Contributor
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I was posting in this thread when a question occurred to me.
Since that's the topic of the linked thread, let's use skinwalkers as an example. Skinwalkers went through significant revision between Blood of the Moon and Inner Sea Races.
If a player presents only Blood of the Moon as her source for the skinwalker race, does she have to use that version of the skinwalker? Or can she use the more recently printed statistics, even though she doesn't possess the relevant source?
Is there a policy for this?
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The policy is that you must have with you the source for any material you are using. If it happens that two sources for something are legal but you only own one, then you can only use what that one gives you.
How about if there is a semi-stealth errata from a developer on the boards correcting the stats in the book you own?
In this case, it is the stats for the Vetala-kin Dhampir. They are different in Inner SDea Races than in Bllod of the Night, but, per Patrick Renie, ISR is correct, and BotN should be fixed as per the post linked.
So, I only have Blood of the Night, do I use the errata post linked to fix the stats, or do I live with the incorrect stats?
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The policy is that you must have with you the source for any material you are using. If it happens that two sources for something are legal but you only own one, then you can only use what that one gives you.How about if there is a semi-stealth errata from a developer on the boards correcting the stats in the book you own?
In this case, it is the stats for the Vetala-kin Dhampir. They are different in Inner SDea Races than in Bllod of the Night, but, per Patrick Renie, ISR is correct, and BotN should be fixed as per the post linked.
So, I only have Blood of the Night, do I use the errata post linked to fix the stats, or do I live with the incorrect stats?
Semi-stealth errata isn't actual errata. Until it is, or until the Additional Resources doc "fixes it" you've gotta use what's printed in the book.
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Actually, the GtOP says that you are supposed to respect forum posts from developers.
So yes, you are required to respect semi-stealth errata if you are aware of them.
No, it says you have to respect the forum posts from PFS organizers and devs. It does not say that about the rules team or splat authors.
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Actually, the GtOP says that you are supposed to respect forum posts from developers.
So yes, you are required to respect semi-stealth errata if you are aware of them.
Can you cite that? All I can find in v7 is:
The Pathfinder Society Community
You may not simply ignore rules clarifications made by the campaign leadership, including the campaign coordinator and campaign developer, at http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderS ociety. GMs are not required to read every post on the messageboards, but GMs familiar with rules clarifications made by the campaign leadership (which have not been superseded by the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play or FAQ) must abide by these clarifications or rulings. If it is a significant clarification, it will be updated in the FAQ, and later in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play if necessary.
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Actually, the GtOP says that you are supposed to respect forum posts from developers.
So yes, you are required to respect semi-stealth errata if you are aware of them.
Can you cite that? All I can find in v7 is:
The Pathfinder Society Community
You may not simply ignore rules clarifications made by the campaign leadership, including the campaign coordinator and campaign developer, at http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderS ociety. GMs are not required to read every post on the messageboards, but GMs familiar with rules clarifications made by the campaign leadership (which have not been superseded by the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play or FAQ) must abide by these clarifications or rulings. If it is a significant clarification, it will be updated in the FAQ, and later in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play if necessary.
General content developers simply don't fall in the group I highlighted. BTW, the URL you highlighted is *only* the PFS board, not, say Rules.
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General content developers simply don't fall in the group I highlighted. BTW, the URL you highlighted is *only* the PFS board, not, say Rules.Actually, the GtOP says that you are supposed to respect forum posts from developers.
So yes, you are required to respect semi-stealth errata if you are aware of them.
Can you cite that? All I can find in v7 is:
The Pathfinder Society Community
You may not simply ignore rules clarifications made by the campaign leadership, including the campaign coordinator and campaign developer, at http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderS ociety. GMs are not required to read every post on the messageboards, but GMs familiar with rules clarifications made by the campaign leadership (which have not been superseded by the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play or FAQ) must abide by these clarifications or rulings. If it is a significant clarification, it will be updated in the FAQ, and later in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play if necessary.Please excuse me but... I do not understand the last post in this group.
