Bobson's page

So, there were 400 people at the banquet with 4 sets of 100 spoilers handed out, right?

Assuming each individual person had a 50% likelihood of not submitting due to laziness, trusting others to do it, disdain for gamified things, forgetting to take theirs, or just losing it.

That's a ~6.25% for each spoiler number to be totally dead. Over the whole 100 spoilers we would expect to see about 6 missing.

If that 50% likelihood number was correct, we don't deserve the bonus spoiler dump.

It's looking like this math is roughly correct, just based on what's still missing. It might be informative, though, to go through and see how many different pictures of each card got posted. There'll always be the people who didn't post because they saw it was already up, and people who took multiple pictures of their card, but it could provide some constraints around that 50% estimate.

I'm reaching out to different sources I know, but no luck so far on the last few cards. 6, 20, 26, 50, 51, 72, 85

transcribed list

I believe the text of 13 and 84 have been provided, but without pictures. So pictures of those two would still be useful.

Jason just posted Spoiler #69 to his twitter: here.

Undead | Sorcerer Bloodline
The touch of undeath runs through your blood. Your family tree might contain powerful undead, like a vampire, or perhaps you died and returned a bit different.
Spell List divine (page 309)
Bloodline Skills Intimidation, Religion
Granted Spells cantrip: chill touch; 1st: harm; 2nd: false life; 3rd: bind undead; 4th: talking corpse; 5th: cloudkill; 6th: vampiric exsanguination; 7th: finger of death; 8th: horrid wilting; 9th: wail of the banshee
Bloodline Spells initial: touch of undeath; advanced: drain life; greater: grasping grave
Blood Magic Necromantic energy flows through you or one target. Either you gain temporary Hit Points equal to the spell's level for 1 round, or a target takes 1 negative damage per spell level.

A clearer picture of this can be found here.

Same person also posted #36 (recently found), #58 (new), and #25 (also recently found).

By my count, between this dump and this one, the only ones still missing are:

6, 10, 12, 13, 20, 25, 26, 36, 40, 50, 51, 58, 69, 72, 74, 76, 84, 85, 92, 93, 99

I entirely understand wanting to push the rules and see how far is too far, and where they are going to break. That said, my group was begging me to wrap up the playtest and go back to our Mummy's Mask game by the end.

I had high hopes for PF2 last summer, but the playtest burnt through a lot of my trust in Paizo's vision.

The rest of the design team and I are going to be a little quiet over the next couple of months as we finalize parts of the game and get it ready to go to the printer. Once that hard work is done, you can expect us to start showing off the final version of the game.

I think this is the worst thing you can possibly do for those of us who left the playtest with a bad taste. Instead of letting that opinion sit for the next several months, post about problems that were identified and the kinds of thing you're considering to fix them. It doesn't need to be a final "Here's what PF2 will have!" preview, but just insight into "Here's something that was identified as a problem, why we think it was problematic, and how we're thinking of fixing it."

Last week my group started Mirrored Moon, with the DC changes from the 1.4 update. I have a party of 6, but the two who are doing the searching have perception modifiers of +14 and +16, and survival modifiers of +10 and +15. (Everyone else is lower.)

Under the old numbers (DC 25 perception or DC 23 Survival), they needed to roll a number between 8 and 13 (depending on player and skill) in order to succeed, which makes critically succeeding and getting the important clues to a location possible.

Under the new numbers (DC 30 Perception or DC 27 Survival), they need to roll between an 11 and a natural 20 (depending) in order to succeed, which puts critically succeeding almost out of reach.

Are my players just significantly less optimized than they should be? Am I missing some key modifiers? Or did it just get that much harder to actually do this?

Personally, I plan on ignoring the "Once every 7 days, reduce the party’s total Research Points earned by 1." line. If you do that, then everything works out perfectly fine.

Some from column A, some from column B.

I'm also in software, and while FangDragon's process is a really good and safe one, it's also overkill for a company with a team the size of Paizo's. However, a pared down version scaled for Paizo-size would be appropriate to have.

