Ajaxius's page

Give summoner a good in class reaction as well. Eidolon’s opportunity isn’t bad, but it’s not enough. Give em something that mitigates damage so they don’t have to go champion to protect their own eidolon.

Honestly just make Protect Companion not cost health. Just make it "Shield, but you can target your eidolon and shield block for it." It was always weird to me that you have to spend health to shield block with Protect Companion, when you share health and the whole reason you're doing it is to not take damage.

Tandem Movement should be free, not a feat.

I don't really see why. I'm GMing for a summoner right now, and it doesn't seem mandatory. Yeah, it's always helpful, but it doesn't seem like he would be lacking without it. He'd just have to think about movement a little more carefully and sometimes not have to cast a cantrip.

I'd go so far as to say Tandem Movement could be removed entirely to give 4th-level summoner feats some breathing room, but then again, I've always been a contrarian.

I am concerned with their quality, but I feel it's misattributed to the remaster. Early remaster products were pretty dang good by my measure, and it's only here, towards the end, that we're seeing quality issues crop up heavily.

But hey, maybe that's just me being starry-eyed from when the remaster came out and I went from having a couple core books on my shelf to actually playing the game.

The thralls should just not take up space and not hinder movement.

I feel as though this might negatively impact class fantasy for Necromancer players. They were already complaining that thralls were "totems" instead of undead because they couldn't move (despite moving being a trap option when you could instead summon them to where you want to move them.)

Goodness gracious minionmancers are hard to balance.

It's essentially the everything attribute. Swarms? Force goes through. Incorporeals? Force goes through. Elementals? Force goes through. Fiends and Celestials? Force goes through. Lifeless constructs? force goes through.

Having the option to choose between Slashing and Bludgeoning with Imaginary Weapon meant that you could trigger what were, in my experience, somewhat common weaknesses while avoiding somewhat common resistances, with the risk that you'd have to try one, then try the other if the enemy turned out to be resistant to the first you chose.

This change means that you lose the ability to trigger weaknesses and you lose a damage die size in exchange for only overcoming enemies that are resistant to both slashing and bludgeoning.

This seems like a net loss to me.

All my commentary here is from the point of view of Magi getting Imaginary Weapon, not Psychics.

Unfortunately, the people you're discussing that with didn't get the memo.

But here's the thing. If you miss Imaginary Weapon, just get Gouging Claw

Gouging claw is not on the occult spell list.

I mean, Thaleon's Iconic Encounter even shows him with hovering Imaginary Weapons, and references that he "shot" the blade toward the woman as if it was a projectile.

...

But I do like the idea of miming, painting, etcetera-ing a ranged weapon in addition to melee weapons.

I always thought this was a primary use-case of the Warp Space amp. Even though Imaginary Weapon is a melee spell, if you warp space such that the spell "originates" from a square adjacent to the target, it effectively makes the feat into the Reach spellshape feat. You could even get flanking by making the "originating" square appear on the opposite side of a target from an ally.

But maybe that's just a ruling I made at my table.

I'm betting the Runesmith iconic is a (New) Thassilonian clockwork automaton, rather than a Jistkan automaton, given the class is the Runesmith. That might explain the aesthetic differences.

Honestly, I'd prefer to return to the old store at this point. I know that's not a feasible option, and Paizo would likely be out a lot of money to whoever they paid for this site, but... man this blows.

Every single feature of the old store was sacrificed solely to make automated subscriptions mildly easier to manage.

Was there no world in which this new store became the "physical" storefront, and then the digital storefront stayed the same?

I'm surprised I didn't find this one here already, but maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

The site doesn't watermark/copyright protect my PDF's when downloaded through the new site, which I understand is intentional. However, the Draconic Codex has the watermark for a team member at Paizo (Lyle Borders.)

I especially dislike that it's redirecting to an AWS-hosted version when I try to open it. I know hosting is expensive, and AWS is the service "everybody uses," and Paizo have been apparently using it for a while, but man it sure makes supporting Paizo less ethical.

I've been pretty interested in the draconic codex for a little while now, but this one has tempered some of that interest.

