Conscious Meat's page

They're fully corporeal and living, yup.

They are indeed described as 1' diameter, but that strikes me as a bit small for something that is listed as Small rather than Tiny. *shrug* That particular distinction doesn't seem to be specifically described, though.

...and immunity to kineticist impulses, since anything that restricts spellcasting or protects against spells also works against impulses.

Things get fuzzier if you consider other spells like magical illusions and barriers (would it be 'immune' to being blocked by a "Wall of Force"?) etc. Not a fan of their magic immunity.

...or their mobility. No ground speed -> no 5' step, and they need to Fly to avoid falling to the ground, so if you want one to not spend all of battle on the floor and to avoid Reactive Strike, it leads to a monotonous Attack -> Go Dark -> Fly rotation.

*Treasure Vault (Remastered)*

Page 122; "Sun Sight" item still gives a "+2 bonus to Perception", i.e. untyped.

It presumably should read "+2 item bonus to Perception".

Book: Treasure Vault (Remastered)

Rule: Certain weapons should be moved from the "Bow" group into the "Crossbow" group that exists as of the remaster.

TV (R) weapons that are explicitly described as crossbows or which include crossbows, and which have the Bow group, are

- Crescent Cross (ranged mode)
- Gauntlet bow
- Lancer (ranged mode)
- Rotary Bow
- Sukgung
- Taw Launcher

This is a ridiculously trivial nitpick, but the PDF for the remastered Treasure Vault still uses the text

This 224-page hardcover rulebook

on the Backmatter, just as with the legacy version... even though two additional pages of item art have been inserted after what used to be page about Dark Archive and is now about War of Immortals.

224 -> 226.

:D

Aside from action compression, it might be noted that a starlit span magus with Expansive Spellstrike and a ranged weapon with a good range increment can get pretty fancy when placing cone and line spells.

"A cone or line emits from you and must include the target; if you’re not adjacent to the target (using a reach weapon or starlit span, for example), choose any square adjacent to the target as the source. The spell affects all creatures in the area as normal, but the Strike still targets only one creature."

No. That's the general expectation, as is reflected in their item level and price, but it is not a requirement. It even would be entirely legal, if rather odd, to have a weapon with a major striking rune but no weapon potency rune at all. The same goes for armor and resilient runes.

This is utterly bonkers and I'm impressed that it's actually possible, both from the perspective of changing BG3 in such fundamental ways, and in how much work it would be to do so.

Regarding *teaching* specifically, it might be interesting if there were published articles (AARs, etc) walking a first-level party through situations, documenting actions taken and explaining the logic behind them (e.g. the impact of things like getting foes off-guard, the importance of action economy, how one character buffs an ally or debuffs an enemy to enable teamwork, what-not) and discussion of alternatives.

Practical examples might be very helpful to get new players to understand the significance of various rules. There are plenty of "build guides", but I don't know if there's a lot of tactics guides etc.

To toss out an encounter from an well-known Adventure Path...

On the very ground floor of the Abomination Vaults, it's possible for a very unlucky 1st-level party to fairly quickly meet an extremely hostile third-level flying construct in a smallish arena where the floor is uneven ground (covered broken glass) that just flat-out does piercing damage to anybody that falls prone (no save or attack roll, it just *happens* to anybody who falls prone). This construct has a single cast of a third-rank Phantom Pain (DC 20; and in the likely event of a failed save, 6d4 mental + 3d4 persistent mental + sickened 1). PP by itself is nonlethal, but a victim knocked unconscious by it will fall down and thus go to Dying 1 from the piercing damage.

After that, the construct is reduced to melee, but it's still probably better at it and it doesn't have to worry about the uneven ground c/o flight. If somebody gets KO'd by a crit from the construct's fist ( +12 hit, and most characters will be off-guard due to the uneven ground, so a crit is entirely plausible )... a new DM who's trying to run everything by the book might well figure that the crit means Dying 2, and then they fall prone and take the piercing damage so now Dying 3. If they went down earlier in the fight even once... hope they still have a hero point.

