Hey there Everyone,

Our new FAQ system is now up and running. At the top of every post, you will now note a link that says "FAQ". Hitting this link will make a note on that particular message, indicating that we should look at it for possible inclusion into the FAQ. Every message that gets flagged in this way will be brought to our attention (although those with more flags will rise higher on the list).

We will be letting this system build up for a bit before we begin answering any of the FAQ issues and will probably not get to it until after GenCon, but the launch is now so that folks can start flagging topics they think need to be included.

That said, here are a couple of things to keep in mind.

- Use the FAQ flagging system responsibly. This is a tool that will benefit us all if used correctly to identify issues with the rules that are unclear.

- As issues are added to the FAQ, the flags on the individual message will reflect this.

- Not every issue will rise to the level of the FAQ. What does and does not get added is up to us. As issues get resolved, one way or the other, the flags will be swept away.

- The FAQ will be viewable through the product page.

That is all for now. Get out there and start flagging!

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

As a note, I flagged the first post as an FAQ issue. In this case, it is not an error, so I marked it as such, just so that folks could see what the system looks like in action.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

heh I flagged it just to play with the new toy. Glad to see this.

Heh, me too. I suspect that post is gonna flagged alot...

Would you be interested in people going back through old threads to hit FAQ on old topics that caused debate? Especially ones that you guys had to chime in on?

Very nice. Look forward to seeing the results from this.

Would you be interested in people going back through old threads to hit FAQ on old topics that caused debate? Especially ones that you guys had to chime in on?

If you would like to, that would be appreciated. This is going to be an organic process I think, one way or another.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Awesome! Even with GenCon looming ... the good folks at Paizo find time to do this!

Just ... awesome!

Awesome! Even with GenCon looming ... the good folks at Paizo find time to do this!

Just ... awesome!

I'd note that Jason may not find a lot of time to *respond* to a lot of flags until after Gen Con, but we figure that by launching it now, he'll come home to a nice list of hot topics to jump on.

Waaay cool.. you guys & gals (hopefully Lisa isn't the only gal there. :oP ) rock.

Woot! (is all I can say) Good Job!

This was an excellent idea, and I hope will be put to good use. For those of you excited about getting started, here are a few threads that could benefit from it:

Consolidated Stealth Threads (for easy FAQ clicking)
Poisons (I linked to this thread not because it is the most pertinent for FAQ, but because there are already links in this thread to almost all previous Poison discussions.)

The whole can you keep someone down with OOP trips was pretty contentious too. Might be good to faq this thread

This is really awesome. Thanks for doing this!

Ken

hmmm, i cant seem to find them, but there have been a bunch of posts over the last year asking 'is x product by paizo compatable with pfrpg, how can i tell?'. If someone remembers enough of those threads to figure out what to search for, post a link, i think that belongs in the faq.

The whole can you keep someone down with OOP trips was pretty contentious too. Might be good to faq this thread

True...except, Jason popped in to that thread on like, page 2 and said that trip-lock was illegal. The other 12 pages were just people arguing about it for no reason and/or discussing house rules.

Would it be possible for us fans on the forums to search based on FAQ? So we could find and read threads, posts, questions that others have recommended for FAQ.

Is it just me or does anyone else think it would be easier if there was a forum that only allowed one post per thread, no followups or responses by anyone other than Paizo folks, and that was used as the FAQ system?

Personally I think there should also be a PRE-FAQ area, where everyone discusses amongst themselves if something is truly a FAQ or a common misunderstanding or has already been explained elsewhere etc.

Example:

Bob The Confused wonders "How the heck does Blank work?" so he goes to the Pre-FAQ thread and throws it out there. The swarm of board junkies descends upon his post like starving wolves. Several people deride him, asking why he needs a rule for every damn thing in the universe, others make up some random house rule and call it official, while still others tell him the correct solution. In the end though, Bob has no way of knowing for sure if what he has received is valid or not. If the scenario were one where generally everyone agreed and told him "X works like Y." and he accepted that as the likely true answer, then he could move on, never bothering the devs. Call that HelpDesk Level 1, ala crowd-sourcing.

