Aureate's page

FAQed.

FAQ wrote:

When I use a magic item like ring of invisibility or hat of disguise that can be activated to gain the effects of a spell, does the wording "as the spell" also include the spell’s duration?

Yes, such items' effects have a duration, as indicated by the spell’s duration and the item’s caster level. If the item has no daily use limit, however, you can simply use the item again to reset the duration.

<sarcasm>Yay!</sarcasm>

Thanks for answering the FAQ, even though I disagree with it.

Seriously, this is yet another FAQ that I'll be ignoring. I am not going to make a player reactivate a ring of invisibility every couple of minutes. Or a hat of disguise for that matter.

I'm glad I'm not doing organized play. I wish there was a system doing organized play that I actually agreed with a majority of rulings made.

There is nothing wrong with knitting at the table. I've seen knitter's doing their thing in Grad school (a hat per class), while listening to the lecture and participating meaningfully. Clearly the knitting bothers you more than them not liking your ruling, but you didn't say that they were disrupting the game.

As far as your ruling, perhaps you should explain the exact circumstances better. If the player had a reasonable expectation that they could do something with their character and you just said "no", without a reason it could be frustrating. My guess is that the way you handled the encounter was part of the problem. Not whether you were "right" by the rules, but by presentation. Invalidating a character or character concept without an explanation is frustrating to a player. If you won't work with them to tell a story, why should they work with you? Maybe you took away the only choice they felt they had in the situation.

It's also possible that the player is a passive aggressive noodle head. But you didn't give enough information and what is there is surely biased.

Shouldn't this thread be in Advice and not rules?

I generally don't comment on one side or the other of controversial debates, but I can see where Malachi is coming from on this. I would allow his interpretation in one of my games without question.

The actual rules arguments have been stated, and now people are just talking past each other. So, I don't really have anything to add except to throw my hat in to say that it isn't as one-sided as some of you seem to think.

I may not be as eloquent, or as experienced with arguing as some of the more frequent posters, but I don't appreciate it when someone is using perfectly reasonable logic and then called names for it. It has no place here.

I do appreciate the attempts of the Paizo folks like Liz that remove those posts. I just wish it weren't necessary.

This isn't hard. This is easy, but time consuming. Before this, if I remember correctly, you couldn't recharge your staves at all.

Can a character take 10 on an Acrobatics check to make a jump, provided he is not in immediate danger or distracted?

I'm aware taking a 20 would be impossible, as this would mean taking a 1 as well (and failing the jump) but nowhere in the take 10 entry is it suggested that taking 10 means taking 1-9 first.

The DC of the jump is determined by distance and doubles if you don't do a run-up. If you are not in immediate danger you can take 10 on your acrobatics check. It takes no more time than if you were making a normal check and you are not restricted to doing it when you have a running start.

As to taking 20, if you were in a situation that you could keep trying, with no consequences for failure, you could still take 20. An example might be jumping to reach a hanging chandelier. It might be out of reach Taking 10, but as long as you can keep trying there is no reason you couldn't take 20.

Also, rolling a 1 on a skill check is not necessarily an automatic failure. If a character's skill is high enough a 1 can succeed.

What's up with the Pathfinder Design team? No posts, no FAQ's answered, no new FAQs.

I imagine that they're just busy. It doesn't help that when they make rulings on anything controversial they get ridiculed for doing the exact thing people are asking for. So they would have to spend even more time discussing an issue before deciding on a ruling.

I don't know for sure about the design team, but Chris Lambert has been doing a great job trying to keep things civil on the forums.

Look, I understand the current rule and how it is supposed to work. But I'm with seebs et al. regarding the confusion of why Spell Combat isn't just changed to a Full Attack Action instead of a Full Round Action. I was actually going to start a thread regarding that exact topic in House Rules, because I think it would fix a lot of issues. If nothing else it seems like it would be more consistent.

If players without rules nitpicking experience consistently assume that an ability works a certain way, even if they are wrong, it says that it is probably the way the ability should work. Or it needs a rewrite to be more clear.

