Alexander Woods's page

This, this right here is why I am proud to be a venture officer. Being a public face for the organized play experience means I am a public face to how many new players see the company.

Actions like this make me proud to be such a public face and a vocal advocate for paizo. Keep up the good work, and know we all appreciate what you guys do.

I can confirm no rules against throwing while adjacent. (Or shooting a bow while adjacent. Just like reach weapons can attack things within their reach now.) Alchemists need to throw while adjacent every now and then. ;) the big negative is the risk of getting AoO'ed since it becomes a ranged attack, also that no strength (or in thrown, half strength). Also that being Flanked is a sort of pseudo condition that applies to only the flanking individuals. It doesn't care about what makes the attack, just that the conditions for it exist. (It's what makes a Eldritch Trickster viable against non-AoO enemies.

flanking rules

You are a * Pathfinder Society (second edition) GM.

is what I can see on my page.

If that * is an actual symbol that looks sorta like this without the background circles. Then that means you have one Glyph to hand out.

How do you know how many you have?

If you go to "My Organized Play" in the drop down menu at the top right of every page. It'll take you to your main Organized Play page. With a section at the top if it "you are a (insert symbol type here) gm" for each type you have (glyphs, stars, novas) and you just count how many of the green Glyph of the open road symbols you have in that line. (If any).

What are GM glyphs?

GM Glyphs (sometimes called sigils by old farts like me, as that was their original name when first discussing getting them set-up in 2e) are awarded to GMs who have run enough 2e Society games. (There are also Stars for 1e, and Novas for Starfinder.. .Each are earned individually from each-other. They only visibly show up on the core profile though, not the other Aliases. And sometimes even then they don't show up... Like my Glyphs don't appear, but my Star and Novas do. Kind of like your own 3 stars. No idea how many Glyphs you may have) It shows the level of dedication the individual has done to hosting games for others. As well as, ostensibly, demonstrating a level of system mastery from having run soo many games, and the knowledge of the rules that comes from it. Each resource caps at 5 for their respective system.

Each tier requires notably more number of games run than the previous tier. But the final 5th glyph/star/nova requires additional work, number of Specials run, and recognition by other VO's in order to get approved. As it is a special level of recognition.

In the case of 2e games, players can give bonus hero points to other players equal to their number of Glyphs.

1-4, 3-6, 5-8, and 7-10. There are only two 7-10 scenarios, so the highest level you can reach with just Scenarios is 9.2.

If you play things in Adventure Mode (One-shots, Adventures, Adventure Paths), you can be higher. Maybe even Level 20 (I think the APs give 1 level PFS credit per book, but I'm not 100% sure).

You are correct that sanctioned APs, as-well as both Plaguestone and Slithering, give a full level each book, and don't have to be on a specific character level. (You can do a full 6 book AP and assign each chronicle to a different level 1 character, for 6 level 2 characters, if you wished. As an example. OR take a level 9 character, and dump all 6 books on them to then be level 15. Just because.)

one trait I missed on the spoongun above is it also has the Cobbled trait. Just in-case people end up in a game where Zakzak is told to use the spoongun (like I will, happily, in this one. I love the mental image of shoving cutlery into the gun to reload.)

Cobbled Firearms
Goblins are nothing if not creative and adaptable, and have a unique gift for recognizing an advantage when they see one. Even with the relative rarity of firearms, only the most secluded goblins are unaware of the deadly metal tubes that fling death over long distances using fire and explosive powder. The goblin gunsmiths of the Motaku Isle Ironworks in Absalom’s Shackles constantly experiment with new weapon designs using spare parts from their clients’ weapons shipments and whatever happens to be lying around. The more successful versions of these junk guns often get added to the catalogue of weapons available from the ironworks, while the less effective ones usually kill their creators before the unfortunate gunsmiths have a chance to iterate on their designs. All cobbled firearms have the cobbled trait, which causes them to misfire on a failure.

bolding the relevant mechanics of the Cobbled trait.

Let's see if this link wants to work, as apparently the link I posted earlier is working wonky on the website.

Product Discussion

Thanks for the note about the flingflenser, I didn't know they were looking to change it but I am playing Zakzak in another table and thought it was odd I couldn't use one of his abilities due to his equipment choice.

You'll find the post here. https://paizo.com/products/btq02aoq?Pathfinder-OneShot-3-Head-Shot-the-Rot

Dev statement from Michael Sayre is:

GM Lea S wrote:

Any Update on this before we begin the event this weekend?