However, should Bob not accept what the crowd, aka HD1 (Helpdesk Level 1) has told him, or, should the HD not be able to come to some general agreement regarding how X works, then either Bob himself, or one of the other board junkies decides to "Open a Ticket" by posting a query on the official dev FAQ forum. Let's say its Bob.

Bob mosies on over to the FAQ thread, types up a pretty clear question, hits "Submit." Meanwhile, over in the batcave (aka Paizo HQ) some intern monitors the FAQ board on an intermittent basis (a few times a day say). He sees Bobs post, ponders it for a minute, then wanders over to a random actual Paizo person. Let's say in this case he saunters over to JJ's desk. He reads the post to James. James scratches his head a moment and then says "Oh, that's easy, I'll respond real quick." JJ then hops on the boards, posts a response, and the thread is done.

Alternatively, JJ could examine the question and decide, "uh-oh, this ones a doozy... I'm not sure how this one should go..." and so he decides to IM Jason to see if he has a second. Jason is a very busy person but he always has time for JJ so he responds. James relays the text of the question and Jason ponders it a moment or two, also scratching his head and putting his writers pen down a moment. After a few seconds of silence Jason responds to James "I'm going to have to get back on that one, the answer will take some research." JJ relays that to random intern #3 and then random intern #3 trots back to his/her desk and posts an update to the thread saying it has been escalated to Jason for review. Then random intern #3 flags the post for followup which means James and Jason get a daily email reminder at the beginning of the work day about the thread.

Whereas now...

Ummm... we go digging through threads... click the faq link... then... ?

Then the ones with the most "votes" get dealt with first? Where? Will there be a FAQ thread? This is the part that has me concerned...

Is it just me or does anyone else think it would be easier if there was a forum that only allowed one post per thread, no followups or responses by anyone other than Paizo folks, and that was used as the FAQ system?

I think that the method Paizo set up will work out better than a one post per thread forum. It seems simple enough to be applied to building a FAQ without additional steps that would only hamper the system.

I've noticed some posts that appear in certain forums are not able to be flagged, when many of these are questions asked all the time (Like Apple PDFs not showing A's, etc) I've tried flagging them, but there is no option to, unless this is for rules only in which case I could see that that wouldn't fix the problem.

Kolokotroni wrote:

The whole can you keep someone down with OOP trips was pretty contentious too. Might be good to faq this thread

True...except, Jason popped in to that thread on like, page 2 and said that trip-lock was illegal. The other 12 pages were just people arguing about it for no reason and/or discussing house rules.

Right, but the fact that there was 12 pages of argument means it is in question. And that it would likely be better to put Jason's answer in a Faq instead of buried in an old forum post.

Is it just me or does anyone else think it would be easier if there was a forum that only allowed one post per thread, no followups or responses by anyone other than Paizo folks, and that was used as the FAQ system?

The Mutants and Masterminds forums had exactly this thing. Basically, people could post in that forum, but the thread was automatically locked. Then, the game designer would come by once in a while and answer them, adding his post to answer the question.

Repeat questions (unless they touched on a new aspect) were of course thrown out. As well as the types of questions .. it really should be a rules clarification question, not a "should I" or "how would you" type question, for the most part (that's what the general rules forum is about anyways).
It made for a very good searchable forum for finding answers to specific rules questions, and should work pretty well here since all it takes is sticky and auto-lock forum options, really.

What's nice here is that there's more than one person who could answer the FAQ questions to a reasonable degree, so it'd likely be answered quicker than poor Steve over at Atomic Think Tank.

I can imagine that reviewing all the flagged posts could be a big job, and I just want to offer my services should Paizo decide to hire someone to do just that.

It would be fun to explain to all my friends and family that I've given up the practice of law to instead get paid to do what I was otherwise doing when I should have been working.

Seriously.