This encounter is listed in the AP as a Moderate 1. If a new DM is skeptical and runs the math for 4 level 1s vs a level 3 through the encounter XP rules, and doesn't deviate at all to take into account the dangers of the room itself... well, it indeed works out to 80/80 XP so the label will be validated.

It's even worse if the GM has a pre-errata version and didn't check for changes since publication, because... instead of Phantom Pain, it's Vampiric Touch, so 6d6 negative damage w/ a basic save and the *Death* trait.

That's all AP design, not technically the system itself (well, maybe the encounter calculator shouldn't be saying "Moderate" for a solo PL+2 at level 1; and maybe there should be examples for taking into account an environmental factor that is likely to significantly favor one side or another even if isn't formally a Hazard with rank and all), but it seems plausible that a lot of new DMs would opt to try a well-known AP that starts at level 1 and be a bit cautious before attempting their own rebalancing of it.

Curious; what would be a "reasonable" time for the Voidglutton to become aware that Lasda's freed and the Gauntlight energy temporarily interrupted? I'm not entirely sure whether this should be immediately perceptible, or whether this disruption would only be noticed later (e.g. should the Voidglutton pass through the area, or have a scheduled meeting with Volluk that fails to happen due to the latter being indisposed).

Seems reasonable. If you want to be more generous... generalize it a bit.

Ghost charges, for instance:

"A ghost charge deals the listed vitality damage and splash damage, though as usual for vitality damage, this damage harms only undead and creatures with void healing."

Disrupt Undead / Vitality Lash has a similar constraint -- RAW, it only affects creatures that are undead or otherwise have negative / void healing.

Vitalizing Runes, likewise, only add positive damage vs. undead targets.

Similar constraints are true for just about everything I spot-checked that are likely to be readily available to characters encountering this haunt.

It was definitely fast-and-loose with rules, but was entertaining chaos at least and it probably brought in some viewers unfamiliar with the system.

The "must use two hands" bit just emphasizes that it's a 1+ hands weapon, rather than a 2 handed weapon. You can do whatever you want with the other hand, so long as that other hand is free when you're actually firing the bow.

Looks a bit odd of a stance because it has a trigger which would require you to take damage from a melee strike from a creature within your reach, on your own turn ( i.e. you probably triggered a successful reactive strike, unless the DM is willing to let you hit yourself to meet the requirement which seems certainly not RAI).

Aside from that, it's automatic damage if you succeed on the Leap or Tumble Through, but you're not making a Strike and thus won't benefit from any modifiers that only apply to Strikes, or anything else that requires a Strike. You wouldn't get any additional damage from Strength or from any weapon runes (until you get a greater striking rune, which is a level 12 item).

Not going to comment about specific recommendations regarding which talismans might be particularly useful, but the dedication feat grants you all the formulas for common talismans of your level or below.

For formulas for uncommon or rare talismans, I'd imagine that GMs would generally impose similar access restrictions between the talismans and the formula (for those that have them, anyway; like, the "Emergency Disguise" talisman is uncommon with access listed as "Member of the Pathfinder Society operating out of Woodsedge Lodge", so you'd think that would suffice for the formula, too).

For uncommon or rare talismans that don't have explicit access criteria, GM fiat, although ofc. there are locations with certain guidance (e.g. Absalom; "Items that would normally be considered uncommon are instead considered common while within the city walls. Some uncommon items, such as those created by specific organizations or hailing from remote regions, might still remain uncommon at the GM’s discretion.").

Ah, an NPC.

Well, that one at least does not have any features that would boost spell damage like that.

"Phantom Pain" never added the spellcasting modifier to damage.

"Ray of Frost" is the legacy version (remastered version included renaming to "Frostbite"). Again, neither legacy nor remastered version adds the spellcasting modifier to damage.

