Maybe, but that's not a legitimate solution. The character is legal, but it's just that the action (brass knuckles and monk unarmed strike damage) is illegal. In cases of equipment changing, it's been typically allowed to resell the item at full value and if the player was honestly unaware, I as a GM would be ok with the player doing so, marking the chronicle sheet as to why due to it being a special case.
IMHO, the best solution would be:GM waives the issue in order to get today's game running, and annotates the player's chronicle to say "character gets a free rebuild due to rules change, and must use it to become legal before their next game"
I was talking about general rules change affecting a character (abilities, rather than equipment) that the player arrives to the table unaware of and which either invalidates or makes a clear change to their character, rather than about this specific case. I should have made that clearer. :)
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I have been here long enough to see it several times.the point is, this is a rule reversal done thru a board posting, without being reflected in any published material.
I think what he was laughing is that it seems that you are under the impression there is a PDF update when there is a rule change which is not the Case.
The PDF is only corrected if the book is reprinted.
You will never see a case where there is a PDF corrected before there is a new edition print of the hardcover book.
@nosig: I'm sorry you have to potentially bum out your player, but how much is going to be invalidated, though? For a summoner, I honestly don't recall much of that way getting reversed or anything, so you can honestly say in layman's terms occasionally that there may be some things in there that may have been updated or altered since. If she has a question, she could look it up (and/or perhaps ask you or another experienced player for help). That way, you nip the problem before it becomes a potentially bigger problem later.
I know you don't like it this situation, but there isn't a need to add unnecessary stress to a young player still learning the game.
That's not the point. The point is that a gift was given to someone to play a game. That person, who happens to be a child, in turn spent their own money on the PDF. Now the combined parent/gift giver is in a position where they must tell the child that (1) that gift you were so excited about has questionable utility based on unknown information in subsequent products you do not own, also that $10 of allowance money you saved up to get the PDF are equally affected by this.
It leaves a very bad taste.
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The question is, then, is a statement from a Paizo Developer considered an 'online clarification' that then must be obeyed?
Personally, I'd like to think yes, but I'm sure there'll be those who argue both ways.
I would also imagine that the answer would be yes in a perfect world, but at the same time, part of the reason we have a huge FAQ entry is for easy access to information.
When articles are not compiled into that, and are scattered around to who knows where, it makes tracking those rule changes or clarifications infinitely more difficult.
I wouldn't hold either myself or another player at fault because they attempt X, but did not know that X was clarified/errated to not work in obscure and now buried thread #312,965. We really need to impress Paizo with our desire to see these rulings make it into the FAQ so that we can lessen this issue.
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I will say this; they have gotten better of not making "Rule" changes without an official FAQ.
What I am think I am seeing here are people objecting that Rules are being changed in current version of books but not in other books which they are using as a source.
Most of the time Mike will call those out in Additional Resources not allowing older version anymore but sometimes those slip by him. When that happens just make a post to bring it to his attention so he can correct Additional resources.
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The point is, we don't know how much is going to be (or has been) invalidated, right? I mean, I'm on the boards way more than is healthy, and I never knew this had changed... what else might I have missed? So when the beginer says, "so, if I read thru these rules on Summoner, I should be able to create one right?" and I say "sure, I'll read them thru too and double check your stuff next week..."... only the rule book might not be valid. and the reversal may only appear in a board post?!What would I have done if she had decided to run a kung-fu monk, rather than a pooki-mon guy? Heck! what am I to do if there's been a change to something on summoner that I missed on-line?
I wish I could provide a better answer than this but: you let her know and help her correct it as best you can, just like for any other player.
I don't mean to sound condescending about it if it appears that way; my concern is that I feel you're getting a bit paranoid about this and I don't want you to pass that along to a relatively new player. If I am taking your posts out of context, I'm sorry, but then please let me know how you feel about this.
You are correct that we usually don't know when something is going to be "tweaked" or "corrected", but compared to all of the rules, spells, and options available, those are for a very, very, small percentage of things. Don't kick yourself if you do miss something; just work with it as best you can when you do find something or are informed about it. And if you want to ask us, the community, about any summoner questions you have from your player, ask and I'm sure myself or one of the many brilliant minds on the boards can find something to help you.
