Conscious Meat's page

"1.) Existing accounts will need to use the Forgot Password link the first time you log into the new store"

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1ozuspj/comment/npefl30/?utm _source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1& ;utm_content=share_button

I -am- getting tired of the cryptocurrency scam posts here, for what it's worth, and dearly hope that the forum gets some automated filtering and flagging.

Pathbuilder doesn't support Starfinder 2E yet, but the developer is working on that per his Patreon posts ( https://www.patreon.com/c/redrazors/posts ).

Similarly, the app version isn't generally available yet on iOS (there was a test build for backers), but he's submitted to Apple and gone through a few submit / rejection-feedback cycles so far so hopefully it won't be much longer.

Don't know how well FoundryVTT works on mobile browsers as I've never used that VTT, but I vaguely recall reading that it's not a great experience since the standard UI isn't designed for touch. The VTT that I do use (Fantasy Grounds) has been working on a reader application so that people will at least be able to read reference material on a tablet, but there's no ETA.

There's the occasional monster which specifically counters disarm (Lesser Death, Balor, Gallowdeads, Hekatonkheires Titans...) but yeah, there's a lot of weapon-using creatures which would be significantly hampered if disarmed.

It's perfectly fine, as far as I'm aware.

Regarding VTT support, at least ownership of the PDF content can provide a discount on the licensed VTT conversion if Paizo and the VTT vendor have partnered. I know that this is the case for Fantasy Grounds, FoundryVTT, and Demiplane, at least.

Like, if I wanted to buy a VTT conversion for SKT vol. 3, "Heavy is the Crown": on FGU, owning the PDF drops the price for me from $26.99 to $7, while if I wanted to buy it for FoundryVTT I could buy the FoundryVTT code (separate) for $14.00 whereas the PDF + FoundryVTT bundle is normally $34.99. On Demiplane... looks like I'd need to pay $17.24 for its version.

Not everybody uses the same VTT, anyway.

Shulns, for instance.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=3191

Any time the shuln scores a critical hit with a melee Strike, it also deals the same amount of damage to the target's armor, bypassing any Hardness lower than 10, as if adamantine.

Since the base damage is 3d10+10 (fangs) or 3d8+10 (claw)... well, even the latter is going to average 47 damage to the armor. Iron or steel armor is typically hardness 9 (low enough that it'd be bypassed by this ability) with HP 36/BT 18, meaning that it'd be instantly destroyed. Standard-grade adamantine would have hardness 14, HP 56, BT 28, so it's unlikely to be destroyed outright but it'll probably be broken.

The "Ready" action is a bit restricted in that you can only ready a single action or a free action, not an activity.

"Ring of Truth" as printed in Player Core is missing a casting time. It seems likely that it should be a two-action spell based on the legacy spell that it replaces ("Zone of Truth" in the CRB), which while not identical still bears a rather strong resemblance.

"When the same initiative value would come around again" would be my inclination.

*shrug* Maybe look at one of AAW's compilations (e.g. https://adventureaweek.com/shop/pathfinder-rpg/pathfinder-2e-one-shot-mini- dungeon-tome/ )?

When my group met the ghouls... well, the first time they did so, they realized that they were a bit overmatched and retreated up the stairs, taking advantage of the narrow 5' nature of the stairs and hallway to reduce the impact of the ghouls' numbers. I figured that the ghouls would be a bit reluctant to attempt to fight through the stairs up to the servants' quarters given that, and their uncertainty as to what would await them in the morlocks' territory. After that, the surviving ghouls were certainly more on alert -- but both Nakhazarin and Rosk have their own projects to obsess over, so it's not like they'd be spending all their time personally leading patrols.

Nakhazarin would probably also appreciate having the morlocks on the second floor slaughtered and their corpses brought to her.

Depending on how things look, maybe Augrael might find an opportunity to intervene -- i.e. if it looks likely that by doing so, he could have additional ghouls to feed upon without excessive risk to himself. The adventure itself also notes that Wrin *can* intervene (as a last resort).

For a wilder intervention... if the party has met Korlok or Zozzlarin, perhaps Urevian has become aware and intrigued by their potential usefulness. If so, maybe an imp or zebub could have been assigned to go invisible and seek out an opportunity to tempt them with an infernal contract (without revealing Urevian's existence or motivations, ofc).

Actually... heh, time to check the math.

Vandy's, hm, canonically a level 5 cleric. She's level 5 and is listed with a Will DC of 22... so, calculating backwards, her WIS should be +3 -- +3 from WIS, +9 from Expert. Regardless of her doctrine, she should be 'Trained' in Spell DC rather than Expert, so she should be getting a +10 on her Counteract check. The DC of Chafkhem's Mummy Rot is 24 and its counteract rank would be 4, since he's a Creature 8.

