Conscious Meat's page

I'll just note that this issue does exist for PF2e as well, but primarily from the GM's perspective. There are creatures that rely entirely on a Fly speed and do not even have a ground speed such as the Will-o-Wisp, Air Wisp and Veiled Current.

It's a known deficiency in how Fantasy Grounds handles specific magic items; specifically, that does not yet have a system that allows one item to inherit the traits of a parent item. I think that's on the list of things to eventually address, but with no known ETA.

As such, one needs to

(1) manually add inherited properties, and
(2) manually remember that its set of property runes cannot be changed.

I'd say that if art theft is such a costly lawyerly issue would aonprd adding a big ugly watermark help. That way players and GMs still get a visual at a glance which helps a lot and is a big appeal to me, but its more yucky to yoink and more obvious its just for aonprd.

Mass watermarking is technically feasible; but AoN would still need a special license to be able to publish such, I think.

Jhaeren Embercrest wrote:

The post itself fails to lay out a convincing rationale. How does this differ from Demiplane making the same content available for free?

The post exactly explains the rationale. Did you read Jim's post. He says why. And, you know that Demiplane costs money, right? It's a different relationship with a different license. Demiplane is not 'free.'

Actually, you can use Demiplane in an AoN-like manner without paying them a dime.

For instance, you can access https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/starfinder2e/creatures/corpse-fleet-junior- officer without an account, let alone paying for it.

It has the stat block for the Corpse Fleet Junior Officer from Guilt of the Grave World. OK, the stat block is ORC-licensed, although the term "Corpse Fleet" refers to a specific organization within the setting and I'm not positive that that would be ORC'd. The page also includes the artwork for that creature, and the artwork is certainly not ORC. AoN will still be able to show the stat block, but -not- the art.

Now, can you read -everything- on Demiplane without paying? Certainly not. If you wanted to read the lore from the GM Core, or if you wanted to read things other than stat blocks from Guilt of the Grave World, you'd have to pay -- those aren't ORC-licensed, after all. But soon, Demiplane will be allowed to show content, for free, that AoN will not be -- unless ofc. Demiplane is also facing such a change in licensing that has just not yet been announced.

First off, let me just say, if sites using AoN’s hosted images is a problem, they can just change the HTTP_REFERER header and deny requests that do not originate from their domain. Then that stops others from embedding or hot linking. Then no takedowns needed. Unless they are saying and hosting the images… then what’s to stop them from using the Wiki images or, more problematical, Nexus’ images?

I wouldn't be surprised if it were more relevant to scraping and reuse outside of HTTP; for instance, taking creature art and importing it into a VTT to use alongside ORC-licensed records without paying for an official module that has licensed artwork. Maybe people download art and print their own pawns for less, *shrug*.

TTRPG content is not the most obvious target for a sophisticated attacker, but there might be -some- effort thrown at it -- there are certainly people who wrote scraping code for DDB regardless of TOS, and others who zealously defend the usage of such -- and it's also possible that Demiplane has thrown more resources at the problem to make it more difficult.

I am not aware of any rule indicating that you get any such compensation.

Likewise, not a fan of this decision. They'll still be able to host rules text, at least, but this seems... unfortunate.

There's nothing saying that he can't stop in a 5x5 area. It's just difficult terrain with all that entails, including the additional movement cost and not being able to Step *into* it (as explicitly prohibited by Step itself).

And yes, squeezing would only apply if it's tighter than 5' in either direction.

All it says is you interact to reload, so it'd just reload your weapon, if anything, the only difference is that a magazined weapon does not need to reload. Though the way I see it, you can just swap a magazine for another magazine, even if it's half full, and just swap between two magazines. Don't think anything in the rules says you have to deplete a magazine before you swap a new one

Indeed. Per page 254, and also https://2e.aonsrd.com/rules/238-reload --

While all weapons need some amount of time to get into position, many ranged weapons also need to be loaded and reloaded. This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload a weapon's magazine. This can be 0 if drawing specialized ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or if you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn.

Reading that, and also the linked rules re: magazines, there is no requirement that the weapon be empty (or that the magazine, battery etc. be even slightly depleted). You could certainly reload to switch to a magazine that used ammunition crafted from a precious material or was magical, for instance.

