BretI's page

Not gonna lie, Under Command still feels like the obvious choice for a commander as its effectively +1 to their squadlimit and that whenever they give a troop squadmate a strike they instead get to use 2 action aoe's instead. And that this is a bonus that every troop in the commanders squad gets to enjoy.

But then again so does Inescapable Troop for a fighter or Ambush Troops for a rogue.

Overall I think the bonds do give good choices for each class. That is why the original post was all about when there is no bond.

Given the rule I had missed allowing a Commander to take a troop as a squad mate, even the commander might choose to take one of the other bonds depending on their build. Under Command is going to be the obvious choice for the class, but not always the optimal choice.

BretI wrote:

The Commander loses much of his ability to use the tactics class feature if someone is not a squad mate. Without the bond, a troop can’t be a squad mate.

...

As noted earlier, that is not entirely true. You can have a troop be a squad mate as a single ally using the normal squad mate assignment process. Under Command gives additional benefits that make the class feature work better.

As I said, I had completely missed that sidebar. It changes things quite a bit.

You also seem to be cherry picking your examples. Not only is Bard going to have trouble getting their ally's troops inside the class feature emanation area, Champion is going to struggle to get their own troop entirely inside of theirs - which will make one of their main class features rather useless.

And you still seem to be stuck in this rut of listing out detriments of squad combat rules and thinking that doing so proves your thesis.

What disproved it was the sidebar I missed.

In the future rather than assume someone is arguing in bad faith (accusing me of cherry-picking examples) why not just point out the things I may not have considered.

Note that I didn’t try to list every possibiiity because it would have become much too long.

Saying that Sorcerers, Oracles, or other spontaneous casters might have no spells that work when fighting against a troop is not supporting that conclusion. At best that is just showing that many classes struggle to be more than generic characters when using troop combat rules ... meaning that Commander is not an outlier in this.

Sorcerers and other spontaneous casters choose what spells are in their repertoire. If they are completely lacking any area of effect spells that was because of a choice that player made. It isn’t something required by the class chassis.

As an example of parallel logic consider the following argument:

I'm struggling to understand how the Witch class functions without the Troop Mascot bond.

Without this bond, your familiar doesn't have as much survivability and without your familiar your entire character's effectiveness is rather limited.

Might I suggest a Familiar Satchel at the lowest levels, or Familiar Tattoo at higher levels? There is also the Master Ability Absorb Familiar that any Witch can take provided all of their familiar abilities are not required for the base creature abilities. Note that these are also useful in other cases where AoE damage is a problem.

Worst case, they leave the familiar a mile back in a safe place and communicate when it is safe to come out.

At that point the Witch is just giving up the Familiar Ability and most of the Hexes. They are still a full prepared spellcaster who given head warning can customize their spells to the situation. They can adjust much more easily than any spontaneous caster.

——

In any case, the whole complaint was because I missed a rule in a sidebar. Given that rule, Commanders can be effective in Skirmish combat. They still need to be careful as not all of their abilities will work, but as you pointed out that is true to some extent for all classes.

Hi - I would like to see the product reviews left on the old site restored.

Not an ideal solution, but you could re-enter your reviews. They can still be seen by adding /reviews to your profile URL.

As an example:
https://paizo.com/people/cramtarWitclap/reviews

Alright, the sidebar on pg 164 Commanders and Troops does take care of it.

I had thought that the only way that a Commander could take a troop as a Squadmate was using the Under Command bond.

With that, the Commander is back on par with other classes.

I don't think you have made an argument that Commander is worse than other classes in squad combat.

To do that, you would need to show that all, or at least most, other classes have some beneficial interactions with squad mechanics that they don't have to pay for. That would show that Commander having to pay for their beneficial interaction mechanics is worse.

So what does a Thaumaturge have that interacts well with squad combat? How about a Magus? Fighter? Sorcerer? Swashbuckler? Gunslinger?

The Commander loses much of his ability to use the tactics class feature if someone is not a squad mate. Without the bond, a troop can’t be a squad mate.

The Thaumaturge can still use their implements. The magus can still use their spellstrike and weapons. The fighter can still use Sudden Charge giving them a better ability to move their troop than a Commander has.

