Let’s Get Compatible!

Any psychic that wants to use imaginary weapon aught to be using spectral hand. It's damn good then.

new ghostly carrier are even better than spectral hand

not sure why paizo decide this spell need a buff

the image of a hand crawl 240 feet to enemy and back in 6 second was pretty funny

Appreciate the fast work on an errata!

Though I’m curious why the legacy witch patrons like mosquito witch were left out of getting a familiar ability? Oversight maybe?

PFS had a note to treat mosquito witch as resentment, baba yaga as the snow/ice one. They didn't address other patrons in other books. Maybe the pact one in Dark Archive has no boons to allow it in PFS, I wouldn't know.

(and wanted Astral Rain).

(Backs away slowly, not making eye contact.)

I wonder if Oscillating Wave will get errata so its not permanently stuck on cold damage after casting a single fire spell.

I wonder if Oscillating Wave will get errata so its not permanently stuck on cold damage after casting a single fire spell.

In my way, that mechanics works only in converted spell.

The first time in an encounter that you cast a granted spell or standard psi cantrip from your conscious mind.

LilyTrotter wrote:

Appreciate the fast work on an errata!

Though I’m curious why the legacy witch patrons like mosquito witch were left out of getting a familiar ability? Oversight maybe?

PFS had a note to treat mosquito witch as resentment, baba yaga as the snow/ice one. They didn't address other patrons in other books. Maybe the pact one in Dark Archive has no boons to allow it in PFS, I wouldn't know.

Dubious Scholar wrote:

(and wanted Astral Rain).

(Backs away slowly, not making eye contact.)

That's exactly the reason they didn't adress it, it's not available in PFS.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Champions add holy or unholy trait (as appropriate) to all strikes now? Well, that's a thing.

That's my favorite part of this compatibility shift. I've been hoping for something like this a long time. I'm fine with champions having lower damage in general, but their options for doing more damage to fiends were too narrow and too high level. Now champions just smite things.

Now several of those later options have gotten a gross nerf-- they now only deal damage to unholy creatures, which is a narrower subset than evil creatures were. Divine eidolons got a similar nerf. You can just skip those options, though, and hopefully they get buffed in PC2. Overall the champion came out ahead here.

Causes got a little funky. Weird that they put "don't hurt innocents" as an edict instead of "harm innocents" as an Anethema. We also lost a little nuance about not needing to prevent potential harm far off in the future, but that's probably a space thing.

I'm hoping PC3 gives us way to play non-sanctified paladins of Pharasma. Redeemer was always a poor fit for the Lady of Graves. There are other examples like that as well.

In my estimation, the only two later feats getting gross nerfs is: Smite Evil and Aura of Faith. But then again, I find the massive buffs to Divine Smite and Blade of Justice far outshine the nerfs… The Champion Reaction now affects most creatures with its persistent damage. Now with Blade of Justice, the Champion can for one more action convert all their damage into Spirit damage (which most creatures won’t resist) and proc persistent damage, and perhaps give their teammates a chance to Strike the target. And hey! If the target is Unholy, then two more damage dice as cherries on top!

Also, if I’m not mistaken… Undead are Unholy automatically. Perhaps with a weakness to Holy or not.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Sanityfaerie wrote:

Champions add holy or unholy trait (as appropriate) to all strikes now? Well, that's a thing.

That's my favorite part of this compatibility shift. I've been hoping for something like this a long time. I'm fine with champions having lower damage in general, but their options for doing more damage to fiends were too narrow and too high level. Now champions just smite things.

Now several of those later options have gotten a gross nerf-- they now only deal damage to unholy creatures, which is a narrower subset than evil creatures were. Divine eidolons got a similar nerf. You can just skip those options, though, and hopefully they get buffed in PC2. Overall the champion came out ahead here.

Causes got a little funky. Weird that they put "don't hurt innocents" as an edict instead of "harm innocents" as an Anethema. We also lost a little nuance about not needing to prevent potential harm far off in the future, but that's probably a space thing.

I'm hoping PC3 gives us way to play non-sanctified paladins of Pharasma. Redeemer was always a poor fit for the Lady of Graves. There are other examples like that as well.