My main concern re: the contract's seeming one-sided-ness is that it's odd to explain why a contract devil would have agreed to it in the first place unless there's some additional unspecified clause.

i.e. unless Urevian were somehow *already* effectively blocked from going after Vol Rajani in any other practical way (or any other Rajani who may have existed at the time) prior to accepting the contract w/ Belcorra, it seems like an inexplicably bad deal for a devil whose very role demands competentency at drafting and evaluating contracts. We know that he didn't "owe" the soul to anyone at that time, because he didn't promise the Rajani soul until around the time the Roseguard attacked, a decade after Belcorra began binding devils.

My personal biases would lead me to suggest that yes, you need to know the potential damage after resistance before you even need to decide whether to shield block (a generous interpretation of the "when you take damage" bit), but they're still separate damage reductions of which only one (hardness) applies to the shield as the spell. The spell makes no mention of also applying to carried equipment, after all.

Ex: if the incoming damage is a 5 damage hit, then you should know this and that resistance would reduce it to 0, and Shield Block shouldn't even trigger.

If, however, the incoming damage is a 15 point hit, you would know that *you* would take 10 after resistance if you didn't shield block, but you could shield block it. If you shield block, the damage would first be reduced by the hardness of 12, and the shield would take 3 (it's not protected by the spell) while you would take 0 (as you are protected by the spell).

The feat only applies to a single item at a time.

If you use it for two talismans on your armor, you cannot apply it to a weapon (or, more precisely, it'd no longer apply to your armor and neither talisman already there would function until you removed one).

No.

"This special treatment ends if you use Affix a Talisman to treat a new item for this ability."

Mulling over Urevian's contract with Belcorra and the dealings with Carmen Rajani:

Is it correct that Belcorra's contract with Urevian only offers Rajani's soul, not Belcorra's; so, when Belcorra died, her soul was not then transferred to Urevian, and that the contract remained in effect.

If so, the two questions come to mind:

(1) What reason does Urevian have to believe that Belcorra would deliver on her part, rather than, say, procrastinate in order to keep Urevian bound to service? Should I attribute this to some geas-like compulsion, or perhaps a provision along the lines that Belcorra's soul would be at stake if the army finally attacks Absalom but Belcorra fails to deliver Rajani's soul within some time period afterwards?

(2) In the likely event that Rajani remains indisposed for the duration (whether soul captured, or imprisoned, or a fugitive who eventually runs off to Nidal etc.), what's a plausible outcome for Blades and Glades?

Knowing my players... it's not entirely impossible that they'd propose bidding on the place if there's e.g. an auction, and hiring a blacksmith for an income stream; but I don't really have a handle on what a reasonable winning bid for a village smithy would be, or what sort of profits they might get (it's not really *Earn an Income* with their own skills if they're passive investors who still spend most of their time adventuring, is it?).

For remaster (PC1, PC2):

Swashbuckler Dedication (PC2, p182) -- lets you choose a swashbuckler's style, gives you the Panache class feature, and applies Bravado to Tumble Through and any actions indicated for that style.

Wit style (PC2, p161) -- gives you Bon Mot and applies the Bravado trait to it.

Bravado trait ( PC2, p160) indicates that you gain panache by performing actions that have that trait, in addition to potentially other times if you perform a particularly daring action at GM discretion.

For legacy (CRB + APG):

There is a key difference: in legacy, you need to succeed at the Bon Mot in order to gain panache from it (APG, p85).

The mechanics do strike me as pretty well-designed -- the three-action system with MAP, the modifier system, the feat system, et cetera. I also appreciate the amount of explicit rules support for a lot of possible actions, reducing the need to make judgment calls.

If I were to compare it with "the world's fantasy oldest roleplaying game", there's also clearly more attention played to balancing different player options and supporting a large variety of reasonably viable builds, which in turn makes it easier for a GM to be confident about encounter difficulty and to ensure that all the players have chances to shine.

Nothing about the spell excludes it from the usual rules.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2237&NoRedirect=1

Some spells allow you to target a creature, an object, or something more specific. The target must be within the spell's range, and you must be able to see it (or otherwise perceive it with a precise sense) to target it. At the GM's discretion, you can attempt to target a creature you can't see, as described in Detecting Creatures on page 434. If you fail to target a particular creature, this doesn't change how the spell affects any other targets the spell has.