The class that does have problems is the rogue as sneak attack now becomes more difficult. This is something that happens a lot to the rogue.

The bard also has a harder time getting people within the 60’ emanation (note that is twice the size of the banner aura) of their compositions.

It is also possible that a sorcerer, oracle or other spontaneous caster has no spells that work well against a troop. Prepared casters would presumably have time to prepare appropriate spells, a spontaneous caster is less able to adapt if they chose their spells poorly.

Note that spellcasters can also have a huge advantage if they have a lot of area spells that do damage since almost all troops are weak to area damage.

It feels like its a "this is a game and we don't want Commanders to just outshine everyone else in squad combat" decision.

Instead they have achieved “Commanders are just worse than everyone else in squad combat without a bond.”

Look at how much of the class revolves around the Tactics feature. Look at how many of the tactics and feats would not work in skirmish combat. You will only be able to affect the leaders of ally troops, not any of the troops themselves.

Look at the limited range of the banner and then consider that with squads every unit is four large creatures in size. A 30’ emanation feels a lot smaller in skirmish combat. In many cases it will only be your own squad and one other.

I am trying to understand how the Commander class functions without the Under Command bond.

I think that without this bond you can’t have a skirmish troop benefit from your tactics. PCs who are instructed allies can use them, but not troops. The reason is that there are too many creatures in a troop for a character to include all of them in your instructed allies.

It is clear that without this bond, a troop could not benefit from any strikes that a Commander might provide since a troop doesn’t have a strike.

Since a troop acts on a PCs initiative, the Commander using Warfare Lore and feats that improve initiative would also benefit the troop.

It looks to me as if any ability with the Banner would still be effective since it only specifies an ally, not an instructed ally. Unfortunately when using troops, the 30’ emanation is rather limiting. Technically not all of a troop would fit into this space with many formations.

It sort of feels like the Commander without that specific bond doesn’t provide much to troops under their command. I would love for people to point out things I might have missed

This is more of a long term suggestion, but I would like it if you allowed SFTP or failing that SMB access to the digital library.

I have been a long time user of GoodReader and would love being able to sync to my digital library rather than needing to download and then sync to a copy of it. I am sure there are others who would also appreciate this capability.

It would be even better if we could customize the layout of the digital library so that we could adjust file names, what folders things are in, etc via manipulation of file links.

Although my comments are specific to GoodReader, I’m sure there are others who would find this sort of support useful. Just giving SFTP would allow me to mirror the library locally and reorganize it to fit my preferences although that would take some work on my side.

Starfinder 2 boon

I would like a boon that allows you have adapted to another planet’s gravity and/or atmosphere.

Season 1 has multiple scenarios on Akiton. Each scenario repeats the information about low grav and thin atmosphere. It would be sort to nice for you to be able to adapt to someplace where it is physically possible and we have a lodge.

Sorry to see you go, Michael. I’ve played with you in several games. If things change and you decide to come back later, I would certainly welcome you.

Ability to add items to a subscription order in order to reduce shipping costs.

We used to have the ability to hold an order for shipment until the next subscription order. If that is no longer possible, perhaps we could have a timeframe in which orders added will ship with the subscription or something like that?

A related products section for items. This would cover a number of things including:
* Different versions of the same product (special edition covers, pocket edition books, PDFs, etc)
* Related products such as the maps used for a particular Society scenario or pawn sets for an AP
* Figurines that are tied to a product

I am probably missing some obvious examples. We don’t need an Amazon style Other Customers bought with this product, but some products have others that are strongly related.

Even in the flipmaps, you would have things like Basic, Bigger Basic and Enormous basic.

Another option is in Starfinder GM Core, pg 252

By spending an additional week and paying half the base Price of the equipment, you could install the technology required to apply upgrades, integrate tech like comm units and environmental protections into armor, and add upgrade slots to shields and weapons. In the case of armor, you can even allow players to pay only half the base price by giving the armor the exposed trait, denying themselves the benefits of environmental protections. The end result would be a commercial grade piece of equipment with the tech trait and one upgrade slot.