In my estimation, the only two later feats getting gross nerfs is: Smite Evil and Aura of Faith. But then again, I find the massive buffs to Divine Smite and Blade of Justice far outshine the nerfs… The Champion Reaction now affects most creatures with its persistent damage. Now with Blade of Justice, the Champion can for one more action convert all their damage into Spirit damage (which most creatures won’t resist) and proc persistent damage, and perhaps give their teammates a chance to Strike the target. And hey! If the target is Unholy, then two more damage dice as cherries on top!

Also, if I’m not mistaken… Undead are Unholy automatically. Perhaps with a weakness to Holy or not.

Blade of Justice did most of that before, didn't it? All they gained is the persistent damage of Divine Smite against neutral targets and the ability to bypass physical resistance against neutral targets. I'm not sure that is worth the trade off of losing your two extra dice against every human bandit or kholo slaver you could have used them on before.

I feel like this compatibility FAQ undercut the point of spirit damage working on everything but constructs.

Also, if I’m not mistaken… Undead are Unholy automatically. Perhaps with a weakness to Holy or not.

"are Unholy" isn't actually a thing. Holy exists as a damage type modifier. That's it. You can have the ability to deal Holy/Unholy damage (usually but not necessarily holy/unholy Spirit damage). You can have vulnerability to holy/unholy damage. That... seems to be it.

It would be technically possibly to have a resistance to holy/unholy damage, but I don't expect that to show up. It would e technically possible to have a character capable of dealing both holy and unholy damage. On an even more searingly unlikely possibility, it might be possible to have an attack that was both holy and unholy at the same time, or a target that was vulnerable to both.

Still, that's all you get. "Can you deal damage of this type?" and "Are you vulnerable to damage of this type?".

Depending on your deity, their sanctification can make you holy or unholy. This gives you the holy or unholy trait, which commits you to one side of a struggle over the souls of the planes and may be referenced in other abilities. If you “can be” holy or unholy according to your deity, you make that choice, and if you “must be” holy or unholy you gain the trait automatically. If you gain the opposing trait in some way, you lose the previous trait until you complete an atone ritual (page 390).

So you can be holy or unholy. The same usage is present in the compatibility errata, like "fiends/undead who are/aren't unholy."

Fiends are automatically committed to the Mean side of the great planar struggle, being partially made of Meanness, so they're unholy. I suspect undead are damaged by holy w/o being unholy because free-willed undead don't have to take that side in the struggle, or any side. They're damaged by holy because the Nice side hates them anyway.

Holy and Unholy are traits.

Yeah, Holy and Unholy are traits. People can be Holy in the same sense they can be Humanoids.

The more I think about it, the less I think undead should be unholy, especially if Pharasma doesn't let her people sanctify holy. The cosmic struggle between celestials and fiends doesn't really feature undead much, right?

PFS had a note to treat mosquito witch as resentment, baba yaga as the snow/ice one. They didn't address other patrons in other books. Maybe the pact one in Dark Archive has no boons to allow it in PFS, I wouldn't know.

That's interesting, since the Baba Yaga patron in LO: Legends gives Occult spells while the Snow/Ice patron in the remaster gives Primal. My instinct was to rebuild my Baba Yaga witch as a Resentment one since it's still Occult and Baba Yaga hates owing anybody anything.

Player Core 1, page 110, Sanctification wrote:

Depending on your deity, their sanctification can make you holy or unholy. This gives you the holy or unholy trait, which commits you to one side of a struggle over the souls of the planes and may be referenced in other abilities. If you “can be” holy or unholy according to your deity, you make that choice, and if you “must be” holy or unholy you gain the trait automatically. If you gain the opposing trait in some way, you lose the previous trait until you complete an atone ritual (page 390).

So you can be holy or unholy. The same usage is present in the compatibility errata, like "fiends/undead who are/aren't unholy."

Fiends are automatically committed to the Mean side of the great planar struggle, being partially made of Meanness, so they're unholy. I suspect undead are damaged by holy w/o being unholy because free-willed undead don't have to take that side in the struggle, or any side. They're damaged by holy because the Nice side hates them anyway.

I like the alternate terms nice and mean way too much.

Yeah, Holy and Unholy are traits. People can be Holy in the same sense they can be Humanoids.

The more I think about it, the less I think undead should be unholy, especially if Pharasma doesn't let her people sanctify holy. The cosmic struggle between celestials and fiends doesn't really feature undead much, right?

