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Upon reading the stat blocks for this scenario, I see a glaring issue. The Redcap Numblekin is listed as a variant Redcap, however 3 of the 4 stat blocks listed are literally just a Redcap stat block. The 4th one, which is in the "Levels 3–4 (Pappy)" encounter, only has minor stat adjustments (specifically -2 Dex, -1 Con, +2 Int Wis and Cha). This however only affects their skills and perception. Their AC/HP and Attack bonuses are exactly the same.

I am prepping this scenario for tomorrow, and saw for Star's Discovery skills it lists "DC 27 Society, DC 29 Society".

I doubt that's intended. Does anyone have any ideas what they are supposed to be? Perception isn't listed on that list at all, and since they are an Automaton it would make sense for Perception to be the DC29 option.

The scaling for the level 9-10 discovery section is also simply copy/pasted from the level 7-8 section, so the Challenge Point thresholds adjustments don't match what they should be (For example, it says "10–11 Challenge Points" instead of "19–22 Challenge Points")

Firebrands just shipped for subscribers, so lets please keep all questions regarding the book in this thread, instead of having multiple threads talking about unreleased content.

Look I get it, sometimes things aren't clear and you have a question about it, but not everyone has a subscription and gets the PDF early. By flooding the rules forums with questions before the majority of the population even has the book, you're excluding them from any conversations, which could result in only a few loud voices essentially dictating what the rules are because they were "First".

This goes for any book; Please just wait. SoM officially comes on the 25th, which is only 3 more days. I'm sure you can either come up with a solution to your questions, or figure out a better way to word them by then.

Hello all, I have some initial questions about this scenario.

1. What happens to incorporeal creatures with only a fly speed if they don't Fly on their turn?
2. Is the boss supposed to not have 1st level spells?
3. Is the spell attack mod for the Invidiak +16? It's not listed anywhere.

The Guide says you can only start one crafting project per block (8 days), so how I've thought of it was if you fail you can try again, but if you succeed you cant start another until the next block, giving me two blocks since I am field commissioned. Is this how it should be or should I only get one attempt to craft per block? It seems like a waste when you only spend one day of downtime, fail then have to do the next 7 doing the standard Earning Income.

Also another weird interaction for Field Commissioned, if it's one attempt per block:
You are supposed to do things in blocks of 8 days, but are supposed to do everything firs then do Earn Income for the remainder. If I start a crafting project and fail, that's 7 days where I can't start another. So according to the rules if I were to start Earning Income that would mean I am done with everything else, so the Earn Income block would be 8 days then 3 days. Or can we make the check for the last block of 4 first, then do the Earn Income rolls retroactively for the remaining 7?

I don't mean using them to counter-spell, I mean what happens if someone casts slow on someone with Haste running? Will they counteract, or will the effects stack based on the target's fort save vs Slow? Normal rules for losing actions say the Quickened condition can stack with the Slow condition, I was just wondering if these two spells have some sort of special interaction I'm not seeing here.

Are there rules for upgrading items in Society? I know Runes and Special Materials can be upgraded, but can you upgrade, say, a Lesser Staff of Fire into a Greater Staff of Fire once you hit level 8? Could you do it with Crafting or can you just pay the difference in price?

If you have a link please provide it for reference for my players in the future.

This new feat is really cool, but I'm confused about action economy with it. For reference, here's the Feat from the book.

The book states that the "Playing Cards" item takes two hands. The description of the item has nothing useful in it about this use case either.

The feat makes it sound like the Deck is a weapon, where you can draw a card and use it as a Dagger or Dart. Since it's obviously meant for throwing, I see two scenarios on how this feat works:

1. You hold the deck in one hand and can throw cards without having to use an interact action, since you are already "wielding" all 54 cards. This occupies both your hands.

2. You still need to use an interact action to draw individual cards. This means you wont have both hands occupied.

If it's scenario two, why make it a Swashbuckler feat? They don't get Quick Draw, and even if you do get it, you still need 2 actions to perform a finisher. At that point, a returning rune is much better since you can place it on a superior weapon, like a Star Knife, plus you can get Ricochet Stance and other cool throwing stances.

Let me know what you think. I've been pondering this for over a week now. I personally believe it's used as Option 1, otherwise the feat is simply flavor, and not actually useful in any way.

As the title. There are some options I would like to take at level 2 but I will be playing Thursday. Will the options become legal tomorrow when the book is officially released?

IIRC The Advanced Players Guide options were sanctioned before the book was released. I do hope we won't have to wait for these options.