Some threads related to/summarizing possible FAQ/errata issues:

List of Errata in the Core Rulebook
Contradictions between the Bestiary and the Core Rulebook

So now we have to search all the threads again and FAQ all posts that we want answered (even those that has already been answered) just so we get them as an FAQ answer? I
Kor has already created an good list based on the Wraith's "List of Errata in Pathfinder Core Rulebook". Find it here
And Wraith's thread "List of Errata in Pathfinder Core Rulebook can be found here

There is no FAQ button in this old thread so I FAQ it here.

whirlwind attack: do you really lose the benefit from feats such as Weapon Finesse, Weapon focus, Greater Weapon focus, Weapon specialization Greater weapon specialization, Power attack, etc. Do you also lose all attack bonus from spells such as bless, prayer or abilities such as bardic performance, Rage, Favored Enemy, Sneak attack, etc?
According to Jason Bulmahn Nov 13, 2008:
" I will get this clarified. Whirlwind will now state that you lose any additional attacks, but you should be able to use other feats, such as Weapon Finesse."

There have been some threads regarding negative levels and energy drain. I'll post links to two of them, please check them out.
In this thread James wrote this on negative levels and spell casting:

Not to shake things up too much... but the more I've thought about this, the more I've started to think that maybe negative levels SHOULDN'T reduce your spells available. I mean... that does indeed start to make one wonder why, then, negative levels wouldn't also cause fighters to lose their bonus feats, rogues to lose sneak attack dice, bards to lose bardic performances, and so on. Too far down that road and suddenly you're back in 3.5's territory of rebuilding your character every time you gain negative levels, and that's something that we were trying to avoid. We were trying to keep the bite in negative levels without forcing complicated middle-of-the-game-session rebuilding of characters.
And negative levels would certainly still impact concentration checks and level checks to get through SR and all that. Which still stings, but isn't so complicated that the game will grind to a halt while the spellcaster reconfigures everything.

And in this thread James said this aboout "negative BAB"

Simply having negative levels impart global penalties like they do in Pathfinder is a MUCH simpler way to handle them. And yes, this does mean that spellcasters are going to hate getting level drained more than fighters, and that does mean that lower BAB progressions could well drop into what is essentially a negative BAB. Turns out, spellcasters have a lot of advantages that nonspellcasters have as well. Pathfinder is NOT about making sure every class is equally harmed by every effect, or that every class is equally helped by every effect. That's a philosophy of game balance we don't adhere to at Paizo... if we did, we'd only have one or maybe two player character classes. No point in having 11 classes if they're all essentially the same when it comes to interacting with the world.

My bold.

The more I think about this, the less I like it.

I think we have to restrict it to character level-dependent, rather than class level-dependent. Why?
Because BAB and Saving Throw Bonuses depend on class level, but not character level. If we apply the "level-dependent variable" text to class levels, any multiclass character is utterly and completely hosed.
So, I withdraw my statement that Caster Level is a level-dependent variable. It's a class level-dependent variable, but that way lies madness.
I can't think of any character level-dependent variables off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's some somewhere.

Go and hit the FAQ link of the posts please so we will get an 'official' answer. You might want to hit more posts in these threads.

I created this thread on the topic of Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain - confusion and inconsistencies
My questions were:
1) Does Feeblemind, Bestow Curse, Blasphemy, give ability Penalty, Drain or Damage or something else. If something else, how those that affect access feats, spells, Carrying Capacity etc.
2) Does ability Penalty and Damage affect Carrying Capacity or kill feats?.
3) Finally there is the matter of the last the last paragraph in the "touch of idiocy" spell description. As AvalonXQ put it:
Everything seems consistent with that except the "touch of idiocy" spell description, so I'm inclined to conclude that the spell description is an outdated holdover and the last paragraph should be removed. [...] The problem is that the "touch of idiocy" description isn't phrased as a modification, but rather as a reminder -- which makes sense, because it's word-for-word the same description in the 3.5 version of the spell, where that particular paragraph WAS simply a reminder of the way the rules actually worked. This really does look to me like missed holdover text.

James have been kind enough to answer all these questions (with the exception of "does ability Penalty and Damage affect Carrying Capacity" - which they probably don't) but since more people than me seem to be confused about this FAQ answers might be good.

James was also kind and answered some question regarding Bardic performance in this thread.
1) Can a bard have two performances active at the same round or turn so long as he doesn't have them active at the same time?
2) Does restarting an bardic performance goes from a standard action to a move action at level 8 (and to a swift action at level 13)?
3) Can an 8:th level bard choose to activate bardic performance as a standard action in case he like to move (or can a level 13 bard choose to activate Bardic performance as a move action so he can cast a quicken spell)?
His answer to all thesequestions was Yup.
Please hit the FAQ buttons on so we get some FAQ answers.