Depends on how you figure it. Arguably all undead are part of that struggle, since the fight is over souls, and many undead contain souls that aren't going to their proper places. Then there are powerful undead, like darvakka and the Grim Reaper/s, whose explicit goal is the extinguishing of all life, which would definitely shift some balances around viz soul collection.

The GM Core has a list of trait abilities (p.126) that assigns holy to Angel, Archon and Azata, and unholy to Devil, Daemon, Demon and Undead.

By the fluff text there and in the Glossary, most Celestials are holy, most Fiends are unholy and almost all Undead are unholy.

So you can be holy or unholy. The same usage is present in the compatibility errata, like "fiends/undead who are/aren't unholy."

And "celestials who are/aren't holy."

Fuzzy-Wuzzy wrote:

Player Core 1, page 110, Sanctification wrote:

Depending on your deity, their sanctification can make you holy or unholy. This gives you the holy or unholy trait, which commits you to one side of a struggle over the souls of the planes and may be referenced in other abilities. If you “can be” holy or unholy according to your deity, you make that choice, and if you “must be” holy or unholy you gain the trait automatically. If you gain the opposing trait in some way, you lose the previous trait until you complete an atone ritual (page 390).

So you can be holy or unholy. The same usage is present in the compatibility errata, like "fiends/undead who are/aren't unholy."

Fiends are automatically committed to the Mean side of the great planar struggle, being partially made of Meanness, so they're unholy. I suspect undead are damaged by holy w/o being unholy because free-willed undead don't have to take that side in the struggle, or any side. They're damaged by holy because the Nice side hates them anyway.

I like the alternate terms nice and mean way too much.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Yeah, Holy and Unholy are traits. People can be Holy in the same sense they can be Humanoids.

The more I think about it, the less I think undead should be unholy, especially if Pharasma doesn't let her people sanctify holy. The cosmic struggle between celestials and fiends doesn't really feature undead much, right?

Depends on how you figure it. Arguably all undead are part of that struggle, since the fight is over souls, and many undead contain souls that aren't going to their proper places. Then there are powerful undead, like darvakka and the Grim Reaper/s, whose explicit goal is the extinguishing of all life, which would definitely shift some balances around viz soul collection.

I think undead unholiness is more to do with how they are a wrongness with how the universe is meant to operate, though I agree that makes less sense in this...

I understand why undead are lowercase unholy. I'm just not sure it makes sense to lump them in with fiends. Hell and whatever they call the Abyss now are still "proper places" where souls go, right? Not good souls, but it is a place where Pharasma can choose for a soul to after it leaves the boneyard.

It just feels like conflating two different brands of evil and I'm not sure why.

Because it's not evil? It's unholy, i.e., that which is opposed to holiness. Or, potentially, that which is opposed by holiness.

I understand why undead are lowercase unholy. I'm just not sure it makes sense to lump them in with fiends. Hell and whatever they call the Abyss now are still "proper places" where souls go, right? Not good souls, but it is a place where Pharasma can choose for a soul to after it leaves the boneyard.

It just feels like conflating two different brands of evil and I'm not sure why.

Evil already has 3 brands - Hell wants to be on top within the existing system, Abaddon wants to eat all the souls and end everything, and the Demons really don't have a goal beyond following their worst impulses.

Undeath is the same brand of evil as Abaddon, as they are both forces that completely break the cycle of souls if left unchecked.

Xenocrat wrote:

PFS had a note to treat mosquito witch as resentment, baba yaga as the snow/ice one. They didn't address other patrons in other books. Maybe the pact one in Dark Archive has no boons to allow it in PFS, I wouldn't know.

That's interesting, since the Baba Yaga patron in LO: Legends gives Occult spells while the Snow/Ice patron in the remaster gives Primal. My instinct was to rebuild my Baba Yaga witch as a Resentment one since it's still Occult and Baba Yaga hates owing anybody anything.

Yeah I'd say PFS got it wrong. One of Resentment's examples of a patron is 'an ousted Hag', it gets occult spells, and it gets evil eye. They are practically pointing a giant red arrow at Baba Yaga. And yep, Silence in Snow patron gives primal; that also seems like a pretty obvious substitution - in this case, for Winter.

Sy Kerraduess wrote:

Given Tangible Dream has Imaginary Weapon, I doubt they're much worried about the fact they're nerfing its other cantrip.

Plus amped Figment and Imaginary Weapon actually have synergy, since Imaginary Weapon can benefit from the flanking figment.