I'm not going to go into as much detail, but for a team of 2-6 people, I would expect the following as a minimum:

Especially Noteworthy Recurring Problem #6: Erroneous Knowledge is Not That Fun: Erroneous knowledge from critical failures might work for a beer-and-pretzels, light-hearted game, but it simply has not been a hit with any of my players thus far. Indeed, erroneous knowledge has sown nothing but annoyance, mistrust towards the GM, and feelings of resentment. Furthermore, I personally find it quite difficult to present erroneous knowledge that is actually plausible and actionable without it being too contrived

I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this yet, but erroneous knowledge can be trivial to implement in a useless manner.

1) “The monster is vulnerable to cold.”
2) “The monster is not vulnerable to cold.”

By definition, one of these is true and one is erroneous, and there’s no way to differentiate which is which, so the feat is satisfied. It’s also useless information as-is, which makes the feat useless, but at least the GM doesn’t have to stress about making false stuff up on the spot.

Tactic Problem #8: Why does detect magic get an exception to spellcasting being fatiguing? Why not all cantrips? Why can you repeatedly cast this one spell, but not concentrate on something like dancing lights, which only provides light until you stop concentrating? Why can you not use sigil to mark your trail, or continually cast guidance on the person watching for traps? All three have the exact same actions required as detect magic, so there's no logical reason to be able to cast one of them repeatedly but not the others.

Obviously, this is to make the "I walk around looking for magic" tactic viable, but it doesn't make sense for the spell to be an exception by itself.

Yay, updates!

This one doesn't cover the shield/hardness/dent confusion (my current biggest issue), but it does have a bunch of good fixes. It's good to see that the playtest isn't going to be a static "test everything, then we'll make all our changes" one. Looking forward to next week's update!

Some other ideas I had while reading this thread:

* Resistant to
* Shielded against
* Unaffected by

The one advantage Bolstered has over these three is that it becomes possible to just say "Bolstered" in the context of an ability and one can assume it means against that ability (even if it sounds a bit weird in context). None of these others can do that - they'd all need their prepositional phrase in order to not be confused with something else.

There's the Form Control feat at 10th level that makes them last an hour, at the cost of it heightening to one level less than maximum.

Also, the shapechanging spells or wild shape itself don't give you any ability to communicate with other animals, so the duration is irrelevant to that.

Any tips on the types of answers he would give/conversation he would have before leaving?

My group just encountered him there - I just spread out his dialog a bit, and didn't have him really answer any questions.

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A question of my own: How far can the snipers in G1 see? Can they take potshots at the PCs anywhere in camp? Rifles have an 80' range increment, and can shoot up to 10 range increments away, so they can shoot 800'. Given that it's only 450' from their tower to the edge of the map, and given their elevation, it seems like they can attack anywhere that isn't directly behind a building.

How did you all handle this? Do the PCs have to keep dodging 1d10+6d6+6 potshots the whole time they're running around camp?

For the record, a well build Monk, with at least one base unarmed damage improvement while still at medium size, be it from something like Powerfullbuild, Improved Natural Attack or wtv, with an easy increase to Huge size, would have:

Lv.8 (Normal) 1d10 = 5.5 Dmg* --> Huge -> 3d8 = +13 Dmg* -> Gargant -> 6d8 = +27 Dmg*
Lv.8 (Improv) 2d8 == 9 Dmg* ----> Huge -> 4d8 = +18 Dmg* -> Gangant -> 8d8 = +36 Dmg*

Lv.12 (Normal) 2d6 = 7 Dmg* ----> Huge -> 4d6 = +14 Dmg* -> Gargant -> 8d6 = +28 Dmg*
Lv.12 (Improv) 3d6 = 10.5 Dmg* -> Huge -> 6d6 = +21 Dmg* -> Gargant -> 12d8 = +51 Dmg*

Lv.20 (Normal) 2d10 = 11 Dmg* --> Huge -> 6d8 = +27 Dmg* -> Gargant -> 12d8 = +51 Dmg*
Lv.20 (Improv) 4d8 = 18 Dmg* ----> Huge -> 8d8 = +36 Dmg* -> Gargant -> 16d8 = +69 Dmg*

*For comparison, a Longsword (1d8) does, on average, 4.5 damage (4 or 5).