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so, just to be clear on this.The rule book is wrong when it says "Monks are proficient with brass knuckles and can use their monk unarmed damage when fighting with them."
and the source we are to use on this is a board post only. No FAQ, no published correction, nothing else... just a board post from May 24, 2010, 04:55 PM?
(edit: added date reference for the post)
Actually that is not correct the The source we are using is the latest version of Brass Knuckles which is in UE, but has yet to be updated in the latest versions of the errata for other books they are in.
Edit: once a New Print Edition of the APG is released it will be corrected there as well.
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There used to be a stickied post that had all of the rulings that weren't in the FAQ yet, but now I can't find it...
I believe that post mostly had clarifications from Mike Brock, not rules clarifications from SKR or the development team. The post is no longer stickied, because all of the items linked to in it were added to the PFS FAQ.
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I was talking about general rules change affecting a character (abilities, rather than equipment) that the player arrives to the table unaware of and which either invalidates or makes a clear change to their character, rather than about this specific case. I should have made that clearer. :)
Gotcha. That makes more sense, but again, look at the Crane Wing fallout. Players were given the option to change their feats Crane feats (even to Crane Style), but weren't allowed to rebuild the characters outright.
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the rule in the UE says...
"...Monks are proficient with brass knuckles. Brass knuckles can't be disarmed."
This does not reverse the rule in the APG which says...
"Monks are proficient with brass knuckles and can use their monk unarmed damage when fighting with them."
the rule reversal is only in the post from May 24, 2010...
Ummm, what?... That is exactly what It does since it takes out that Line, without that line it does not work with monk unarmed damage. A removal of the line is the change of the rule.
The Post was dealing with acutally another printning of the Brass Knuckles in the Adventurer's Armory which first change it.
Here is the Order.
APG Brass Knuckles
Changed in Printing of Adventurer's Armory pissed a ton of people off which got SKR talking about it.
UE added Brass knuckles with offical verion for PFRPG which removes the line that says it works with Monks unarmed attacks, without that line it does not work with thier attacks which was already changed in Adventurer's Armory.
APG still has not got a reprint with the new rule so Brass Knuckles has not been updated.
The post was just a clarification of something that was already printed, or soon the be printed I forget the exact order.
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Why exactly would a monk want to use Brass Knuckles anyway? To add material effects like silver or cold iron to his attacks? He can use his unarmed attacks while wearing them if he chooses to attack with his feet, knees, ellbows and alike.
Also I do not understand how a player is supposed to react to something like this. He must bring the source of his equipment. He has to use the rulings made in this source because otherwise the whole idea behind providing proof would be moot.
"Yeah, I have the APG here. You see this piece of equipment? But ALSO, please not that I printed a line from the PRD which totally says that it now does 2d6 more damage per hit. Just believe me."
A player is expected to bring the books he uses, not to buy every new book just to make sure nothing changes. If something changes he can expect an errata. If no errata comes out - so be it.
Errata should be something a publisher puts out as soon as errors arise. If they don't they should not expect their players to cross reference every item with every book.
Also: How did the AA change brass knuckles? My (German) version of the book still has the line about unarmed damage.
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Not to rock the boat or make your brain implode, but I'm fairly certain that posts that are just by SKR (or any dev for that matter) are good guidelines for how to operate, but they're not solid rules until they're made into a FAQ or errata.
Someone should correct me if I'm wrong.
It is true that developer clarifications are not sacrosanct rules. But a GM can certainly use them to inform their rulings at the table.
If a GM is using a ruling posted by a game rules developer (Jason Buhlman, SKR, or SRM--or James Jacobs for Golarion specific info) and it conflicts with the players interpretation, the GM is well within their rights to use the ruling posted by the developer.
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Why exactly would a monk want to use Brass Knuckles anyway? To add material effects like silver or cold iron to his attacks? He can use his unarmed attacks while wearing them if he chooses to attack with his feet, knees, ellbows and alike.
Mainly for enhancement bonuses. Enchanting Brass knuckles to +1 (or +2, +3, etc.) costs 1/2 what an Amulet of Mighty Fists does. When the FAQ allowed monks to flurry using only one weapon this made Brass Knuckles a no-brainer for the optimizing set. (And hard to argue against for those who just played intelligently.)
