Fall Errata Updates 2024

Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:

Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

I sure hope you are correct.

Unfortunately, stating that staves are an example of something that uses Invest an Item has 0 ambiguity there. It means that staves are (now) invested, which is where the 10 max rule lives.

It is possible that the devs at one point intended to make this change, but later decided against it, and erroneously left that errata in there when deleting the change.

However, the last time I said that hypothetical was for the splash change contradiction, and like then, I will emphasize a rule of thumb that when a new addition creates a contradiction, it's the new rule that's intended by the devs.

The notion that even the enthusiasts reading the errata on day 1 cannot tell what tf is the intent is... what it is.

Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:

Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

I think you are correct. Some held items are invested. Staves, typically, are not. So the rules change is fine, save for a poor example.

Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:

Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

I haven't seen anything that gives staves the Invested trait, either. I'd assume that'd also be in the errata, because to my knowledge it wasn't something that staves have ever had before.

Speaking of upcoming things, looking forward to seeing whatever it is that introduces these new angels, and reintroduces some of the devils and demons and daemons.

As well as the Rogue's saving throws, I see that Amped Shatter Mind's apparent AOE misprint ("your choice of a 30-foot cone or 60-foot cone" (sic)) survives a second Errata pass, preserving it as almost certainly the most OP spell in the entire game.

I guess this means it's intentional too?

(In both cases, I humbly submit that it would take Paizo 30 seconds to clarify that yes, these are indeed intentional, if that is the case).

If staves were changed to being invested the change would be something much more clear such as "All staves now have the invested trait."

For what its worth there is at least one invested staff, the Whispering Staff apex item from Treasure Vault, which is a perfect example of why they made the mentioned change to Invest an Item since you can't really don a staff.

As well as the Rogue's saving throws, I see that Amped Shatter Mind's apparent AOE misprint ("your choice of a 30-foot cone or 60-foot cone" (sic)) survives a second Errata pass, preserving it as almost certainly the most OP spell in the entire game.

I guess this means it's intentional too?

(In both cases, I humbly submit that it would take Paizo 30 seconds to clarify that yes, these are indeed intentional, if that is the case).

This is why a "living document" of pre-errata officially recognized errors would be so helpful.

Once enthusiasts saw that the simple stuff was recognized, they would instead spend their limited "rabble rousing" around the errors that presently slip through the cracks.

I genuinely think that such an easy "cone" --> "line" fix would have been done in this errata pass if the right dev at Paizo knew about that.

Yeah, I really don't think the change is supposed to be "Staves have the invested trait." I think the writer was trying to think of a magic item that's not "worn" in the way a robe or something is and accidentally thought staves were invested. It'd be weird for an impactful change to be introduced through implication alone. They could do that I suppose, but it's unlikely.

@Maya

I would love designer input on the post remaster champion blade ally feature.

Pre-remaster you gained the effect of a rune, letting people have a bonus rune on their weapons from a bespoke list. Post remaster, you gained the rune which counts against your total rune count (i.e., no bonus rune).

The pre-remaster version was build enabling by giving free returning runes for thrown builds.

Could you reach out to designers to clarify intent?

Oooh I just spotted fey summoner now uses the mental tag! Excellent, that was sorely needed.

Tridus wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:

Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

I sure hope you are correct.

Unfortunately, stating that staves are an example of something that uses Invest an Item has 0 ambiguity there. It means that staves are (now) invested, which is where the 10 max rule lives.

It doesn't mean that, though. That text is not a rule. It's an example.

The rule text itself wasn't changed in any way to state "staves now have Invested".

It is possible that the devs at one point intended to make this change, but later decided against it, and erroneously left that errata in there when deleting the change.

Maybe. Or maybe it's for the one staff mentioned in this thread that is invested (and is also an apex item). Maybe they plan to to make more of those in the future.

But if you just take the block of rule text that was change and then apply what was changed, nothing gave staves the invested trait.

It's definitely an awkward example, though.

I'm currently happily dancing on the grave of Sure Strike spam! After that, I'll digest the rest of the errata. ;)

Baelor the Bard wrote:

Hey all I've been having fun reading through the changes. There's one thing that I've been curious about for a while now, and that's the class archetypes from Secrets of Magic. Are any of these ever going to get remastered? I'm specifically thinking of Runelord since it heavily relies on spell schools. Should updates to these be something I should be looking for in errata, or will they probably be re-printed in a new book down the road?