I haven't purchased the World Traveler boon yet, but I was wondering if I can apply it to a new character with no XP so during character creation so I can fulfill both regional conditions?

For example, could I use it on a Hobgoblin so that he can be from Oprak as the boon requires, but he can choose a background from anywhere else I want? Or would it only apply after I make my character fully?

Also side note, does anyone know if Secondary Initiation would be available for ACP once the conversion is done? Not getting fame anymore kinda ruined my character idea.

Multilingual allows you to take two new languages immediately. The way I interpret it is that you need access to the languages that you are choosing, whether it be Common or Uncommon or other. But the CRB says:

Selecting the Multilingual feat, for example, grants a character two new languages chosen from those listed in Table 2–1: Common Languages and Table 2–2: Uncommon Languages

This list includes things like Abyssal and Celestial, the Elemental languages, ect. Does this mean I can take multilingual and learn Terran despite never having gone to the plane of earth or interacting with any native speakers in my adventures?

Further more, if it is the case I can take uncommon languages I don't have access to, will it only include that list, or does it extend to all uncommon languages? The list of all uncommon languages include regional languages? What about future uncommon languages that have yet to be added to the game?

Basically the question is, do I need access to a language to take it with Multilingual, or can I take uncommon languages without access? And if so, are there any further limits on which languages I can take?

So the rules on special materials say you can craft magic items out of them, depending on the quality. So for instance, Standard-grade items can be used to create magic items of up to 15th level and can hold runes of up to 15th level. This means one should be able to create a Standard-Grade Adamantine Sturdy Shield (Moderate). The question here is if one were to do that, would it increase the hardness/HP of the shield?

The assumption of Sturdy Shields is that they are made of Steel as a normal shield, and enhanced with magic. The difference of a Steel shield and Adamantine shield is +5 Hardness and +20hp. With this info, enchanting an Adamantine shield with Sturdy should increase its hardness and HP in the same way as the Steel shield, resulting in 18 Hardness and 124HP.

There are no rules stating this, but that's what one can assume based on the rules and how the Sturdy Shield works. What do you guys think?

For simpler reading, here's the stats of all the items:
Steel Shield: Hardness 5, HP 20, Level N/A, 2gp
Sturdy Shield (Moderate): Hardness 13, HP 104, Level 10, 1000gp
Standard-Grade Adamantine Shield: Hardness 10, HP 40, Level 8, 440pgp

Theorized Standard-Grade Adamantine Sturdy Shield (Moderate): Hardness 18, HP 124, Level 10, 1440gp

Example: You place a level 5 Paralyze in your weapon and crit. The opponent is level 11 and thus the Incapacitate trait kicks in, but so does the Striking Spell effect. Do they cancel each other out? Or is there an order of operations that needs to be done? Like, Nat 1s and 20s first, then Striking Spell, Incapacitate, and finally any Evasion or Resolve stuff they may have.

Maybe add a side bar in the book with how this ability interacts with like abilities so there will be no confusion?

So we all know when you crit it increases the results of your spell by one in your favorable direction, but the same thing happens when you crit a Disintegrate attack roll. So assuming you crit the Strike, then the Spell Strike, would it decrease the results of the targets save by two? Would there only be one decrease applied? Or would Striking Spell only apply to the Spell Strike and not the save?

I just rolled two fails with Crafter’s Workshop, the boon says I don't spend 4 days before making a crafting check, so what happens when you fail? Do you get to try immediately? Do you have to wait before trying again? If so how many days do you lose? I think this boon requires some clarification, since there seems to be a disconnect with some GMs on how it works.

No one likes to die. This is true at every level of the game, but more so for low levels in my opinion. Imagine, you just got your catfolk boon, then the GM crits you at your first boss, dealing massive damage and kills your new character. We hate to see it happen, but it CAN happen.

The massive damage rule is a nice addition to 2e, it adds an element to danger to all encounters. At any time, if an enemy hits hard enough, your character is just dead. And the same goes for enemies too, which is fair right? WRONG. Low level PCs are disproportionately affected by this rule. Here's my explanation.

Lets take Ezren for example. At level 1 he has 15 AC and 16 HP. Pretty standard for a wizard. Assume that there's an effect that causes Amiri, who's already raging, to get confused, and Ezren just so happens to be the closest target. She strides, strikes, and boom, Ezren is dead. No save on his part, but all due to lucky GM rolls, or unlucky player rolls. The odds of this happening are actually 5% (19+ on the d20 and 6+ on the d12), so highly unlikely, but it CAN happen.

