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I'm confused, why does having Sudden Charge mean that Valeros should have a shield? Sudden Charge feat doesn't use a shield in any way.

Thanks! Anyone who is interested can come to this discord server and we can coordinate:

Server Link

Anyone here interested in getting together online and playtesting using Foundry VTT? (Or is there another forum somewhere here for looking for people to playtest with?)

I would be interested in playing sometimes on Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday after 6pm Eastern

How do ordinary martials get +16 to attack at level 5?

It should be 5 (level) + 4 (expert) + 4 (str/dex) + 1 (item) = 14. Are you also assuming they get some other buff as well?

The ability to use the attack result as a save result could end up being overpowered: there are a lot more ways to buff your attack roll or debuff an enemy's AC than there are to buff save DCs or debuff enemy saves, so this might make it much easier to land powerful save spells. Especially since it means e.g. that if you have a fort save spell you want to cast, but the enemy has a very high fort save, you can completely bypass the fort save by spellstriking.

Additional Lore upgrades automatically.

Cognitive Mutagen and Pocket Library are other ways to avoid critical failure on RK but they also impose build choices to make the most of them.

I really hate how critical failure on Find Flaws gives you such extreme penalties that all Thaumaturges will build around it.

In fact, the Thaumaturge has to be built around it AND around its squishiness, which is increased by its MAD. Not that many viable builds IMO, which is a shame. I really hope the final version will allow for maximum diversity in builds and playstyles.

I meant that I didn't have Additional Lore, just my background lore and Esoteric Lore. Yes I could have used Additional Lore rather than an expert skill upgrade but all my skill feat slots were taken for other things.

Day 2:

Day 2 Results

Some comments on the Thaumaturge this time:

- It had some surprisingly good abilities. Both the amulet and chalice implement were very valuable. It played in some respects like a Champion: good ability to dish out damage and apply healing and damage prevention.

- I was able to use Esoteric Lore + Unmistakable Lore to avoid critical failures. This was quite helpful, but did cost some build resources - for instance, I had to use up one of my expert skill upgrades on a background lore I didn't care about just so that I could qualify for Unmistakable Lore.

- There seemed to be an "item use" theme which fell apart on action economy: the Thaumaturge has stuff like Scroll Thaumaturgy that lets them use scrolls, but given that they need to put their implement away, then take out the scroll to use it, and then spend another action to pull their implement back out if they want it again makes it rarely worth doing. It would be better if the Implement Adept quick swapping let you swap to other items in your hand, not just implements.

This is likely to be significantly more relevant now, with the release of Guns and Gears, where an Inventor is likely to be repairing things during combat.

8th Level Playtest

I did a playtest (with me running all PCs and monsters) where I recorded every action that the PCs took.

Playtest Battle Record

So far I've gotten through one adventuring day of three battles: a Moderate, Moderate, and Severe battle. The party won the first two battles but was defeated on the third.

The playtest was at 8th level.

Here were my thoughts on the Psychic and Thaumaturge:

=== PSYCHIC ===

- In the first battle, the Psychic felt mostly like another occult caster. I wasn't really able to use my amped cantrips because the monsters rolled really well the first couple rounds and did lots of damage, forcing me to use healing spells.

- The second battle, where the party did best on, was the one where I really felt like what was unique about the Psychic came into its own. The Psychic was able to use lots of one action cantrips (Guidance, Amped Message, Mental Scan) to help allies do their thing. On the other hand, most of that was closer to the end of the battle, when additional power is less valuable.

- The third battle was one where I really felt the lack of spell slots. Once I used the Heroism (cast pre-battle) I was down to only 1st and 2nd level spell slots, so was very limited in what I could do. At this point, having an extra spell slot of each level (so I could cast another summon unicorn > heal or other big spell) would have been more valuable than the amped cantrips.