This chart of yours is all wrong. First of all, you're missing the Large size category. Secondly, doubling of dice isn't ever part of the progression. A Medium monk would do 2d10. A Large one 4d8. There are no explicit rules for sizing up 4d8, but you can look at the Improved Natural Attack progression and decide it's just a doubling of the 1d10 track, so a Huge monk would go to 6d8, and a Gargantuan monk to 8d8.

The other things you're not factoring in here are the flat damage to hit and the value of attack bonus. At a minimum, the fighter (for example) at level 20 will have a +5 weapon (with +5 of other useful properties), +5 from weapon training, and +2 to hit and +4 to damage from the Weapon Specialization feats (assuming they don't take better ones). He'll also have +1 to the crit mod of their weapon and automatically confirm crits. By contrast, the monk will just have +5 from an AoMF. And that assumes both characters max out their Strength scores, which is much easier for the fighter than the monk (due to less competition for resources).

Ignoring strength and size bonuses to keep the math simple, a gargantuan fighter with a longsword would have a +32/+27/+22/+17 to hit and do 3d6+14 (19-20/x3) damage. An equivalent monk would have a +23/+23/+18/+18/+13/+13/+8 to hit and do 8d8+5 (20/x2).

The damage formula per round is:

The damage formula is h(d+s)+tchd.

h = Chance to hit, expressed as a percentage
d = Damage per hit. Average damage is assumed.
s = Precision damage per hit (or other damage that isn't multiplied on a crit). Average damage is again assumed.
t = Chance to roll a critical threat, expressed as a percentage.
c = Critical hit bonus damage. x2 = 1, x3 = 2, x4 = 3.

Assuming an AC of 36 (which is average for a CR 20 monster), h is (32-36 = -4 -> -20% -> 80% to hit for the fighter's first attack, and (23-36 = -13 -> -65% -> 35% to hit for the monk's first attack. s is irrelevant here.

Fighter: .80*(24.5)+.1*2*1.00*24.5 = 24.5 average damage
Monk: .35*(41)+.05*1*.35*41 = 15.0675 average damage

But wait - doesn't the monk get more attacks?

Fighter progression: 80%/75%/70%/65%
Monk progression: 35%/35%/30%/30%/25%/25%/20%

Plugging those in produces 24.5 + 23.275 + 22.05 + 20.825 = 90.65 for the fighter and 15.0675*2 + 12.915*2 + 10.7625*2 + 8.61 = 86.1 for the monk, who misses a lot.

If you're fighting a AC 30 monster (-6 AC), the monk does better. The per-attack damage is about even (28.175 vs 27.9825), but the monk gets more hits in (even their worst has a 50% chance of hitting).
Plugging these in, the fighter does 112.7 damage in the round. The monk does 176.505. On the other hand, if you're fighting an AC 42 monster (+6 AC), the monk may as well go home. (61.25 for the fighter, 19.3725 for the monk)

Also, keep in mind that this is without any useful optimization. The Fighter is only using his longsword one-handed. That means he's not two-handing it for 50% more strength on his four attacks compared to the monk. If they're both using Power Attack, the Fighter's not benefiting more from wielding it 2H, but benefits from the damage more because he has more attack bonus to burn. Neither one took any useful feats, and the Fighter gets many more feats than the monk.

In other words, a suboptimal fighter is at least as strong as a monk. If you think otherwise, you're welcome to enter the DPR olympics I linked.

questions wrote:

Ya I could see that as a fair assessment, but what about spells meant to hamper your enemies abilities to pursue you, wouldn't that also be in line with that thought. if the big scary monster was caught in a web wouldn't that hurt his ability to come after you.