I have no horse in this race - doesn't matter one way or another to me really, but I don't understand what you are trying to say here.
@GinoA: You missed the point of my post, yes?
I was asking FLite for the citation for the general, any developer, version.I was posting the quote from v7 of the Guide verbatim.
That included using bold to match the highlighted portion of the text in the PDF, which includes the link to this section of the Paizo boards.
@nosig: GinoA seems to have missed both what I was asking, which was a citation for general developers, and that I was posting a quote form the Guide verbatim.
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@GinoA: You missed the point of my post, yes?
I was asking FLite for the citation for the general, any developer, version.
I was posting the quote from v7 of the Guide verbatim.
That included using bold to match the highlighted portion of the text in the PDF, which includes the link to this section of the Paizo boards.@nosig: GinoA seems to have missed both what I was asking, which was a citation for general developers, and that I was posting a quote form the Guide verbatim.
I misread completely. Or rather, didn't look closely enough. I assumed that Kinevon was quoting claudekennilol, not FLite.
This lead me to thinking Kinevon was looking for a citation that only campaign-leadership holds authority in PFS. That is, I read him as supporting the side he was refuting.
My bad. Silly player not reading carefully. I also wrote semi-gibberish, but that's a different problem.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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My understanding was that PFS uses the rules of Pathfinder unless overridden by staff.
Are you saying we are not allowed to use rule forum clarifications?
Because in that case, My skald will be really happy, since it means he will be able to give all 9 of his rage powers to his allies, including summoned monsters. (4 from skald, 5 from extra rage power.) I am leaning toward All 3 spirit totem powers (1d8 negative energy to all enemies adjacent to allies, each ally gets and extra 1d8+My CHA mod 15 foot range neg energy attack, and all allies get 20% miss chance if attacked from more than 5 feet away) Death curse Tarn and Tor (anyone who kills one of my summons cannot be healed by spells, and is permanently staggered) and Greater Air Elemental (all allies fly)
I missed that that section only applied to PFS forums. Thanks, that opens up a *lot* of really abusive options to me that were clarified in rules forum posts but that were to low on the radar to make it into the FAQ. (For example, the above case was shot down by Mark Siefer)
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the stats for the Vetala-kin Dhampir. They are different in Inner SDea Races than in Bllod of the Night, but, per Patrick Renie, ISR is correct, and BotN should be fixed as per the post linked.
So, I only have Blood of the Night, do I use the errata post linked to fix the stats, or do I live with the incorrect stats?
Wow. I was unaware of that post. And it was a year ago.
I have a Ru-Shi Dhampir. It's the same character I had to rebuild when Unchained Summoners replaced APG Summoners, and all I had was GM credit on it.
I'm going to keep using the stats from Blood of the Night, in that case. I don't need to buy Inner Sea Races, especially if doing so invalidates a character I'm just beginning to re-like again.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@FLite: it's indeed a can of worms, but at some point, the choice was between two cans of worms.
On the one hand, you can limit the "forum rules" to the things said by PFS leadership only. (Current situation) The downside is that a lot of useful clarifications made by developers go out of the window.
On the other hand, you can include dev stuff too. Upside is that there's some useful information there, for example clarifications about softcover books that would never get FAQ'ed. Downsides however include
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- The information is all over the place, in several subforums including discussions of specific books.
- Some of it is seriously outdated, comments by devs five years ago who no longer work at Paizo.
- Some of it is contradictory, devs saying different things than other devs or themselves a few years before.
- Some of it was not meant to be definite, more an intermediate result in a rules discussion.
- Some of it is dated and conflicts with FAQs issued later on.
- Some of it applies to previous printings of books.
On the developer side they cleaned up their act, now using only one avatar for the dev team to issue proclamations and doing it with the FAQ system. This to put a stop to all the contradictions and vagueness.