Not everyone wants to run into melee range with a 6 HP spellcaster! Imaginary Weapon's always been a bit of a puzzle, and Figment doesn't really change the fundamental question of using it I feel.

It's a pretty big difference in utility - as noted, why not just make it Amped Light and maintain the existing functionality like Oscillating Wave did with the new fire/ice cantrips. That flashbomb effect is part of what sold me on the conscious mind in the first place because I didn't feel like trying to make Imaginary Weapon work (and wanted Astral Rain).

Yeah, my psychic tends to stand back and use Shield on the frontline and Dancing Lights on the enemies. Imaginary Weapon is only for emergencies.

I'll certainly get some use out of Figment -- providing flanking for *allies* -- and it is absolutely thematic, but losing Dancing Lights is disappoint.

I don't think Undead will get a blanket unholy trait, mostly because Pharasma doesn't give sanctification to clerics, and having a bunch of gods whose followers can deal more damage to undead than Pharasmans would be weird.

There are also a fair amount of non-evil undead these days, mostly ghosts and spirits, but also Irorian mummies and the skeletal lizarddfolk guardians.

The other point where's undead are no necessarily unholy is that some of them are playable ancestries/heritages. So you aren't forbiden to play with a Skeleton and be a Sanctified Holy Cleric of Gorum that uses harm (to heal itself and harm the enemies).

Be undead is different from be unholy. But its normal that most NPC undeads could be also unholy too.

Dubious Scholar wrote:

Sy Kerraduess wrote:

Given Tangible Dream has Imaginary Weapon, I doubt they're much worried about the fact they're nerfing its other cantrip.

Plus amped Figment and Imaginary Weapon actually have synergy, since Imaginary Weapon can benefit from the flanking figment.

Not everyone wants to run into melee range with a 6 HP spellcaster! Imaginary Weapon's always been a bit of a puzzle, and Figment doesn't really change the fundamental question of using it I feel.

It's a pretty big difference in utility - as noted, why not just make it Amped Light and maintain the existing functionality like Oscillating Wave did with the new fire/ice cantrips. That flashbomb effect is part of what sold me on the conscious mind in the first place because I didn't feel like trying to make Imaginary Weapon work (and wanted Astral Rain).

Yeah, my psychic tends to stand back and use Shield on the frontline and Dancing Lights on the enemies. Imaginary Weapon is only for emergencies.

I'll certainly get some use out of Figment -- providing flanking for *allies* -- and it is absolutely thematic, but losing Dancing Lights is disappoint.

It's listed as an optional swap at the start of the DA section, at least. I was very annoyed until I found that bit.

I don't think Undead will get a blanket unholy trait, mostly because Pharasma doesn't give sanctification to clerics

The undead trait clearly states "almost all undead are unholy" (GM Core p.127).

So unless and until the devs give Pharasmins some kind of special treatement, they will sadly be the anti-undead cult that can't target the undead's unholy weakness.

EDIT: There is 1 exception I can think of: Redeemers of Pharasma got grandfathered in so they will be able to deal holy damage to undead.

Pharasma is simply too cringe to effectively address her undead problems. And that's okay. I, too, am a highly-occupied woman who fails at my biggest goals sometimes. ~w~

"My lady, a holy sanctification would really help us achieve your goals-"

"SANCTIFICATION?! Do you know how much extra work those celestials and fiends create for me with their pointless wars? And now you want to JOIN THEM?

No. You will help me without increasing my burdens, or you can find another Goddess to worship."

Pharasma's main job is to be a neutral arbiter of where souls go, feeding all the planes. She hates undead because they are a diversion/perversion of the souls, but she doesn't hate evil and won't take sides on the big cosmic questions just because a tiny percentage of her inventory is getting filched.

theWasp wrote:

I don't think Undead will get a blanket unholy trait, mostly because Pharasma doesn't give sanctification to clerics

The undead trait clearly states "almost all undead are unholy" (GM Core p.127).

So unless and until the devs give Pharasmins some kind of special treatement, they will sadly be the anti-undead cult that can't target the undead's unholy weakness.

EDIT: There is 1 exception I can think of: Redeemers of Pharasma got grandfathered in so they will be able to deal holy damage to undead.

While I'm not sure I like this unholy undead Pharasma business, I think this a bigger lore than mechanics problem. Just because something has the unholy trait does not mean it has a weakness to holy. See: cleric Sanctification.