Webbing a foe, or collapsing a tunnel with a spell or slamming the door shut and Arcane Locking it are all great ideas, but the character is in a state of panic. You see it in horror movies all the time; the victims hardly ever do the 'smart thing'. All they can think about is "How do I get further away from this terrifying thing?" And all of those other actions, though they are all smart moves and great long-term solutions, do not get the character further away from the source of their terror *that action*.

This.

It's not about "How can I slow them down?", it's about "How can I move faster?" Taken as a whole (so you can stop to cast a spell), a turn you're panicked is valid if you can say "I got as far away from the thing as I could". Slowing them doesn't move you any further away, so is invalid. Casting haste on yourself gives you (usually) the same movement as a double move, so is valid.

There's nothing official backing that policy, but it's a good rule of thumb for on-the-spot GMing that fits the intent.

I think the window scene in room A3 originally had a broken down early automobile in the yard as a clue, but I don't think that made it to the published text, so that's good!

It's in A1 now:

Personally, I'd be doing everything in my power for their first dawning realizations to come from the mine explosions and crossfire of machine guns when they're ambushed in their first steps outside the hut--talk about impact if you can pull it off!!!

I'm actually just about to start running this book (and just this one) for my group. I sold it to them as "It's called Rasputin must die. It means exactly what the title says." They're expecting Russia, sortof, maybe. They are not expecting what's waiting for them right outside the hut... and I am really looking forward to when they trigger that.

The sound of maniacal cackling fills the room...

I guess I'll be part of the hanging back group, crossbow ready.

As Tikrit the tengu terminates Turac's trudging towards the turgid thing, Pozuket ponders possible purposes. "What's wrong?" he worriedly wonders.

Sorry, I started typing and couldn't stop... I'll go hide in the corner in shame now.

Perception to try and see the strings, and trace them: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (18) + 7 = 25

I wish he'd leave his email address instead of his phone number. I take a certain pleasure in signing up spammers to each other's junk email lists.

Philadelphia recently started targeting "Junk signs" (those "Sell homes fast!" type of thing stuck randomly on telephone poles) by adding them to the city's robodialer. Apparently they would get a call every 15 minutes until the signs were taken down. It's supposedly been very effective.

Clearly Paizo needs a robodialer to harass spammers.

If you're going to do interesting things with probability, please actually check the probabilities before you mess with them. The odds of any two out of three d6s coming up with the same number is much higher than you'd think.

That being said, this item is rather appealing from a design standpoint. I wish it weren't up against such a good opponent.

Ooh, an item that tells the GM how to award it for maximum metagamey benefits.

Y'know... I have to wonder whether the people who submitted all these items we're complaining about are voting at all, and if so what they think about the better-written ones...

Having to vote for terrible item due to it being paired with non-wondrous item! *Rage*

Send the non-wondrous one to Sean to disqualify it - Link

Also, I'm seeing a lot of golden teeth.

Hmm... I've seen a number of food items, and others that describe themselves in terms of food. I'm getting hungry.

And... that item doesn't do what it thinks it does, and doesn't do what it sets the reader up to think that it will do, but the construction requirements actually sortof make sense for what it actually does.

Well, I'm submitted, for the first time. I wasn't planning on entering, but then I had a flash of inspiration last night...

I'm still fretting about my pricing, but I keep telling myself that it's not off enough to be ding-worthy...

The extra money is only for powerless in the corruption campaign. Not for the current campaign. Specifically because they don't get in game bonuses later.

That's how I read it, anyway.

Initial impressions (having only very briefly skimmed the old version):

A spell prepared with a metamagic feat cannot be further modified with another metamagic feat (unless she has the metamixing exploit).

I expect this is unintended wording, but as written the Arcanist can't prepare a spell with two metamagic feats on it, even with the metamixing exploit. Specifically, the archaist can only add a metamagic feat to a spell. So no preparing maximized empowered fireball as an 8th level spell. Metamixing specifically lets them combine spontaneous with prepared metamagic, but still doesn't let them prepare multiple metamagic feats.