A 4th-rank Cleanse Affliction would cost 70 gold (plus any fee for spellcasting services) and require a success, i.e. 14+ (35%).

A 5th-rank Cleanse Affliction scroll would still be available in town (barely -- it's a 9th level consumable, but Otari sells 10th level consumables), cost 150 gold, and require just not critically failing (i.e. 5+ would be fine, so 80% chance) since the scroll would outrank the affliction it's trying to counteract. The *expected* cost of curing it would therefore be slightly less with the 5th-rank scroll.

For what it's worth, a scroll for a 4th-rank Cleanse Affliction would be a 7th level item (common, consumable, magical, scroll, concentrate, healing, manipulate; price of 70 gold). Otari is only a level 4 settlement, *but* per its Trinket Trade ability, you can buy up to level 10 consumables there.

"Cleanse Affliction" is on the divine, occult *and* primal lists, so there are multiple casters in town that could use the scroll for them once obtained even if the party has zero casters at all *and* none of them has Trick Magic Item. e.g. once the scroll is bought in Otari, Vandy could certainly use it for them; and if she's unavailable or unwilling for whatever reason, the druids at Stone Ring Pond should be capable.

That golem is from a high-level horror-themed adventure in Galt with Grey Gardeners running around, so... the party should expect decapitation to be a recurring motif. :D

...

And yeah, it's reasonable to slap "Death" on that critical effect, just as how e.g. the Vorpal rune works (in both legacy and remaster, interestingly).

The instant-kill effect of a crit failure vs. "Touch of Death" curiously does not; nor does "Assassinate" have the Death trait. "Fatal Aria" does, as does "Decree of Execution".

*shrug*

For something similar, the Guillotine Golem ( https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1650 ) also has a "if this critically hits you, you need to make a fortitude save or be decapitated and thus probably dead" ability that also lacks the Death trait.

I think that in both these cases, the idea is that failing the save means that you lose something which you almost certainly need to survive; whereas the Death trait tends to mean "this wouldn't necessarily kill you outright, but in this case it does because of some supernatural property".

ex: the Chromatic Ooze has neither heart nor head, so neither decapitation nor heart-seeking would apply. The Grim Reaper could just swipe at it and kill it instantly, despite the Ooze's immunity to critical hits, since that only mitigates the extra damage and not the "save or die" rider.

For one such creature that is not flagged as Undead but has negative healing (it's a legacy creature), see the Dread Wisp.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1384

In legacy terms, it has negative healing and a weakness to positive damage, and spells with the 'positive' trait bypass its "magic immunity" defense. If one were to interpret things literally without regard for intent, a Heal would probably do nothing to it -- negative/void healing prevents it from being healed by positive/vitality effects, and it's not Undead so the 'damage' part of Heal doesn't apply.

I haven't seen a written errata on this, but I did find
https://youtu.be/Sd7XQMuuLWk?t=132
where apparently a Paizo contact responded to a similar query re: dhampirs is that Heal would damage them, despite them not being flagged as Undead.

Regarding the people, there's some information you can glean from LinkedIn as the company has a page there.

The Founder/CEO spent eight years at Crytek, for instance ( per https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardpillosu/details/experience/ ).

Certain retailers posted product pages for the Dark Archive remaster. Notably, Barnes and Noble also specifies a release date of February 2. *shrug*

Wouldn't have minded that. Before I got my M4-based iPad, I spent some time poking at PDF compression tools to see whether I could render e.g. a Paizo or Chaosium PDF into something that my Kindle Paperwhite could handle non-abysmally -- without any success; results were consistently, horrifically bad. :D

Mmm, the primary issue with using AoN specifically for finding SRD stuff is that it includes Reserved Material (lots of 'proper nouns'), not just OGL or ORC stuff; and it's not especially good about labeling as such, nor is there a setting one can toggle to select by license.

They're instantaneous effects, so "Dispel Magic" doesn't seem applicable; but ruling them as magical abilities would prevent them from being used within the AoE of "Antimagic Field", I guess.

...Why on earth would you ever use Pathfinder 2e for an actual play? Everything about PF2E that makes it more fun to PLAY kind of makes for terrible radio- from the modular characters building (that the audience doesn't engage with) to be map-focused tactical combat (that the audience doesn't see or play).

Regarding that last point, there are groups which use a VTT (FoundryVTT being popular for this purpose) and where the stream can be showing that (the map and combat log). The already-mentioned Narrative Declaration group does exactly that. They do, however, tag their Pathfinder streams not just with #pathfinder2e but also #dnd because they're very aware of just how many more people search specifically for that.