The PFS leadership uses basically the same old systems as the devs, which is really not ideal. It's good that there's not a lot of bureaucracy to go through to get a verdict on something, but retrieving the information can be hard. I think a central compendium is in order; pretty much the FAQ system, but maybe set up so that:
- The PFS leadership can access the contents directly, reducing the effort to go from ruling to durable FAQ.
- It automatically tracks and displays changes, so that you can look for what it used to be.
- People can subscribe to get an email notifying them there's been an FAQ update.
- For the general FAQ system: it should be searchable as a whole, in case you don't know which book a question relates to. This comes up when an interaction between options from two books is discussed.
- Softcover books also need a niche in the FAQ system, for items that could easily be fixed with a simple FAQ. Rather than being banned.
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Contributor
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So, based on this thread... if I own a copy of Faiths of Purity, I can take Butterfly Sting without worshiping Desna. Faiths of Purity hasn't been errataed, to the best of my knowledge, and the version I have defines how it works.
Can anyone explain why this is false, if Inner Sea Races doesn't overrule Blood of the Night or Blood of the Moon?
Just trying to understand here...
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If there are any clarifications by the developers/staff that can effect PFS, then they need to be listed in the additional resources or some other document that will allow the players to help keep track of them. Posting here is nice but that means you need to reference each post to see the changes (and maybe dig through it to find one that was done 5 years ago only to be changed later).
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So, based on this thread... if I own a copy of Faiths of Purity, I can take Butterfly Sting without worshiping Desna. Faiths of Purity hasn't been errataed, to the best of my knowledge, and the version I have defines how it works.
Can anyone explain why this is false, if Inner Sea Races doesn't overrule Blood of the Night or Blood of the Moon?
Just trying to understand here...
The feats from Faiths of Purity are not allowed by additional resources.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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If there is a big enough difference between the old and new item. The older item is usually removed as a legal option. Look at Butterfly Sting and Living Monolith.
When Inner Sea Races was added the people reviewing it might not have noticed the change to the race stats, so they didn't change the entry on the original source.
As long as the Additional Resources page lists the item as legal in the source you own, you're good, but you'll need to check back to see if the entry is adjusted at some point.
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The basic rule is that the newer source takes priority. Living Monolith and the Thunder and Fang feat is good examples of this, each was changed significantly from the former source.
I see this stated frequently, I'd love to see the source of that rule. While, I believe it is a sensible interpretation of the system (and the one I'd use in a homegame), I haven't seen it anywhere for PFS play. As far as I can tell if multiple sources keep the item legal in the AR, the source you have should be the stats or whatever you have to use as they are the ones you can produce for a GM to see what's going on.
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If there is a big enough difference between the old and new item. The older item is usually removed as a legal option. Look at Butterfly Sting and Living Monolith.
When Inner Sea Races was added the people reviewing it might not have noticed the change to the race stats, so they didn't change the entry on the original source.
As long as the Additional Resources page lists the item as legal in the source you own, you're good, but you'll need to check back to see if the entry is adjusted at some point.
In my PC's specific case, I actually want to use the errata-ed version of the stats, as it winds up with him with 3 extra point buy points with the same stats.
I don't own Inner Sea Races, though. And HeroLabs only gives the ISR version of the stats for this specific version of Dhampir. I can (and originally did) use a couple of permanent adjustments to make the -2 a +2, and the +2 a -2, it just feels clunky.
Huh, interesting. From Additional Resources for the Inner Sea Races:
Races: A dhamphir or skinwalker PC can use the following different statistics as alternate racial options supported by the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign rather than those options that appear in Blood of the Moon and Blood of the Night: jiang-shi born, vetala-born, wereboar-kin, and werecrocodile-kin.
So, both versions of the racial heritages are supported, not just the ISR one.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I see this stated frequently, I'd love to see the source of that rule. While, I believe it is a sensible interpretation of the system (and the one I'd use in a homegame), I haven't seen it anywhere for PFS play. As far as I can tell if multiple sources keep the item legal in the AR, the source you have should be the stats or whatever you have to use as they are the ones you can produce for a GM to see what's going on.The basic rule is that the newer source takes priority. Living Monolith and the Thunder and Fang feat is good examples of this, each was changed significantly from the former source.