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Does Pathfinder have any Wizard-only or Sorcerer-only spells? I know 3.5 had a very few, mostly ones that wouldn't help the other class. If there are any, can an arcanist prepare them?

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See magic - does this give them permanent detect magic? As currently worded it does, with spending points to boost it. If it's supposed to be at will, that's slightly more reasonable (although still stronger than most other classes' detect abilities), but not clear from the text.

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Is it the intent that the Arcanist can only get one metamagic feat and one item crafting feat from their exploits? Should those two have "may be taken more than once" qualifiers?

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Capstone feels rather boring. It makes perfect sense, but it's not really exciting. At 20th level, the archaist only has 11 points, and already has up to 10 abilities which each require a point or two to activate. Casting extra low level spells with your 20th level ability is a waste, and casting extra high level spells renders most of their other abilities useless until they can recharge (which is very expensive).

I just realized that in combination with Consume Spells this is a pretty decent ability. "I'll turn three 3rd level spells into another 9th level one while the cleric heals us from that fight." Combine with a few 2nd level wands (10 points for 4500gp is relatively cheap at 20th level), and they can churn out high level spells all day long.

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It's also going to be important to clarify how pearls of power work for archaists. Technically, they do prepare spells and then cast them. Preparing it again is useless, but doing so as if it had not been cast is ambiguous. If they can use them, then pearls can become another source of arcane points.

Hey, you told him to go talk to her! Totally not my fault Poz doesn't think like a warrior. ;)

Pozuket glances behind him, spots another person trying to hide in the shadows and simply says, "Whoops." He steps between the two tables in front of him and points the second person out to the dwarf behind him. "We've got more company."

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Step to G4, Inspire courage again. I love Extra Performance.

I'm just going to again propose making it a swift action. It can be far less powerful as a swift action than as a standard, and still be worth using.

9th level is when a Wizard first becomes able to cast Quickened Magic Missile, so we can use that as a comparison instead of archery.

QMM at 9th level is a swift action which deals 5d4+5 damage (average: 17.5) and requires a significant expenditure of resources 5/34ths of the spell slots the wizard has available (before bonus spells from high stat, and ignoring the fact they can't redivide their slots). That's around 15% of their spellcasting for the day, to deal around twice their level in damage, with no save, no attack roll, and very little that can resist force damage.

The equivalent for the 9th level Sound Striker bard would be 3-4 rounds (out of their 22 base rounds) to deal around 18 damage - the average of 4d8. We could bump up the power by adding a save or an attack roll, or bump it down slightly by making it sonic instead of force. Lets call it 4 rounds and no-save-no-attack sonic damage.

So based on that, here's what I have:

Eckowo points to the unlocked-then-ignored door. "Or we go that way."

I think the simplest rule is: "If it has a DC and is not a spell, you can apply Ability Focus to it".

Yeah, that's why I don't expect it to be answered. It's just that because it changes everything you get from your patron, my preferred fix would be to have text explicitly added to say that it just replaces your patron too.

I think the two quotes need to be looked at back to back:

PRD wrote:

A creature wielding a double weapon in one hand can't use it as a double weapon—only one end of the weapon can be used in any given round.

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Hey there folks,

You cannot normally use a double weapon in one hand unless it is sized smaller than you. This feat allows you to get around that restriction.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

Jason's quote is indeed clarifying the PRD quote. The PRD quote says that if you use a double weapon in one hand, you can only use one end of it.

Jason is saying that is true, except when the weapon is sized smaller than you. That's the

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

unless it is sized smaller than you.

bit.

No, he's not. You have to look at what the "feat" he's mentioning there is. That feat is Quarterstaff Master

By employing a number of different stances and techniques, you can wield a quarterstaff as a one-handed weapon. At the start of your turn, you decide whether or not you are going to wield the quarterstaff as a one-handed or two-handed weapon. When you wield it as a one-handed weapon, your other hand is free, and you cannot use the staff as a double weapon. You can take the feat Weapon Specialization in the quarterstaff even if you have no levels in fighter.