- In general, it seems like the intended design is that Psychics have more powerful cantrips than other classes, at the cost of fewer leveled spells. But the downside of this tradeoff is that usually, when you are casting a higher leveled spell, it is because you really need the spell now, while cantrips are usually when you don't need something high-powered right now. So compared to other casting classes, Psychics get more power at the times when they need it less, but less power at the times when they need it more. This didn't seem like a good trade.

- Not only do they have fewer spell slots, they have a worse spell selection: they only get to select 2 spell slots at each level (plus a 3rd slot which is fixed for them, and is often not very useful). For instance, in the Irnakurse battle it would have been really great if I had had Hideous Laughter to shut down the enemy's reactions, but of course I didn't know in advance that that was what I would be facing, and didn't have enough spell choices to cover my bases. Of course this is a spontaneous casting class, so it *shouldn't* be able to cover *all* its bases, but the fact that it covers *fewer* bases than other casters was a big downside.

- I didn't feel like the psyche feats were that good. None of the psyche benefits were really that useful; it mostly just felt like an action tax to be able to keep using your amped cantrips.

- Okay, that was what was lackluster about the class, what was good about it? When I was able to get a series of buff cantrips off, that really felt unique. In particular, I really liked Amped Message - the effect it gives is very unique, it feels good to be able to play off of your ally being in a good position to attack. The only downsides of it are (1) it doesn't really come online until level 7; it would have seen very lackluster if all I could do is have someone move, and (2) it is a little dependent on party composition, i.e. having someone with a powerful "basic Strike" and nothing else they want to do for their reaction.

- On the other hand, Amped Message was really the *only* amped cantrip that felt unique to me. Mental Scan felt like a weaker Inspire Courage, the ones that do damage didn't feel unique because there are lots of better ways to do damage, and stuff like amped Detect Magic or amped Guidance seem very situational.

- One build I think would be interesting for this class is a build that stays invisible most of the time and focuses on buffing and healing allies - that would mitigate the weak defenses. My Psychic has Cloak of Elvenkind and Boots of Elvenkind for that reason. It does depend though on whether you rule Mental Scan as a hostile action that breaks invisibility. (This test, I did; I think next time I'll rule that it doesn't, in order to test this out more)

- If I were revising this class, I might lean more into the idea of "creating mental links with your allies to help them"; it seems like that is flavorful for a psychic and could make the class feel unique, as there aren't really any other classes with that focus. This could be things like other cantrips similar to Message that let allies do other actions, ways to make it easier to cast buffs on allies or reward you for casting buffs on allies, maybe even a spell you cast on one ally that gives that ally a way to help another ally, and so on.

=== THAUMATURGE ===

- I have less to say about this class, as in this run I only really ended up using Find Flaws / Esoteric Antithesis and the implements. Also, the fact that I'm playing solo, and already know everything about the monsters, means I don't really get a chance to see the advantage of the Recall Knowledges.

- But in general, I did find that Find Flaws / Esoteric Antithesis didn't really feel that unique; it felt like other classes' bonus damage abilities except with some extra hoops you have to jump through. For instance, the "flavor text" of Find Flaws says that if you fail, you have to "invoke a wide range of superstitions and narrow it down from there". But there's no actual "narrowing things down", there's just an action tax.

- I think a more interesting design might involve something like: Esoteric Antithesis doesn't require using Find Flaws first, and lets you change what damage type your weapon deals. So if you already know or can guess what the monster's weakness is, you don't need to go through Find Flaws first. And if you fail your check and are not sure, as a player you have to actually guess. (Of course you would also need ways of imposing custom weaknesses etc.)

- I had Scroll Thaumaturgy and Handy Esoterica, which could have been really useful in the last fight (if I were to pull out a scroll of Hideous Laughter or something) but (due to my own mistakes) I didn't actually buy any scrolls or leave myself with enough gold to use Handy Esoterica. But I do see a major downside to Scroll Thaumaturgy: since the Thaumaturge usually has both hands full, they have to either spend an action to put away their implement and another action to pull out a scroll (which means they won't have enough actions left for a 2 action spell) or they have to drop their implement on the ground.