The vorpal dragon looks really cool, but I kinda dislike it being "vorpal," as if "vorpal" is some inherently-existent identity that can be impressed upon dragonkind in some way. It's not awful, but it's definitely off.

And while I love the coral dragon and think it's cool, knowing that it's going to be in both books makes me a little anxious about what other duplicates we're going to be getting.

Still cool, though!

JiCi wrote:

Huh... if the Vorpal Dragon doesn't have a breath weapon, what's gonna be the alternative for any class feature and spell that usually grants one :O ?

I think mechanically it will have a breath weapon, that will deal void damage.

Yeah, the way I read it, they have a breath weapon. It's just that, unlike most dragons' breath weapons which blow, this breath weapon sucks.

but all you've done is add a weapon to the game that 99% of characters wont use.

Ah, yes, the thing that already happens every time a new book comes out with 10 more weapon options ;)

Or you've added a weapon to the game that is so good, that you'll suddenly see a rise in certain ancestries being played just to get access to that weapon (which is bad game design).

I agree that it's hard to find the balancing point between, "Everyone uses this or no one uses this." However, I do think an interesting balancing point between these two extremes is, "Gnome fighters use this. Other fighters do not." And I don't think that's an unrealistic goal to hit.

But sure, if you're dead set on literally 0 concessions, we could also just do nothing.

I think we should stop asking for realism in TTRPGs.

To preface this: I don't agree with OP, and I don't think we need an overall template for "giant-sized weapons" to have mechanical meaning.

However, I have a couple of problems with how you've presented your counter-argument here.

First, it's the classic misappropriation of, "Ugh, realism? The game has DRAGONS!!!" The point is that people want a degree of realism so as to create a suspension of disbelief. They want things to make sense within the context of the world that they're experiencing. They want verisimilitude. The idea that an ogre with a club sized for ogres won't deal more damage than a pixie with a club sized for pixies breaks that verisimilitude for a lot of people.

Secondly, your argument is just as applicable to the opposing argument. "We should stop asking for realism" grinds against the point someone else brought up that weapons are pretty broadly effective based on design, force, and technique. Realism generally sides with, "size doesn't matter."

All that being said, I think some concessions could be made (and would argue some already have in Giant Instinct for Barbarian) so as to show kindness to the people who want to play the game and for whom this is a problem. You don't need fundamental, underlying changes, but could introduce a handful of weapons that are specifically for differently-sized creatures that have mechanical uniqueness to them in that way. Some weapons that are balanced from the outset to be a "large" weapon or a "small" weapon. You'd only have to thrown in a handful of weapons to create a sense of verisimilitude without overthrowing the entire game's balance.

Maybe Ogre Hooks could be specifically rebalanced to be a Large-size weapon for the Ogres traditionally known to wield them. Gnomish or Halfling ancestral weapons could be rebalanced to both come with penalties for larger-sized creatures trying to use them while providing some accommodation for the strength penalty inherent to the ancestries that are supposed to wield them.

Despair dragon is so incredibly cool.

I strongly agree. Slings are way better than the implication of this system. It's just that they're trying to ensure an aesthetic, such that slings aren't commonly used since most games take place in a pseudo-medieval-renaissance period rather than a bronze age period (where slings were king.) They're harder to use, so should be martial, and hit hard.

I don't know that I agree with the weapon groups otherwise, nor do I agree that throwing hammers should be gone.

That being said, if I can tack another "historical inaccuracy complaint" on:

Why are bucklers just wrist-shields? Bucklers are not wrist-shields. They're small, light, dueling shields. You still hold them in one hand. They should not be "free-hand" shields. If anything, they should just be a +1 AC shield with an agile shield bash (so as to ensure it still has a niche.) If they need more than that, then maybe they can shield bash and raise as a single action, but I think that'd be pushing it.

If you want to preserve the niche of a free-hand shield, fine. Just call it a wrist-shield or wrist-guard, not a buckler.

I can see we're keeping the last-minute tradition changes for dragons ;)

Teasing aside, I'm really excited for this book! Looking forward to it!

I have to say though, Kobolds adopting language of what their benefactor is tied to?
That's a golden ticket idea to BigBrainsville!
That sells the fantasy and culture of Kobolds way more than slapping Sakvroth onto the ancestry could ever do!
Brilliant take!