Basically use modern materials and processes to make archaic weapons.

This would only handle being able to use the ancient weapons. It doesn’t handle the Plated Vesk nor Petrified Khizar who need armor runes.

Hopefully the tech book with Mechanic and Technomancer will have more ways to deal with this.

Will there be an e-mail once the new site is up to alert us the site is back up?

I am already getting e-mails from news@paizo.com and this seems worthy of notification. Promising to do something like this could also reduce the number of people mashing in the refresh during the downtime.

Hi everyone!

I’m completely new to Pathfinder and Paizo Organized Play, and I’m really excited to start getting involved! I’ve just started my first two adventures here on the forums and it's been a lot of fun so far.
I’d love to find a good beginner-friendly adventure so If anyone has recommendations for scenarios that are great for first-time players — I’d really appreciate your suggestions!
I’m still learning the ropes of Pathfinder and the online Paizo community, so any advice or friendly guidance is very welcome. Thank you so much in advance :)

For introduction to the Pathfinder Society and the various factions:

For raw fun in a quick game:
Bounty 4 Cat's Cradle (level 1 only)
Bounty 5 Witch's Winter Holiday (level 1 only)
Bounty 9 Fishing in Anthusis (level 1 only)
Bounty 10 Hillcross Roundup (level 1 only)

Series 2 Quest 20 The Dacilane Academy's Show Must Go On (level 1-4)
Series 2 Quest 22 Friends in Need (level 1-4)

I would add one piece of advice though if you go for a level 1-4 adventure, make sure there isn’t too big a gap in character levels. Being a first level character in a group where everyone else is 3-4 tends to be a lot less fun. The Pathfinder 2 and Starfinder 2 rules system doesn’t work well when character levels are too far apart. The low level characters can often find they are unable to be effective.

If you are using a published adventure and don’t like applying the Weak adjustment to everything, allow the PCs to be one level higher than the adventure calls for. It achieves about the same thing.

How often do you give out Hero points and under what conditions? Handing out more hero points can certainly help a group.

As the GM, you can also look over the group and come up with some items you feel would help them. I had already mentioned the Boots of Bounding and 2nd rank wand of Tailwind. If you have a group going up against 9th level threats, hopefully they are at least 7th level. At that point some interesting runes and interesting staves can come in.

Assuming you are not using automatic bonus progression, you should also review the players equipment. Has anyone not had a chance to get an armor potency rune? This is the time you could start giving them armor resilience runes. Has everyone who uses weapons got a striking weapon? Has everyone got an item to boost one of their primary skills.

If you are trying to do a low magic campaign, you should just use the Automatic Bonus Progression. The math in Pathfinder 2e really does assume certain equipment and lacking that does make everything harder than it should be.

Just to add to this, anyone playing a rogue should expect to go down more than the other classes. That has been my experience and talking to others they say the same thing. Rogues can hit hard and are great for skills, but they generally get knocked out more than the other classes.

Them not having a full martial (Fighter, Ranger, Champion, Barbarian, Swashbuckler) is going to make fights a little more difficult for them than if they had one. Experienced groups can work around this to an extent.

I would dial down the opponents a notch and maybe have some discussions about strategy.

If they are complaining about mobility, have any of them taken the Fleet General feat or ancestry feats to improve their speed? Have you considered dropping them a 2nd rank wand of Tailwind for the casters or Boots of Bounding for the martial characters?

@Violet-Jade,

I was really excited when first looking at the Faith Tattoo, but then realized it wouldn’t help. Since I am already sanctified that part of it doesn’t help. It does not make the Strikes Holy by itself.

The first time I read the tattoo, I thought it allowed casting any 1st rank divine spell. Then I realized no, it was the 1st rank spell given by the deity.

Trick Magic Item isn’t a good solution because you would need to have the scroll in hand, spend an action to Trick Magic Item and then use the scroll. Minimum of two actions in the same round, likely three actions if you include getting out the scroll. I realized that I would seldom do this.

If there were an item that allowed me to activate it to Infuse Vitality that would work for me.