In the next installment, I'll buy some new items with the treasure from the two encounters I did pass, change up my spell lists, and see if we can get some more data on the Thaumaturge!

I'm interested in participating in the Dark Archive playtest, but there aren't any Pathfinder 2e groups in my area (New York City) and I can't really find any online either. I'm particularly interested in a group that is focused on optimization and tactical combat. Are there any groups here that are recruiting?

I've been looking for a long time for a group that seems to be as interested in tactical combat and optimization as that document's author's group seems to be. Can you find out of that group has any spots open? Or maybe anyone else who is reading this would be interested in having me join?

What roll is used for the Aid check that Mental Scan gives you? A spell attack roll? A normal attack roll? A Perception check? Something else?

I suspect that the reason that they have Dubious Knowledge is to prevent the use of Kreighton's Cognitive Crossover. Since KCC would be very good for this class if they could have it

Note that Unmistakable Lore requires *expert* in Lore. Thus, you will not be able to take Unmistakable Lore unless you wait until level 15 or you get an Expert lore skill some other way (Although that's not very hard)

The point would be that if you had a set of rules for the monsters, then you would not have to "separate your party mind from your enemy mind", because you wouldn't be making strategic decisions for the enemies, you would just be following the rules. That is why I would want rules for the monsters.

Are there any rules in either official or third party material for running monsters without a DM? Sort of like an AI system that tells you what a monster does each turn. I'm thinking about making a whole party of characters and playing through an AP by myself, or just set up some fights and see how well I can do - but I would need a way to control the monsters.

How many free hands, if any, does it take to use Battle Medicine?

The version on Archives of Nethys says, under the requirements for Battle Medicine, only that you must be holding or wearing healer's tools; it says nothing about a free hand. (This is in contrast to other Medicine uses like Treat Poison, which do say you need a free hand.)

Does this mean that Battle Medicine is supposed to be different, and can be used without a free hand? Or does it work the same as other Medicine skill uses?

What exactly does "a skill feat for an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma based skill" mean for Skillful Lesson? In particular, can Assurance (Medicine) be taken with Skillful Lesson?

The Investigator 6th level feat "Predictive Purchase" grants the "Prescient Planner" and "Prescient Consumable" feats. However, Prescient Consumable is a 7th level feat. Does this mean that a 6th level Investigator who takes Predictive Purchase cannot benefit from the Prescient Consumable feat until they reach 7th level?

Hello,

So far all the Pathfinder groups that I've been in, when the game is done, like to pack up and go home right away. I'm interested in a group that's willing to spend a significant amount of time after the game discussing what was fun, what was less fun, how things can be improved, and what directions players want to take the game. Are there any groups in the NYC area that do this kind of thing?

The final boss in PFS2E scenario #1-11 has an ability that makes it so that any effect that uses magic to heal the afflicted creature fails unless the character or item succeeds at a DC 18 counteract check.

If you feed a healing potion or elixir of life to a creature affected by this ability, what modifier does the counteract check use?

I'm interested in a way to play Pathfinder 2e where it is just me playing a whole party of characters going on the adventure.

- Are there any places where you can find DMs that will DM for only one player? I've been lookin around but haven't found any. Does anyone have any advice on where to look?

- Is it possible to have an "AI mode" where there are some sort of automated rules for controlling the monsters? Does anything like that already exist? Are there any digital tools that do this?

- If I did so, then there would be a problem where I would have to look in the adventure to see how to run it, which would give away any hidden information. Is there a way I can find which adventures are easiest to run this way (i.e. doesn't depend on hidden information)?

- Are there any tools to generate "random encounters" or "random dungeons"?

The repair DC of an item is the same as the DC to craft it. A steel shield is a level 0 common item, so the repair DC is 14 (on the DC by level table)

For instance, if Divine Fortune is active, does adding the 1d6 to a local check count as playing it (which would mean you couldn't use it when another spell is played on the check?)