I appreciate the compliment, but I'm just extrapolating on what they previously did with draconic lol

Honestly, I'm of the opposite opinion. I want to see fewer niche ancestral languages. The proliferation that language is tied to race (rather than culture) is a bit of an outdated idea. It also creates this kind of weird idea that dwarves, regardless of where you find them, will speak one common language in Dwarvish. Really, there should be multiple dialects of Dwarvish, and off-shoot languages, and and and... I'm getting ahead of myself.

To address your specific examples

Tanuki maybe shouldn't be a language since the Tanuki are not a socially isolated culture. They're more or less pseudo-fey hanging onto other Tien cultures. They should, generally, adopt the language of the culture they latch onto. (Unless, of course, they expand on Tanuki more to say that there are distinct cells of Tanuki culture spread all throughout Tian Xia, a la halflings!)

Samsaran definitely shouldn't be a language since, by lore, they're just an offshoot of a Tian culture who happen to reincarnate in different parts of the world, then gravitate back towards Samsaran homelands. They should probably just speak a secondary language from where they reincarnated - or maybe even just let them be unique in that they are not restricted by language options at all in exchange for not having a single language to themselves. (Not that many people play with those restrictions in the first place)

Vanara are fine, being a pretty standalone society, and Wayang lived as their own culture in the plane of shadow long before coming to the material plane. But again, case-by-case, if you look at a lot of "ancestry languages," I think many are misplaced.

All that being said, I do agree on Kobolds. However, rather than just saying, "They speak Kobold unilaterally across the world," I'd like to see a small section of various Kobold languages, possibly based on the source of their obsession or locales. Again, dialects would be great, here.

I know all of this is a bit moot, since the core philosophy is, "The game needs to have common languages for the sake of gameplay. Overcomplicating that makes gameplay difficult for very little benefit." But I do still wish Langauge got as much consideration as other unplayed secondary subsystems, like Survival.

But I think the wise thing to do in a subjective case is to let the mechanics justify the description rather than letting the description justify new mechanics not mentioned in the entry.

That's definitely a strong point, but I generally consider the whole text to be mechanics. I don't think "flavor text" really exists, insofar as game options are concerned. Otherwise, Elixir of Life could heal undead creatures.

Yeah but zombies in movies and books don't fall for crude scarecrows.

Figment doesn't move so the zombie is looking at an unmoving statue

Wouldn't they? Nothing says it doesn't move, at least within its own space. In fact, Tangible Dream psychic explicitly does make it move to another space.

The way Figment is worded, I imagine it to have simplistic movements, like randomly jittering around. That's why it works to Create a Diversion. I see it more or less an uncanny, silent, dancing hologram, rather than a completely still statue like some others claim it is.

How about making it a very easy will save then? Spell DC -5 or something?

I do actually like this solution. Previously, I was having a zombie spend an attack on the figment, and the subsequently make a free Perception check to disbelieve (as I understand is RAW for interacting with illusions), but a +0 Perception modifier gave them only a 20% chance to bypass it, and them being slowed meant they lost half their actions doing so even on a success. The party was really smart, and it basically only worked for a round, but getting a whole round up on them made the fights a cakewalk.

Maybe a -5 makes it more reasonable... but then again, the perception check of higher monsters might not make that necessary. Can I generally expect higher-level mindless monsters to keep their perception high enough to make this a non-problem?

I propose that it's only convincing enough to fill them up close while they're distracted. If a zombie is flanked by the illusion, you flip a coin for which way it attacks. No more leaving zombies attacking it while the party snipers safely from afar or whatever, but it's still negating half the attacks.

Yeah, that might be the way forward, too - just an automatic success on the perception to disbelieve after a single attack.

If another player decided to carry a cardboard cut of a person, would you have the zombies attack that instead of the person? Because that's what Figment produces, a "crude and undetailed" thing.

Against something as mindless as a zombie, maybe with a solid performance check and the party was sufficiently hidden while somehow manipulating the cut-out from a distance.

As for how "intelligent" mindless creatures are, I'll reiterate my previous comment: You don't see them mindlessly wack on rocks while there are creatures around, do you? So they are "intelligent" enough to understand what's a creature, and what's not.

