Fall Errata Updates 2024

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I have a question about errata. Are they incorporated into books purchased digitally (PDF)?

I believe they should be - I don't know if it's happened yet, but when it does you can download them in the same place as usual.

Errata gets incorporated when a book gets reprinted. At that time the PDF will be updated for no additional cost for those who own an earlier edition in that format.

TheFinish wrote:

My Starlit Span made plenty of use of Sure Strike to make sure her Amped Imaginary Weapons landed as hard as possible. All her Studious Spell slots were Sure Strike, and tbh they probably still will be. Plus a retreival belt full of sure strike scrolls.

The spell is still basically unbeatable for those slots anyway, unless I need to prepare water breathing (as a Pixie Sprite, gecko grip was of dubious use thanks to my wings).

This is the strongest argument in favor of this nerf I've yet seen.

I mean...I guess? Like I'll still use Sure Strike and keep it slotted/bought. It just went down from 2/fight to 1/fight (I don't think I ever managed to use it three times in a single fight for my Amped spells).

The power of the spell relative to others I can prepare in Studious Spells, and especially considering it's cheapness through scrolls, is still huge. That hasn't changed.

I guarantee no Magus will stop using as much Sure Strike as they can (or need), they'll just use it 1/fight on their big thing instead of "as often as they can", which, IME, wasn't ever more than twice in a fight anyway.

And Starlit Span will still be the best hybrid study, and Imaginary Weapon will still be worth the 2 feats it takes to get. Nothing of value will have changed.

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I have a question about errata. Are they incorporated into books purchased digitally (PDF)?

Eventually, yes. On the physical books as well, when there's a new print version.

Archives of Nethys often has updates on a timely fashion. So is the Pathbuilder2e app you can use on the web browser or your phone.

God forbid an almost unplayably bad class is able to make use of a good spell.

What class are you talking about? It sure isn't magus.

dagranael wrote:

God forbid an almost unplayably bad class is able to make use of a good spell.

What class are you talking about? It sure isn't magus.

A Bad experience with a class that you love the concept of can really sour you on it*. Magus is fundamentally clunky, which makes it somewhat prone to those bad experiences.

*I speak from experience. Some people are stunned at my negative opinion of psychic.

Yrrej86 wrote:

I'm not sure if it'll be covered in the errata, but one thing I noticed in War of Immortals.

Page 61 of War of Immortals, or more specifically the Bloodrager archetype. The feats Surging Blood Magic & Exultant Blood Magic have a prerequisite of "Master/Legendary in Religion or Occultism, depending on your chosen tradition." Shouldn't it be Arcana instead of Occultism as the traditions you can choose between are Arcane & Divine?

It was. :)

errata wrote:

Page 61: There are several updates to feats for the bloodrager.

Replace the Special text in Spelldrinker with the following: “If you have Surging Blood Magic, you can add the spell at 4th rank. If you have Exultant Blood Magic, you can add the spell at 7th rank.”
The Surging Blood Magic prerequisites should be: “Prerequisites Rising Blood Magic; master in Arcana or Religion, depending on your chosen tradition.”
For Exultant Blood Magic, the prerequisites should be: “Prerequisites Surging Blood Magic; legendary in Arcana or Religion, depending on your chosen tradition”
Change the second sentence of the Exultant Blood Magic feat to “You gain the master spellcasting benefits (Player Core 215).”

Awesome! Thank you!

I like the changes to Sure Strike and to Spellstrike.

There are so many cool spells, this opens up slots to be more diversified now.

=)

If these wrrata changes are meant to balance the game why are there always so many too good options nerved but very rarely any utterly awful options buffed? Balance is a two way street and while it might be more pressing to fix outliers that are breaking encounter balance, like a certain dedication that will remain for another six months, it should also go the other way and fix spells and feats that are actively hurting characters that use them. Until that happens errata will tend to feel bad as it will "break" characters that people enjoy playing without equally fixing other characters that could use the help.

I play a starlit span magus and have only used sure strike once or twice and he is level 5 now. The nerf wouldn't have affected me one bit.