What could use clarification here is whether the same action includes the cost of stowing the previous, potentially partly-expended magazine / etc. in a dump pouch or equivalent. I would assume that it does, rather than having the magazine be considered dropped on the ground for speed purposes, but it's something that might be asked.

Haven't yet, but there's a decent chance that I'll pick up some non-technological monstrosity from Alien Core to add some variety (to AV). Going to resist the temptation to turn Belcorra into a Malevolent AI. :D Maybe a Caypin, Garaggakal, Blood Brother, that sort of thing.

If a player wanted to pick up an SF2e spell or feat that wasn't technological at all, and didn't introduce flight earlier than PF2e expects, I'd be willing to take a look to see whether it'd fit, anyway.

None of them have shown any interest in picking up even a PF2e-native archetype, so I doubt I'll ever be asked whether they could multiclass into Witchwarper or Solarian.

By "scene", I mean specific encounter or situation, not an entire adventure.

Things are not perfectly consistent between scenes. For instance, between the first ship combat in GGW and the last ship combat in GGW, the player's ship has more than doubled in HP and the same is true for its firepower. An additional role (captain) has even been added.

Conversely, its maximum shield capacity is completely unchanged. *shrug*

As far as I can tell, the only references of any serious modification to the ship between those GGW scenes refer obliquely to "additional security features" and the addition of navigation data for a specific, obscure route in order to bypass certain defenses. Those additional security features do not appear to be explained or even referenced anywhere other than that brief mention; perhaps it means a slight increase in the ship's Will saves for countering hacking etc, but that save actually increased the least of all three saves between scenes.

The ship is "rigged for remote piloting" over halfway through the book, but that is done while the ship is in -space-, so this sounds more like tweaking software configurations in a way that they could have performed since the beginning (the one who shows how to do this is, in fact, on the ship for the entire AP), not the result of an actual upgrade. This is the only place in the book where the phrase "remote pilot" appears, to be used in this one specific time and place. "Remotely pilot" also appears exactly once, in reference to a specific shuttle unrelated to the party ship.

Why would it not work to leave the capabilities of Nova Rush ambiguous and undefined in general, and allow each adventure (official publication or homebrew campaign) to decide the details of the ship for that specific adventure?

GGW doesn't actually list those capabilities, either. It primarily relies on listing specific actions in specific cinematic scenes, and only those relevant for those scenes; with an additional brief mention of a previously-unmentioned capability (remote piloting) near the finale. That's pretty much the only time the AP even suggests any ability to interact with the ship when you're not in it, other than a few mentions of "you CANNOT communicate with the ship in this entire area because <regions>".

It's not treated as a tool to put to use, but as a highly constrained intermittently-available plot device that entirely ceases to matter outside those scenes.

Given that it's not some incomprehensible alien technology and that both the ending of BfNR and the beginning of GGW assume that characters would have free rein to examine and operate the/a ship, I'd rather be able to be explicit about its capabilities so that players have appropriate expectations; can have questions answered; and can make plans to use it rather than being told exactly when, where and how they'll use it.

It's like... well, it'd be very very odd if I told players that they'd found a seemingly non-magical backpack stuffed with -things- but they would only be allowed to know each -thing- is once they reach specific scenes where it was intended to be used, no?

Are we going to get a detailed stat sheet for its capabilities at some point?

Given that it's the iconic ship... it's a little bothersome to me that if I for instance ran "Battle for Nova Rush", there's no guidance whatsoever about such things as

- how much Bulk might the ship be able to store in cargo
- is it streamlined for atmospheric entry
- how effective is the medbay (e.g. item bonus?)
- are their facilities for crafting (none explicitly specified in BfNR)
- is there a UPB-based fabricator on board?
- using surplus power to recharge batteries

"Guilt of the Grave World" includes an expectation that it can be remotely piloted, so that adds more questions -- how effectively, from how far?

In terms of communications, how secure and capable are ship/ship and ship/ground communicators? OK, shore to ship comms are possible; are these easily triangulated, intercepted, decrypted, jammed, spoofed?