So, lets review, in chronological order.

A creature wielding a double weapon in one hand can't use it as a double weapon—only one end of the weapon can be used in any given round.

... you can wield a quarterstaff as a one-handed weapon. At the start of your turn, you decide whether or not you are going to wield the quarterstaff as a one-handed or two-handed weapon. When you wield it as a one-handed weapon, your other hand is free, and you cannot use the staff as a double weapon.

You cannot normally use a double weapon in one hand unless it is sized smaller than you. This feat allows you to get around that restriction.

PRD says "If you have it in one hand, you can't use it as a double weapon." It also says "If it's smaller than you, you can wield it in one hand." All double weapons described start as two handed weapons.

The feat lets you wield a quarterstaff in one hand (normally it requires two). It expressly tells you that you don't get to use it as a double weapon, but it didn't have to because it was already forbidden. However, because it's an easily overlooked rule, they reiterated it with instructions on how to switch.

Then there was debate over whether you could wield a double weapon with one hand at all. Jason came along to say you can't, unless it's smaller. Or you have this feat and are using a quarterstaff.

Thus, there's still no way to use a double weapon as a double weapon in one hand.

"I protect strangers" -> Good
"I harm strangers" -> Evil
"I'll leave strangers alone if they leave me alone" -> Neutral

"Laws keep us civilized" -> Lawful
"Laws were made to be broken" -> Chaotic
"Laws are a good idea, but no one can follow them all" -> Neutral

Try thinking of it this way:

When you become staggered, you're limited to one action. There are three possible scenarios:

1) You haven't acted yet. You get one action. (0 < 1)
2) You've taken one action. You're done for the turn, because you've reached your limit. (1 = 1)
3) You've taken more than one action. You're over your limit and can't do anything else. (2 > 1)

The fact that you became limited after you've taken the actions doesn't mean they didn't happen. You just don't have any left to use.

Yeah... Even if every one of the 237 posts on this thread were someone saying "Yay ignore script!", that's still less than the total number of people who have some avatars. I for one would never ignore anyone. I even expand the auto-hidden posts on some other forums, just because I hate reading responses to posts I didn't read.

I just discovered what I suspect is another editing change in Varnhold Vanishing which makes the connection between the Oculus Focus room (W19) and the Oculus Chamber (W25) make much more sense. In the process, I figured out the mystery of the pointless secret door between W16 and W18.

1: The useless door
The secret door on the map between W16 and W18 is useless as shown. There's standard unlocked doors that connect those two rooms (via W17), but the description of the secret door is in room W18, which the PCs will always enter later. So the GM who doesn't remember it when they're searching W16 has to make it only discoverable from one side.
In addition, it's a ridiculously hard door to open. DC 38 strength checks are beyond the capability of almost any 10th level party. You would need a +18 to your roll (raw 46 strength) to even have a possibility of opening it. Even when you factor in a crowbar (+2), and three people aiding another (+6), you still need +10 from strength and other bonuses - and all the "easy" bonuses (guidance, Inspire Competence, etc) don't apply to ability checks.
Turning to picking the lock instead of breaking it down, you need a DC 40. At 10th level, the rogue can easily have a +19 mod (10 ranks, +3 class, +6 dex), if they had been bothering to put ranks in, since it's such a useless skill in this AP. Even with that, it's still only barely possible (although good Take-20 fodder). Dispelling the arcane lock with knock isn't an option, because the lock is "excellent", which would require a DC 35 or 40 caster level check to bypass (depending on whether excellent is between good and amazing or is equivalent to amazing).

Aside from the almost unopenable door, the description references it as being "behind the statue". Since the statue's on the north wall, it's clear the S on the map should be shifted to the right two squares, so it's actually on the door into W18.