Most undead probably won't have a holy weakness, just like they didn't have a good weaknesses pre-remaster. Instead, they will just take the extra damage from holy light just like they did from searing light pre-remaster. Holy light isn't a sanctified spell and already has the holy trait, so Pharasmans can use it the same as always.

Yeah, Holy and Unholy are traits. People can be Holy in the same sense they can be Humanoids.

The more I think about it, the less I think undead should be unholy, especially if Pharasma doesn't let her people sanctify holy. The cosmic struggle between celestials and fiends doesn't really feature undead much, right?

It's mostly a "how fine of a line do you want to draw" kind of thing. Undead are pretty nasty in all sorts of cultures - from Hel and draugr in Norse myth to the hungry dead of the Sumerian underworld to jiang-shi in China all the way to the literal demon possessed revenants of Christianity (Dracula and co, one must remember, were hellspawn every bit as unholy as demons in the original book, and the Count is said to have learned directly from Satan himself at the dark academy called the Scholomance). Heck, in Marlowe's Faust the titular character uses Mephistopheles' powers to reanimate Helen of Troy. Necromancy and fiend worship are basically synonyms in a fair number of cultures and religions.

It's a legacy of mythologies that don't distinguish between "horrible creatures from the other side of the grave" and "horrible creatures from Hell". Since they were often the same thing.

Pathfinder is in an awkward position here because spirit damage/vitality/void are all different. Plus the Void is different from Hell/the Abyss. So distinguishing between undead and fiends makes more sense there.

But I'm guessing that the reason for unifying them under the same trait is mostly because clerics and paladins are drawing not from the pathfinder cosmology but from those older myths, where holy warriors slaughtered undead and priests exorcized demons, and those were pretty much seen as the same thing.

Tl;Dr mythology doesn't draw a line and nobody wants to be the one to nerf paladin smites or cleric turn undead

Do we *know* all undead are unholy? If we identify the sanctification traits as "has taken a side in the cosmic war between good and evil" it seems like neither the mindless zombie nor the ghoul dockworker in Geb has actually has designs on the cosmic scale. Like you can have a skeleton PC who is a Paladin.

Like it seems as though a lot of undead wouldn't need to be sanctified, but if you want a spell or item or effect to do extra damage to the undead you just specify that in the description of the thing.

Do we *know* all undead are unholy?

Yes, the Remaster GM Core says "almost all undead are unholy" on p.127.

While I'm not sure I like this unholy undead Pharasma business, I think this a bigger lore than mechanics problem. Just because something has the unholy trait does not mean it has a weakness to holy. See: cleric Sanctification.

Most undead probably won't have a holy weakness, just like they didn't have a good weaknesses pre-remaster. Instead, they will just take the extra damage from holy light just like they did from searing light pre-remaster. Holy light isn't a sanctified spell and already has the holy trait, so Pharasmans can use it the same as always.

Good point. It's somewhat confusing that holy/unholy interactions are handled in multiple different ways. You have:

-spells that always trigger a unholy/holy weakness of the target
-spells that only trigger a unholy/holy weakness if the caster is sanctified
-spells that always deal extra damage to a holy/unholy target regardless of the caster's sanctification or whether the target has a weakness to unholy/holy.

So post-remaster, a spell like Divine Immolation (new Flame Strike) will never deal more damage to undead, whether you're sanctified or not.

And at the other end of the spectrum, a spell like Holy Light will always deal extra damage to undead and fiends, and then deal EVEN MORE extra damage to devils who have a weakness to holy.

So it turns out Pharasma isn't as cringe as we assumed. :P

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Do we *know* all undead are unholy?

Yes, the Remaster GM Core says "almost all undead are unholy" on p.127.

Captain Morgan wrote:

While I'm not sure I like this unholy undead Pharasma business, I think this a bigger lore than mechanics problem. Just because something has the unholy trait does not mean it has a weakness to holy. See: cleric Sanctification.

Most undead probably won't have a holy weakness, just like they didn't have a good weaknesses pre-remaster. Instead, they will just take the extra damage from holy light just like they did from searing light pre-remaster. Holy light isn't a sanctified spell and already has the holy trait, so Pharasmans can use it the same as always.