I basically agree, with a slight nuance.
If a radically new version of a new version is released, most of the time it can no longer be used from the old source - additional resources updated to reflect this. In that sense Hillis is correct, the newer source takes priority but it's up to PFS leadership to actually implement it.
There should never be the situation where you own an old but still legal resource, and have to refer to a new, different source that you don't own.
Either the old book is no longer a legal source for the item, or every legal source is a stand-alone source for the item.
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I see this stated frequently, I'd love to see the source of that rule. While, I believe it is a sensible interpretation of the system (and the one I'd use in a homegame), I haven't seen it anywhere for PFS play. As far as I can tell if multiple sources keep the item legal in the AR, the source you have should be the stats or whatever you have to use as they are the ones you can produce for a GM to see what's going on.The basic rule is that the newer source takes priority. Living Monolith and the Thunder and Fang feat is good examples of this, each was changed significantly from the former source.
I basically agree, with a slight nuance.
If a radically new version of a new version is released, most of the time it can no longer be used from the old source - additional resources updated to reflect this. In that sense Hillis is correct, the newer source takes priority but it's up to PFS leadership to actually implement it.
Which is why I stipulated a situation in which both sources are listed as legal in the Additional Resources.
There should never be the situation where you own an old but still legal resource, and have to refer to a new, different source that you don't own.Either the old book is no longer a legal source for the item, or every legal source is a stand-alone source for the item.
This is my opinion/reading as well.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Yeah, it's something that comes up every few weeks. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I thought it was worth going into detail about.
I blame Magic: the Gathering (and similar games) for teaching us to use the most recent source even if the thing you own is older. It's a fine principle there, but not here.
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I marked the OP for a FAQ candidate, since Blood of the Moon and Inner Sea Races do have significant differences in presenting Skinwalker stats (and I only recently became aware of that, now that I'm looking to play my Skinwalker for the first time next week).
Even if it's only a PFS-related ruling question, it's still one that needs answering.
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I want to expand on this and state that there should never be a situation where the release of a new source forces a player to buy it in order to continue playing their character - either allow a full rebuild, or grandfather it in.
There should never be the situation where you own an old but still legal resource, and have to refer to a new, different source that you don't own.Either the old book is no longer a legal source for the item, or every legal source is a stand-alone source for the item.
My understanding is the source you use is the source you use?
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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My understanding is the source you use is the source you use?I want to expand on this and state that there should never be a situation where the release of a new source forces a player to buy it in order to continue playing their character - either allow a full rebuild, or grandfather it in.
There should never be the situation where you own an old but still legal resource, and have to refer to a new, different source that you don't own.Either the old book is no longer a legal source for the item, or every legal source is a stand-alone source for the item.
If a new version of a hardcover is released, print the errata and bring them along, and you're fine.
New versions of softcovers happen almost never. AA is the only one I can think of.
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I think the question at hand is, if you own two resources and they both present different stats for something (in this case - Skinwalkers from Inner Sea Races are statistically better than Skinwalkers from Blood of the Moon), which source takes precedence?
This is my understanding of the question, if something has different stats in two sources but you only own one which set of stats do you use. (If you own both sources you get a choice at the moment, IMO)
As per your example, I have a Skinwalker and Blood of the Moon (the older source) so I use the stats from Blood of the Moon. If new source is the must use source (which I don't personally believe) my stats get better - but how can I show anyone where I'm getting the stats. I think if two sources are legal but different you should be using the source you have (as you can show what you are using). Yes, it does leave a couple of examples that can be abused, but I think it best follows the idea of being able to show all your sources. (The only other option I see is to include these updated stats to the AR or an errata/FAQ so that you can show the change without having to buy a different source for something you were legally using)
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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You may not use a source if you do not own it, so if there are two different legal sources of which you only own one, that's the only one you're allowed to use.