My understanding is that it's in queue and the updated file just needs to be pushed to the website. The quick summary is that Zakzak has a spoon gun instead of a flingflenser and he has 3 more HP from taking Toughness instead of Incredible Initiative.

The stats of a spoon-gun, per the Guns & Gears book:

SPOON GUN ITEM 1
UNCOMMON COBBLED GOBLIN
Price 10 gp
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk 1
No one’s entirely certain who developed the spoon gun, but all authorities agree that it was probably a goblin. Essentially a terrible
idea in firearm form, the spoon gun is a spring‑powered hand cannon with a modified grip that uses miscellaneous knives, forks, chopsticks, and spoons as ammunition. Users typically upend the entire contents of their cutlery drawer into the gun, aim it in the general direction of the foe, and hope it hits something.

This hand cannon is a martial weapon, instead of a simple weapon. It has the scatter (5 feet) trait and uses cutlery or similar-sized objects as ammunition instead of bullets (enough cheap cutlery to fire ten shots costs 1 sp).

in short:
Hand cannon
5 gp
1d6 modular
30 ft.
Reload 1
Hands 1
Bulk 1
traits: Firearm, Modular B, P, or S, Scatter (5ft)

Bold for additional trait beyond normal hand-cannon

Since we start tomorrow, I'm going to assume the party is as-such, until told otherwise.

me: Zakzak
Nnamdi Osizi: Zindarel
Grimsnik: Booker
Nuoc Tang: Doc

Following in with the "any pregen works" squad. Conveniently, my preferences don't interfere with the above two posts, either. Zakzak, Doc, Zindarel, Booker.

So is slipstream is good with Doc. we got our options. if not, there might be a little shifting.

dotting in

No, the DM is not using those. He is doing 10 vs 4 with the enemy level at party -1, because the difficulty rating as written makes absolutely 0 sense. And from what I've seen, if your DM sends you enemy numbers equal to your own, then he is in the minority. But sure, let's do that : 5 enemies vs 4 party + 1 eidolon.

2 ranged target the obvious caster, and depending on their knowledge about summoners, the 3 melees slam the eidolon. Dead summoner.

Even if only one melee slams the eidolon and 2 another melee, that is still 3 attacks against the summoner's HP.

Speaking from experience of running multiple modules, the APs, most PFS scenarios, and a couple home-brews. As well as playing several of the above as-well. I have to frankly state that the "difficulty as written" makes excellent sense. In the simple fact that, against a swarm of enemies, even multiple levels below the party can go poorly, quickly. As well as poorly, quickly against a few, or even just one, of appropriate CR enemies. The difficulties as written match up to my average experience.

It has really become a case of "If you have the 'right' party make-up, with the exact 'right' skills/abilities for this fight. The difficulty is much lower, and you can walk out with practically zero scratches... But if your party are 'wrongly' built (resistances, immunities, DR, hardness, etc. of the right types) it can easily become nail-bitingly close to death... Sometimes even a full wipe, even if the GM is trying to "softball" it with poor enemy tactics... One wrong crit, and everything can go south."

Most match-ups will be somewhere between all 'right' and all 'wrong'. With how tight the numbers are in this system, that is still within 2 crits from everything going sideways.

I am not caring for Giant Instinct right now. That was just the reason I ask this question, so I want the answer to:

Are there large weapons in pf2, which deal more damage because they are large, or did they remove that rule and a weapon of any size does the same damage?

As written, right now, weapon sizes do not inherently change damage. A pixie with an appropriately sized greatsword and a gargantuan monstrosity with an appropriate greatsword, all other stats, cr, etc. being equal, would do same damage.

Looking through this, I am forced to concede to the idea it auto works if targeting the golem directly. As Effects, as called out and described in the core book on page 453, range, targets, area of affect, attack roll modifiers, etc. are all called out as part of the Effects portion.

Further, it calls out Targets and Areas as seperate components of effects, and Effects make it clear that not everything has all the listed components. Areas specifically state they "spread out from point of origin" and never mention a target. As such, much like tags in this system, I am forced to conclude that AOE effects do NOT have targets. As the golem antimagic specifically calls out "any magic of this type that TARGETS the golem" then fireballs do nothing....

This leads to the situation where a entourage of golems is much more deadly increase than a single one, as you can't just fireball-equivalent into the crowd.