Rocks don't imitate creatures. Unless they do - then they're an elemental. ;)

Their unlife gives them murderous instincts, like animals have, but not exactly.

Something without a mind couldn't move. It couldn't make attacks. It couldn't distinguish between undead and non-undead.

Sure, I'm not going so far as to have zombies attack inanimate objects, but a figment specifically seems pseudo-animate to me. Even if it's just a dancing cut-out of a person, I've seen cats (more sentient than zombies... I think...) chase those little fishing-pole-like toys with something that looks sufficiently prey-like at the end of a rope.

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All this being said, I really appreciate all the input on this. It's helped me to organize my own thoughts on the matter. Thank you all! :)

I get where you all are coming from, and I'd agree with a lot of this for most intelligent creatures, but less intelligent creatures, especially mindless ones like zombies, feel to me like they are more easily fooled, which is where I guess I'm getting tripped up.

Something looking "crude" is pretty subjective. I mean, the guy casting it is a poppet and already looks "crude" as-is, as he's a walking, talking, stuffed voodoo doll. The figment might not look all that different from him, if he tries to imitate himself.

And it being "crude" as a justification for ignoring the effects entirely within 15ft kind of takes away the efficacy of it counting as flanking as per the psychic amp, no? If it being "crude" is a justification for being able to ignore it, why is it enough to still flank?

I know I'm basically saying, "Please help me," and then when helped, I'm saying, "No, not like that!" and I know how annoying that can be, so I apologize. However, the "just don't let allow creative illusion use" feels like the kind of ruling that might lead to illusions just being bad in my game (as they are in so many others.)I'm worried about that as much as I'm worried about figment being a catch-all solution to every problem.

I'm currently running a Blood Lords campaign for some newbies, and I was looking for a little advice as to how to rule the Figment spell (and, consequently, other illusions) cast from a Tangible Dream psychic.

As it stands right now, the past couple of sessions, I've allowed Figment to basically count as more or less a summon to tank hits from the

I'd like some input and advice on whether or not the way I'm running this is reasonable or not. It's felt very powerful, but it might just be a matter of being good against the type of enemies they're facing. It's felt powerful enough that it might warrant a nerf, but at the same time, I don't want to disenfranchise the Psychic player for doing something that makes sense.

The link in my last comment broke, so here it is on imgur, until that link inevitably decays too... sorry UK folks

The big, glaring one is Elixir of Life.

Elixirs of life accelerate a living creature's natural healing processes and immune system.

Flavor text dictates that Elixirs of Life do not affect undead PC's. If that quote was not there, or if you say "flavor text is not rules text!" then undead PC's could use elixirs of life, and my Blood Lords party with an alchemist would be much happier :)

Thanks NorrKnekten!

Apologies if this has been covered before, but I wasn't able to find it from a cursory search of the forums.

One of my players had a question for me and I wasn't exactly sure how to run it.

The 16th-level Psychic ability, Constant Levitation states that you're under a constant Fly spell. The player who's thinking about picking it up asks if that's "just always on," and I said, "yes, unless you get hit with dispel magic."

But that made me realize that I'm not sure how those interact. The Feat specifically says a constant fly spell, so it can be dispelled, but nothing says for how long. For now, I figured I'd default to 10 minutes, as if the feat were a magic item, but is there a RAW answer for this?

If making the DC non-terrible means that players stick with older items, then that just shows that they were not excited by the new items' effects. So it is a good thing that they were not forced to change to them! EDIT: IOW, they will be selling them either way, even if only to buy upgraded versions of the items they already have.

1) But then how does the GM continue to provide treasure that interests the players? Shiny New Loot™ is fun. If players constantly get new loot only to find that they prefer their existing items, you begin to pavlov yourself into Shiny New Loot™ not being fun, because you expect the new loot isn't going to be worth swapping to.

2) What does the higher-level item even do in cases where you might not care about the item bonus it grants to a skill, or if the spell it mimics doesn't have a functional Heightened effect?

You've reintroduced a problem that was previously solved by static DC's, which you can now only really solve with sufficiently-power-crept items that overshadow lower-level items so much that it starts to impact balance.