Runelord will be remastered in Lost Omens: Rival Academies.

Awesome thanks. That makes sense.

Tridus wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:

Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

Hmm... Nothing in this says something like, "Staves gain the Invested trait" or "When you prepare a staff, you also invest..."

I think staves were used as an example because the writer misremembered and though they had the trait. I do not belive the intent was to add the invested trait to staves, or they would have been more explicit.

I brought it up to a friend, who thinks that this is actually a little addition made because there is One Singular Staff that has the Invested trait and it's meant to be a change to cover specifically items like that which are invested but not worn.

Maybe the better wording should have been "such as some staves". Errata errata?

Color me surprised they didn't add a "add the line, you can take this feat more than once, each time choose a different qi spell" on the various Qi spells feats.

Since I don't think the intent is to make the monk have to make an either-or choice between Qi Blast and Shrink the Span- you should be able to have both by spending two feats.

Color me surprised they didn't add a "add the line, you can take this feat more than once, each time choose a different qi spell" on the various Qi spells feats.

Since I don't think the intent is to make the monk have to make an either-or choice between Qi Blast and Shrink the Span- you should be able to have both by spending two feats.

Might happen later. They did specify that Player Core 2 errata wasn't really the main focus this time around since it just dropped.

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

I'm having a blast going through spells and thinking "oooh I could spellstrike with this..." so I'm having a a great monday

Maya Coleman wrote:

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

I'm having a blast going through spells and thinking "oooh I could spellstrike with this..." so I'm having a a great monday

I humbly submit that you spellstrike with Weapon Storm, so you can have some extra swords on your swords.

BotBrain wrote:

Maya Coleman wrote:

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

I'm having a blast going through spells and thinking "oooh I could spellstrike with this..." so I'm having a a great monday

I humbly submit that you spellstrike with Weapon Storm, so you can have some extra swords on your swords.

It's nice that I can Spout/Scatter Scree/Gale Blast/Caustic Blast swarms and such from level 1 with my Starlight Span magus now.

Looks like the exploits with multiple retrieval belts was closed, too; it's now an actual belt.

Wayne Reynolds' artistic credbility hardest hit.

Well I see Arcane cascade still is not worth entering over rechargign your Spell-Strike Class Feature. Can we just have it be a Free-Action to enter at this point? 1-3 damage isn't that special nor does it make it interesting over Spell-Striking. Make it a passive class feature, boom, problem solved.

In the Fall 2027, when they finally explain instances of damage, you'll see how Arcane Cascade is an important part of stacking five instances of fire damage (cascade, flame wisp, fire rune, I'm sure there's a couple of others) on something weak to fire a single strike.

In the Fall 2027, when they finally explain instances of damage, you'll see how Arcane Cascade is an important part of stacking five instances of fire damage (cascade, flame wisp, fire rune, I'm sure there's a couple of others) on something weak to fire a single strike.

Like adding Strength to every instant of damage!? Haha, that be pretty funny.

Squark wrote:

Tridus wrote:

Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:

Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

Hmm... Nothing in this says something like, "Staves gain the Invested trait" or "When you prepare a staff, you also invest..."

I think staves were used as an example because the writer misremembered and though they had the trait. I do not belive the intent was to add the invested trait to staves, or they would have been more explicit.

I brought it up to a friend, who thinks that this is actually a little addition made because there is...

Yeah, I sure hope staves aren't becoming invested. They were already limited by special rules on their preparation, becoming invested would be a big nerf. Here's hoping, anyway.

Perpdepog wrote:

BotBrain wrote:

Maya Coleman wrote:

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

I'm having a blast going through spells and thinking "oooh I could spellstrike with this..." so I'm having a a great monday

I humbly submit that you spellstrike with Weapon Storm, so you can have some extra swords on your swords.

It's nice that I can Spout/Scatter Scree/Gale Blast/Caustic Blast swarms and such from level 1 with my Starlight Span magus now.

I'm currently enjoying the mental imagine of using timber, where mid swing your weapon turns into a tree.