Still would prefer a boon or item that just allows Holy characters to apply that trait to their Strikes.

Sanctioning is something that the community badly wants. I will note that Driftbourne's comment above that 'no one I know wants to play unsanctioned adventures' is a common complaint. Not sanctioning these adventures means that we don't run them in our...

We have tried running unsanctioned content at a few of our conventions. In general it is much easier to fill a table of sanctioned content than unsanctioned content. Although I am willing (and at times eager) to do things outside of Org Play, I have an unopened box of Murder in Metal City sitting in my gaming room because it isn’t sanctioned. I doubt that I will buy another of this type of adventure unless they become sanctioned — I am more inclined to explore other RPGs in order to bring more variety into my gaming.

APs don’t have the same requirements as Society adventures. The Mode of Play section of the guide explains this.

I do tend to run as close to the script as I can. Can’t say that I can recall any instances where I really pushed the rules.

APs are a very different thing. Running Agents of Edgewatch, my players had to patrol the beach and docks for a day. If my anime can have beach and spa episodes, I see no reason that I can’t bring it into a Roleplaying game. I also changed around one of the investigation segments to make it much more of a sandbox adventure. I felt it was way too linear and railroaded in the AP so I changed things around there.

Neither of those changes would be appropriate for a Society adventure. I made mechanical changes and added encounters not in the AP. They would still be within the bounds for “Adventure Mode”. Since it was Agents of Edgewatch, it didn’t matter any ways as that AP is not sanctioned.

I would like a boon that would allow someone who is Holy to make their strikes carry that trait.

Champions that are sanctified have this. None of the other sanctified options provide it.

War Priests and anyone taking the Mortal Herald archetype could be Holy, depending on deity of course.

Agreed that Weapon Infusion with Strength works really well. It gives a lot of flexibility for attacking, even with a single element. If you are doing this, build for the armor infusion that your element provides assuming there is one. If there isn’t, consider branching out to an element that provides that.

Single element is tricky as each element lacks something. Picking two elements that have different strengths allows you to adapt to the situation.

Also if they have too many AoEs, perhaps they should retrain one or two infusions from AoE damage to something else that would be effective against a single opponent.

I don’t know what AP you are running, but also consider changing around things slightly to put in a boss that is vulnerable to their element. Sounds like they have already had enough instances where they felt less useful, putting in someone where they are much more useful can make it feel better.

Let’s all do the time warp again!

Errenor wrote:

'Aura' trait has no meaning apart from possible specific and explicit rules interactions.

...

If the designers want these area effects (emanations) to works differently they must change the definition.

So... The two rounds of Errata (Core Rulebook 3rd printing, and Player Core Fall 2023) to add the Aura trait do spells that needed them but didn't have them... were just to make sure that critically needed reminder text was in place?

….or so many people complained about the missing trait that the designers figured it was easier to add the trait than argue.

At this point I am not clear on what the Aura trait does. The point about emanations going out from a creature is a good one for arguing that Emanations need to move with the target.

* Once the spell is cast, the emanation area is fixed relative to the ground because the effect does not have the Aura trait.

Could you please point out where this is said in the rules? I’m not doubting you, I’m trying to find what I missed.

Having said that, I will also go on record to say that I believe that in this case RAW is a troll ruling. I agree with Claxon that this should be run as though it has the Aura trait and that the emanation effect should affect 'you and allies in the emanation' so that the caster can be affected by the spell when they cast it on an ally.

I’m currently inclined towards treating it as an aura as it makes more sense and (as noted above) they have failed to put traits on spells. I think it becomes clearer doing so.

So the normal Rank 1 version of Protection is pretty straightforward. The touched target gets a bonus to AC and saving throws.

When you cast it at Rank 3, it gets a little weird.

Heightened (3rd) You can choose to have the benefits also affect all your allies in a 10-foot emanation around the target.

It becomes an emanation.

Does that mean that the allies need to stay within the emanation in order to get the bonus? Can those who move into the emanation gain the bonus?

The spell obviously continues to protect the target, but does the emanation move with the target? I think that is an aura (which is a specific type of emanation) rather than general to all emanations.