Where are they getting the extra actions to activate "a bunch" of lower-level items?

I mean, that's the point. The lower-level items need to have some opportunity cost so that someone is disincentivized from using the lower-level item version. A low-level item with a good activated ability could cost as little as 50gp, which is roughly 0.25% of a fresh level 20 character's budget. Why would they bother spending the resources on a higher-level version that costs 2000gp when the effect already matches what they want to do and the DC scales? This means a character's power becomes directly proportional to how many low-level magic items that they can buy for essentially pennies.

Tying something valuable that doesn't scale to level (action economy) to this as a cost means that there's still a meaningful cost that doesn't cause the optimal gameplay to have your character be a walking magic item shop, and encourages people to buy higher-level items for a higher DC without making the lower-level ones completely useless.

Otherwise, you basically turn all activated items into better wands, because many don't even need to take up a hand.

Oh, but I do agree that Item DC's should probably be better!

Maybe +2 higher than the normal for their level so that they feel powerful enough when you first get them, and so that you can continue to use them for at least a couple of levels before they start to feel outclassed.

I feel this is the primary pain point with the activated abilities of these items, because you want to use cool magic items! Having them start out as more powerful than what you can do lends to that coolness factor and gives them some longevity.

My primary issues with item DC's scaling are that

1) In such a theoretical system, you get this issue where you can't really give players meaningfully new items. They'll just stick with their existing items, and sell the new items.

2) The wealth disparity between high- and low-level characters means that high-level characters are incentivized to buy a bunch of lower-level magic items that have very useful activated abilities.

Because of both of these reasons, higher-level items need to be much stronger to compete, leading to higher-level power creep, which damages balance, which leads to PF1e problems of level 20 games being mostly unplayable.

You can say problem #1 isn't a real problem because players can just stack non-invested magic items, but that sidesteps parties who would rather have more gold to reach up to higher-level runes early, exacerbating problem #2.

You can solve problem #2 by restricting investment slots more, and making the activated items require an investment slot, but that worsens problem #1 where the opportunity cost incentivizes you not to drop your level 3 item that gives you some activated ability that's unique.

There might be an elegant solution that solves both problems. I foresee a skill feat that lets you spend an action to upgrade an item's ability's DC for 1 round such that it can't be stacked with trick magic item, and makes the action economy less attractive at higher levels so that there's some opportunity cost to not upgrading. However, I get the feeling the people who want item DC's to scale wouldn't be happy with something like that since it still basically creates the incentive structures that they're chafing against in the first place.

I get that it feels bad to have to throw away old toys when they get outscaled, but getting rid of the system has a knock-on effect that removes a lot of mechanical incentives for character choices.

I think they're instrumental to the not just the mechanics, but the flavor of the classes that demand them, and are solid roleplaying incentives whether or not you're playing a class with mechanical features tied to them. I think it would be foolish to eschew them entirely.

That being said, your table, your rules.

That being said, the idea that they should be removed from the game at a base level is anathema to me.

They should be the default assumption, and you need to house rule them out, not vice-versa. Don't deprive the rest of us of a great creativity-breeding tool just because you blanket-dislike any and all restrictions.

I didn't think the Whispering Way was a religion, just a group loyal to Tar-Baphon, and eager to grant him more power. am I mistaken there?

If my experience as a player from our Carrion Crown campaign is correct, then you are mistaken, but not by much.

You're right that the Whispering Way is not really a religion, but it's not a collection of Tar-Baphon's lackeys either. It's more of a social club of necromancy-aligned people across the gamut of Golarion's societies, and Tar-Baphon just happens to be one of their very prominent members who they'd like to continue seeing around.

This was always my interpretation

I'm looking for a spoiler-free suggestion on a domain choice for a Spore War character.

I'm currently planning to play a champion of Findeladlara, and plan on taking the Deity's Domain feat, but I'm having trouble deciding between the Creation and Family domains. I'm leaning more towards Family, as I like both Family focus spells more than I like both Creation focus spells, though I prefer Creation's first focus spell to Family's first.