You usually need an unobstructed path to the target of a spell, the origin point of an area, or the place where you create something with a spell. More information on line of effect can be found on page 426

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the "Kotodama Bells" and "Kotodama Whistle" items (page 129, "Lost Omens - Tian Xia Character Guide") don't have prices and I didn't see these among the errata already at https://paizo.com/pathfinder/faq .

CookieLord wrote:

Is the mention of Quick Vial in the Munitions Machinist feat a typo?

Probably, makes no sense that you use Quick Vials to be transformed into other bombs and ammo once that even alchemist can't use Quick Vials outside of "versatile vial option from your research field" limits. I'm certain that the correct is Versatile Vial.

Can someone confirm if this is wrong in the PDF too or if it is a Nexus' typo?

The PDF text reads

You’re adept at crafting ammunition. You gain the Quick Alchemy benefits (Player Core 2 174) and 4 versatile vials, but can only use Quick Vial to create bombs or alchemical ammunition.

"Quick Vial" presumably refers to the *use* rather than the resource. QAB section:

Quick Vial: You create a versatile vial that can be used only as a bomb or for the versatile vial option from your research field (it can’t be used to create a consumable, for example). This item has the infused trait, but it remains potent only until the end of your current turn.

Right, just be clear -- preferably in exploration mode, before combat begins -- what's you're wielding and what you're doing with it.

It's entirely legal to start a combat with your shield raised, for instance -- but doing so is represented by the Defend exploration activity, which means that you were traveling at half speed at best, and that most characters will only have one other hand in which to be wielding things. If, for instance, your character has a one-handed weapon, a shield, *and* a lantern, it's going to be important to be explicit which of those you have ready. With certain items that can be used with one or two hands, one also needs to be clear since it takes an Interact action to go from one to two hands, and sometimes it takes an Interact action to go from two to one (e.g. jezails).

If you really do a lot of juggling as to what you're equipping, you could always use some physical tokens, differently-colored dice, cards or w/e to help you keep track.

Regarding bundles, the last one on HB did include a couple of the remastered books (Player Core and GM Core), so that's starting to happen.

Regarding the Core Rulebook and Advanced Player's Guide books specifically, these are largely superceded by the Player Core books if you're playing using remastered rules.

If you wanted to *start* a campaign, I'd encourage starting with remastered rules first. There's various errata and guidelines around for mixing in legacy content as needed, such as if somebody wants to play a class from "Dark Archives" or "Secrets of Magic".

SuperParkourio wrote:

I find it hilarious that in D&D5e true strike is utterly useless, but in PF2e it had to be nerfed.

As Kalaam said, it's really good. It's a solid spell that uses your casting stat to hit/dam and you can deal Radiant damage too. It's a fine melee cantrip for those that use a staff focus [it's a 1d8 attack] and it gets extra damage as it levels. You'll want Shillelagh though if you get more than 1 attack/round.

Most references to True Strike being weak in D&D 5E are likely referring to the 2014 version, wherein you had to spend an action to cast it in order to get advantage on your first attack roll on your next turn, and that was the only effect it had. Unless one were planning to use an attack with a precious resource, like... say, planning to slap an enemy with Plane Shift, most folks just preferred to attack twice.

The 2024 version is indeed more useful with the properties you mention.

Based on what I read, your character is severely underleveled. Did the GM have you create characters that are behind the rest of the party? Because that is *not* going to work well, given how levels factor directly into proficiencies and DCs.

What you described corresponds to Age of Ashes, Book 3, D1 (a Moderate 9 encounter) and E2 (a Moderate 9 encounter as well). Characters are expected to be level 9, in other words.

Also, the GM is probably running the NPCs incorrectly. Per Pathfinder Bestiary p343 (or Monster Core p359, if migrated to using remastered rules), for instance, Knockdown still requires an action for the monster to use; it's not free (the enemy in question only has regular knockdown, not improved knockdown).

66 hours and ~CAN$ 2K left to go.