Yeah, I sure hope staves aren't becoming invested. They were already limited by special rules on their preparation, becoming invested would be a big nerf. Here's hoping, anyway.

Dang time lockout stopping me from editing my posts...

No worries there, the staff thing was a false alarm/error.

IDK why it was said in code, but Paizo Maya's:

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

Translates to:

"The [staff investment errata] contains a/ is a mistake of such urgency as to merit a staff post(heh), and a hotfix is on the way."

Changes to anathemas are disapointing, even if minor. Make the game easier, sure, but also *make the game easier*, as in: waters down dogma, makes it less interesting, dieties more forgiving and plain. Neutering seems to be in line with this edition in general, though.

This lame take is certainly in line with this forum. They didn't "make the game easier", they removed unintended interactions between flavour and rules. Worshippers of Urgathoa weren't supposed to be unable to play Blood Lords because it primarily features undead opponents. Worshippers of Pharasma are supposed to be able to play in most Adventure Paths, which tend to involve looting at least one tomb.

The Sure Strike nerf seems unnecessarily cruel to characters who already have significantly reduced accuracy at certain levels, and reduced accuracy at all levels except for 1st (and even then, Runic Weapon/Body exist to reopen that gap if the caster chooses). It doesn't seem like this was meant for archetype characters to prevent them from nabbing Sure Strike - it seems like the actual intent was to weaken spellcasters. I understand rolling twice is a big effect, but it also took an entire turn, leaving the caster WIDE open for retribution (because let's remember their AC and HP pool are also low). I thought the point of a customizable system such as this is that if a character wants to use Sure Strike a bunch and try to land a bunch of spell attacks, they're able to. If they wanted to use other spells like Lose the Path or Fear (which are still good even as Level 1 spells), they'd be able to.

I wish this came with at least an announcement about some kind of caster runes or proficiency increase, because without that it feels like a needless gut punch for me.

I'm sure Maya is busy as it is, and if they don't run this back to the devs for us amidst all this I can't really hold it against them, but it'd be really nice to get some definitive word one way or the other on the Rogue Crit Fortitude and Champion Blade Ally Rune issues so we can know whether to stop bringing it up every errata cycle cause it just isn't happening or not.

Vasemir wrote:

Changes to anathemas are disapointing, even if minor. Make the game easier, sure, but also *make the game easier*, as in: waters down dogma, makes it less interesting, dieties more forgiving and plain. Neutering seems to be in line with this edition in general, though.

This lame take is certainly in line with this forum. They didn't "make the game easier", they removed unintended interactions between flavour and rules. Worshippers of Urgathoa weren't supposed to be unable to play Blood Lords because it primarily features undead opponents. Worshippers of Pharasma are supposed to be able to play in most Adventure Paths, which tend to involve looting at least one tomb.

Don't count me among the "in line with this forum" people.

I dislike anathemas as a system because they replaced something that was less arbritrary (alignment) with something that's more arbritrary. I think that since the Remaster came out I ignored every single edicts and anathema line in everything in favor of "it makes sense for the character to do it or not?" I would even argue that's how Paizo kinda wants people to use it even, though there's people that for some reason is extremely by the rules with something thats innately not supposed to be followed strictly.

This lame take is certainly in line with this forum. They didn't "make the game easier", they removed unintended interactions between flavour and rules. Worshippers of Urgathoa weren't supposed to be unable to play Blood Lords because it primarily features undead opponents. Worshippers of Pharasma are supposed to be able to play in most Adventure Paths, which tend to involve looting at least one tomb.

Agree with you on Urgathoa, Desna and Nethys, but Pharasma does feel a bit weird, because while the tomb looting was rare enought to not come up too much (but enough to make the anathema an interesting conundrum), the new formulation feel like it refer to any looting of dead body... which include any opponent you just killed. And as we all know, looting your opponent is basically the fundation upon which the whole pathfinder economy is build, so preventing the pharasmin believer to loot at all is rough. The formulation also make it weird, as I don't really see how someone can loot the dead in "good" or "bad" faith. They can do so for good reason or because of greed, but "in bad faith" imply that they lie about their true intention.