I'd just like to know if I'll get sufficient use out of Soothing Words to make it feel more worthwhile than just as a boost to my focus pool. With as few spoilers as possible, are there enough emotion-affecting will-saves to make it feel worthwhile?

Thank you both!

Now to decide if my theoretical Vanguard Gunslinger Guardian wants to spend a feat slot on long-range taunt, or if I'm comfortable limiting his taunts to just 30ft...

The 4th-level Guardian feat, Taunting Strike, states,

Make a Strike. Regardless of whether the Strike hits, you Taunt the target.

Note that it does not specify a melee strike.

My question is: Does this ability override the normal range of a Taunt? e.g., if I use Taunting Strike to fire, say, a Clan Pistol with a range increment of 80ft at a target 50ft away, does it still taunt them even though they are out of the normal taunt range of 30ft? Or does the activity simply fail the taunt part?

Anybody know how this works with the effects it has listed? None of them do damage, and are all just simple effects, like granting temp HP, adding spell weakness, etc.

For context: https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=2147

As far as I can tell, this would mean that a creature in the area takes a basic reflex save to... do nothing, and then is affected regardless of its save.

In Battlecry, Paizo included an archetype for the Iridian Choirmaster, belonging to the Iridian Choir, a splinter sect of the Iridian Fold.

The opening line introducing the archetype is, "When the Iridian Fold disbanded,..." However, giving a cursory flip through the book, I wasn't able to find any information about them being disbanded - why, how, or when.

Is there anywhere I can read more about this, or is this a lore-drop solely wrapped up in this one, single line that introduces the archetype?

You attributed my quote to TheFinish but I'm glad you find it interesting.

Woops! Sorry! I'm used to talking on forums that handle a lot of the formatting for me, and I kind of jump all over the place when I'm writing a post.

Since the exact phrase they use is "limit the blast" I would have you choose a square within the existing blast area

While that makes sense, that same phrasing could just be talking about how the size has gone from a 10ft burst to a 5ft square.

This is great stuff. I hope I'm not sounding like a broken record, but thanks again!

Actually, upon looking closer, it appears anyone with martial proficiency can use their class DC, so this was not the "untrained with innovation" solution I thought it to be

That's... very interesting, and I hadn't noticed that before. It still doesn't necessarily solve "the DC problem" when the engine is crewed by a companion, given that they have neither weapon proficiencies nor class DCs, but does open some fun options for allies to help.

To me the simplest solution to this is that nobody can take any Siege Weapons actions (Aim, Load, Launch) if the crew requirement is not properly met. If there's more than the number of people needed, then people need to spend actions moving away from the Siege weapon before those actions can be taken.

That's... a very elegant solution, and basically makes it take a move action to "uncrew" or "recrew." It even fits the flavor of an enemy coming in close and interfering, making it impossible to crew the engine (since the enemy is now "crewing" it, and it's above its maximum.)

It does have a weird hanger-on effect of meaning that a "Crew X-Y" engine that isn't at Y people yet can't be interrupted in the same way, though. But we're already treading in weird waters with these questions.

Answer 2: No mention of hands required anywhere except for portable weapons, but this is clearly an oversight. You can't reload a cannon if all your hands are occupied! So while I get the RAW doesn't say anything, I'd require at least one free hand for all the actions and maybe even two depending on the weapon.

Agreed. It seems obvious to me that it's necessary for at least the load action, since you're literally handling an object (the ammunition, which in the case of the light mortar, is a light-bulk cannonball.)

So, I would allow a Companion as long as it can meet the other requirements, meaning at least a free hand, and being able to roll the appropiate checks. For Construct Companion that means having the Manual Dexterity modification, as well as Miracle Gears if they want to do any non- Athletics check (like Arcana/Nature for the Mudmaker, or Arcana/Engineering Lore for the Burning Glass).

Thankfully, the skill checks are not an issue since the light mortar requires none! However, in addition to what Baarogue said here...

Well, even if you do allow a construct companion to crew a siege weapon, they don't ever get any weapon proficiencies. So they'll be stuck at the default DC

...since the mortar is my innovation, I can only take the prototype companion through the feats, and the feat companion doesn't get any innovation modifications like manual dexterity since it's not, y'know, my innovation.

