. in MMO, players do first, devs do second. all spreadsheets and parses can only show you how to play better and what are breakpoints, but they don't change the game itself. only how you play it.

Exactly. And despite all of those spreadsheets and number analysis, there's still info the devs don't release, and players are only able to reverse-engineer an approximation of how they think it works.

If you're a hardcore WOW player, I'm sure you can tell me what the hit rating cap is for a level 85 DPS warrior. Players have figured that out by testing.
But can you tell me if the WOW engine rolls 1d100 to determine hit/miss/block/dodge/parry? 1d1000? 1d10,000?
If an expansion changed the RNG for attack rolls by an order of magnitude (perhaps to accommodate the inflated stats on items in Cataclysm compared to previous expansions), but the net effect on gameplay was the same because the programmers added multipliers for all player stats to account for this, would you know?

That's the difference between studying an engine and tinkering with an engine. That's the difference between studying available game data and changing game data. If you can't tell the difference in gameplay, then the exact mechanics don't matter.

We're talking 30+ words over. And that's not counting the item name, which wasn't included in the body of the submission.

I even took out some weird formatting that could add a false amount to the word count... it's still over by more than 20. :/

Midnight: yes.
Mahor: yes.

The problem is, quite a lot of us are "auto mechanics" to continue your metaphor, and it does matter to us what's under the hood. Not to say what they make will be automatically terrible if it doesn't use the PFRPG ruleset, just that Pathfinder is more than just Golarion.

Except we're talking about a computer game, and getting "under the hood" isn't going to happen unless you're on the MMO programming team or you're a hacker. If you're just playing the game, it doesn't matter if it's rolling 1d20, 1d100, or 1d10,000 to determine attack rolls.

Yeah, oops, will fix. :)

To clarify, I don't have anything to do with Gobinworks at this point, so I don't know what Ryan has planned. I'm just pointing out that you don't have to have a strict adherence to the PNP rules to make the MMO still feel like you're playing PFRPG.

It's not that difficult to create a computer game where you have classes and races and feats and skills much like what's in the Pathfinder RPG, net not have it shackled to d20 mechanics and the current skill point resources and the way that feats work.

If you're playing a fighter in the computer game, as long as you get a lot of free combat options that other classes have to pay for, it still feels like a PF fighter.

If you're playing a barbarian, if you have a rage mechanic where you get stronger, and have special powers when raging, it still feels like a PF barbarian. [Edit: I had originally said "fighter" here, too. :p]

If "power attack" is a stance a character can take to deal extra damage with less accuracy, it still feels like PF power attack.

If rogues still deal extra damage when flanking or against unaware opponents, and have tricks they can do relating to roguish things, it still feels like a PF rogue.

If your ability to climb, jump, tumble, notice, and know things can improve as your character gets more powerful, it still feels like a PF character.

And so on.

But the game engine doesn't have to be rolling d20s. It doesn't have to be based on 20 character levels, it may not give you feats at every odd character level, and you may not have the same number of skill points per "level" that you do as defined in the Core Rulebook. What's going on under the hood may be an internal combustion engine, but you don't need to know if it's gasoline, diesel, or ethanol, as long as it makes your car stop, go, and maneuver in a way that's familiar and fun.

BTW, the clerics in the Beginner Box actually have domains (and domain powers), they're just built into what god you choose. :)

I prefer wet-erase markers because if you leave them on the map for weeks, they're still easy to clean up with water. If you leave a dry-erase mark on the map for weeks, you often have to write over it with marker again so the solvent in the marker affects the old, dried ink.

But both work equally fine if you clean up in the next day or so. It's just that my game sometimes has month-long interruptions (ah, convention season) so battle marks stay on the map for a while. :p