As if you could rob any tomb or corpse just to sell it latter as long as you're open that you're a tomb robber, but that if you pretend to be a tomb robber, but are instead someone tring to get these item back to their original owner, then you suddenly violate the anathema because you were acting in bad faith.

I'm currently enjoying the mental imagine of using timber, where mid swing your weapon turns into a tree.

You just swing your weapon, then drop a tree stump on their head. ;)

I am a little disappointed that the fey eidolon and dragon eidolon did not get updated. Fey eidolon still references spell schools, and it would be nice if the dragon eidolon got updated with respect to the new lore.

I am a little disappointed that the fey eidolon and dragon eidolon did not get updated. Fey eidolon still references spell schools, and it would be nice if the dragon eidolon got updated with respect to the new lore.

Fey eidolon did get updated, it now gives you spells with the mental or illusion tags.

I am a little disappointed that the fey eidolon and dragon eidolon did not get updated. Fey eidolon still references spell schools, and it would be nice if the dragon eidolon got updated with respect to the new lore.

The fey eidolon was updated, though? Now you instead select spells with the Illusion or Mental traits, rather than Enchantment or Illusion.

Not really sure what updating dragon eidolon really needs. It never really references specific dragon types, IIRC; heck even the iconic summoner's running around with a pink dragon.
It would be nice if the damage types of the new dragons could be officially added to the options you can pick, though, I s'ppose.

BotBrain wrote:

Maya Coleman wrote:

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

I'm having a blast going through spells and thinking "oooh I could spellstrike with this..." so I'm having a a great monday

I humbly submit that you spellstrike with Weapon Storm, so you can have some extra swords on your swords.

Sounds like a good start to me!

Esdain wrote:

Yeah, I sure hope staves aren't becoming invested. They were already limited by special rules on their preparation, becoming invested would be a big nerf. Here's hoping, anyway.

Dang time lockout stopping me from editing my posts...

No worries there, the staff thing was a false alarm/error.

IDK why it was said in code, but Paizo Maya's:

Quote:

Hey Everybody! Rather than reply to all instances of this since there were a lot of them, I'm addressing the GM Core page 219 issue in this comment!

There was a mistake in the erratum text for this portion. We've made a new version that will be live very soon. Thank you all for bearing with us and in the meantime keeping this discourse quite civil! I hope all of your weeks are starting off alright! ^_^

Translates to:

"The [staff investment errata] contains a/ is a mistake of such urgency as to merit a staff post(heh), and a hotfix is on the way."

In a way! You noticed the error, and so did we! Rather than have people spend time debating something that we did have an answer to because of a mixup, we posted it to clear the confusion. No sense in debating something fixable we can take accountability for!

I'm sure Maya is busy as it is, and if they don't run this back to the devs for us amidst all this I can't really hold it against them, but it'd be really nice to get some definitive word one way or the other on the Rogue Crit Fortitude and Champion Blade Ally Rune issues so we can know whether to stop bringing it up every errata cycle cause it just isn't happening or not.

So I have reached out to the dev team actually today about general rules questions like this since I saw several from over the weekend! I'm working on streamlining both our communication with all of you as well as how they receive and take feedback. We're still ironing the best path out as I've only been here just over two weeks, so I appreciate your patience since you've been waiting all this time! For now, what we think will work best is to please create a thread for this under Rules Questions. From here on out, those questions might be picked up and answered in the next round of FAQs/errata, but while you wait, you can discuss together as a community since there's a lot of helpful people around I've seen besides me who aren't even our staff! Hopefully with me also here with you guys, fewer things will fall through the cracks this way!

I'm curious to see if whatever upcoming book the Impossible playtest is from will also include remastered Magus and Summoner, since some of the things I recall reading seemed to hint that the book will be magic-related. Maybe remastered Psychic as well...

Errata? Errata! Errata!!!
I'm glad that staves' 'change' turned out to be an error.

Well I see Arcane cascade still is not worth entering over rechargign your Spell-Strike Class Feature. Can we just have it be a Free-Action to enter at this point? 1-3 damage isn't that special nor does it make it interesting over Spell-Striking. Make it a passive class feature, boom, problem solved.