The "Fire's Finest" group in the Firebrands book seems to have a giant magically-augmented annihilator robot that also serves as their traveling home.

What I think I've settled on, is that I could have him offer to draw up a short-term contract where they agree to consider themselves nominally detained but on assignment for the specified task (contract retrieval), with the contract to terminate upon completion; and to also have Korlok explain that there probably is a loophole in his contract, because it'd be common practice to have a clause anticipating the possibility that the non-devilish party being long-term indisposed for whatever reason.

If the players ask what happens if they fetch the contract and there is in fact no such loophole, I could have him suggest that with one copy of the contract in possession, he thinks could make arrangements that both it and the other copy in the Fallen Fastness would be destroyed (e.g. handwave that periodically a Zebub or similar lesser creature is sent by Urevian to get a status report, and that Urevian might have the ability to make such happen; no need to drop Urevian's name to the players, ofc).

With that in mind... probably the bigger risk would be if the party sees "devil" and immediately attacks, haha. So far, they've generally *not* been murderhobo, but they've only met a single devil so far (the zebub janitor) and that was a combat encounter from the get-go. I'll want to play him Korlok's apparent martial training to encourage caution, should they meet him.

Second the suggestion of running 'em through the "Beginner's Box". The story isn't anything to write home about, but it'll give a decent introduction to basic mechanics. It also takes place in the same general area, i.e. underneath Otari, so narratively it's pretty easy to make 'em work together.

And yeah, re: the "not fighting everything" I'd encourage them to not think that they should immediately go murderhobo, even if they meet something that seems obviously evil. Diplomatic and language skills can be useful. Even for creatures where a fight is likely, retreat is often an option; some creatures are explicitly written to not pursue enemies beyond their specific rooms, many don't have Attack of Opportunity / Reactive Strike, tec.

If they're new to Pathfinder 2E but, say, they're used to D&D 5E, you might want to note that there's more of an expectation that parties will often stop to taken ten minutes or more to Treat Wounds, regain a focus point, etc, whereas short rests in D&D being a full hour will often make it harder to justify taking one.

"Items up to 4 + your intelligence modifier".

That's *items*, as in singular items. The answer is eight infused alchemical consumables that are potent for a single day without expending resources.

If Korlok believes that he's under contract to continue to follow the last command issued to him ("wait here and let no one out until I come for you")... wouldn't he believe it to be a breach of his contract to let the adventurers leave in order to find the contract?

How do GMs handle this?

Hm. Is there any PFS guidance regarding splash damage, given that GM Core and the Player Cores contradict each other on whether splash damage is applied to adjacent creatures on a missed attack?

Anyone know which printing of the splash trait is correct, Players Core 1 & 2 or the GM Core. PC 1 &2 do not deal splash damage in 5' on a miss the GM Core says it does....

AFAICT, there's nothing official to resolve it.

The current PC1 / GM Core errata do not address it, and there are no published PC2 errata.

That must be it!
I watched a Wisdom Check video on Weapon Improviser recently.
So is it applicable to bombs?

Alchemical bombs are martial thrown weapons, so no.

I would say "no" to RAW. RAI... this is a weird one.

The "Catfolk Weapon Familiarity" feat for instance specifically names the kukri and kama twice; once in the list of non-catfolk-tagged weapons that it grants 'trained' proficiency in, and once as a list of weapons that it grants access to despite them not having the Catfolk tag.

The "Vanara Weapon Familiarity" feat, "You gain access to, and are trained with...".

From the same book as the Gnoll Weapon Familiarity feat (i.e. Mwangi Expanse), the Conrasu and Grippli equivalents both explicitly grant access, not just proficiency.

Upshot is that for other "weapon familiarity" feats access and proficiency are both explicitly spelled out.