Rules references would be greatly appreciated.

Well, the idea is that it’s happening before the scenario timeline (at the Grand Lodge). The rolls simply happen here.

As I understand the rules, Learn a Spell is an exploration activity so in the scale of Downtime it could happen at any point. You had Downtime from the previous game so plenty of locations it could have happened in that downtime. Anywhere along the path that took you from your previous adventure to boarding the boat we are evidently now all on. Most likely that could include the Grand Lodge.

Forth is one of the languages that I didn’t like. We have parsers for a reason! I shouldn’t have to deal with reverse Polish notation!

Lisp is supposed to be very powerful at what it does.

Sorry, I never learned Lisp.

The mission to Akiton is in the special 3-99 Fate in the Future Levels 1-8 (Two products, one Levels 1-4 and one Levels 5-8)

It isn’t repeatable, but can be played once at 1-4 and (on a different character) again at 5-8. You also could use a replay if needed.

Notably blind Vlaka do not have the Blinded condition. That condition is for characters that are used to sight suddenly becoming blind. The blind Vlaka just always fail sight-based perception checks.

The Vlaka always having scent is one of the ancestries that I thought might support other senses over a comm unit.

So with the vast array of sentient forms out there with their various senses, just how full is the sensory data for a ‘normal’ comm channel?

We know it has video and audio capabilities.

Does the video include other wavelengths such as Ultraviolet and Infrared? Can you do a frequency shift on the video and/or audio in order to present frequencies that your senses can not normally detect?

Is there smell-o-vision?

Although humans have a limited sense of smell, there are plenty of ancestries that include scent as an imprecise sense. Considering humans have imprecise hearing, this idea really isn’t all that ridiculous for some of the ancestries.

How about tactile pads for texture?

What other senses should be represented? Do some of the races that detect thoughts find the normal comm channel lacking because that sense is missing?

If Paizo had any evidence to believe that GMs who would not otherwise buy the book are buying the book in order to run the adventure specifically for Society credit and that this is a significant factor in adventure book sales, then this decision would not have been made.

They have some data for Pathfinder 2, but I doubt it is conclusive and I have no idea what the analysis would show.

They can inspect the Org Play reporting data to get an idea how often people supplement their society adventures with APs and modules. They would want to filter out the FreeRPG Day modules from that.

They also have a few APs (Agents of Edgewatch comes immediately to mind) that are not sanctioned for Org Play. They could look and see if there was a noticeable difference in sales for those projects. Unfortunately there are plenty of other reasons that people may not have bought them so it would be difficult to say how much Org Play was a part of anyone’s purchase decision.

I doubt the data would be conclusive, but it should at least indicate how much crossover there is between the APs and society credit.

Fill in with all the normal qualifiers including past performance being no guarantee of future performance.

I think the most important part of this is slow track allows a friend to catch up while playing the same games.

I see a fair number of people playing mostly as a group. Usually this is either a family playing together or significant others playing together. They want to play those characters together most of the time. This becomes harder with the narrower bands of levels allowed in an adventure — only two levels. Without slow track, if someone gets out of sync they either have to play without any of the rest of the group (to catch up) or skip a session (to slow down).

Slow track would allow the people with more XP to slow down so the person that missed a session can catch up.

Katana doesn’t require expending ACP anymore either.

Character Options under Pathfinder Player Core says:

All Pathfinder agents have access to the following Uncommon options:
Ancestries and Heritages: changeling and nephilim versatile heritages (pages 76-79).
Items: katana, kukri, spiked chain and wakizashi (page 278); [NEW] scholarly journal, scholarly journal compendium, survey map and survey map atlas (page 292).
Spells: raise dead (page 352)

—-

Bola is an excellent idea. Tripping a creature should allow the group to catch up to them.

It would be kinda strange, but it looks like a build of sufficient level could go Captain America with a thrown shield such as the Meteor Shield. The damage would be on the low side but with a shield boss or shield spike attached it could work.

I would go with a different weapon until you could get it with a returning rune.

This would make it much easier to use a pendant in one hand and a shield in the other, with the Shielded Recovery commander feat.