"Let's see - should I spend 16,000 for an AoMF +2 or 8,000 for Brass Knuckles +2? I use my unarmed strike damage either way...
Hence the removal of the line allowing monks to use unarmed strike damage with brass knuckles.
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Before I retired my Magus, GMs often questioned me when I told them a Bard's Inspire Courage added to my attack and damage when I used Shocking Grasp, so I printed out SKR's comment here, figuring that would end all debate.
But I continued to run into GMs that disallowed forum posts as evidence, and especially older forum posts, because "anything could have changed since then".
So I wonder how many GMs would allow a Monk to continue to use the higher damage with Brass Knuckles, figuring "things may have changed" since four years ago?
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I feel like the existing rules already (mostly) cover the issues throughout this thread (albeit some of them aren't in the guide, some are implied, and some are just good practice):
- Mike/John's rulings override everything (notably so for PFS specific rulings, like faction-related issues), but design team rulings still count as official rulings for Pathfinder rules, even in PFS.
- Table variation on rulings exist - players should put forward their case to the GM, but the GM should make a call on it based on the player's defense and be fair about it (ie. "anything could have changed since then" isn't a very good call), and tables will generally be harmonious as long as the player respects the GM's call and doesn't "defend to the death"
- GMs would do well to usually side with the player where cases are borderline, and correct it later based on the above point (ie. getting rid of the "anything could have changed since then" defense)
- If a GM sides makes a call to side with the player during a game, and later finds out the player was wrong via a messageboard ruling and brings it to the player's attention, it's expected by the honour system that the player goes by the new ruling (unless there's still some unclear interpretation); this becomes the Do Not Cheat rule
- I don't know if Paizo does this (they quite possibly don't, it's hard to tell because of the low frequency of updates), but if older items are updated in newer books, erratas to the older books should include the newer book's fix.
We should be mindful of the real point of this thread; the brass knuckles ruling was just an example Secane used. If we want to clarify how brass knuckles work, that belongs in a separate thread.
Having GMed a small number of games, game systems, and network campaigns since 1980, I can comfortably assert that Paizo could construct an FAQ the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica and can fail to...
Argumentative players WILL argue, especially if they're trying to cheese a corner interpretation of the rules set... i.e. the Rage Lance Pounce Barbarian among others. Generally only abusive players and abusive GMs are the problem and there is no such thing as an FAQ system that's proof against deliberate malice.
Oh, I dunno, an FAQ the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica could at least be used to beat those people over the head. Sounds like a working solution to me!
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If people would stop buying every book paizo puts out that includes rehashes of the same material again using different language, perhaps they would have to move on to Pathfinder 2.0 and then the Organized Play campaign could get the reboot it needs...
But seriously: ONLY posts by Mike Brock or John Compton count for anything in PFS. I have to disagree with Andrew, if a printed rulebook says one thing and a post from SKR says the opposite, the printed rule wins. If SKR is informing on intent in a grey area, GMs can take that into account, but that's different.
nosig, send me the girl's account and I will gift her the UE pdf so she's covered either way.
I don't think this can ever be solved. There's a number of factors involved.
First the rules have been written edited red edit through multiple versions and parts of them are like a badly defragged hard drive.
Secondly no one plays in a vacume. Even if a player isn't up On the forums the odds of him making it to lvl 8 and not being up on the changes is ...frankyl low.
Thirdly this all gets confused in that my experience has been several players I play with are not very forthcommming on information. What it basically means is if the dm makes a mistake or appears uninformed they simply say nothing.
I will add though in the case oF the 13 year old or her mother neither can be expected. To keep track of this stuff. But for. For that average player who I assume is an adult male finding out the needed info is not hard.
That said we still get posts on vital strike so maybe I expect too much.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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Beating somebody over the head with a large rulebook may, at times, be the only practical solution.
If you don't believe me, just take a look at the recent thread where one person adamantly refused to believe that standing up from prone could be combined with a 5' step. Almost every other poster on the thread flat-out told him he was wrong, but would he believe them? Of course not!
Why is it that the newer book takes priority? Aren't there still two versions if the juju oracle?
Player: I have brass knuckles and do my monk unarmed damage."
GM: "unfortunately they changed that rule."