Effects of an action or spell, include range, area, duration, etc. (page 453 of the Core). As it specifically calls out "with the effects of a 3-action heal spell" then you treat it exactly as a 3 action heal spell.

Flagging this thread for a FAQ response form a Dev. We are not going to come to an agreement otherwise.

@Liegence, it is clear you already have your opinion of how this works, and have no interest in opinions that counter argue it. As such, I too have said my peace, and shall move on to other threads. Have a nice day all. Meanwhile I hope you have happy gaming.

If you defeat all enemies you exit encounter mode. That has other implications, but it’s clearly the rule.

I specifically called out the "what happens if Bob is dead, but Phil is not" being two enemies in the same encounter. Aka, the one that "caused" the persistent damage on you is down and out. But the encounter isn't over yet... Do we, or don't we, consider the dead or unconscious individuals as enemies for the continuing trigger.

As for my reference to "too good to be true" I am not talking about a table call here. I am referencing a rule, in the core rulebook, page 444.

"Ambiguous Rules
Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is."

The solution it provides may be table variance'd, and thus make table calls. But RAW, I see no way to not argue that your argument falls under the "Too good to be true" clause, which is technically a rule, RAW, in the CRB. Thus, I will interpret it the other way, that is not "Too Good To Be True" and thus does not incur table variance.

Back to the topic at hand, though... as you dig deeper, I’m not actually sure you’re making unrealistic or absurd scenarios. If you can channel the power of your Deity to abate the damage on a nearby ally who is being injured (taking damage by rule) then why is it absurd that you wouldn’t have this power if the damage was poison?

If the enemies weapon deals non-persistent poison damage, I think it’s absolutely clear you can use your reaction to give poison resistance.

I never claimed to be making unrealistic or absurd scenarios. I was specifically trying to choose ones that could legit be argued, and then look further and go. "This sounds too good to be true." especially on an already extremely powerful reaction. Especially when we start including the riders that the reaction comes with... For instance, the Liberator champion. If you can trigger on ongoing poison. Suddenly anything that does the equivalent of 2+level damage, or less, per turn into a free step. Or we go to Paladin, and we now have champions getting a free hit off on enemies who are no longer spending actions targeting normal reaction-triggering targets. For really GOOD persistent damage, the redeemer getting off those nice Enfeeblements, just because. (weaker damages the target will let be ignored, that way the Redeemer can't use the reaction on other attacks.)

This is just looking at level 1 Champions, form the corebook... These are some really GOOD riders.. .to the point you start WANTING the enemy to proc, say, an alchemist's fire. heck, you could argue that you could use enchantment effects like Charm to get them to do just so, and then intentionally never take the actions to make the flat check any easier.

Further, you can't really ignore the dead body part... Because what if they are just one enemy in a battle. They go down, does your Champion suddenly STOP being able to reaction against the persistent damage now? Do their godly powers stop caring about the suffering and torment of their allies, because Bob the Evil Guy (tm), instead of Phil the Evil Guy (tm), is dead now?

What if you non-lethal'd Bob the Evil Guy. he isn't dead, but is unconscious and not a threat right now, and probably still an enemy unless some form of mind-control was in play... Do you still get to proc your reaction, even though it being proc'ed by a defenseless creature (see Paladin above for more moral issues here), or not?

Persistent damage is a condition and it's that condition that inflicts damage. As such, you can't use Champion Reaction when persistent damage inflicts damage.

Now, nothing in the rules state that persistent damage is not like normal damage, so, per strict application of RAW you can use Champion Reaction to reduce persistent damage on application. It's still really weird.

Poisons and Diseases are conditions and as such don't trigger Champion Reaction.

I believe you stated in your first line that conditions can't trigger the reaction. I am not sure how your second line then confirms that it can. Either it IS applicable, or is not.

As we go down this rabbit hole, let's dig a little deeper, shall we?

Does damage caused by poison that was inflicted by an enemy, (say, from a poisoned dagger) then trigger it? It's still an effect inflicted by an enemy.

If with poison, how about Disease inflicted? Plenty of those come from things like Giant Rat bites.

Does the enemy who inflicted the effect causing the repeating damage need to be ALIVE then? The reaction never requires as much in its mechanics. (If you drag their corpse around with you, you could then negate the damage, and even on the good side I can imagine this being fine for multiple gods. Evil Champions this is just ASKING to be exploited.)