If Quinn uses his power to use his Knowledge skill instead of Acrobatics or Stealth skill, does it still count as an Acrobatics (or Stealth check)? For instance if he had a card that said "Recharge to add 1d8 to an Acrobatics check" would he still be able to use it?

In Scenario 4D, is a totem pile created next to the Base as well as the other locations?

(If so, it would mean that until one location is closed, at least two cards would be removed from totem piles each turn, and at most one card could be added. So the players would be guaranteed to lose unless they were able to close at least one location within the first few turns.)

Suppose that I use a Spyglass to examine the top two cards of my location, and one of them is the "Evidence" story bane, which gets encountered when examined. Suppose that I fail the check against this bane so it gets shuffled back in. Does it get shuffled in before I resolve the "put the two cards back on top in any order" on Spyglass (so I will get to retrieve the Evidence from wherever it got shuffled in and put it back on top?) Or do I resolve the rest of the Spyglass first (in which case the Evidence will end up shuffled into the deck?) Or does the Spyglass "lose track" of the Evidence when it gets shuffled in so I can't replace it (but will still replace the other card?)

My copy of the Core Set seems to be missing the Drained scourge. Can anyone tell me what it does?

For instance, if I have Charisma: Diplomacy +2, does a check that uses the Diplomacy skill also count as using the Charisma skill? I know the check has the Charisma trait, but don't know if it counts as "using" the Charisma skill because some cards reference using a specific skill instead of having a trait.

For instance, will an Enhance spell naming "Charisma" boost my Diplomacy check in this case? Can I use a Sands of the Hour blessing if the hour has Charisma in its check to acquire but not Diplomacy?

I have several questions about the "Abyssal Rift" location:

1. When can you bury a blessing to flip the Abyssal Rift to its "closed" side? At any time? Only when you would normally be able to perform the "when closing" text (e.g. after beating a henchman or encountering a villain at a different location)?

2. If you have a power that lets you move at the end of your turn (e.g. Donahan) can you spend your turn exploring the Abyssal Rift, and then use your power to move away in time to avoid triggering the Abyssal Rift's "flip this at the end of your turn" power?

3. If you defeat the villain at the Abyssal Rift, do you still banish the rest of the cards in the location deck even though you can't permanently close it? If the Abyssal Rift is on its "open" side, does it automatically flip to "closed"?

4. If the Abyssal Rift is the only location that is not permanently closed, and it has its "closed" side face up, and you encounter the villain and fail to defeat it, what happens? Do you still win, since the villain has no open locations to escape to, even though you didn't defeat the villain?

If you play the "Sacred Weapon" spell, do you get to keep the weapon you summon after the encounter, or do you have to banish the weapon?

The section in the rulebook on "Summoning and Adding Cards" (p.15) does not seem to address this case. It talks about summoning a card that you will then encounter, or summoning a card that is already in play, or summoning and building a location, but not on just summoning a boon.

The Demonling has a power that says "Before you act, succeed at a Wisdom or Perception 7 check or the Demonling may not be evaded, and the difficulty of checks to defeat the Demonling is increased by 3."

However, the "Apply any evasion effects" step of the encounter sequence is before the "Before you act" step. Does this mean that if I have a card that lets me evade an encounter (say, the Wand of Paralysis) that I can use it before the "Before you act" power fire, and thus evade the encounter without making the check? (If so, then the "Demonling may not be evaded" part of the power would only be relevant if I had an evasion power that worked in the middle of the encounter, such as the one on the Longspear.)

Does the Abattoir's "At This Location" power count just characters at the location, or does it count all characters in the game? Also, does it count characters who are dead?

For instance, suppose that there were 4 characters in the game, and one of them died making 3 left, and of those 3, one of them is at the Abattoir and the other two are at other locations. How much do you increase the difficulty of the checks to defeat banes by?

Also, it seems like the "sphere spells" (Sphere of Fire, Aqueous Orb, etc.) could be helpful here. Since they can be displayed before your exploration, if you think you will run into a henchman or villain you can display them, so they are immune from precombat damage or precombat recharge. (They're not immune from that one henchmen who makes you banish the divine card you play, because using the ability while it's displayed does count as playing it.)