Would it be expected that it'd be able to monitor ground-based comms (detection of traffic, at least, assuming encryption in common use), deploy surveillance drones to maintain observation of an area on a planet?

If I ran it to introduce my PF2e group to it, they wouldn't necessarily expect a lot of details regarding its potential uses as a C3, SIGINT and imaging platform (although it's *absolutely* not out of the question that they'd ask along those lines), but they'd certainly be wondering about such things as the medbay, crafting, battery recharging and cargo capacity; and maybe whether they can easily get into shenanigans or avoid consequences by fiddling with any IFF transponder.

I'd prefer something seriously thought-out; a bit more grounded in impact on the setting if the adventurers are low-level; and in the lines of *prepare situations, not plot*, where there are multiple actors with credible agendas and capabilities, and the players have a fair bit of resources to consider and plans to make.

The topic is less important to me. There's room for exploration, horror, crusading against galactic threats, intrigue, heisting, shenanigans, what-not; but it needs to be executed well.

I've read GGW and been very, very disappointed with it for reasons that I won't detail in this thread to avoid spoilers. Suffice it to say that I'll be significantly rewriting various bits of plot if I actually ever run it.

Agreeing with Baarogue.

The rule of thumb that I use is: If you could rebuild the character over from scratch without using any Retraining, then the result rebuild is valid for retraining your existing character to. If you couldn't build the character the way you want without changing things as you go from level to level, then you can't use Retraining to get to that result.

Right, with one notable exception:

It is legal to retrain in such a way so that you no longer meet the prerequisite for a different feature you took later. You do not have to retrain the second one immediately. However, it is now inactive for all purposes, including when it comes to being a prerequisite for other features.

Concretely -- if you have a chain A->B->C and eventually replace them with D->E->F, it is legal to retrain A and replace it with D. B and C would no longer work in any way when you no longer have A; but this means that you don't need five weeks of downtime (replace C with unrelated G; replace B with unrelated H that does not depend on G; replace A with D; replace G with E; replace H with F).

I think I'm going to have to modify quite a few plot details to make the railroad more coherent and reduce the need to suspend disbelief.

Let's start with Chapter 1, Command Core:

The data normally unlocked via Telmarci's "genetic code" is not guarded by that. It is instead a terse Eoxian document that, with Eoxian fluency and relevant Lore skill (Military, Physical Science) is understood to indicate that not only did they believe that they had succeeded where a mysterious project had failed, but that they'd done so on an unimaginable scale; and that they believe that they will need to activate it imminently due to an expected emergency. The Lore skills would indicate that the project's name sounds like a code name that the Eoxian military might have used in the past, but there is no explanation of what that project actually did. Such secrets would later be filled in by Zo!'s network.

The "biometric lock" explicitly requires a blood test and eye scan, both of which appear to have sufficient steps taken to make them highly unlikely to be bypassed with even a high-tech prothesis; a living Elebrian is required.

Reason: This seems much more plausible than hypothesizing that somehow they can bring a blood sample and a retinal scan and somehow 'enter' them here, or that they can access only some data but not older data despite them both having the same biometric protections. Separate the two.

In addition, making it clear that a living Elebrian needs to brought to the facility means that numerous highly plausible ways of getting Elebrian DNA do not short-circuit Chapter 3. I would expect that almost every player I'd actually consider running this for would be aware that DNA can be extracted from even small amounts of saliva or shed skin cells, for instance; and since we don't need that of a particular individual but -any-, well, these will be readily obtained (e.g. everywhere from utensils and glasses in restaurants, to sampling sewage before it hits the wastewater plant, to the shed skin cells in dust); and these are assuming that, somehow, Elebrian genetic information has never been sequenced with the results published for science. Unless your players have never seen or played anything related to heists or crime investigation, ever, they will have more straightforward plans that don't require suffering through reality TV.

The retinal biometric as-is is even goofier, because... what, are you going to use Telmarci's eyeball scan to build a prosthesis that is so lifelike that it'd pass the Command Center scanners, including realistic motions and IR scanning?

Also, changing the 'flie you can copy but not yet decode' to 'file you can copy but need help understanding' gives one a reason to be dependent on Zo!'s extensive connections...