I've never understood this take. Sure Arcane cascade isn't great for every single build, but it's still extra damage that stacks on top of future spellstrikes. Since re-charging and spellstriking takes all three of your actions it's not always feasible since you may need to use actions to move, and which frees up actions that you could easily use to get the cascade powers. Even if you're a Laughing Shadow and you re-charge with your focus spell, I would argue that a spellstrike after using Dimentional Assault is a waste of actions in a lot of cases because of the MAP, and you'd be served better by entering Cascade, doing Dimentional Assault, and just doing a normal second strike, or even some other action like an intimidate or feint if you've built for that. The only build that can probably do re-charge and strike on most turns is Starlit Span because it's ranged, and they can't use Arcane Cascade in any case. Haste helps with this once you can cast it, but the way I see it is you're always going to run into situations where you don't have the actions you need to get to an enemy, re-charge, and spellstrike, and in that case you might as well get a damage boost for the rest of the fight.

Sure, I'm dimmer than a 2-watt bulb, but why isn't there a link to the errata here? I can't seem to find one.

I've never understood this take. Sure Arcane cascade isn't great for every single build, but it's still extra damage that stacks on top of future spellstrikes. Since re-charging and spellstriking takes all three of your actions it's not always feasible since you may need to use actions to move, and which frees up actions that you could easily use to get the cascade powers. Even if you're a Laughing Shadow and you re-charge with your focus spell, I would argue that a spellstrike after using Dimentional Assault is a waste of actions in a lot of cases because of the MAP, and you'd be served better by entering Cascade, doing Dimentional Assault, and just doing a normal second strike, or even some other action like an intimidate or feint if you've built for that. The only build that can probably do re-charge and strike on most turns is Starlit Span because it's ranged, and they can't use Arcane Cascade in any case. Haste helps with this once you can cast it, but the way I see it is you're always going to run into situations where you don't have the actions you need to get to an enemy, re-charge, and spellstrike, and in that case you might as well get a damage boost for the rest of the fight.

The problem is it's 1 action for 1-3+ Force damage which force damage is incredibly useful but the biggest issue is as a Magus you don't really don't have the actions to spare on activating it unless you start a rotation of, Spell-Strike > Arcane Cascade which only works if you are a Starlit Span magus and do not need to move, one you involve movement you got to 1A - Stride, 2A - Spellstrike, New round 1A - Recharge, 2A Spellstrike, if the enemy is dead then you could 1A Arcane Cascade - 1A Stride - 1A Strike.

Sure, I'm dimmer than a 2-watt bulb, but why isn't there a link to the errata here? I can't seem to find one.

Pathfinder on top of the page -> FAQ

So I have reached out to the dev team actually today about general rules questions like this since I saw several from over the weekend! I'm working on streamlining both our communication with all of you as well as how they receive and take feedback. We're still ironing the best path out as I've only been here just over two weeks, so I appreciate your patience since you've been waiting all this time! For now, what we think will work best is to please create a thread for this under Rules Questions. From here on out, those questions might be picked up and answered in the next round of FAQs/errata, but while you wait, you can discuss together as a community since there's a lot of helpful people around I've seen besides me who aren't even our staff! Hopefully with me also here with you guys, fewer things will fall through the cracks this way!

This would be amazing Maya.

To clarify the purpose of this, I propose this could be a post where the community flags longstanding 'apparent errors', for clarification by the devs about whether these are actually intentional (and we should stop expecting errata for them) or if they are something the devs will look at as potential errors for the next errata pass. For example, the unusual rogue fortitude save success upgrade, the blade ally rune question, amped shatter mind AOE choices both being cones, previously this would perhaps have included Live Wire damage scaling and Arcane Cascade's stance contradiction; but IMHO this should NOT just be a post where people note anything and everything we personally wish was different.

Player Core

Several feats got improvements to be more appealing for the characters they’re meant for.

If that were true they would have changed Sure Strike to only work with spell attack rolls, not nerf it into oblivion.

That would have stopped the abuse of others using it to enhance their Strikes, while leaving it usable for casters, who already have crap attack rolls.

It'd be cool if there was a way to flag a particular forum post as being a potential errata candidate, and not just a regular rules question.

Sardonic commentary aside, it's been refreshing to see you working hard to try and wrangle us forum goblins.
More than that, it's sincerely appreciated how you're trying to open up long-closed lines of communication.