Good point. It's somewhat confusing that holy/unholy interactions are handled in multiple different ways. You have:

-spells that always trigger a unholy weakness
-spells that only trigger a unholy weakness if the caster is sanctified
-spells that always deal extra damage to a holy/unholy target regardless of the caster's sanctification or whether the target has a weakness to unholy/holy.

So post-remaster, a spell like Divine Immolation (new Flame Strike) will never deal more damage to undead, whether you're sanctified or not.

And at the other end of the spectrum, a spell like Holy Light will always deal extra damage to undead and fiends, and then deal EVEN MORE extra damage to devils who have a weakness to holy.

So it turns out Pharasma isn't as cringe as we assumed. :P

Pharasmins actually cannot use holy light any more than Urgathoans or followers of Zon-Kuthon can.

Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don’t allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don’t allow holy sanctification.

Holy light has the Holy trait. Pharasma doesn't allow holy sanctification. Ergo, it's as anathema as it would be for anyone else who didn't allow holy sanctification - such as a deity who mandates unholy sanctification. There is no mechanical difference. Though, of course, the "almost" in there may allow you to make the argument with your GM.

Pharasmins actually cannot use holy light any more than Urgathoans or followers of Zon-Kuthon can.

Remaster Cleric wrote:

Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don’t allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don’t allow holy sanctification.

Oof, I thought you had to be the opposite sanctification for the spell to be anathema.

I guess that solidifies Pharasma as the most anti-undead goddess with the fewest means of fighting them.

Do we *know* all undead are unholy? If we identify the sanctification traits as "has taken a side in the cosmic war between good and evil" it seems like neither the mindless zombie nor the ghoul dockworker in Geb has actually has designs on the cosmic scale. Like you can have a skeleton PC who is a Paladin.

Like it seems as though a lot of undead wouldn't need to be sanctified, but if you want a spell or item or effect to do extra damage to the undead you just specify that in the description of the thing.

In fairness, neither does the average mindless lemure. They have the same Int (-5) as a zombie shambler or skeleton guard. But they're literally made of concentrated malevolence, so they get the Unholy trait. Ditto zombies - they're basically lumps of void energy that want to eat everything that lives. You don't have to be smart or working for the Grand Overthrow Of All That Is Good to be unholy. You just have to be made of sin/corruption/unlife.

Personally, I'm holding out for more undead weaknesses to vitality damage in the remaster. It's strange that almost all fiends have weakness to good (holy now) but the signature damage type for killing undead, which AFFECTS ONLY UNDEAD, has no real benefit over any other damage type in terms of killing them.*

*Yes, I know that the new Vitalizing rune does persistent damage rather than normal damage and that incorporeal undead don't resist positive/vitality damage. But there's no benefit to hitting a wight or skeleton or mummy or lich with positive damage over fire, acid, or sonic. It's just sort of a sad damage type.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Pharasmins actually cannot use holy light any more than Urgathoans or followers of Zon-Kuthon can.

Remaster Cleric wrote:

Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don’t allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don’t allow holy sanctification.

Oof, I thought you had to be the opposite sanctification for the spell to be anathema.

I guess that solidifies Pharasma as the most anti-undead goddess with the fewest means of fighting them.

I will note it says "almost always", so it reasonable for her clerics to use it on undead, however it does put her in the weird spot of technically being an outsider to the holy/unholy war but her followers also using holy magic a lot while pretty much never having any reasonable circumstance to use unholy which just makes her not having holy sanctification weird. (Also the whole thing of not being able to fully describe the difference between allowing both and disallowing both because irori doesn't seem like he would care that much about it either but he still allows both)

The situation of "Pharasman clerics and champions should be extra good at fighting undead, but not better at fighting fiends compared to anything else" seems like a place for bespoke rules for Pharasma. She is, after all, a foundational figure in the setting and there is, IIRC, an ORC God book coming out.

Sy Kerraduess wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Pharasmins actually cannot use holy light any more than Urgathoans or followers of Zon-Kuthon can.

Remaster Cleric wrote:

Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don’t allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don’t allow holy sanctification.

Oof, I thought you had to be the opposite sanctification for the spell to be anathema.

I guess that solidifies Pharasma as the most anti-undead goddess with the fewest means of fighting them.

