Berinor's page

I typically use minis for PCs and pawns for NPCs/monsters. PCs are in the game enough that they're typically worth the couple of bucks per vs a baddie that's only around for 5-6 rounds of combat. Plus, it helps identify teams on the battlefield more easily if they're different from each other.

That said, when a villain is particularly important I'll sometimes get a mini. Or enormous - I love me some of the Gargantuan minis for sheer scale when you get a Rune Giant to the table.

Looks like I'm all set. Thanks Diego!

Hello,

I got my notification for order 4373723 and it looks like I accidentally preordered copies of Incident At Absalom Station and the Starfinder Core Rulebook in addition to my subscriptions. Is it too late to cancel the non-subscription copies? If not, I would like to do so.

Thanks,
Berinor

He doesn't lose things that are results of levels unless they're mathed directly from level. So sneak attack is unaffected (since the class features say 3d6 at level 5, not half of level rounded up). You don't lose any spell slots, either current or future preparation. When you cast a spell, your caster level is as normal minus any negative levels you have at the time of casting.

Also, you may be getting a bonus hit point each level due to favored class.

But could happen if you had negative levels.

"The Dead Suns Adventure Path will run for a year, with a new volume released every other month."

A twelve part Adventure Path? Wow!

Sadly (for epicness) but gladly (for feasibility), only 6.

That sounds perfect. Thanks Katina!

Hi,

I just got around to unpacking my order and was surprised to find a comic in it - Hollow Mountain #5. After looking at the invoice, I realized it must have been put in instead of the compilation of Hollow Mountain. Would it be possible to get the correct one sent (ideally with my subscriptions next month) and is there a method I should use for returning the incorrect one?

Thanks,
Berinor

There is in-game precedent that it's not entirely obvious or is otherwise fakeable via the Razmiran "priests" and the False Focus feat. That leads me to think the difference in inflection or special effects is probably subtle if it even exists.

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Bayesian reasoning. Probabilities can also be interpreted as confidence levels.

Alright, how does Bayesian Inference apply to the question:

If something has no impact on the observable universe. Does that mean it does not exist?

You're looking at this the wrong way (at least to understand my and I think others' perspective in this thread).

If something doesn't impact the observable universe, it may well exist. But what are the odds of somebody guessing correctly that it does? That depends on how dense the things that exist are in the space of things that you could imagine (feel free to narrow that down to specific sub-categories if you like). It also depends on how much wiggle room you allow (e.g. if you described an RPG called Pathseeker to your friend it would be pretty uncharitable to say it doesn't exist since something does exist within a reasonable margin of error of that thing).

Why do we resort to this probabilistic model? Because without any way to observe it, anyone stating it exists also has to be guessing. Even interacting with human brain activity is interacting with the observable universe.

So things that by your definition are "unobservable" could very well matter. But because that thing's unobservability means it can't have influenced me being aware of it, there's very little chance that I'll conceive of the right thing even if it does exist. So for the purposes of how I'll live my life, that thing might as well not exist.

There's scant evidence there's an afterlife, because the afterlife is non-material, and science - as it is practiced nowadays - is ill equipped to deal with non-material realities.

If you decide all of reality is material, well it's called an axiom.

It doesn't mean it's true. It doesn't mean it's false. It means it's the foundation of your reasoning.

You can be convinced reality is only material, but it's your conviction. And your conviction depends on your worldview.

In order for me to believe in anything specific, I need to have some kind of evidence that the person saying it is both honest and has reason to be right.

I have no reason to think spiritually-inclined folks don't earnestly believe what they're saying (other than some of those selling something), but alternative explanations of serendipity or tricky senses capture the reasons better from my perspective. Besides which, if the thinking is it has no way of interacting with the material world, that includes not being able to drive our actions, so there's no way that thing's existence could have an impact on whether we believe in it. And in that case, the simpler explanation is that it doesn't exist rather than that I happened upon it correctly by chance.

So if the definition of material is that which can interact with the things I can detect, I'll allow that non-material things may very well exist but I'll never believe in any specific one of them. Because my aversion to false beliefs is stronger than my ability to guess which ones are correct.