This is purely theory at this point. I am much more confident in Trident with free hand and a pole for the pendant.

Yeah, the pole sticking out of the pack makes it easier to be able to switch-hit. Use a thrown weapon when there are too many others in melee and a melee weapon when you are the best front-liner. Could also use a ranged weapon, but the damage will likely be better with a thrown weapon because I expect that most commanders will focus on Strength over Dexterity.

Since Hmm is looking to use this in Org Play, she will never know what the group composition will be. She will want to be able to operate from either the front or second rank.

Trident might be a good weapon for her, it is a thrown weapon that does enough damage to be respectable in melee. She would want to get the returning rune on it as soon as she could.

The only tactic Hmm expressed initial interest in that has the Brandish trait is Strike Hard!

In order to make use of her Officer Medical Training, especially Battle Medicine, she will want a hand free.

It seems that there are no restrictions on the type of weapon you can affix a banner to. That seems strange to me — I was expecting it to need to be a spear, staff, or some other weapon with a long haft. Guess you can attach it to a dagger regardless of how silly that sounds.

The banner needs to be in your possession. I think that precludes putting it on a thrown weapon and having it active as you throw the weapon. Some GMs may declare since you no longer are in possession of it squadmates become Frightened 1. There is even room to argue you would need to spend an action once it returns to activate the banner again.

I don’t like pushing the rules that far, I would recommend not trying to put it on a thrown weapon.

I think that I would put the banner on a pole that I had sticking from my backpack and draw it when I thought I would need to brandish it.

Second: With regards to Bloodmoon (both tiers), in relation to Reactive Strike: The high tier Empowered Bloodmoon mentions that the weapon is Tiny but has reach. I'm assuming that the regular Bloodmoon (and the low tier Empowered Bloodmoon) do not have reach?

The base weapon is a reach weapon. If you treat it as a Small or Medium creature it would have 10’ reach, which can be very powerful. Making it act as a tiny creature makes the reach 5’.

I would guess it is an editing error that the same text isn’t in both tiers.

I’m hoping that Flexible Spellcaster is one of the archetypes they allow into SFS2.

Although the Medic archetype would be really useful, I would really rather they do a high tech version of the archetype that deals with MedBays, cybernetic implants, and other such things. The non-magical healing options should be a lot better than in Pathfinder 2 / Golarian just because the tech is so much better.

Oh, and to echo another poster:

Poppets in Space!

I would say they just can’t use the invested item while in the Spa. Otherwise it would be too punishing to many characters.

As it happens, in my run there wasn’t any combat.

One of the players took an interest in the Appraiser having critically succeeded in their check to identify it. I had them give me a sense motive as they talked to the creature. This was during the round where they could question Minister Jo — the player decided to talk to the Appraiser instead. They rolled well so I had them notice how the creature was looking at Minister Jo’s bracelet.

While one of the players used deception to distract Minister Jo, another used Thievery on the bracelet. Then the fighter used Athletics to finish the process of removing the bracelet.

One little piggy left the market.

No combat?

I don’t see a good way to prevent the combat for A2. MUSTARD MARKET MADNESS.

Then again, I don’t see how anyone would know about the bracelet so they could event attempt anything with it.

This would be a late entry for Outpost, but if I were to run one of the following as CORE would there be enough interest to get a table?

5-13: Weapon in the Rift (5-9)
6-21: Tapestry’s Toil (5-9)
7-19: The Labyrinth of Hungry Ghosts (3-7)
8-19: Treacherous Waves (3-7)
8-23: Graves of Crystalmaw Pass (3-7)
8-24: Raid on the Cloudborne Keep (5-9)
10-11: The Hao Jin Hierophant (5-9)

I’ll add a few points to the several excellent points made above.

Simplicity of scheduling

When I got involved with PFS, I had a job that often made excessive and unpredictable demands on my time. Many of my friends also had schedules that were full and/or plans would change with little warning.

PFS was a way for me to play the game when I had time. It did not require me to compare my schedule with 4-6 other people in order to figure out when the next game was.