Another group, Glass Cannon... they play in person, but have sponsorships from *both* FoundryVTT and a dice maker, so... they play together in person, rolling physical dice, but *also* use laptops for FoundryVTT to track things; and their recordings often switch to showing the map. When they play in front of a live audience, they project the Foundry map onto a screen behind them.

Page 128:

Blooming Guardian's Goring Charge is listed as saying "the target takes a -2 circumstance penalty to its next Fortitude save against blossom siphon".

It doesn't actually have any ability named "blossom siphon". There is one named "Budding Siphon", however. Either the reference or the ability name should be changed so they match.

Which once again raises the question.
Is it "Non-living, and living creatures who require blood to live" or "Non-living and living creatures, who require blood to live"

The latter would be an obnoxious interpretation, because if that were the intent it would be silly to even mention "nonliving" or "living". After all, all creatures are treated as falling within exactly one of those categories at any given moment.

That said, the rule should probably also specify "blood <or analogous other fluids>", because otherwise it leaves things open to player claiming that their leshies or androids should be immune to bleed damage; and DMs being left to wonder why e.g. tomb jellies are explicitly immune to bleed damage but ochre jellies aren't... and Ooze Form doesn't explicitly give you bleed immunity either.

Chaosium's "Call of Cthulhu" comes to mind as the other current major TTRPG, but it's cosmic horror and even the 'Pulp' variant tends to be relatively deadly by the standards of "heroic fantasy" games. They've also got RuneQuest, which is venerable and has a dedicated base, but that base is a much smaller base than CoC (Bronze Age fantasy in its own rather more obscure setting of Glorantha presumably being a harder sell).

Aside from that... there's a Cosmere RPG that got a fair bit of interest on Kickstarter ( ~$15M from ~55K backers), presumably related to Sanderson's books being fairly popular.

Mostly setting information, because Planescape is not a standard PF2 setting at all.

People have already written primers meant to introduce new players to the game mechanics, like Demiplane's ( https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/pathfinder2e/sources/pathfinder-primer ; requires an account, but that's completely free).

If people are *completely* new and they want to see gameplay, and you don't want to bother to run them through e.g. the Beginner's Box, multiple DMs have recorded sessions of such things and you could point people to those.

If somebody wants to dive into character theorycrafting, well, plenty of guides have been written for specific classes. So if somebody wants to plan their optimal 1-20 guide for whatever reason, I mean, their favorite search engine should suffice.

...

But if you're basing things in Planescape rather than the default setting of Golarion, then you and *ONLY you* can explain to the players how this affects what character options are available, what their characters will know of the setting, what sort of access they can expect to initially have regarding settlements and gear/services, etc.

You don't need to write mechanics primers unless you're homebrewing rules to a degree that 'normal' guides stop applying. But using a setting that isn't normally associated with Pathfinder at all? Then only you can tell them how that interacts with the PF2e game mechanics. If you're going to replace the standard set of ancestries with ones you've written up for the Planescape setting? Same. Going to replace Golarion-specific deities with those normally associated with D&D? Well, OK, you should probably provide that information, too, because there are implications regarding anathema, edicts, domains, favored weapons, legality, reputation, etc.

I didn't find anything that explicitly allowed it to bypass the need for the separate Magical Crafting feat where it mentioned that the normal Crafting rules for the most part applied as-is, which seemed... odd. It seemed suggested but not explicitly codified, to my reading.

For what it's worth, every Graft item published in "Howl of the Wild" does also explicitly have the "Magical" trait as far as I can tell. It may not be strictly required (Graft -> Magical), but it seems to be intended practice at least as of the current PDF.

Implanting a graft is a downtime activity, using the same rules as Crafting an item except as follows. The grafter uses the Medicine skill to affix the foreign organ to the willing subject, who must be present throughout the process. The grafter can implant only one graft at a time. Once the grafting process is complete, the implanted subject can begin using the graft. Grafts can be created from scratch, though they typically require specialized storage conditions, such as a tank of alchemical fluid, to remain viable outside of a host.

Grafts all have the 'graft' trait, which enforces 'invested' and thus 'magical'.

(1) Does this mean that "Magical Crafting" is mandatory to implant grafts, even if one has Graft Technician (which does not specify a Crafting prof. or Magical Crafting feat prerequisite)?

(2) Nothing in the "Implanting a graft" section seems to actually make the "Graft Technician" feat mandatory. If one manages to acquire formula for grafts *without* taking Graft Technician, and has the presumably mandatory "Magical Crafting" feat, can one then implant it, just using Medicine skill without the circumstance bonus that the Graft Technician feat would provide (and using Medicine instead of Crafting for not just the checks, but eligibility based on TEML proficiency vs. item level)?

References -

Implanting a Graft - https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=3277
Graft trait - https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=790
Crafting - https://2e.aonprd.com/Skills.aspx?ID=37

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).