There exists no rule that you must use the most recent source. That's a figment of people's imagination. Every time I challenge people to show me this rule, they can't or won't. wrong.
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As per your example, I have a Skinwalker and Blood of the Moon (the older source) so I use the stats from Blood of the Moon.
I'm in the same boat but I also have Inner Sea Races. I would greatly like to see something official saying I could use the Inner Sea Races version, as it's better (not just stat wise, but thematically. "That guy just turned into a half shark and growled! Too bad he's taking a -4 to his intimidate!")
As written, the boon gives access to Skinwalkers from the source Blood of the Moon. Without clarification, that's all, and that's too bad. It's also silly that we can have two Skinwalkers at a table with different special abilities.
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Just look at the entry to Inner Sea Races from the AR page:
"Races: A dhamphir or skinwalker PC can use the following different statistics as alternate racial options supported by the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign rather than those options that appear in Blood of the Moon and Blood of the Night: jiang-shi born, vetala-born, wereboar-kin, and werecrocodile-kin."
It seems pretty obvious that if you have ISR, you may use those different stats, if not you use what is in Blood of the Moon/Night. You don't get to update your PC, and you must own ISR to use those new stats.
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Contributor
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Just look at the entry to Inner Sea Races from the AR page:
"Races: A dhamphir or skinwalker PC can use the following different statistics as alternate racial options supported by the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign rather than those options that appear in Blood of the Moon and Blood of the Night: jiang-shi born, vetala-born, wereboar-kin, and werecrocodile-kin."
It seems pretty obvious that if you have ISR, you may use those different stats, if not you use what is in Blood of the Moon/Night. You don't get to update your PC, and you must own ISR to use those new stats.
Yeah, I forgot they put that in there. It seems pretty clear that was meant to address the specific example used in this thread.
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It does not though, if you read the entire sentence:
"The following different statistics as options" with a colon, saying they will now list the options - "wereboar-kin, werecrocodile-kin".
What this is doing is allowing you to pick the wereboar and crocodile alternate options (each comes with different statistics), which does not address the changes to the base race itself, such as the limited transformations or penalty to Charisma.
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Even if the skimwalker example doesn't work for everyone (people seem to be ignoring the first sentence in the additional resources entry for inner sea gods), the question is still valid (other examples do exist, such as items that are different in second darkness player guide vs adventurer armory vs UE, etc.)
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Even if the skimwalker example doesn't work for everyone (people seem to be ignoring the first sentence in the additional resources entry for inner sea gods), the question is still valid (other examples do exist, such as items that are different in second darkness player guide vs adventurer armory vs UE, etc.)
Not sure if you meant to refer to Inner Sea Races ('must have a chronicle to make...') or actually meant Inner Sea Gods there...
I think it's relevant considering Skinwalker was a GenCon boon (For tier 1, so it's not like there are tons, but there are plenty). It specified the book we could build from, cool. Then a month later, a new, improved, and more functional version comes out and the additional resources declares 'if you have a chronicle you could build something out of this'.
I do not believe those making the boons had a chance of NOT knowing Skinwalkers were going to be in Inner Sea Races. The question then becomes, did they know about the changes that would be made?
On one hand of that, they obviously knew there were SOME changes, since they changed Blood of the Moon based off of one of the changes from Inner Sea Races (the amphibious/water breathing change). Did they just not realize the other differences that make some builds impossible to do? It's possible - things just get missed sometimes.
What I would hate to see if a clarification 'yes, you can use the new version of the race' and now I'm stuck with the old version just because I used a boon within the first two months of having it, built with the subpar version, and can now not change to the 'new and improved' version.
Got a bit ranty there, so I should clarify:
I'm fine if it's specified 'GenCon boons can only be built with Blood of the Moon'.
I'm fine with 'You can build with either'.
I would not be fine with 'If you used your GenCon boon already, you're stuck. Anyone who waited until another book came out gets the new version'.