I would be grateful if someone could post some links to threads regarding these recurring questions (anyone who has the time and energy):
Vital strike, what kind of damage does get multiplied?
Vital Strike + Ride by Attack + Spirited Charge?
Vital strike + Spring attack?
What kind of action is Spring attack?
Spring attack + Cleave?
What is an attack action?
Versatile Performance - how does it actually work. Do you have to use a piano to use diplomacy using performance Keyboard Instruments? Do haflings get their +2 racial bonus on Acrobatics when using performance dance? What about bonus from Elixir of tumbling or Boots of Elvenkind when using performance dance? How does skill focus interact whit this ability, etc. Do bards get to redistribute their earlier skill ranks?
Can a monk use a ring of force shield without losing his powers (or can he use the spell shield)?
If a druid wild shape or if you cast a polymorph spell that changes you into a creature of the animal, dragon, elemental, magical beast, plant, or vermin type:
1) do you keep her shield bonus when polymorphed.
2) you keep your AC bonus from your bracers of armor?

Seriously shouldn't these questions have been answered a long time ago.
Do we really have to scan the messageboards again and hit the FAQ link/button to get some attention? The FAQ page could at least inform us of some sort of top 10 or 20 list that they are working on. 'm sad to say I'm starting to grow disappointed in Jason B. or whoever is responsible of the FAQ and errata.
/James Jacobs rocks the FAQ does not.

Link to questions and answers regarding Versatile Performance. Hit the FAQ button until your fingers bleed.
Link here

And more threads on the topic.

This one is interesting.
And here is one more

I could go on and post more threads on the subject. Versatile Performance seem to need FAQ answers just like Vital strike and spring attack.

/James Jacobs rocks the FAQ does not.

So...

Does flagging something FAQ make it more likely to have someone drop in for official rules questions or is it just a bookkeeping thing that is used as an administrative tool during meetings at paizo?

I ask this because there are some issues are more wording issues that fall under Errata. Is there something else we do for issues that would fall under Errata?

This came to mind when I was commenting on a Flight Hex thread for the witch which has some questionable wording about whether it is self only or used on others RAW.

If it's FAQ flagged, it's visible to staff in a secret link of FAQ-flagged posts. We browse this link when we have time, answer stuff that we can answer, and unflag stuff that doesn't need an official response as a FAQ or errata item (if someone FAQ-flagged a post asking, "Do I have to take Power Attack before I take Cleave?", we'd unflag it).

So... I ask this because there are some issues are more wording issues that fall under Errata. Is there something else we do for issues that would fall under Errata?

Which... is why I really think the other idea... of a normal thread that only Paizo can respond to... would have been far, far superior. Then, instead of James Jacobs answering 45 inane questions about what his favorite adventure is, or what flavor ice cream he likes on Sundays, he might take the time to respond to some of these questions.

I'm prepared to be obliterated by those who seem to prefer to know what color briefs he wears vs. answering questions that people have been begging for answers for... for like almost a freaking year.

...and unflag stuff that doesn't need an official response as a FAQ or errata item (if someone FAQ-flagged a post asking, "Do I have to take Power Attack before I take Cleave?", we'd unflag it).

And then poor mr. wants to know the answer flags it again a few days later.

And then again.. a few days later.

And then someone else does.

Or... alternatively, poor mr. stupid who doesn't understand the rules, could post the question on a board only paizo can respond to and then someone from Paizo can respond with a canned response "not a problem" or something, instead of leaving the dude in the dark.

Just sayin.

...I really think the other idea... of a normal thread that only Paizo can respond to... would have been far, far superior.

That begs a proliferation of new threads... with every new thread making it less likely that people will even *bother* trying to see if their question has already been answered before.

Also, when the answer leads to another question (from the original poster or someone else), that would have to happen in yet another thread, where—since there's no context with the previous thread—everything has to be reexplained, wasting your time and ours.

Both of these things make your system less efficient the more it gets used.

And then poor mr. wants to know the answer flags it again a few days later.

And then again.. a few days later.

And then someone else does.