I will note it says "almost always", so it reasonable for her clerics to use it on undead, however it does put her in the weird spot of technically being an outsider to the holy/unholy war but her followers also using holy magic a lot while pretty much never having any reasonable circumstance to use unholy which just makes her not having holy sanctification weird. (Also the whole thing of not being able to fully describe the difference between allowing both and disallowing both because irori doesn't seem like he would care that much about it either but he still allows both)

Yeah that's why I drew attention to the "almost".

I mean just in general, neutrality tilts towards Good/Holy rather than Evil/Unholy. It's not a perfect balance.

For instance Irori's followers might often adventure with a rakish swashbuckler or stargazing priest of Desna, but probably aren't too keen on rampaging demons or their cultists. The average Irori worshiper can coexist with Chaotic Good and Holy creatures more easily than with Chaotic Evil and Unholy creatures. Similarly, you don't hear stories of Aroden's undead or fiendish allies (he tends to smite fiends and undead instead) - but you do hear about how Iomedae was his herald.

It's a function of "the gods" (as a whole) generally being seen as a positive force in the cosmology. Therefore they generally aren't as likely to support unholy causes. That in turn is a product of real-world religion, which all in all likes or at least respects "the gods" (be they Hindu, Greek, Christian, Norse, or another pantheon of deities) and where demons are anti-deity. Even if Zeus is a lecherous jerk, he's still the arbiter of morality. Marduk is at best morally ambivalent, but he's on the side of civilization. Hades is just doing his job. "Great powers of evil" generally don't qualify as gods - Typhon in Greek myth, Pazuzu in Babylonian myth, and of course the devils of Islam and Christianity EXPLICITLY aren't deities. Finding a true "god of evil" in real-life religion referred to as a true "god" is vanishingly rare.

I mean, honestly - how often as a PC have you invaded a temple of Irori, Pharasma, or Gozreh because they were being villainous? Pretty rarely. But PCs routinely rescue temples like that from undead infestations in their catacombs or from demons looking to sack the place.

Nice Errata but ummmm what about Rogue? This seems very important to the health of the game that Rogues do not get to Critical Succeed on all three saving throws...It would go wonders if we got an answer for this, as I been told conflicting information, such as some of it is on purpose and others saying itis clearly an error but nothing that says it was an error.

Nice Errata but ummmm what about Rogue? This seems very important to the health of the game that Rogues do not get to Critical Succeed on all three saving throws...It would go wonders if we got an answer for this, as I been told conflicting information, such as some of it is on purpose and others saying itis clearly an error but nothing that says it was an error.

Yeah it wasn't in the errata, so I assume it was intentional.

Which is silly since rogue hardly needed a buff (ridiculous numbers of MAP-less attacks, permanent flat-footed for enemies with Gang Up, piles of skill feats, piles of skill increases, legendary Perception, legendary Reflex, debilitations, Master Strike being ridiculous, etc). But quite possibly someone at Paizo disagrees.

Or maybe they'll release another errata and prove me wrong.

TBH, in lore, Pharasma is rarely depicted as actively hunting undead. Hating them doesn't mean she goes out of her way to destroy them. She's patient, and know that ultimely, most will still die.

TBH, in lore, Pharasma is rarely depicted as actively hunting undead. Hating them doesn't mean she goes out of her way to destroy them. She's patient, and know that ultimely, most will still die.

One of her Edicts is literally "Destroy undead."

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Do we *know* all undead are unholy?

Yes, the Remaster GM Core says "almost all undead are unholy" on p.127.

Captain Morgan wrote:

While I'm not sure I like this unholy undead Pharasma business, I think this a bigger lore than mechanics problem. Just because something has the unholy trait does not mean it has a weakness to holy. See: cleric Sanctification.

Most undead probably won't have a holy weakness, just like they didn't have a good weaknesses pre-remaster. Instead, they will just take the extra damage from holy light just like they did from searing light pre-remaster. Holy light isn't a sanctified spell and already has the holy trait, so Pharasmans can use it the same as always.

Good point. It's somewhat confusing that holy/unholy interactions are handled in multiple different ways. You have:

-spells that always trigger a unholy/holy weakness of the target
-spells that only trigger a unholy/holy weakness if the caster is sanctified
-spells that always deal extra damage to a holy/unholy target regardless of the caster's sanctification or whether the target has a weakness to unholy/holy.

So post-remaster, a spell like Divine Immolation (new Flame Strike) will never deal more damage to undead, whether you're sanctified or not.