If these wrrata changes are meant to balance the game why are there always so many too good options nerved but very rarely any utterly awful options buffed? Balance is a two way street and while it might be more pressing to fix outliers that are breaking encounter balance, like a certain dedication that will remain for another six months, it should also go the other way and fix spells and feats that are actively hurting characters that use them. Until that happens errata will tend to feel bad as it will "break" characters that people enjoy playing without equally fixing other characters that could use the help.

Badly underpowered spells don't break the game, and don't need to take up time and attention away from new, better material. Boosting bad options is squarely the realm of homebrew stuff. If someone's homebrew fix is so good that it really catches on, then maybe enough of the developement work is done for a change to be made, but trying to go back through and raise up what appear to be underperforming options across the board just leads to a steeple chase of power bloat.

The occasional overpowered options don't actually break the game either, because a TTRPG doesn't have rigorous code that must be followed to the letter or cease functioning, but it does create much bigger problems than underpowered content. Many people end up feeling like they have to take the most powerful options, especially where overpowered options get compared to the underperforming options as either/or.

Whole classes are a little bit bigger an issue, but spells, items, feats that underwhelm are not errata worthy unless they are completely preventing another option from opening up later on.

Oh some people definitely take it too far in the name of optimization and it isn't necessary at all.

I think we've used Sure Strike maybe a handful of times at my table ever? Of course, we've never had a magus played yet, but even then, I feel like honing in on one big hit per combat is more than enough. To me, seeing one low level spell valued highly enough that people fill every slot and use multiple scrolls of it per fight is absolutely a problem.

RIP my battle oracle. Alas I never got to play you as you were intended.

TheFinish wrote:

My Starlit Span made plenty of use of Sure Strike to make sure her Amped Imaginary Weapons landed as hard as possible. All her Studious Spell slots were Sure Strike, and tbh they probably still will be. Plus a retreival belt full of sure strike scrolls.

The spell is still basically unbeatable for those slots anyway, unless I need to prepare water breathing (as a Pixie Sprite, gecko grip was of dubious use thanks to my wings).

This is the strongest argument in favor of this nerf I've yet seen.

You're wrong. The issue is MC into psychic for an amped imaginary weapon. Not true strike. The spell should be a psychic exclusive AND the magus should have a tuned down version of a similar focus spell spell strike option to spell strike with. Then the opportunity cost of going outside the class for focus spells will be higher (since you can get a similair option in class AND not lock yourself out of other archetypes) and mitigate the 'one true MC Psychic IA builds'.

The fact is that even an starlit span magus can realistically only cast true strike once per combat AND that comes at the expense of a potential move action leaving you with a non-spell strike turn. You can game it with halfling luck, hero points, etc. But you need 3 actions to recharge/spell strike. The only round you have to true strike is round 1 since you start with spell strike charged. The issue isn't spending that action on true strike. The issue is this focus spell punches too hard for non-psychics.

true strike change doesn't change the innate strength of fortune effect

so it make other fortune effect more desirable

such as fortune coin das of investigator and perfect strike of student of perfection are certainly more competitive now

meta are indeed shifted with this patch

MaxAstro wrote:

TheFinish wrote:

My Starlit Span made plenty of use of Sure Strike to make sure her Amped Imaginary Weapons landed as hard as possible. All her Studious Spell slots were Sure Strike, and tbh they probably still will be. Plus a retreival belt full of sure strike scrolls.

The spell is still basically unbeatable for those slots anyway, unless I need to prepare water breathing (as a Pixie Sprite, gecko grip was of dubious use thanks to my wings).

This is the strongest argument in favor of this nerf I've yet seen.

I mean...I guess? Like I'll still use Sure Strike and keep it slotted/bought. It just went down from 2/fight to 1/fight (I don't think I ever managed to use it three times in a single fight for my Amped spells).

The power of the spell relative to others I can prepare in Studious Spells, and especially considering it's cheapness through scrolls, is still huge. That hasn't changed.

I guarantee no Magus will stop using as much Sure Strike as they can (or need), they'll just use it 1/fight on their big thing instead of "as often as they can", which, IME, wasn't ever more than twice in a fight anyway.

And Starlit Span will still be the best hybrid study, and Imaginary Weapon will still be worth the 2 feats it takes to get. Nothing of value will have changed.