2: The out-of-place retreat
The room itself has a bunch of carvings pointing to the east wall, and transports people to W25. It's a nice ways away from the fight so it makes a good retreat center, but there's no explanation for why it's connected to W25, or has all the carvings. This is the room that the oculus of Abaddon is clearly linked to.

3: The evil eye
This is a very evil room, but with nothing special about it except the eye theme. The oculus of Abaddon was found here, but it has no actual connection to the room.

4: The stairs to nowhere
If you look at the stairs leading up from W23 and down from W24, they're on the wrong sides of the room to connect up directly. There are only two options for linking them: Either there's another turn and a half of stairs which aren't shown, or one of the maps should be rotated so that the top of W23 connects to the bottom of W24.

The solution
If you simply rotate the "Top floor" map 180 degrees, as would be the case if the compass rose was rotated to have E on top, then everything lines up really well. When you place the stairs such that the landing in W24 corresponds to the wall at the top of the stairs in W23, then the oculus chamber is in a line almost directly east of the oculus focus... which had the eye painted on the east wall. In addition, the little trail of a hallway that currently goes NE from Vordakai's chamber points directly at the inaccessible pool that's connected to the tar pits in W20. That would imply that the water from the two pools flows out in that direction, down, and eventually into the tar pits, which makes perfect sense. It also matches the description of the pool in W26, which has the water flowing out of it (although the direction is still wrong). Finally, it puts the whole upper level directly above the hallway between W20 and W22, although there's no particular benefit to that.

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Not that any of the above is necessary to run the encounters (except for clarifying the secret door), but it connects everything together pretty well, and it's something that could easily have been changed during editing where the significance wasn't realized at the time.

Bobson wrote:

Oooooh! It can be used to make lines!

            

(use non-breaking spaces instead of regular ones)

Arrows:

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Ok, what is a non-breaking space?

-- david

In typography, it's a space which can't be used to break a line. Wikipedia. Equivalent to &nbsp; in HTML.

On a Mac, you can type it with option-space. I don't know if there's a Windows equivalent, but you can copy/paste it from my first arrow above and it should behave correctly.

Oooooh! It can be used to make lines!
            

(use non-breaking spaces instead of regular ones)

Arrows:

       >
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I just want to complement the web team on their ability to do relatively painless upgrades to the forum software, especially in light of what's going on over on the WotC forums right now.

I'm not an active user over there, but I do have an account. A few days ago, I got an email saying there was going to be an upgrade in 3 days, and all posts from the two weeks prior would be lost. Additionally, the "upgrade" apparently (based on skimming the feedback thread) removed a whole host of features, broke many pre-existing posts' formatting, and is rife with bugs and questionable design decisions.

In contrast, the last major upgrade to the Paizo forums preserved all existing content, added new functionality without removing anything, and had a minimal set of bugs which were quickly resolved.

So, thank you for handling everything so well!

the truth is $10 feels like a lot more than $5, and if I could get that discount after buying any Paizo product in physical form they would make more profits from this customer, I can assure you of that

More from you, maybe... but how much less would they be making from everyone else who is willing to pay the full price?

Why no future Section? The cards so far have been strangely accurate to people/ setting background.

Blame Rin.

"With the world under siege as 'tis, what fate awaits our home?"

Rogath nods to Maven. "Home. Always a topic dear to us." He taps one of the piles of cards in front of him, then stacks up the other five and places them out of the way. To Daelric, he says "We shall ask them and see."

Fanning out the one remaining pile so all nine face-down cards are accessible, he tells the group "There are six suits in this deck. Home is associated with the suit of Shields, so we will begin with that one. Everyone, choose a card."

Since card choices are going to be effectively random anyway, I'm just going to assume everyone who expressed interest picks one. Feel free to post about actually doing so. If you decline to actually choose a card, just post that and skip your section. If anyone else wants to get in on it, just post choosing a card and I'll give you the next one on my list when I do part 2 of the reading.

As each dwarf indicates a card, Rogath flips it over and describes it.

Maven - The Survivor
"The Survivor. In defending your home, you have come through where others have failed."