Meanwhile, let's consider level 5 Ezren and Amiri. At this point, Ezren has 53 HP and 20 AC. If Amiri strikes at level 5, the max damage she can do is 68, which is far bellow the 106 damage needed to instantly kill Ezren. In fact, not even a level 13 Dragon can cause massive damage on Ezren with a bite attack (Adult blue dragon, 3d8+12 piercing plus 1d12 electricity, 96 max on a crit).

The point of this, is that damage output and max HP do not scale in the same way, meaning the massive damage rules are only really applicable to low level characters, or when going against high leveled enemies. This is especially prevalent on traps present in low level scenarios, where massive damage can have over a 20% chance of occurring at level 1. For example:

This rule has the chance of disheartening players who are just starting out, or causing players to lose 1 time only boons with no chance of recovery. At higher levels, death isn't as bad, as we have fame available to buy resurrections if we need them, or Breath of Life, etc. But at level 1, we have nothing. If we die we die.

A fix that was mentioned to me by a 5 Star GM was to change the massive damage rule to not kill you in Society, but instead increase your dying value by an additional 1. This way, assuming a crit would cause massive damage, you would end up at Dying 3 immediately. This change will allow players to use Hero Points to stop dying, or take the chance of rolling to stabilize, or allow other allies to act to save you. It still poses a threat, as you are immediately one dying value from death, but it at least gives fresh level 1 PCs a chance to not just die instantly at no fault of their own.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever accidentally killed a player through massive damage? How would you play a boss monster that can deal such crazy amounts of damage at low levels? I want to hear your stories.

So with the addition of Investigators, crafting got even more broken. I wont go into too many details about it. The main question here is about specialty crafting in PFS.

As an Anvil Dwarf, I got two specialties and chose Alchemy and Blacksmiting. So any weapons/armor elixirs and what not are covered under that. But are Potions covered under Alchemy? Or is it only items with the Alchemy trait? If it's locked to a specific trait, why is Blacksmithing not? I can make weapons and armor, but also pots and pans, a cauldron, or a crowbar. Also not all weapons are effected, like a quarterstaff or a bow, so obviously traits aren't supposed to designate what your specialty is. I would really appreciate some clarification on what is covered under Specialty Crafting for "Alchemy", because traditionally Potions and Oils were considered to be made with alchemy until now.

I would also like to know how inscribing runes works with specialty crafting. If I put one on a metal weapon, would I get my bonus because of blacksmithing? Or would runes be considered a different item all together? Are wands and staves covered by Woodworking? Or is the magic the main part to the crafting, and thus it doesn't matter how good your staff looks?

I guess my point is, the feat isn't well written and I would like some clarification on how it works with Magic items.

Hey all, sorry for bringing this up again, I just can't get this topic out of my head.

Now we all know what the rules say, that a Magus can deliver touch spells through their weapon blah blah, but I've been thinking about it a little bit differently. The way I see it, a Magus can spell-strike ONLY if the touch spell they cast has a touch attack associated with it.

In the description for most touch spells, there will be a target listed, for example Shocking Grasp lists "Target: creature or object touched" showing what you can hit with the spell. Basically any target with that wording. Meanwhile, Light has a target of only "object touched" meaning that it does not work on living creatures, only objects.

Meanwhile, Arcane Mark lacks that descriptor, instead opting for an Effect descriptor. Arcane Mark says "Effect: one personal rune or mark, all of which must fit within 1 sq. ft.". There is no valid target listed, but rather the effect of the spell once it's cast. Yes the range is touch, but I believe it is implying that the caster bust be that close for the magic to take effect. The spell is written like Summon Monster, a spell with a range and an effect, but no target. Upon comparing the spells, they have the exact same information: Casting Time, Components, Range, Effect, Duration, Saving Throw and SR. Basically, if it wasn't Universal, it would be in the "conjuration (creation)" school.

It is my belief that Arcane Mark merely summons your mark on the targeted item or creature. It is an exception to the normal rule of touch spells having touch attacks. Without a target, it's just not an attack, and therefore shouldn't be able to be used with Spell Strike.

On the other hand, Light is a completely acceptable spell to use with Spell Strike, and it might make the target's armor glow as well, or just fizzle if the target has nothing on.

I know when you wild-shape into an animal or plant, you can only speak the creature's language (Or nothing for plants), but what about as an elemental? The way we've been doing it is that I can only speak the elemental language (such as Ignan), and I can still understand my normal languages. Is this correct, or can I speak my normal languages as an elemental?