Once we've resolved a flagged post, it stays resolved. If somebody asks the same question in a whole new post, yes, that's a little frustrating to everyone—but there's nothing to stop that in your system either.

Or... alternatively, poor mr. stupid who doesn't understand the rules, could post the question on a board only paizo can respond to and then someone from Paizo can respond with a canned response "not a problem" or something, instead of leaving the dude in the dark.

When a flag is resolved, it's replaced with something that tells you *how* it was resolved, which is at least as informative as "not a problem."

We have put a lot of thought into this system. There's no perfect solution to be had, but I believe that what we've designed will maximize our ability to be responsive given our time constraints while requiring relatively little work on the part of the folks answering the questions and updating the products, and while keeping noise within reason. And if it doesn't, we'll make it better.

Thank you Vic and Sean for your responses! It was a little unclear if it was an all encompassing system or just clarifications on mechanics and such. I think the system is too know to call it something that doesn't work, and I am sure it is underutilized. I know I forget about it quite often!

Thanks for all the work you do!

I think the system is too know to call it something that doesn't work, and I am sure it is underutilized.

It is definitely underutilized on our side right now. Sean has worked through a few items recently, but Jason has been on Bestiary 2 deadlines, so he hasn't been able to spend much time on it.

There is one thing about the system that is pretty far from ideal now, and that's that it's hard for the guys to deal with multiple questions in the same post. If you can help us out by trying to keep any given FAQ-type post to a single issue for now, that'd be great!

Shar Tahl wrote:

So... I ask this because there are some issues are more wording issues that fall under Errata. Is there something else we do for issues that would fall under Errata?

Which... is why I really think the other idea... of a normal thread that only Paizo can respond to... would have been far, far superior. Then, instead of James Jacobs answering 45 inane questions about what his favorite adventure is, or what flavor ice cream he likes on Sundays, he might take the time to respond to some of these questions.

To be fair a fairly large number of those questions (The majority I think) are answered when he is not at work. Also I don't think James Jacobs is the one who will be dealing with most of the rules questions (I believe that would be Jason)

Vic In this thread over here you said we can use the FAQ system as an Errata to and that you will be using the system for Non Core books in the Future *Companions/Chronicles APs*.

I am curious can we start flagging those questions now in prep of when you start using them for books other then Core?

I am still not Clear on what your Define as an Errata. You define it as fixing errors that affect game play, so we can use the FAQ to clear up mistakes in Stat Blocks, or other errors that effect game play? I am worried of what you define as 'Game play errors'

I am curious can we start flagging those questions now in prep of when you start using them for books other then Core?

Not yet—it all shows up in the same queue right now, so that would be distracting at this point.

I am still not Clear on what your Define as an Errata. You define it as fixing errors that affect game play, so we can use the FAQ to clear up mistakes in Stat Blocks, or other errors that effect game play? I am worried of what you define as 'Game play errors'

I didn't define errata that way—I defined it in that specific post to mean a PDF file that provides the owner of a particular printing with a list of changes made to a later printing. As I said in that thread, I hesitate to use the word because different people have different definitions and different expectations for it.

You can use the FAQ flagging system to let us know about errors at pretty much any level, right down to typos. We'l make note of typos reported in that way, but you probably won't see them added to the product's FAQ unless they actually affect play. For example, if we spelled "shield" wrong, that won't qualify for the product FAQ, but if we had an NPC's DEX as 2 when it should have been 12, that's more FAQable. (And if the product is reprinted with the corrected DEX, then it would be added to the errata PDF.)

Thanks Vic

Are we going to have to flag already known issues, or will the list made by Kor be used?

Are we going to have to flag already known issues, or will the list made by Kor be used?

I'm pretty sure there was no point in Kor collecting and organizing that data. Everyone has to do it again.

wraithstrike wrote:

Are we going to have to flag already known issues, or will the list made by Kor be used?

I'm pretty sure there was no point in Kor collecting and organizing that data. Everyone has to do it again.

I *think* Jason looked at Kor's spreadsheet, but I can tell you that if somebody else pushes that data through our FAQ system, it'll probably be officially dealt with much faster, as that's where our focus is going to be.

wraithstrike wrote:

Are we going to have to flag already known issues, or will the list made by Kor be used?