Matthew Jaluvka wrote:

the errata finally loaded for me and I think the live wire nerf is actually more impactful than the sure strike nerf

We all knew that was coming, right? It was clearly way out of line. That one was a "enjoy the party while it lasts" situation.

But now the spell is entirely useless, because it's strictly inferior to Electric Arc.

EA rank 1: 2d4 vs 2 targets basic Reflex
LW rank 1: 2d4 vs 1 target "basic AC"

EA rank 2: 3d4
LW rank 2: 2d4

EA rank 3: 4d4
LW rank 3: 4d4

EA rank 4: 5d4
LW rank 4: 4d4

Scales worse than Electric Arc even on a single target, i.e. EA now does more than double damage of Live Wire.

And the persistent damage can safely be ignored because casters never crit with attack rolls anyway. So where's the point in Live Wire now?

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

Well I see Arcane cascade still is not worth entering over rechargign your Spell-Strike Class Feature. Can we just have it be a Free-Action to enter at this point? 1-3 damage isn't that special nor does it make it interesting over Spell-Striking. Make it a passive class feature, boom, problem solved.

I've never understood this take. Sure Arcane cascade isn't great for every single build, but it's still extra damage that stacks on top of future spellstrikes. Since re-charging and spellstriking takes all three of your actions it's not always feasible since you may need to use actions to move, and which frees up actions that you could easily use to get the cascade powers. Even if you're a Laughing Shadow and you re-charge with your focus spell, I would argue that a spellstrike after using Dimentional Assault is a waste of actions in a lot of cases because of the MAP, and you'd be served better by entering Cascade, doing Dimentional Assault, and just doing a normal second strike, or even some other action like an intimidate or feint if you've built for that. The only build that can probably do re-charge and strike on most turns is Starlit Span because it's ranged, and they can't use Arcane Cascade in any case. Haste helps with this once you can cast it, but the way I see it is you're always going to run into situations where you don't have the actions you need to get to an enemy, re-charge, and spellstrike, and in that case you might as well get a damage boost for the rest of the fight.

The problem I have with arcane cascade is that its required to benefit from your subclass. Its not even like other classes that have their gimmick gated behind an action tax, I don't have a problem with that, but the magus has their gimmick (spellstrike) that works on its own but requires arcane cascade to receive the passive benefits of the subclass. If it had some sort of action compression I like it much more, but as is I feel its an action tax for an inconsequential damage boost but that I arbitrary need to have a working subclass.

While being an attack spell often is a downside, it can also be an upside. There are times where AC is a foe's lowest save (oozes?). Off-Guard and status bonuses to attack are rather common, which do not work for save spells. (and hey, Sure Strike may be 1 p 10 min, but its effect is still the same)

Overall, I agree that this nerf has more or less killed Live Wire's usage.

Live Wire's main competition was never EA, but Telekinetic Projectile (& Needle Darts).

Heightening at +2 is just so bad, as it means it will only be on-level 1/4 as opposed to 1 every 2 levels.

Blog Post wrote:

Player Core

Several feats got improvements to be more appealing for the characters they’re meant for.

If that were true they would have changed Sure Strike to only work with spell attack rolls, not nerf it into oblivion.

That would have stopped the abuse of others using it to enhance their Strikes, while leaving it usable for casters, who already have crap attack rolls.

Ah, but you see, this is 2e casters shouldn't be getting attack rolls, only feel bad when creatures succeed at the DC. /half-joke

Blog Post wrote:

Player Core

Several feats got improvements to be more appealing for the characters they’re meant for.

If that were true they would have changed Sure Strike to only work with spell attack rolls, not nerf it into oblivion.

That would have stopped the abuse of others using it to enhance their Strikes, while leaving it usable for casters, who already have crap attack rolls.

"nerf into oblivion" is an odd way to describe a change that doesn't change the primary effect of the ability at all. For a character that only Sure Strikes occasionally (most likely a pure caster) it might not alter how they use the spell at all.

Live Wire is suppose to do half damage on a failure on Attack instead of full damage.

I’ve spotted an erratum on this blog entry. The FAQ page has not been updated.

For real, who writes an article about document changes and doesn't link to where the documents can be found.