QL - I would advise you not to conflate, "In the absence of a good choice, people choose a supernatural explanation." with, "A supernatural explanation isn't a good one."

Of course, if supernatural forces interact with what we currently consider "material", understanding it might cause us to stop calling it "supernatural".

@Berinor: "A claim has been made about continuity of existence past death. Due to the nature of this claim, it is functionally impossible to prove or disprove while alive. That said, it does have a clearly defined point at which knowledge of its accuracy, or lack thereof, would become possible if it is indeed true. I hypothesize that a certain presented idea is at least mostly correct about this continuity of existence, and for the sake of this experiment, I choose to live my life accordingly. Should the hypothesis be correct, my continued existence will benefit from this and I will be able to understand the full scope of the issue through inquiries made after death. Should the hypothesis be incorrect, I will regretfully not be able to tell anyone, since I will no longer exist. It would be preferable to be able to adequately test this, but the nature of the claim and tools available to me preclude this as a possibility and somewhat limit my options. Since I am unable to conclude this experiment while alive, I will refrain from saying that it is most definitely true the way I might about a theory that has had completed and replicated experiments, and instead I will politely limit myself to hoping for a positive result."

?

This seems like a more narrative version of Pascal's Wager. I have no problem with that for yourself because you need to decide what you think is most plausible/best to believe given your worldview and experience. And (as I hope most here feel) I have nothing but respect for honest deliberations that came to different conclusions than mine.

But I have no problem dealing with the consequences of my not being able to predict what comes after. My perceived utility of those scenarios times my perceived probability of those scenarios shakes out so that my "I bet it's nothing" is a fine choice from my perspective.

I think my difficulty (and why I'm finding myself falling in on OQ's side here) is if it's actually unobservable/undetectable by science (and not just undetectable without being clever like BNW's non-reflecting/non-radiating object) it's also unable to have any impact on things that are observable/detectable. Because science is a generic enough set of tools that (to oversimplify) all you need to measure with science is "will X make Y happen more/less often?"

If we just haven't asked the right questions or don't have the right way to measure Y, that's not on science as a toolkit. We just aren't using it right for that purpose yet.

Cavall wrote:

I think it's dc 10 and you move 3 squares.

The dc is based on the amount crossed, which is 10 feet. The 3 squares is how you cross it.

Seems pretty easy.

It is that easy. That is what the rules said. That is what the FAQ said. But some people think that makes the DCs too low and scramble for some justification to make them higher.

No one thought the math was hard. The question amounted to what distance was being "cleared" by the jump? The obstacle (DC 10)? The distance your feet must have moved (more than 10 since your feet aren't in the pit at the end, so probably 11)? Or enough that your "space" no longer intersects with the pit (DC 15 for standard medium creatures)? Any one would be simple but without further guidance "distance travelled" could really mean any of those.

The FAQ made a determination, the "losing" parties said, "Welp, guess I was wrong. I can handle that or house rule it." Personally I was about 60/30/10 for DC 10/15/11 and think this clarification was less game breaking but much more common than most FAQs so it was worthwhile.

So to any "winning" parties, if you have honest questions about the basis for any arguments after browsing the history, great. It could be a fruitful discussion of how people see things. Comments about how it's ridiculous to see it the other way are even less fruitful once the argument has been settled.

Area is pi r^2. So it's actually 80*80*3.14=6400*3.14 ~ 20000. If you're talking squares, that'd amount to ~800 (since each is 25 square feet). But anything that focuses exclusively on the count will ignore that a bunch of those are partial squares that you need a method for determining whether it's in or out and means it touches significantly more than that 800 squares. Also, Pathfinder generally does diagonals on a 5,10,5,10... basis which affects how corners land.

"Unless you're also saying that if I have 12 Strength, take 8 damage from a poison and then get hit for 5 more I'm not killed by the shadow until I take my full score from shadow damage?"