Now that I am retired my schedule isn’t nearly as hectic, but for my home games we still need to do a lot of comparing of schedules to try and find a time that works for everyone. There is very little possibility of a pick up game.

The ability to drop into a game when my schedule allows is still a huge advantage.

Rotating GMs

Many locations will have multiple GMs that will run the adventures. You can see how others manage their table and hopefully get ideas for how to improve your own games.

It also means that there is more room for people to try out GMing with a single, relatively short and simple adventure. They can see what it is like on the other side of the screen. I strongly feel that even if you don’t stay with GMing, trying it out gives you perspective that can make you a better player.

As others mentioned, rotating GMs also means everyone gets a chance as a player as well.

Pre-fab stories

It takes a lot of time and effort to do your own world building and planning of adventures. Yes, that means that you can customize the story to your group of players, but planning that also takes time and effort.

Although scenarios can take different amounts and types of preparation, it is still less than what I would need to do for a home campaign even when using something like an adventure path or module.

Good news for skittermanders who want to jump rope and wield a flamethrower at the same time: you are now going to be able to perform actions and use items with your other hands, but you can only wield items (such as shields and weapons) with your active hands.

So the definition of wielding something is in Player Core.

Wielding Items

Some abilities require you to wield an item, typically a weapon. You're wielding an item any time you're holding it in the number of hands needed to use it effectively. When wielding an item, you're not just carrying it around—you're ready to use it. Other abilities might require you to be wearing the item, to be holding it, or simply to have it.

I believe this means you can not use a comm unit (lists Hands 1) while wielding a shield and pistol in your other hands. I think it would allow for Grapple and Grab an Edge, but not a toolkit or Explorer’s cantine. In the case of toolkit, I am not sure if you could wear it and use it while you have a shield and pistol ready.

The rules change is a little better, but I feel the multi-hands are still over valued and this level of detail isn’t really needed in the rules. With these rules there are only a few times where the multiple arms are giving more than the swap action.

——

The rest of the changes sound good. I am glad they are reducing the price of weapons. Being able to have two to three weapons to choose from is common in science fiction and having to choose between accuracy and multiple weapons was problematic.

I have not played all of them yet, but agree that Q20 The Dacilane Academy's Show Must Go On is the longest of them. I also agree it is about three hours.

We have been able to run Q14 The Swordlord’s Challenge and Q16 The Winter Queen’s Dollhouse in a two hour slot reliably.

One and a half to two hours is definitely a sweet spot for scheduling these quests. If they run much longer than that it becomes more difficult to sell them as short adventures. This can be a big deal for conventions and stores with limited hours.

It shouldn’t say basic reflex at all since it doesn’t do damage. It should probably be Reflex negates.

I would rule an attended object would use the Reflex save of the creature that has it while an unattended object would automatically fail the Reflex save.

avagdu wrote:

Now, if something has a skill or saving throw value of over 100, that's obviously an error, but if the number is "+112", should we assume that it's supposed to be "+11" or "+12"? Saying that GMs should fix obvious typos or errors is a great start, but there needs to be some sort of guideline for folks to refer to.

:AskYourGM:

sorry emoji don't work here

Serious answer: use your best judgement. If this is an attack bonus, I'm gonna look at what the monster is supposed to do. If they're a big bruiser, I'm giving them +12; a rogue or a spellcaster is getting a +11. I don't think I can give guidelines for how to correct obvious typos without going mad down an infinite spiral of possibility.

Perhaps the correcting errors could start with something being outside the expected values given in the GM Core.

You have a whole chapter of GM Core on Building Hazards and Building Creatures. If the Attack is listed as +132 for a creature, look at the Strike Attack Bonus table keeping in mind the Base Road Maps sidebar and figure out what the attack bonus should be.

You have an expected difficulty listed for encounters, you have challenge ratings. Using the information in the GM Core should help you not only figure out if the values are reasonable, but give an idea what the correct values should be.

People could also take guidance from the other tiers encounters to double check that the value is out of bounds.

This would also hopefully allow GMs to correct errors in either direction, where something is way easier than it should be. A Will save of +1 where you expect it to be double digits, especially if it is double digits in the low tier but +1 in the high tier.