My PFS Starlit Span Magus MC Cleric (with Expansive Spellstrike) hit level 4 recently.

It is good to know that my experience of using max 2 Sure Strikes in an encounter was par for the course.

Gone will be the days of hitting almost for sure twice in a combat and awing the other players with the damage my PC could do.

Sadly, gone also will be the days when missing, even after casting Sure Strike, could be compensated by trying again.

MC for powerful focus spells will become even more required IMO.

Badly underpowered spells don't break the game, and don't need to take up time and attention away from new, better material. Boosting bad options is squarely the realm of homebrew stuff.

To my mind, this suggests that you don't think the devs have a responsibility to fix these things. I disagree.

Playing Pathfinder as a PC (as opposed to a GM) is premised on the idea that, if you play competently and are not extremely unlucky, you should be able to (a) meaningfully contribute to overcoming challenges while (b) playing a character who feels heroic. Badly underpowered material doesn't do this; that is, it doesn't deliver the results we reasonably expect from the products we pay for. People who sell defective products are responsible for fixing them; there is nothing at all wrong with holding the developers accountable in this respect.

Unicore wrote:

Badly underpowered spells don't break the game, and don't need to take up time and attention away from new, better material. Boosting bad options is squarely the realm of homebrew stuff.

To my mind, this suggests that you don't think the devs have a responsibility to fix these things. I disagree.

Playing Pathfinder as a PC (as opposed to a GM) is premised on the idea that, if you play competently and are not extremely unlucky, you should be able to (a) meaningfully contribute to overcoming challenges while (b) playing a character who feels heroic. Badly underpowered material doesn't do this; that is, it doesn't deliver the results we reasonably expect from the products we pay for. People who sell defective products are responsible for fixing them; there is nothing at all wrong with holding the developers accountable in this respect.

Plus, Unicores statement here appears to boil down to "well if they release better stuff later, just use that stuff". Which is just power creep, and its a weird stance to have on a game that prides itself on "balance" and avoiding "ivory tower design". Releasing mediocre things that are later replaced with shinier, better things helps with neither.

Plus, Unicores statement here appears to boil down to "well if they release better stuff later, just use that stuff". Which is just power creep, and its a weird stance to have on a game that prides itself on "balance" and avoiding "ivory tower design". Releasing mediocre things that are later replaced with shinier, better things helps with neither.

Right! And we'd be paying twice for what we should have paid for once!

So we're supposed to hold our noses and pretend that the books we're paying for are worth full price when they're printed with material far enough below par that only a few players will ever use it?

Also just wanted to add that I posted before seeing this, which (along with the other stuff in the comment) makes the same point I was trying to, but more clearly and insightfully!

I mean, the speed of nerfing "over-performing options" in this case was literally years, since sure strike has been in the game since the beginning and spells like inner radiance torrent from Secrets of Magic was 2021.

Paizo may have nerfed sure strike, but they also buffed an "almost unplayably bad class" option with giving magus more options for Spellstrike, as well as a variety of different feats for various classes and ancestries this errata.

...

Her write-up is much darker than her stat block

I do kinda wish people took deep breath and thought what it sounds like in real life before they go around exaggerating things.

Hyperbole doesn't make the point more convincing, it makes it sound like you are really angry about something that is mildly annoying at worst.

It must be exhausting to care this much about stakes so low.

Okay, this is kind of getting into flamewar territory, so I'm out. But just to be clear: in all sincerity, it's not that I care a ton about the quality of Paizo's output (which I actually think has been on an overall upward trajectory over the past couple years) so much as that I'm a little weirded out to see people doing all these elaborate mental gymnastics rather than just admitting that something the devs did sucks.

It would indeed be nice to see some weaker options get buffed without having to homebrew.
But there is a limit to available time, ressources and printing space that paizo has to work with.

Stuff that are blocking potential design spaces like how potent True Strike/Sure Strike was (at least from the point of view of the devs, you don't have to aggree) can be more of a priority to change to allow for more options of higher power later.

IF this nerf/rebalance of Sure Strike means future attack spells will be more potent to compensate for their lower accuracy, I'll take that trade.

Now, I really want to see more attack spells lol, my Magus needs options that aren't people repeating to multiclass into psychic or cleric for their focus spells lol

It would indeed be nice to see some weaker options get buffed without having to homebrew.