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While looking over my options, I noticed one more weird thing that I had a question about, specifically in regards to the munitions master and I'd love to pick your brains if I can.

Q5: The Focused Fire action from munitions master lets you target a single square for +1 die of damage, rather than the normal 10ft burst. However, this action makes you launch the attack, which means you've already aimed under the assumption that you are targeting a grid intersection for a 10ft burst. What decides which singular square Focused Fire hits?

Obviously, the answer here is, again, "Paizo didn't define it," but I think it could go one of 3 ways:

• 1) You immediately aim to any 5ft square in range.
• 2) You pick a 5ft square within the initial 10ft burst you aimed for.
• 3) You pick one of the 4 squares adjacent to the grid intersection at the center of the initial 10ft burst.

And is there a reasonable way to flag these down as a potential FAQ/errata pass? I'm pretty new to the forums.

Thanks, Baarogue!

I did read the Archives of Nethys page regarding Siege Engines, and since most of my questions weren't answered there, I was hoping to ask to see if they were answered elsewhere that I might have missed. I'm a little sad to see that the answer to that is, "Not really."

But your assumption isn't far off! I was looking at building a Munitions Master inventor while trying to address the problem of it being a "solved" class. Right now, you just spend 3 actions a turn loading, aiming, and firing every single turn to just do a 10ft burst of 2d6 bludgeoning damage. That's boring, and is theoretically solved by the action compression you get as you level up, but all that does is give you extra actions to stand around tapping your foot because you're 100ft+ away from the battle.

You can fire a ranged weapon, but you're either taking the -5 MAP on the reflex save of the mortar or on that ranged weapon. You can't Demoralize because you're probably a fair distance away. You can't battle medic effectively, because it means abandoning your mortar to run after someone to heal them. You can't use the Explode action unless enemies are rushing up to you. You can't fire the siege weapon twice under the rules that explicitly say you can't fire your siege engine twice in a round. Even if you can leave a companion to manage the mortar, then the reflex DC sits at its static 15 instead of being your class DC.

Right now, it looks like the best "third action" is to just command a prototype companion gained from the feat line to go up into the fray while you sit back and fire, but that feels a little unsatisfying to me, especially since the companion upgrade feats conflict with the archetype feats. It's pretty clear that anything I want to do here would require accepting siege engine babysitting duty without GM fiat, but I'd like to minimize the amount of fiat I'm asking for to make things easy on the GM.

Just to bring this back to a rules-centric discussion:

A1: the current number of crew is the number of persons adjacent to the siege weapon when a siege weapon action is taken

By this reading, would nobody else be allowed to be adjacent to it? (Assuming the Crew 1 limitation.)

Because of that sentence in the first quote about adding additional crew I would say yes, if you're crewing a siege weapon with a minimum crew of 1, and you complete the Aim and Load actions, another person could crew it (whether you walk away or not) and operate it to attack.

The problem is that "Crew 1" is not a minimum crew of 1, but a maximum as well. This is because there is another format if additional crew are allowed: "Crew X-Y" (e.g., Crew 4-8, Crew 2-3.) If "Crew 1" means just a minimum of 1 crew member, then there's no reason for "Crew 1-N" to exist at all.

Otherwise, this feels like a "too good to be true" ruling, where you entirely ignore the limitations of Crew by arbitrarily stating that you're not crewing the siege engine anymore, and that's my primary concern.

If you are asking specifically about the Light Mortar Innovation, one thing all innovations have in common is that nobody but their Inventor may operate them proficiently. Even if that is not stated in that innovation's entry I would still rule that to be the case here unless it was specifically overruled. Anyone else that tries to attack with it would do so as if untrained

Actually, the companion innovation doesn't have that wording. Just the armor and weapon innovation do. The way the Light Mortar works still incentivizes only you to use it. The Reflex Save of the blast is default DC 15, and only turns to your class DC when you are the one to take the Launch action.

A2: in the Usage entry of the siege weapon's stat block, "The number of hands required for a held siege weapon reflects how many the entire crew needs to use to operate the weapon"

I only see hands entries on portable siege weapons in the list on AoN

Yeah, that was my concern. As RAW stands, crewing a mounted Siege Engine is just you hanging out near it and smiling as it magically loads, aims, and fires itself, directed only by your brain.