Obviously, this FAQ clarified intent (sort of, if you take into account SKRs added input it becomes very clear). But I don't see any reason to not just make Spell Combat a FAA and be done with it.

+1000 to mdt That is exactly what I was trying to say.

the scenario reads---after the second failed save or if the party exerts itself, they are exhausted.

But the rules don't say that anywhere that I see.

They say that you make the check and if you fail you are fatigued. Nowhere in the description of altitude does it mention exhaustion at all.
So no direct line from fine -> exhausted.
So the only way that it takes you to exhausted is by going through fatigued.

After the first check the Oracle is still fine. There is no pseudo/phantom/fatigued condition. On each and every check they are checking to see if they will become fatigued. As they are immune they never will.

The bandolier is attended so won't take any damage unless a Natural 1 is rolled.

A magic item doesn't need to make a saving throw unless it is unattended, it is specifically targeted by the effect, or its wielder rolls a natural 1 on his save. Magic items should always get a saving throw against spells that might deal damage to them—even against attacks from which a nonmagical item would normally get no chance to save. Magic items use the same saving throw bonus for all saves, no matter what the type (Fortitude, Reflex, or Will). A magic item's saving throw bonus equals 2 + 1/2 its caster level (rounded down). The only exceptions to this are intelligent magic items, which make Will saves based on their own Wisdom scores.

Magic items, unless otherwise noted, take damage as nonmagical items of the same sort. A damaged magic item continues to function, but if it is destroyed, all its magical power is lost. Magic items that take damage in excess of half their total hit points, but not more than their total hit points, gain the broken condition, and might not function properly

Also, even if it were non-magical I'm fairly certain a player could hold a piece of tissue paper in his hands as the fireball went off and nothing would happen to it. Natural 1 on the players save being the exception.

SKR, just write some errata so that RAI == RAW explicitly.

The FAQ is nice, but this debate has been going on for apparently 10 years, and depending on which Dev you ask there is a different interpretation of the RAW (Not in Pathfinder, but that isn't where this originated).

If you don't understand something in PF, and there's no supplementary information available to explain it, you can look to the 3.5 FAQ to see if there's anything relevant there to help you understand. But the 3.5 FAQ is not binding to PF rules questions because 3.5 is not the same game as PF

I agree that it isn't binding, but when rules text hasn't changed and there has been no PF specific FAQ, and as far as anyone knows the intent hasn't changed, there is a reasonable expectation that an FAQ from 3.5 applies. Saying that it is obvious that it should work the new way rather than the old way is insulting. The rules have changed from 3.5, that's great. Rewrite the relevant rule to reflect that please, rather than FAQ as rule change.

Basically what I am getting from all this is that the rules weren't clear, the necessary restrictions weren't published, and instead of errata that actually fixes the issue we get an FAQ that in order to be correct has to rely on rules and guidelines that players don't have access to.

This is exactly the sort of thing that people hate. Some people can read between the lines and get to the same spot, but it certainly isn't clear. As is evidenced by all the threads on this topic.

Thanks for chiming in Jason, but it still doesn't address the issue of trying to understand the unwritten rules. Is there a design document somewhere that we can read so that this won't be an issue in the future?

Regarding the specific FAQ, I don't really care one way or the other about the ruling, but I VERY MUCH care on the rationale behind it, in order to apply to other parts of the game.

One word of advice, don't tell them exact details and don't do it in game terms. Say that since beastie X lives in hot volcanic conditions that you can assume the beast does not fear fire thus hinting that cold is the way to go. As soon as you give game details you've spoilt the creature.

I disagree with this. With a successful check I should get a fact, not a hint. It is too easy to misinterpret a poorly phrased hint.

Case in point, your example. That could mean that he resists fire or is immune. That doesn't mean that he is weak against cold either. It isn't fun to guess something that you should know.

It's in the errata:

Page 162—In the Learning Words of Power section,

in the Magi, Witches, and Wizards paragraph, in the
first sentence, change “Witches and wizards begin
play” to “Magi, witches, and wizards begin play”.
Change “3 + the witch’s or wizard’s Intelligence
modifier” to “3 + their Intelligence modifier”. Delete
the second sentence.