Daelric - The Sickness
"The Sickness. A plague has fallen upon your home. Whether it is a literal disease or a figurative one, I cannot say."

Angrin - The Brass Dwarf
"The Brass Dwarf. Your home was in danger, yet you yourself were safe."

Magnus - The Mountain Man
"The Mountain Man. Your home was threatened by an implacable power, against which you could do nothing."

Kal'Tos - The Waxworks
"The Waxworks. You were unable to protect your home, although you wanted to with all your heart."

Once everyone has picked a card, Rogath collects them back up and begins to shuffle the deck together. "Now that you each know your Role, we can try to answer the question." He closes his eyes briefly and his lips move in a silent prayer to Desna, before he begins dealing out the Spread.

Bobson wrote:

While I'm in that section, how do you reconcile page 212?

Population wrote:

A settlement’s population is approximately equal to the number of completed lots within its districts × 250.

Table 4-5: Settlement Size and Base Value wrote:

Population | Settlement Size

Fewer than 21 | Thorp
21 - 60 | Hamlet
61 - 200| Village
201 - 2000 | Small town
....

Does building a single building in a new settlement automatically qualify it as a small town, with one major business? What if that first building is a house? Does that differ from if it was a shrine or smithy?

Officially, all hexes are the same and all settlements are the same and all lots in a settlement are the same. Population is not a relevant stat in the published rules and exists purely as a bit of flavor text.

If you are interested in a more robust system for integrating population with your kingdom-building rules... stay tuned. :)

In the original Kingmaker rules, it was irrelevant, but the new rules explicitly use that table to cap the Market Value of a settlement. So they're now somewhat connected.

Definitely looking forward to whatever's coming, though. In my own game, I resized each square to be 25 people, which means 8 squares to a small town, which just feels better...

How many race points did you allow them to build with? If it's less than 20, they can't buy an at-will Spell-like ability. If it's 20+, you got what you asked for - races that are amazingly powerful. I suggest following Lincon Hill's suggestion of throwing others of those races at them.

Sean K Reynolds wrote:

That question (like many that arose from the "any questions about magic item crafting" thread I started) is important enough that it belonged in the FAQ where everyone could read it, not in a book of campaign options that many people wouldn't know was the place to find rulings on how the default crafting system is supposed to work.

I can understand that, but I think there's a flaw in the assumption that the FAQ is the more accessible thing in terms of what players KNOW about. I think far more Pathfinder players read the rulebooks than even know the FAQ exists. Is there a reference to the FAQ in the rulebooks? I don't see one. I mean, in my groups, most of us are experienced players, but out of about 12-15 of us who play Pathfinder, only two of us visit the Paizo boards or site at all generally outside the PRD--and AFAICT the PRD doesn't link to or reference the FAQ either.

If the ruling had been listed briefly in UCa, for that matter, it would have ended up in the PRD where even people who had not bought the book would likely eventually see it.

Can't change anything now, but a comment to the staff in general that if you are relying upon the FAQ to make common rulings and suggestions known to ALL players, then you need to advertise the FAQ's existence much more broadly and make it more accessible. As it is, most people probably think that link to "Help/FAQ" is the SITE FAQ only, not the rules FAQ, and the rules FAQ links are tiny and not front and center.

I'm quoting DeathQuaker here, because I want to make sure the web team sees this. I strongly support her feelings.

Some additional points:

I blame Cosmo for my being late to work, because I found this thread...

Direct link to Dark Gestalt

Is there any way to group downloads together so that I can download them all at once? I've got all the files from the the PDF Superpack in My Downloads now, and I'd really like to not have to click each one, wait for the page to refresh, wait for the download to start, and then move on to the next.

I understand that Paizo needs to watermark each file, so external mass-downloaders (such as FlashGot) can't handle the links directly, but some functionality to either download the entire Superpack as one file via the pledge screen, or to check which files in My Downloads I'd like to get and have a "Download all selected" button, would be greatly appreciated.