I was surprised the search came up with nothing. I roll a d6. Is the result a binary evens/odds or is it a numerical value that is assigned the evens/odds qualifier? For example, I roll a 3. Should this be read as "odds" or "3 is an odd number?" Assuming the d6 is a check, I ask because of blessing the Ivory Dice. Calling odds on these two d6s, would you need two "odds" binaries (a 3 and a 5) or two "x is an odd number" qualifiers (a 3 and a 4) to succeed? Even if it isn't a check, it's an interesting thought experiment.

You can't use a blessing on the Ivory Dice in the first place. The d6 you roll for the Ivory Dice is not a "check".

1. I can't find the page you are mentioning about failing the Income phase. As I recal, there isn't a failure chance on that check.

It's implied in the example in Edict phase, step 7: "Jessica realizes that an average roll for her Economy check would be a failure ... which means there's a good chance the kingdom won't generate any BP this turn"

8. In my opinion, the leaders should firstly focus on getting the city up and running. Once they have gotten some bonus' to the kingdom attributes, expanding becomes much safer. If they just start claiming hexes right and left (even with improvments), its gona hurt them. But your math doesn't seem to be off. So it looks like it would be a good way to expand.

That was actually part of my point, and is even more true if failing an income check means you don't get any income. It seems like the best strategy is to always make sure your Control DC is less than your Economy/Loyalty/Stability (E/L/S), so that you can never fail a kingdom check (except on a natural 1). Especially since there is such a gigantic penalty for failing an income check even by a little bit. There is sort of a discontinuity in the mechanics here, where if my E/L/S are at, say, 100, the first 101 points of control DC don't hurt me at all, then the 102nd, 103rd, 104th, etc. start hurting me a lot, so much that by the time I get to control DC 120 I can't do anything really.

The reason I thought I was missing something was that that would make it so that the optimal strategy would always be to keep your control DC just under your E/L/S. (My calculation was based on the idea that you would keep your control DC at pace with your E/L/S, thus every 2 hexes claimed is paired with +2E/+2L/+2S.) That would seem to make the random events less interesting since you would almost always pass the checks 95% of the time. I am wondering if there is something I was missing, where there is a benefit to expanding your Control DC beyond your E/L/S.

I have been reading the kingdom rules in Ultimate Campaign. I have not played with them yet but there are a few things I'm still trying to understand.

1. How exactly does getting tax income work? "Income Phase" step 4 says you get (Economy check result / 3) BP income (regardless of the check difficulty), but the example in Edict Phase step 7 implies that you don't get anything if your check fails to beat the control DC. Is this correct? So if your control DC is 60, then a roll of 63 gives you 21 BP, a roll of 60 gives you 20 BP, but a roll of 59 gives you zero BP? (And, if this is the case, if you fail the roll does this also mean you don't get any money from your Mines, Quarries, and Sawmills?)

2. Similarly, if you choose "None" as the tax rate, the rules as written say you would still get tax income (just with no plus to economy). Is this correct?

3. It looks like there really isn't much difference between how much income you get with the different tax rates. For instance, if my base Economy is 49 (and let's say my Control DC is small enough that I can auto-pass the checks) then with Light tax rates I get an average (assuming a 10 on the d20) of (49 + 10 + 1)/3 = 20 BP/turn, while with Overwhelming tax rates I get (49 + 10 + 4)/3 = 21 BP/turn, only a 5 percent difference. Am I understanding this correctly?

4. On Page 199, it says that Consumption is modified by settlements. Where in the settlement rules does it say how much Consumption the settlement provides?