And at the other end of the spectrum, a spell like Holy Light will always deal extra damage to undead and fiends, and then deal EVEN MORE extra damage to devils who have a weakness to holy.

So it turns out Pharasma isn't as cringe as we assumed. :P

I just want to point out that the Fiend trait has weakness to holy, so Demons and Daemons are weak to holy as well. (and any other fiends) It seems to me that the Devil trait having the weakness to holy is a redundancy…

Elfteiroh wrote:

TBH, in lore, Pharasma is rarely depicted as actively hunting undead. Hating them doesn't mean she goes out of her way to destroy them. She's patient, and know that ultimely, most will still die.

One of her Edicts is literally "Destroy undead."

True, but one of the common edicts of Zeus was "burn hekatombs (one hundred cows) in my name". That didn't mean the entire priesthood was focused solely on the economic problem of acquiring cows to burn.

Likewise, cannibals were seen as anathema to Zeus' faith (the story of Tantalus is a good example). But it's not as though there were priests of Zeus roving ancient Greece looking for cannibals to murder.

Pharasma in PF2 has to be compatible in a couple of years with Pharasma in SF, where currently there's a temple of Pharasma on a planet of the dead who tells all their coreligionists who land that they have to knock it off and not knock off the locals in violation of interplanetary treaties.

Didn't the devs explicitly say that due to alternate timelines etc PF2 and SF need not form a consistent history? Something about godly deaths/births/shifts in particular, IIRC.

Dracula and co, one must remember, were hellspawn every bit as unholy as demons in the original book, and the Count is said to have learned directly from Satan himself at the dark academy called the Scholomance

The historical Prince Vlad III's nickname Dracula (Draculea) actually meant "son of the devil". That's because his father was Dracul — "the devil", since he was a member of the Order of the Dragon, and that word can mean both things (and besides, people would easily mistake the order's symbols). Impaling a certain number of people helped too.

MEATSHED wrote:

Sy Kerraduess wrote:

Calliope5431 wrote:

Pharasmins actually cannot use holy light any more than Urgathoans or followers of Zon-Kuthon can.

Remaster Cleric wrote:

Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don’t allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don’t allow holy sanctification.

Oof, I thought you had to be the opposite sanctification for the spell to be anathema.

I guess that solidifies Pharasma as the most anti-undead goddess with the fewest means of fighting them.

I will note it says "almost always", so it reasonable for her clerics to use it on undead, however it does put her in the weird spot of technically being an outsider to the holy/unholy war but her followers also using holy magic a lot while pretty much never having any reasonable circumstance to use unholy which just makes her not having holy sanctification weird. (Also the whole thing of not being able to fully describe the difference between allowing both and disallowing both because irori doesn't seem like he would care that much about it either but he still allows both)

Yeah that's why I drew attention to the "almost".

I mean just in general, neutrality tilts towards Good/Holy rather than Evil/Unholy. It's not a perfect balance.

For instance Irori's followers might often adventure with a rakish swashbuckler or stargazing priest of Desna, but probably aren't too keen on rampaging demons or their cultists. The average Irori worshiper can coexist with Chaotic Good and Holy creatures more easily than with Chaotic Evil and Unholy creatures. Similarly, you don't hear stories of Aroden's undead or fiendish allies (he tends to smite fiends and undead instead) - but you do hear about how Iomedae was his herald.

Yeah but that does explain why most of the neutral gods are "allow both" rather than "can't do either" like Pharasma and Gozreh are.

Calliope5431 wrote:

Dracula and co, one must remember, were hellspawn every bit as unholy as demons in the original book, and the Count is said to have learned directly from Satan himself at the dark academy called the Scholomance

The historical Prince Vlad III's nickname Dracula (Draculea) actually meant "son of the devil". That's because his father was Dracul — "the devil", since he was a member of the Order of the Dragon, and that word can mean both things (and besides, people would easily mistake the order's symbols). Impaling a certain number of people helped too.

Exactly, yes. Obviously nobody saw him as an undead monster at the time, but it goes to show how intertwined the ideas of "undead" and "demon" are in folklore.

Any chance in the short time while we wait on the main PDF's to be updated. That we can have all the errata made into a single pdf or even txt file that we can download? That would be a lot more handy that having to check the web page.

I second the motion for @Paizo to provide a comprehensive errata released as a single PDF.

So, if I'm reading it correctly, Paladins are perfectly okay with lying now?