I honestly think there was just an oversight on how much impact the new version has and how nonsensical the old penalty was. I'll reiterate it:
'This man turned into a shark in front of me, but because I can't also transform, I'm going to be less intimidated by him [-4 to all CHA based checks].'
'Man, that tiger blooded person becomes much more regal when he gets his fur [+2 CHA] but I don't like him now [-4 on all CHA based checks].'
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'This man turned into a shark in front of me, but because I can't also transform, I'm going to be less intimidated by him [-4 to all CHA based checks].''Man, that tiger blooded person becomes much more regal when he gets his fur [+2 CHA] but I don't like him now [-4 on all CHA based checks].'
Humor:
Case 1: "Landshark! Landshark! Quick, file a cease and desist order! Stupid ******** attorneys!"
Case 2: "Can haz cuddly furz?" ALTERNATIVELY: "Stupid ****** Furry!"
/Humor
What is being sought here? A mandatory 'must have most recent source or your character is invalid' ruling? That did not appear to be the case on O/P's post, which was not related to either boons nor races.
I do not suspect that's the case, as it would financially impact some folks dramatically.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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I remember there being considerable discussion of basically this point when "Animal Archive" was released, listing "Flank" as a new Animal Trick. Up until then it was pretty much assumed that "Flank" was part of the "Attack" trick.
Once Animal Archive came along, though, you suddenly needed to explicitly give your Animal Companion the Flank trick if you wanted it to flank. This raised two questions:
1) If you didn't have "Animal Archive", could your companion Flank?
2) If you did have "Animal Archive", could you retrain your AC's tricks?
Unfortunately, I don't remember what the outcome was.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I remember there being considerable discussion of basically this point when "Animal Archive" was released, listing "Flank" as a new Animal Trick. Up until then it was pretty much assumed that "Flank" was part of the "Attack" trick.Once Animal Archive came along, though, you suddenly needed to explicitly give your Animal Companion the Flank trick if you wanted it to flank. This raised two questions:
1) If you didn't have "Animal Archive", could your companion Flank?
2) If you did have "Animal Archive", could you retrain your AC's tricks?
Unfortunately, I don't remember what the outcome was.
I recall it being ugly.
Then again, a weird side effect is that in pre-AA scenarios NPC's ACs also can't easily flank you anymore, because the writing predates the trick. Which sometimes makes tactics impossible...
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What is being sought here? A mandatory 'must have most recent source or your character is invalid' ruling? That did not appear to be the case on O/P's post, which was not related to either boons nor races.I do not suspect that's the case, as it would financially impact some folks dramatically.
OPs post had to do with both Boons and Races - the Skinwalker, which is only [boon] accessible, is a [race] that is currently effected by most recent printing.
Unless we are talking about a different OP here...
What is being sought:
In the case of a new version of <named thing> being published and also being flagged as legal, is it allowable under the same conditions as the original?
ex. Skinwalker boons specify Blood of the Moon as the source, as it was the only source they were published under at that time. As they are now republished, it is acceptable to use the republished source?
Additionally: If <named thing> is changed drastically, is a 'retraining' acceptable if the newly published source is owned?
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Not sure if you meant to refer to Inner Sea Races ('must have a chronicle to make...') or actually meant Inner Sea Gods there...
You are correct - thanks. I was typing from my phone so auto-correct for "Inner Sea" went to the most recent book I was raving about to a friend!
What is being sought here? A mandatory 'must have most recent source or your character is invalid' ruling? That did not appear to be the case on O/P's post, which was not related to either boons nor races.I do not suspect that's the case, as it would financially impact some folks dramatically.
I think it's a question of, "If I have two sources for item X but the sources give different stats/costs/etc for item X, which one takes precedence?"
It applies for the Skinwalker question, and also applies for the Bladed Scarf question (I finally found the post where I asked a similar question before).
In fact, I think I might create a new thread just to re-state the basic question at the heart of all of this, for easier searching by John, Linda, and Tonya, and for more clarity for FAQ'ing.
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Edit: I have done just that, HERE.