So, now that I've dug a nice sized crater out of that rabbit hole, using only ideas that came to mind in only a few seconds. Let us look at the flip side: What if it DOESN'T apply?

Then that means SOME abilities like Twist the Knife have a little additional situational utility. Otherwise, things play out just like what I expect most people have been playing it.

Looking at the two options, I personally have to lean towards "no", if only due to the "too good to be true" rulings. Your table may differ.

TwilightKnight wrote:

In PFS, I don't see many characters being dropped to dying. I would estimate it happens about once every 3-4 scenarios, so I don't she it being a problem in that campaign.

My PFS experience is different. None of my characters have dropped to dying, but it happens to others about as often as not.

Generally, 1 of 2 thing must happen:

1) A player makes an extremely poor tactical decision

2) A PC is front-line, but lacks the AC, HP, and/or a fellow front-liner to weather it.

I have run a couple PFS scenarios where a front-liner drops do to no true fault of their own. In general it's been a "Final BBEG walks up, rolls a nat 20, and then almost/does max out the damage roll". But that's a scenario that is going to happen in any game designed to feel challenging and not just bullet-spongey.

(No PFS deaths so far however... A few one-short-of-dead dying times. but no deaths.)

Again back to the familiar, the idea of losing all your powers can be very frightening. I spoke mostly about the...

I can understand your viewpoint, however I can also post the argument that suddenly GAINING wings doesn't actually sound fun to me. It means an outside force elected to provide me a new ability I never had. As a general rule, we like to think that such things are purely enjoyable. However as real-world experience it's probably incredibly frightening. Especially if they had no understanding of such being possible BEFORE gaining said intelligence.

I made the Cthulhu reference above, because the new abilities don't necessarily cause pain. Rather it is the simple fact that it is things so far outside the realm of what your mind believed was possible, that accepting it causes one's psyche to undergo immense strain. It also includes the fact that believing such things would cause others of your kind to think you insane. (or in the case of physical changes, completely a mutant.)

Those two situations are very much the same things that said creature would go through gaining the powers and knowledge you describe. Furthermore, said powers like wings can come and go on a daily basis for the creature in question...

So, if we want to view it form the point of view of the Wizard imposing new powers and abilities on the animal before the animal has the cognizance to agree to it. It very much scream "Eldritch Horror" for me. In which case the creature reverting to the earlier state is probably the more merciful action.

However, if you instead want to view it as a partnership. Where the creature is given the understanding of what is being offered, and a full even agreement to accept it, and any daily changes, as well as the ability to leave should it wish. (Much like a boon companion as described.) Then I see no issue, as that leaves plenty of agency in the hands of the creature, and a full choice of what life it wants.

It's not that you particularly have to desire intelligence, it's than when you have it you don't want to lose it because it is part of who you are. ...SIC... Maybe indeed the way they see the world is totally different but I would imagine loss aversion is a thing all living being share (survival would be way harder without it).

I am now getting a very Cthulhu vibe... As the animal creature, knowing all it needs to know to live and get along amongst it's kind and the world in which it was born. Suddenly raised to a new awareness and understanding of the universe by a being noticeably more powerful than it, including the ability to bend the fabric of reality in ways the creature could never have understood before... But now can...

For the familiar... is this an existential crisis now? Are they falling into the Cthulhu-level madness? If so, perhaps they really WOULD prefer to go back to their previous understanding of the universe. To be able to pretend it was all just some nightmare...

And now, I also extend this thought process to "Are cultists just familiars for Mythos critters?"

I have another question: How large are the storage crates? The text says they are 8 ft. by 8 ft., but on the map they look to be much bigger--nearly 20 ft. by 20 ft. Unless the smaller light-colored squares are meant to be some sort of tiling and not squares (in which case I ran the map as entirely too big).

The description of the dungeon mentions tiling. Further, the trap-door is listed as 20ftx20ft. With how it is drawn, that would mean the large squares are actually 5ft squares, and the smaller are tiling. (I understand the mistake, I was originally making the tiles the 5 foot squares as well... It was the trap that through me for a loop on it and had me re-scale, and notice tiling descriptor.) With that, putting the golem just about anywhere in the eastern half of that room means a good chance of setting it off... unless you put it in the south-east corner, and your players elect to not "search the room". (since searching the room usually requires looking under all the tables at least. including the one near the tunnel moving forward. Which makes it hard to not set-off the invisible golem unless someone has see-invisibility active.