But there is a limit to available time, ressources and printing space that paizo has to work with.

Stuff that are blocking potential design spaces like how potent True Strike/Sure Strike was (at least from the point of view of the devs, you don't have to aggree) can be more of a priority to change to allow for more options of higher power later.

IF this nerf/rebalance of Sure Strike means future attack spells will be more potent to compensate for their lower accuracy, I'll take that trade.

Now, I really want to see more attack spells lol, my Magus needs options that aren't people repeating to multiclass into psychic or cleric for their focus spells lol

We'll need to wait and see if Sure Strike being changed impacts the release rate and overall strength of spell attacks. I'm not going to hold my breath though.

I wonder if the Sure Strike change wasn't at least partially caused by an internal remaster pass on the Magus, since the assumptions of " how much damage can the Magus do on an average turn" are incredibly different in the A/B comparison of with/without Sure Strike, and you could potentially have a lot of Sure Strike available (I played a Staff Magus with a Divination staff for this reason) or you could potentially have the normal amount. Now the amount is predictable, basically 1/combat.

If the magus is using out of class focus spells and sure strike to spell strike, then we are talking about only spell striking every other round and burning actions on recharging, right? Not even the starlit spam magus is spell striking with sure strike every round. I don’t think the magus damage math is as effected by the change to sure strike as people are making it out to be.

If your character has a hero point as well (a resource you only burn on a miss), spell striking g with sure strike on round 1, then using a hero point if you miss on your second/third rounds while using conflux focus spells is going to be much better damage output than repeatedly sure striking out of class focus spells.

Going from 5/10 rounds to 1/10 rounds is a hit.

If the magus is using out of class focus spells and sure strike to spell strike, then we are talking about only spell striking every other round and burning actions on recharging, right? Not even the starlit spam magus is spell striking with sure strike every round. I don’t think the magus damage math is as effected by the change to sure strike as people are making it out to be.

If your character has a hero point as well (a resource you only burn on a miss), spell striking g with sure strike on round 1, then using a hero point if you miss on your second/third rounds while using conflux focus spells is going to be much better damage output than repeatedly sure striking out of class focus spells.

Most people seem to prefer holding their hero points for failed saves rather than burning them for a bit of extra damage. So this is effectively asking a magus to give up defense for offense in a way they didn't have to before.

I was hoping that Dazzling Block would mention it's DC somewhere in this FAQ.
I assume it's Spell DC.

The one thing I'm still a bit on the fence about is the edict/anathema changes to Lamashtu, which rather than having gameplay implications like the others seems to kinda just... serve to make her less evil/objectionable?

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about that. I'll be curious to hear what my priest of Lamashtu PC feels about it.

I will point out that these edicts and anathema were already changed to be this way in PC1 when it released, and that it, for whatever reason, wasn't copied over into GMC!

Going from 5/10 rounds to 1/10 rounds is a hit.

No one is spell striking 5 times in an encounter with sure strike. It is much more like 1 out of 3 instead of 2 out of 2, as a magus using conflux spells with their third action might actually make an extra spell strike attack a round. (Assuming an average 3 to 4 round encounter)

There are 100% people striking 5 times in an encounter with sure strike. They might be playing very specific games, but they exist.

It would indeed be nice to see some weaker options get buffed without having to homebrew.

But there is a limit to available time, ressources and printing space that paizo has to work with.

Stuff that are blocking potential design spaces like how potent True Strike/Sure Strike was (at least from the point of view of the devs, you don't have to aggree) can be more of a priority to change to allow for more options of higher power later.

IF this nerf/rebalance of Sure Strike means future attack spells will be more potent to compensate for their lower accuracy, I'll take that trade.

Now, I really want to see more attack spells lol, my Magus needs options that aren't people repeating to multiclass into psychic or cleric for their focus spells lol

Pretty much. I'd like to see some options buffed, but regarding sure strike, I'll just wait to see if spell attack related options actually get improved, otherwise I do feel like they could have just given it like 2 rounds cool down or something instead of once per encounter thing. I do think there is value from disabling "I'm fighter that multiclass into caster and only preps sure strike" as meta, but I don't mind it either.