5. For trade routes (p.232), let's see if I understand things correctly.
The DC to establish the route is (Control DC + Corruption - Productivity) + (RM + LM), where RM = (TRL/10) and LM = max(Size-TRL, 0). For instance, if Size=50:

TRL = 25 means RM=2, LM=25, so RM+LM=27
TRL = 50 means RM=5, LM=0, so RM+LM=5
TRL = 100 means RM=10, LM=0, so RM+LM=10

So basically this is saying is that the difficulty is lowest if TRL=Size, with a very steep penalty for lower TRLs and a smaller penalty for higher TRLs.

It seems to me that this is confusing because of how highways interact with TRL. A highway counts as half distance. That means that if my kingdom size is 50 and I am trying to connect a trade route between one of my settlements and another settlement 50 hexes away, then having a highway there makes the check 22 points HARDER. Is it really supposed to work that way, that a highway makes a trade route harder to establish?

Another question has to do with the "return on initial investment" part. Successfully establishing the route gives you "RM + 2d4 BP per 5 GP invested." Is this [RM + 2d4 BP] per 5 BP invested, or RM + [2d4 BP per 5 GP invested]? In other words, if you invest 50 BP in a trade route with RM = 10, do you get back 10 + 20d4 BP, or 100 + 20d4 BP?

If the former, it seems like there would never be a reason to invest more than 5 BP (you are not increasing the expected gain if you succeed, since the average on 2d4 is 5, but you are increasing the loss if you fail.) If the latter it seems like this can just give you gobs and gobs of BP really easily. For instance suppose I have a kingdom with Control DC = 70 (e.g. size 45 and 5 districts worth of settlements), no modifiers to productivity or corruption, and 75 Economy, 75 Stability, and 75 Loyalty. Then I can auto-pass trade route checks with RM = 5, and thus on average double my initial investment with every trade route. (average of 5 + 2d4 = 10 BP per initial 5 BP investment). Since you can have 4 possible trade routes, which can be re-established every year, you can get a almost guaranteed 16x return on your investment every year (2 x 2 x 2 x 2). And if you increase the 75s to 80s, then you can get RM = 10, and triple your money each time, for 81x per year, and so on. (And don't forget that this isn't counting Productivity improvements. It seems like there are lots of cheap buildings that give you +Productivity, so this could help if you hare having a hard time getting up to the

6. So it seems like you've got to be very careful with increasing size. Let's look at what increasing size does to you. If you increase size by 1, by claiming a new hex, the following bad happens:

- Consumption increases by 1. This costs you 1 BP/turn.
- Control DC increases by 1. This makes all your Economy, Loyalty, and Stability checks 1 harder.

The following good happens:

- You get the ability to build Terrain Improvements on that hex. These terrain improvements are really good in terms of money. For instance the Mines, Quarries, and Sawmills effectively pay back their investment in 6 months (in addition to the Economy or Stability they generate). Building a farm on a plains pays back its investment in 1 month. (In contrast, buildings have a much longer payback period. For instance, a Bank costs 28 BP and effectively gives you an average of 1.33 BP/month, for a payback period of 21 months.)

- You get the ability to build Settlements on that hex. This probably doesn't matter that much as it is unlikely you will want to build so many Settlements you don't have hexes to put them all.

- At certain thresholds of size you get bonuses, like XP, being able to do more things each turn, etc.

So it seems to me like the best expansion strategy in general (in the absence of specific reasons otherwise) is the following:

- Always keep your Consumption at 0. If Consumption is above 0, then the most cost-effective thing you can do with your BP is to build a farm or fishery. And if you expand and increase consumption by 1, and then build a mine/quarry/sawmill there, on the net you haven't gained anything. So you only want to expand if you can mitigate the consumption.

- Never expand into a hex if you don't intend to build a terrain improvement there. Every unimproved hex is just costing you money and increasing your Control DC for no (or very little) benefit. Literally every terrain type can support at least one of the "consumption reducers" (Farm/Fishery) or one of the "money makers" (Mine, Quarry, Sawmill) so you want to put one of those on every hex if you can.