Yes thats what I'm saying

Donny, i mean Anguish, you're out of your element. Please read shadow's monster entry before responding next time

Ok. I can see that interpretation. I disagree with it for reasons I hope I have stated in such a way that it's understandable (including that it means I might need to track strength damage in multiple pools, determine which pool gets any healing I recieve, and determine whether two shadows contribute to the same pool and similarly for normal and greater shadows). But the disagreement is fully in the interpretation - like many things I think multiple interpretations are consistent with the written rules.

I see it the same as disintegrate. If during application it exceeds your strength score, you're killed. Unless you're also saying that if I have 12 Strength, take 8 damage from a poison and then get hit for 5 more I'm not killed by the shadow until I take my full score from shadow damage?

I disagree with the other folks here. Once the damage has been applied, it's not tied to the shadow any longer. If, while you were recovering (1 per day) you got poisoned it wouldn't remember that it was the shadow and this is the same idea.

Fistbeard McBeardfist wrote:

Bob Bob Bob wrote:

2. Command word at-will True Strike? Yes, that's possible.

3. Command word is always a standard action unless it says otherwise.

To expand on this, command word is always going to be a standard action unless you base the magic item on quickened True Strike. 5th level spell, CL 9, a reasonable-sound 81K.

A quickened true strike every round is still a lot more manageable than infinite true strike. It does limit you to only your first attack and it eats up your swift action constantly (which very many martial characters have as a heavy cost). So this actually sounds fair, even in comparison to the 200k 'always on on all your attacks forever' example.

If you allow such a thing, it would be whichever attack you choose - I think you can do a swift action between attacks. So unless there's a rider you want to apply at the beginning, you'd probably be best-served putting it on your last attack since it'll probably still hit with the true strike.

If you already have Exceptional Pull, composite longbow (+3 Str) will do the trick. If you don't, you should get an Adaptive bow to have the flexibility to apply whatever is appropriate without a to-hit penalty whether you're raging or not.

I'm betting the +4 bow actually means Mighty Composite (+4 Str). Ends up being the same for damage so works out the same in the conversation unless we're talking about to-hit and the like.

I'll probably continue watching it, but the crossover is the only reason I watched any of Legends of Tomorrow and made the decision easy of whether to watch Arrow this season. I'm happy with both decisions, but the crossover is clearly doing its job on my habits, at least.

Berinor wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

If not, I agree with Aberzombie.

** spoiler omitted **

The main thing you'll need to figure out is how to get sneak attack. As a tiny creature you'll have trouble flanking traditionally.

If not, I agree with Aberzombie.

link to an older thread on this subject.... and the observation I had over there...

Duration of hats of disguise and rings.

If the item is just allowing the user to cast the spell on himself, and then has a limited duration... does that mean he can remove the item and have the spell still be in effect?

So a party of adventurers could make themselves invisible by passing a Ring of Invisibility around? Each putting it on, activating it, removing it and passing it to the next player?

Wow...

I always figured it was more limited than that...

If we have the magic item being used to "cast the spell" - then removing the item does not end the spell. When means one H.o.D. could be passed around a party of adventurers to cast the spell multiple times, each having a duration of 10 minutes.

Short term disguises got a big boost - though long term disguises will get damaged...

There was actually a FAQ for that too. Although it did come out after your original post.

There are a number of places that describe immunity as unbeatable spell resistance (the spell, for example). Do you feel differently for those? Or is the comparison limited to which spells it can affect?

A digression on this - when a spell fails because the target was immune do you have the player roll the dice as though it were SR but unbeatable or do you tell them they're immune? Personally I have them roll.

What about if the target isn't a valid target? For example, charm person against an aasimar? I tend to just tell them it has no effect.

There's a lot to dissect here, but ultimately it's got two components - damage and disabling. It's ultimately boils down to being a disintegrate effect, so that's 1+6 (7) or 1+(30d6/10) (12). Since 12 is higher, we use that. Automatic reset, so 13. The disable/avoid is fairly complicated but it doesn't line up with the guidelines, so probably adding 2 or 3. That gives us CR 15 or 16.