I'm pretty sure there was no point in Kor collecting and organizing that data. Everyone has to do it again.

sigh, you got the answer and the way I read it. There was no point.

What we need right now is the Bestiary 2 and the FAQ.
The rest, with the exception of Pathfinder Adventure Paths, I don't care about.

Are we going to have to flag already known issues, or will the list made by Kor be used?

flag, flag, flag.

wraithstrike wrote:

Are we going to have to flag already known issues, or will the list made by Kor be used?

flag, flag, flag.

Let's start over again. There are no known issues.
Tell this to all your friends and tell them to tell their frieds etc.
..or give up.

I did a few of them before I made that post. I just didn't want to get in trouble for spamming. I guess I will do a few a day. I won't be doing the grammar ones though, just the ones for rules clarity. I think grammar matters, but I don't want the next update to be 70% grammar corrections, while the rules are still contradicting or unclear.

I just don't have the energy to go back searching through thousands of posts to flag crap that's already been collected once.

I just don't have the energy to go back searching through thousands of posts to flag crap that's already been collected once.

Then don't. That's the great thing about Paizo having thousands of fans and message board users. Someone else will click the button. Give the system a little time to grow. If a question really is "Frequently Asked" someone will ask it again and it'll get flagged.

As for Paizo getting the time to fix the FAQ and some of the most important errata (yes some errata could actually answer some of the FAQ), and some errata are probably not errata at all but FAQ), let us see now:

Short of time right now, we got this ....

I can understand this sentiment if they were standing still but they are definitely making progress on the FAQ/ errata front. I would also appreciate a bit faster pace but the ship is definitely turning, just slowly.

Making huge changes to the system when it's only barely in place isn't the way to get the questions out there answered, it will only slow things down more.

Zark wrote:

As for Paizo getting the time to fix the FAQ and some of the most important errata (yes some errata could actually answer some of the FAQ), and some errata are probably not errata at all but FAQ), let us see now:

Short of time right now, we got this ....

I can understand this sentiment if they were standing still but they are definitely making progress on the FAQ/ errata front. I would also appreciate a bit faster pace but the ship is definitely turning, just slowly.

Making huge changes to the system when it's only barely in place isn't the way to get the questions out there answered, it will only slow things down more.

I'm not sure what yopu mean by "makeing a huge changes to the system".

Looking trough the two threads "List of Errata in the Core Rulebook" and
"Contradictions between the Bestiary and the Core Rulebook" and you have 99 % of all the errata.

I dodn't think people are expecting a FAQ tomorrow with 100 FAQ answered.
But simple stuff, like Vital strike, Spring attack, Versatil performance, Shield bonus to AC(and bracres of armor) when wildshaped, Negative levels and spells, Full attack with weapon and natural weapon, etc. etc. are basic stuff and those questions has been around for a long tíme.

I'm not sure what yopu mean by "makeing a huge changes to the system".
A lot, and I do mean A LOT, of the FAQ would not be have needed an answer if they had fixed the errata.

Looking trough the two threads "List of Errata in the Core Rulebook" and
"Contradictions between the Bestiary and the Core Rulebook" and you have 99 % of all the errata.

I dodn't think people are expecting a FAQ tomorrow with 100 FAQ answered.
But simple stuff, like Vital strike, Spring attack, Versatil performance, Shield bonus to AC(and bracres of armor) when wildshaped, Negative levels and spells, Full attack with weapon and natural weapon, etc. etc. are basic stuff and those questions has been around for a long tíme.

Eh, got my circuits crossed, for some reason I thought you were one of the people pushing for changes to the FAQ system.

Yeah, I'd be happy if they were answering 2 FAQ questions per week, the current pace is pretty slow and the backlog is large.

I suspect the vast majority of questions could be answered by someone like Jason or Sean... in one day.

I suspect the vast majority of questions could be answered by someone like Jason or Sean... in one day.

If they did a question a day it would be 30 or at least 20 a month, assuming they take weekends off. Now some of the questions they may have to debate on how they want it to work so it may take more than a day, but even 15 a month seems doable since most of them are only interpretation issues. That way on a certain day every month, let's say the first*, we get new questions answered.

*random date.