A3: So first, your tail can be used "to perform Interact actions", not just any actions that require hands. The Load activity has the manipulate trait, but it is not an "Interact action."

Thank you! I always get wires crossed and mix up "manipulate" and "interact," and this is exactly the kind of "am I missing anything" proofreading I was looking for.

A4:Unless your construct companion has an ability that allows them to crew a siege weapon, I would say they cannot

I was hoping otherwise, but I can see the rationale. Thanks again!

Q1: Crew X means that a siege engine can be crewed by exactly X creatures "at a time." What does "at a time" mean here? When is this determined/set in stone? For example, if I crew a Crew 1 siege engine (not an action), load it (1 action), and aim it (1 action), but then spend my third action to walk away (or even do nothing), am I no longer crewing it? Can someone else just step in and take over to fire the siege engine since it's already been loaded and aimed?

My intuition says "No," because then there's no reason for Crew X-Y to exist (the format that tells you the minimum and maximum crew size.) However, I wasn't able to find a solid answer as to when "the act of crewing" otherwise ends.

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Q2: What is the handedness of crewing/various crew actions for Siege Engines? I was trying to figure it out, but wasn't able to find anything even suggesting an answer, let alone anything definitive. It seems absurd to me that someone could crew a siege engine with their hands full, but there's still no guidance as to whether or not it's 1-handed or 2-handed. The closest I could find is that some siege engines label their Aim/Load/Fire actions with the Manipulate tag, but Manipulate doesn't strictly state how many hands it takes, either - just that a creature needs a suitable appendage and that the handedness can vary.

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Q3: Would a Vanara's tail qualify as a suitable appendage? I would definitively say no to the "load" action, since that specifically requires you to handle ammunition, and the Vanara tail says it can't be used to hold items, but I'm uncertain about aiming and firing.

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Q4: According to the construct companion rules, "Construct companions can't use abilities that require greater Intelligence, such as Coerce or Decipher Writing, even if trained in the appropriate skill, unless they have an ability that allows it." Is crewing a siege engine sufficiently complex that it couldn't do so?

A handful of spells are specifically designed to accommodate issues like this, and I'm not sure why more aren't.

For example, Tangle Vine applies a speed penalty on a success, but on a crit success it applies both Immobilized and a speed penalty, which is redundant except on enemies immune to Immobilized.

If you wanted to be consistent with those spells despite the RAW, you could just rule it similarly.

I love that she doesn't have a clear resolution to her story.

I agree with others that she doesn't really LOOK like an orc... unless this is supposed to be the de-OGL-ified orc look for Golarion? In which case, I'd like to see it more standardized! More orcs like this, and fewer "Green humans with oversized underbites," would make her feel more like she fits right in.

Oh, dang, that Troop Combat demo sounds GREAT!

I would love if this is the beginnings of a war game set in the Pathfinder setting.

That art is from Strength of Thousands and so predates the AI art craze by at least a year.

Thanks for trying to put my mind at ease. At the risk of putting more egg on my face, I'll say I'm still a bit concerned because of the missing legs of the figure in the back, the lopsided eyes, and some other details, plus the fact that Dall-E started doing limited-invite beta testing back in 2019, 2 years before the book came out.

But it's gone from a red flag to maybe like... light-faded orange. Instead of, "Paizo used AI art" to "maaaaaybe a small chance one of their commissioned artists did and got it past them years before the ethical debate became popular."

Oh god, that's not AI art under the venture gossip, is it?! I know you put an artist's credit there, but one guy has no legs, the back of his cloak magically manifests into the other guy's sleeves (whose hat disappears into his bag), and the area behind his cloak turns from stairs into open sky.

I'm so happy to see the "meat and potatoes" of classic fantasy tabletop RPG's return to Paizo.

I'm by no means complaining about the diversity we've seen, but it's definitely felt like the core of Pathfinder has been lacking for a little while.

One concern about the book's art now that I have it in my hands (if you all even check this forum anymore.) The art for Teki Stronggut is a distinctly non-Paizo goblin.

Hopefully you all aren't changing art direction with your goblins and this was just a freelancer issue!