On the other hand, it looks a lot like the Empowered Disintegrate Trap (CR 16) mentioned in the Environment chapter of the CRB. It's got automatic reset, so that adds 1 to the CR for 17. If you think the disabling and avoidance is less difficult than 33 Perception/Disable Device and True Seeing you could lower the DC by 1 or 2. If you think it's harder you could increase the DC. I personally think it's easier to detect and so easier to prepare for, so I'd peg it at the 16 you said.

Bodak have DR based on cold iron. Probably because they're from the abyss.

Disintegrate wrote:

Only the first creature struck can be affected; that is, the ray affects only one target per casting.

That made me wonder why that line would need to be included. It seems odd, because I'm not sure how a ray could strike more than one creature or why they would need to specify that this spell works that way (presumably compared to other ray spells working differently?).

I think that's because the moment it hits the object/creature, it's no longer being blocked by that object/creature. It's clarifying that it doesn't just keep going. Standard targeting (not formally line of effect, but similar) implies the same thing about effects like ray of frost.

Too bad Hilary's mentor, Robert Byrd, died; otherwise he could have gone to the Klan rally.

He owned up to and denounced his past Klan involvement. I haven't checked the timelines, but I'd bet all that was before his connections with Hillary. There are contexts where this would be a highly relevant point, but talking about current support from Klansmen isn't really one of them.

My initial read is that the target acts as though they had your skill ranks. Because the wording of trained skills looks like it's evaluated at check-time "If the skill you're using is a class skill (and you have invested ranks into that skill), you gain a +3 bonus on the check." I would give them the +3 if it's a class skill for them.

Where it gets more interesting is that if you're giving direction to Silvertongue the 4th level bard and you have 11 ranks, I think his Skill Focus would give a +6 instead of the +3 that would be possible with his 4 ranks.

Your Skill Focus or Circlet of Persuasion would be irrelevant from my read.

Edit: as for precedent, the ability does what it says it does. It allows you to swap out their ranks for your ranks for the purposes of that check. It doesn't say it's interacting with the check overall, so I see to reason to add that to the interpretation.

In one memorable case to something 1-3 on one Tuesday a month. In one office in the county.

If it's from the same source I'm remembering (John Oliver), it's Sauk City, WI. It's open 8:15-4 the 5th Wednesday of the month. Admittedly you can come over to Madison a little over half an hour away where it's open normal business hours, but it was a striking point.

"does not otherwise displace the original underlying material" implies to me that the surface of that underlying material isn't displaced, it's simply covered up. There's a plane of pit entry and it sits directly on top of what the person was standing on before.

I don't think it matters whether the floor is stone or not - it's not the same thing as it appears under (it doesn't displace the original material). That still exists underneath the pit.

If the rooting is attached to the ground, the pit means it doesn't have that thing to root to any longer. If you can't put it in without severing the person, it's not a horizontal surface of sufficient size and so the spell fails.

Edit: Ninja and unintentional ninja, apparently. :-(

Pillbug Toenibbler wrote:

It's much harder to do basic math, like ratios, when your head is planted so deeply in your own ass.

But I don't think the basic math matters. Why would it be harder to get 4/7 for an "activist" decision rather than 4/7 for a conservative decision?

Somebody's still got to get to a majority right?

Why not go all the way? If 5/9 (56%) is easy to get an activist majority and 4/7 (57%) is hard, imagine how hard it would be to get an activist majority if they needed 100% (1/1)! It's foolproof!

Berinor wrote:

By the same token, my employer pays all the taxes I do. And my employer's customers pays all its taxes (including mine). And so on.

So it's true in a sense that the companies will pass on their taxes to their customers, but they still need to produce a product I'm willing to pay for and charge (including the taxes they're "passing along") a price I'm willing to pay. If what I'm willing to pay won't cover the tax, they need to take less profit (so they're paying for it) or not make the sale.

A fundemental gap exists in your reasoning. Competition may decrease prices (I will do more for less to win a job). Taxes are generally evenly distributed. So prices on all companies go up, and you pay regardless of what you buy. Use taxes on specific items beyond reason do not cause lost profits (cigarettes, alcohol, gas etc.) You pay those and the company makes 5-20% depending on the market segmnt.

Eitherway the popular "we got them" ends up hurting the very people who support the measure.