Player: "No, it is just an item of the same name. I am using the one from the APG. Here is the latest printing with all incorporated errata. It says use unarmed damage."
What so you say to that? The player has the source with the most recent updates. Double name use is rampant in pathfinder. It is very difficult to rule against a player with that argument.
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Why is it that the newer book takes priority? Aren't there still two versions if the juju oracle?
That's just the way it is - with exceptions.
What do you say to that? The player has the source with the most recent updates. Double name use is rampant in pathfinder. It is very difficult to rule against a player with that argument.
Double name use isn't rampant, you could count on one hand the number of times names are used twice without intending to be an errata.
Table variation on rulings exist - players should put forward their case to the GM, but the GM should make a call on it based on the player's defense and be fair about it (ie. "anything could have changed since then" isn't a very good call), and tables will generally be harmonious as long as the player respects the GM's call and doesn't "defend to the death"
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Double name use isn't rampant, you could count on one hand the number of times names are used twice without intending to be an errata.What do you say to that? The player has the source with the most recent updates. Double name use is rampant in pathfinder. It is very difficult to rule against a player with that argument.
Evangelist, Living Monolith, Buccaneer, Brawler, Swashbuckler, Beast Rider...
My hand apparently has 6 fingers.
And that list was just off the top of my head.
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Most of those aren't the same thing though. Bane the inquisitor ability and Bane the weapon ability are easily distinguished. The archetypes and the hybrid classes are the same story.
Agile was the one example I was thinking of off the top of my head, as two different weapon enhancements from different books (and I'm not 100% sure that's actually a duplicate; Field Guide and another book?). Dueling is a good example.
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Most of those aren't the same thing though.
Exactly. Entirely different classes/abilities with the same name. "Used twice without intending to be an errata".
Bane the inquisitor ability and Bane the weapon ability are easily distinguished. The archetypes and the hybrid classes are the same story.
I was actually referring to Bane, the weapon enchantment, and Bane, the spell.
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1. Why would someone rules lawyer a 10 year old? (or whatever the girl was in the gift story earlier)
2. Could someone please link to the appropriate text that says only Mike and John's posts are binding for PFS? I have always been operating under the impression that SKR and the antipaladin's posts were binding also.
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@Mekkis,
1) Rules are constantly being updated. And sometimes is just easier to consolidate and clarify a rule in a newer book.
It should not be seen as a dangerous precedent. If using a newer source is a dangerous precedent, then Paizo might as well just scrap FAQs, forget about updating newer version of books and just give up publishing anything altogether. Since any new book the publish may upset players in some way if they change a previous source.
2) It should also be pointed out that PFS exist to help Paizo promote and sell their products, while giving players a fair, flexible and fun way to play Pathfinder.
3) In a vice visa situation, if the newer books can't change the rules, then won't it also be unfair to the players that do buy the newer books? Using brass knuckles as an example, won't it be unfair to the player that buys UE or AA if another player that only has the APG gets to use an item in certain way that the first player can't.
4) The main issue is the delay in updating or not updating older sources to match newer products. If the different sources can be made to synchronize, then the concern of 'newer book has priority', won't be a problem.
Having started playing table-top RPGs with 4th edition D&D, I can clearly say that paizo has done an amazing job in keeping FAQs and erratas to a minimum. Most Pathfinder issues just require an FAQ to clarify. In 4e, the erratas is like a whole hardcover on its own. And the changes they made often change the whole way a power is to be used.
We really don't know lucky we are.
Hopefully more of Paizo's resources can be applied to fix inconsistencies between books and clarify unclear rules.
In game terms, we love the expansions, but please do continue to fix the existing bugs.
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A few answers:
The PRD is NOT a legal reference for PFS. It is there as a convenient way to get the Pathfinder rules "out there", but the Organized Play Campaign specifies what its rules are in the 50-page Guide to Organized Play.
In the Guide it discusses FAQs and clarifications. It uses the term "Campaign Leadership" - Mike Brock is the Campaign Coordinator, and John Compton does (most of?) the development for PFS. SKR worked on many of the rules books, but his word is not official for PFS (although obviously it carries weight. But in the few instances where it completes reverses a written rule, the rule stands unless Mike or John say otherwise.)