- For example, suppose that you expand onto 2 hill hexes, and you build mines in both of them, a farm on one. You have net zero extra consumption, and spent a total of 18 BP (6 mine + 6 mine + 4 farm + 2 to claim the hexes) and gain Economy +2 and +2 bonus BP/turn, for an average of 2.66 BP/turn. (remember that every +3 economy is basically 1 BP/turn). This is a pretty good payback. Of course it also makes it harder to pass your kingdom checks since you're increasing size without increasing stability/loyalty.

- It's probably best, especially with reasonably large kingdoms, to keep your Size low enough that you can auto-pass most Economy/Loyalty/Stability checks. Most of the unexpected bad stuff happens if you fail one of these checks. This becomes easier as your kingdom gets bigger. For instance if your size is 100 and you are passing checks half the time - if your size was only 90 instead, then you would be passing them all the time. So unless 90 hexes isn't enough and you really need those extra 10 hexes right now - might want to hold off on claiming them until you've built more economy/loyalty/stability buildings.

7. Unrest - It looks like you also want to keep Unrest at 0 as much as possible. Each point of Unrest is effectively -1 to each of Economy, Loyalty, and Stability, and it's a lot easier to reduce Unrest than to increase those other things. For instance a House costs 3 BP and reduces unrest by 1, while you would have to pay several times that if you wanted to increase Economy, Loyalty, and Stability by 1 each using other buildings.

One thing that is unclear in the rules is whether, if you demolish a building that has +Unrest or -Unrest, whether the change is reversed.

If not, it seems like you could cheaply reduce Unrest very easily by repeatedly building and demolishing Houses (you reduce 1 unrest on each build, and no negative effect when you demolish it. In fact if this is the case you might want to demolish Houses to free up space all the time if there's nothing else you want to do, since a House would do nothing for you after you've finished building it, unless there's a "requires adjacent house" building next to it.)

If the change is reversed if you demolish the building it seems like a good strategy is as follows. As long as you can auto-pass Stability and Loyalty checks you can reduce Unrest by 2 every turn if nothing else is going on (1 from normal upkeep, 1 from the Royal Enforcer.) Then you can build a tenement each turn while keeping your unrest stable. The advantage of this is now you have a "buffer" so if something bad happens that gives you a lot of Unrest, you can quickly demolish your Tenements (or upgrade them to Houses) to reduce Unrest a lot in a hurry.

8. So putting it all together, let's see if we can figure out the most effective investments (not counting the optional rules) to grow your kingdom, if you are mainly concerned about growing but still want to be able to pass your stability and loyalty checks. Consider the following "growth package":

- Claim a hill hex and a forest hex.
- Build a mine and farm on the hill hex, and a sawmill on the forest hex.
- Build a brewery and a stable in your settlement. (There are lots of buildings with similar costs that also give the small bonuses to economy/stability/loyalty that you need, if you want multiple "growth packages" but don't want to build too many of the same building in your settlement.)

Collectively this costs: 6 [brewery] + 10 [stable] + 4 [farm] + 6 [mine] + 3 [sawmill] + 2 [claim hexes] = 31 BP.

It gives you +2 economy, +2 stability, +2 loyalty, and +2 BP/turn extra income. Since the Control DC goes up by 2, this means you are just as good at checks as you are before. And of course increasing economy by 2 increases tax income by about 0.66 BP/turn. So we get that we're spending 31 BP to increase our income by 2.66 BP/turn, or about a payback period of 12 months.

- Can Valendron use his ability to recharge a spell to move immediately after resetting his hand, immediately before resetting his hand, or either?

- If Alhazra uses her ability to discard a spell in her hand to pick up a spell in the discard pile at the end of her turn, before resetting her hand, can she play the spell she just picked up (let's say it was a Cure spell) before resetting her hand? (In other words, is there a window in between "at the end of your turn" and "reset your hand" where you can play spells?)

For the "stat gems" like "Ruby of Charisma" and "Onyx of Constitution"...

- Can they be played on another character's check, or only on your own check?