It depends on what the measure is, exactly. If we're tightening up loopholes, that will increase the taxes on larger companies (that tend to have better accountants) and more unscrupulous companies (that take shadier deductions) more than smaller ones. If we're taxing them to pay for a service they disproportionately use, we're baking the cost of something better into the price of that thing.

I agree that "we got them" is generally overly simplistic. But "no point in taxing companies - they'll just pass on the cost to people anyway" is even more so. Tax policy is easy to make into slogans, but the details are the important part.

First off the employer pays that tax, not the employee.

Buy anything from my company (or Paizo, or Apple, or your internet carrier) and the taxes are built in. Who pays that tax? - you do every time.

By the same token, my employer pays all the taxes I do. And my employer's customers pays all its taxes (including mine). And so on.

So it's true in a sense that the companies will pass on their taxes to their customers, but they still need to produce a product I'm willing to pay for and charge (including the taxes they're "passing along") a price I'm willing to pay. If what I'm willing to pay won't cover the tax, they need to take less profit (so they're paying for it) or not make the sale.

Saldiven wrote:

If you stick to the strict definition of "atheism," I'd have a hard time accepting anyone could actually be an atheist in Golarion. Atheism means that a person doesn't believe in the existence of a god or gods.

You could deny that the 'gods' are actually deities and just powerful outsiders, but that is semantics for the most part.

If I accept the premise that the difference between 'gods' and 'just powerful outsiders' is semantics, I think that at that point they cease to be 'gods' by my reckoning. At that point I wonder what the difference is between a 'god' granting divine magic and a devil making a pact with a sorcerer or witch to grant arcane magic.

I'm absolutely voting for Hillary Clinton.

If I remember right about where you live, I encourage you to vote early. You can do it at any library and many are open for it nights and weekends.

By the table for Detect Evil you are detected as moderately good as a 4th level cleric (4th line in the table) and start to detect as strong at 5th level.

Since Detect Good does not check your other component, but only for morals, that is irrelevant for this spell/ability.

The spell See Alignment does not care if you are a cleric or have an aura. It just marks everyone of the chosen alignment for the caster.

The table (at least in the PRD) references the deity's alignment, though. So for Good the cleric is only an aligned creature and therefore doesn't project a good aura yet.

KingOfAnything wrote:

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

CrusaderWolf wrote:

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

It's pretty clear that the Dems aren't going to win the Senate this year, and they'll probably have a major setback in 2018. Clinton hasn't been doing squat to help the downticket races, although quite frankly, as the most disliked nominee in her Party's history, I'm not sure she can.

Couple of things.

1) Dems have a pretty good shot of winning the Senate; ticket-splitting is not something that voters really do anymore, so Republicans who dislike Trump but don't want to vote for Clinton might just stay home--which cascades defeat all the way down-ticket. You might also have a Trump-Establishment feud that carries on (many have just called for him to resign his candidacy, and Trump doesn't seem like the type to let that slide) and you get not only a depressed turnout but also anti-establishment Trump supporters who decide to "stick it to the RINOs". Either of these could cost R's the Senate, both together almost certainly would.

1. New Jerseyans are infamous for ticket splitting. We're a pretty purple state. There are a lot of people who still buy the basic Republican party line and they'll be voting for their local Republicans even if they can't stomach pulling the lever for the Orangeutang himself.

I didn't think New Jersey had a Senate race this year.

We have local races for Assembly and such The big thing that Democrats are upset now is that Jersey City Mayor Fulop has pulled out of the race for governor... the big issue this year will be a ballot question to allow gambling outside of Atlantic City. Both sides have pretty well funded ad campaigns which makes me wonder who's funding the Anti-Gambling "Don't Trust Trenton" group.

I don't know anything about New Jersey politics, but I would wager a substantial amount of money (heh) that is Atlantic City tourism or hospitality interests. Gambling elsewhere means no reason to go there.

True, but it also represents a significant penalty if you realize that you really need the money you invested to be liquid (I know, don't invest unless you don't need it for living right now, but life happens). That means it's harder for young people to dip their toes in before they have much of their finances squared away.