For something similar... if we look at e.g. Dwarven Weapon Familiarity and the Dwarven Scattergun, the PFS Note on the latter indicates that merely having DWF but not otherwise having access to firearms does not grant access to the Dwarven Scattergun; nor does having firearms access in general but not access to dwarven weapons. You need both to have access. The PFS Note, however, says nothing about proficiency; so it seems like e.g. a dwarf with DWF but who doesn't have firearms access from any source would still get to treat the (normally advanced) dwarven scattergun as a martial weapon, should he actually obtain one at some point. That would be a case of "has weapon training, but no obvious way to get the weapon", which may or may not make sense depending on backstory.

For some additional context, WOTC (and, specifically, the MTG and D&D franchises) accounts for the bulk of Hasbro's profits and there seems to be consistent pressure from Hasbro corporate for WOTC to monetize, monetize, monetize. Hence, it's very understandable to worry that tolerating changes to the OGL would lead to more aggressive changes designed to keep growing that revenue stream w/ ever-increasing licensing fees etc.

It's a very minor point and is only weapon-adjacent, but I would have liked to have seen some guidance on the mechanics of throwing a flask of oil. The item description

You can use oil to fuel lanterns, but you can also set a pint of oil aflame and throw it. You must first spend an Interact action preparing the oil, then throw it with another action as a ranged attack. If you hit, it splatters on the creature or in a single 5-foot square you target. You must succeed at a DC 10 flat check for the oil to ignite successfully when it hits. If the oil ignites, the target takes 1d6 fire damage.

still neglects to suggest a range increment, and the rules on improvised weapons don't suggest an increment either as far as I can tell. Alchemical bombs have a range increment of 20', but actual bombs are presumably designed to be thrown, while theoretically pints of oil are presumably more likely to be poured into lanterns.

Awakened beaver wizard, out to dam the Sellen and enforce order on the River Kingdoms

Wood kineticist might also work... if that position isn't taken by a woodchuck. :D

Regarding those Handwraps of Mighty Blows, they should at least have the option of wearing them as a headband.

FWIW, something to note if you're playing with remaster rules: with the legacy rules, the "ghost touch" rune only applies to melee weapons, and the same goes for the "ghost oil" consumable. With the remaster rules, the "ghost touch" rune can be etched onto any weapon, not just melee weapons.

"Ghost Oil" has not been errata'd to have the same update ( there appear to be no errata at all for "Lost Omens: Knights of Lastwall" per https://paizo.com/pathfinder/faq , let alone "remaster compatibility" errata) but it seems reasonable to give it the same change.

The "Ghostly Weapon" spell does not explicitly have that melee-only limitation even in the legacy CRB version. Haven't the faintest idea why there's that discrepancy. *shrug*

(Edit to add one more applicable item:
Ghostbane Fulu. https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=978 ; but it's a higher-level item, probably due to better action economy for the same duration (i.e. you activate it as a free action in response to a hit, which means that there's zero duration wasted due to using it too early; and if you're suddenly trying to apply ghost oil *during* combat, you probably needed an interact action to draw it first. It also lacks the "melee weapon" restriction.)

...somewhere, there is probably a group where the party is composed entirely of awakened dinosaurs and they're running through the "Extinction Curse" AP.

With shields... it's normally not a case of the Strike targeting the shield, but of the creature targeted by the Strike redirecting some of the damage onto the shield as part of a Shield Block.

AFAICT there does not seem to be a rule allowing to, say, specifically target a wielded shield -- say, in an attempt to intimidate the creature holding it, while hopefully making it clear that you were trying to do only that and not actually trying to kill the creature.

I would tend to think that allowing the targeting of equipped objects would open a massive can of worms, where at some point it might be far easier to destroy enemy weapons outright rather than 'Disarm' them or where people start arguing that AoE damage effectively should also damage all carried equipment.

I did recently have a use case where I needed to think of object destructibility, because the party decided to use a cast-iron bathtub as mobile cover for one character to slowly navigate a trapped hallway, with the idea that the bathtub would soak hits and provide some time for the party's thievery specialist to disable the just-triggered traps before they reset. It was an amusing yet reasonably logical approach (other than that I was probably underestimating the tub's weight, but hey, the character underneath it was a physically strong fighter), so I let them run with it, rolled some dice for the traps going off, and figured that the tub would probably be dented but not breached.