- Suppose that my charisma is d12, my dexterity is d8, and I play a Ruby of Charisma and a blessing on my non-combat dexterity check. Do I roll 2d12, or 1d12+1d8?

- Suppose that my charisma is d12, my dexterity is d8, and I play a Ruby of Charisma and an Aid spell (add 1d6 to any check) on my non-combat dexterity check. Do I roll 2d12, or 1d12+1d6?

- Does playing a Ruby of Charisma on a check to defeat the "Kraken" ship override the Kraken's ability to reduce dice higher than your strength die to your strength die? For instance, if my charisma is d12, strength is d6, and I play a ruby of charisma, do I roll a d12 or a d6?

Thanks. It is correct, though, that the Jolly Roger affects everyone's checks to defeat ships, is that right?

What does "your ship" mean? Does it mean:

(a) a ship you are commanding,
(b) a ship you are on,
(c) the party's ship, regardless of where you are at the time,

or something else?

Some examples of where this comes into play are:

- When is Jirelle's ability to reduce structural damage applied? Is it applied only during her turn? Any time she is on the ship? Is it applied if she encounters a card that does structural damage during someone else's turn? What if someone else encounters a card that does structural damage during her turn? Or is it applied to any structural damage done to the party's ship, wherever?

- When is the "at this location" effect of Tempest Cay applied? I would assume this would be to any encounter that occurs at that location, is that right? (If "your ship" meant the party's ship no matter what, this could be read to say that if a character is at the location, then the party's ship takes 1 more structural damage from anything, even if the thing that did the damage happened at a completely different location.)

- When the Jolly Roger is played, does it affect everyone's checks to defeat ships, or just the player who played it? Can you play the Jolly Roger if you are not on the ship?

- What happens if you are playing a scenario where your ship is anchored, and you move to a different location from where your ship is anchored, and encounter something that does something to "your ship" (like structural damage)?

How exactly does Sphere of Fire work? I have been playing it as follows (assuming you don't use the "discard for extra damage" ability:

- When you encounter a monster, you can play Sphere of Fire and use it for that check. It stays displayed in front of you until the end of your turn.
- Then if you encounter more monsters before the end of your turn, you can use the same Sphere of Fire again. If you do so you cannot also use another spell on your check.
- You can't just play Sphere of Fire when there is no monster. You have to encounter a monster first (since you can only play "for your combat check" things when you are making a combat check?)

Is this correct? In particular, are you actually allowed to play Sphere of Fire before you encounter a monster? If so, do you *have* to have Sphere of Fire already out, so you would have to play it before you knew whether your explore will hit a monster or not? Or is it like cards like Strength, where you can play it either in advance or during the encounter?

Also, another suggestion: Ezren's Evoker power should be errataed, or at least clarified, in the FAQ.

If I understand things correctly, everywhere else in the game the template "add X with the Y trait" is used, it means "add X to the check, and add the Y trait to the check," not "add X to the check only if it has the Y trait."

An example is in the rule book (the newest version, on the website) with the example of Kyra fighting a ghost on page 12. Kyra's power says to "add 1d8 with the Magic trait" against Undead enemies, and in the example, the power adds 1d8 to the check, and adds the Magic trait, even though the check didn't have the Magic trait before.

Similarly, I would assume that a power like that on Flaming Mace +1,, "you may additionally discard this to add 1d4 with the Fire trait" does not require the check to already have the Fire trait from another source to give you the 1d4. (If it did, the power seems like it would be almost useless.)

Since Ezren's power also uses the template "add X with the Y trait", but this time it means a different thing (add X to the check only if it has the Y trait) this should be clarified or errataed in the FAQ.

Does being behind cover affect the target's CMD? It says under "Combat Maneuver Defense" that circumstance bonuses do, but is being behind cover a circumstance bonus?

If not, that means that when I use a reach weapon to disarm someone from behind cover, it's no harder than if the target didn't have cover, correct? (I'm confused because that's what the rules seem to say, but it doesn't make sense that a normal attack would be penalized by cover, but a combat maneuver wouldn't be.)