Whether that's a serious problem or just discouraging people from making a bad decision is in the eye of the beholder, but I think it's important consequence to consider.

Edit: also, thejeff's point was that it makes tweaking investment profiles expensive. Because shifting from 50% stocks now to 20% to reduce market exposure would mean taking a 3% haircut on your investment unless you leave it in cash. Probably not worth purchasing bonds unless they're exempted from the sales tax we're talking about here.

Just because income inequality is natural and healthy for an economy and society (without some level of income inequality there's no incentive other than prestige and community-mindedness to contribute which doesn't get the jobs done in a 300 million person economy), but that doesn't mean that it's healthy at the current levels.

There are many nuances to the story, but from my perspective as long as starvation of self and family is on the table when somebody doesn't have a job, the negotiation between most employees and employers will be uneven from the start because the downside of not having a job is (typically) greater than the downside of not filling a job.

And with increased automation we're decreasing the demand for labor, so the price naturally decreases (leading to more profit for the capital/entrepreneur side of the equation and inequality) unless we artificially increase it or decrease supply.

That's where the problem with inequality comes in - when people adding more value (because they're a larger portion of the labor producing the value) get a smaller piece of it because it's easy to replace them. I haven't had this problem with my employer, but it's the natural result of the fiduciary responsibility of CEOs to maximize profit for shareholders.

No, it is not baked into the system. That is completely untrue and just what the establishment wants you to believe so they maintain their power. And neither candidate will get 51% of the vote this year because 3rd parties are going to take about 8-10%.

So you end up voting for a criminals and fools over and over and they keep laughing because they have convinced the public that there are no other options.

It's not so much baked into the system as an unintended consequence (at least from some founding fathers' perspectives) that's fairly apparent in hindsight.

The person with the most votes wins. That means that if you have three groups, two with 26% support and one with 48% support, as long as the 26's aren't diametrically opposed, they can get more of their agenda done by banding together.

Once such accumulation gets some level of validity and reaches a steady state (people align with those with whom they agree and there's some middle ground where people who don't align more strongly with one than the other) where about half vote on either side, attempting to form a coalition with any similarity to one of the prevailing parties means that you (1)don't build any meaningful coalition, (2)draw off a significant but not majority portion of that party, giving the victory to the party your coalition disagrees with, or (3)somehow draw off a majority and become one of the two parties.

From an individual's perspective, 3 is the best if I like what you're selling, but it's only beneficial if we're going to end up in 3 instead of 2. If the parties are close enough, maybe it's worth the risk since the downside isn't huge, but the idea of two parties is a consequence of the system we've got.

Yeah, but the portraits are a better example of him being both crooked and egomaniacal.

To be fair, he's unlikely to profit from that transaction. Cuz, you know, who else would be willing to pay money for that?

Scott Betts wrote:

Quote:

This screenshot from their website's "Act" section argues against a supposed loophole that doesn't actually exist.

Yes, it does. For those following along, the "terror gap" loophole refers to the fact that existing legislation does not prevent individuals on the FBI's terror watchlist from purchasing firearms. According to the GAO, over 2,000 people on that watchlist have obtained firearms over the last 11 years.

Claiming this gap doesn't exist is remarkable to me. This is one of the few things that both Republicans and Democrats agree on - that the "terror gap" must be addressed. The only fight is over what should be done to address it. Democrats want to prevent gun sales to anyone who has been investigated for terror in the last five years, while Republicans want a "default proceed" policy that limits the sale stop to those with more definite ties to terrorist acts.

Dude, even the ACLU came out against this stuff. ...

That's absolutely a problem with the terrorist watchlist, but if the government thinks someone is dangerous enough that they (indirectly) deny them access to airplanes, the government should also prevent them from purchasing guns.

Put another way, if there's not enough evidence to deny someone their 2nd amendment rights, we shouldn't be denying them the ability to use a common form of transportation. Especially with (admittedly flawed) safeguards in place, I'm a lot more worried about evil people getting weapons than getting on an airplane. If denying guns to people on the terrorist watchlist is what it takes to get some due process into that thing, then I'm all for it.