For Chapter 3, I would not have Zo! admit his actual identity, or to have such a dangerous photograph simply in his desk like that. Revealing his identity would result in a major quandary of whether anybody is going to try to put him on trial for *planetary-scale genocide*, or otherwise take revenge, and it seems wildly unreasonable that he would even imply such, let alone state it. Might as well delete the Carpet Twins, too.

Instead, (1) some of the information regarding the station's likely purpose can be filled in by an anonymous, I-was-never-here, presumably military/intelligence Eoxian who accompanies Zo! and explains that the failed projects referred to in the station had to deal with shifting matter into stasis on another plane, in a long-term but reversible manner. The original project experimented with minute asteroids at the largest, and utterly failed. The lack of success resulted in these projects being largely buried and forgotten in the intervening years; but some of the Eoxians on Iovo may have been aware.

Zo!, for his part, can follow up (if required) by suggesting that the Iovo station document may have been meaning that they were aware of the imminent Death Wail attack and that they'd attempt to survive it by putting all of Iovo in stasis elsewhere. He can do this without admitting to deep personal involvement in planetary-scale genocide, and thus creating the mother of all diplomatic incidents when others ponder what to do about it.

These changes lead to how I'd change the objective of Chapter 5, and thus the start of Chapter 4.

They need to seize control of the station and tow it back to Eox, in order for Eoxian staff to examine the station -- it has long been inactive and is probably heavily damaged, but there would likely be maintenance documentation and project information in the computer bank. They need time and safety to assess and repair, so they cannot "simply" expect to board the station in the Barrows, activate it there, and head back to Eox.

In order for this to work, their ship needs to be modified to make it even *plausible* to tow the station. Trying to infiltrate the Barrows without this is pure nonsense. It is particularly insane to pretend that ideal plan would be to go there without any towing mechanism at all, in the hope of randomly stumbling across a magical McGuffin (the planar magnetite... which, as far as I'm aware, is only mentioned in this AP and not in the Player's Guide, meaning that the players shouldn't even know that it exists never mind be looking for it) on the way. Absolutely not. Let's just specify that the Eoxians modify the ship with a towing mechanism, and delete the Planar Fragment section as the sort of nonsense you'd find in an old Sierra On-Line game (mandatory quest item that appears here just to make you look for it). I'd rather not have that encounter at all than claim that the towing device was now unreliable c/o the Spectra activities, and *wouldn't you know it, there's a Magic McGuffin to replace it! What a coincidence!*

In addition, they need a plausible way to be able to bring the station and the ship together, without being destroyed by the Corpse Fleet. It's not meant to be a suicide mission.

The PCs will need to enter the facility in order to free the station; good. As the adventure is written, they are expected to be sufficiently afraid of the anti-ship defenses to land away from the facility, before any alerts are raised; but bold enough to order the ship to go to the facility itself, past any Corpse Fleet defenders, after there has been fighting in the facility and any anti-ship batteries (never mind Corpse Fleet ships in orbit) are probably *on high alert*. Bizarre. So, this is another reason to bring in Eoxian military intelligence -- they believe that the Corpse Fleet network protocols are similar to their own but less secure vs. inside threats (fewer resources, and also fewer visitors to worry about), so they can supply a hacking device that should buy them some time when used inside the facility's command center (i.e. suppressing facility alarms, interfering with anti-ship batteries, redirecting on-planet defenders by indicating alarms -elsewhere-, and introducing 'sensor ghosts' simulating a Corsair attack in space to draw off defenders... for a time). This hacking device is to be triggered from the facility's computer room before they attempt to call in their ship. It requires physical access, because while the Corpse Fleet network 'tech is a bit behind (fewer resources, remember) they're not stupid enough to leave themselves that open to remote hacking. It will also delete its payload once activated, to wipe evidence (don't want the Corpse Fleet to have evidence that might point to Eoxians attacking them; it's one thing for the Eoxian navy to defend Eoxian space, another for them to act well outside their own; also, the Eoxians don't want this sort of 'tech ending up in somebody else's military, even if they think that they've patched the vulnerabilities in their own systems already. Why take the risk and give anybody else an edge when they reverse-engineer it?).

This gives them a reason to (1) infiltrate the facility rather than just flying to the hangar and blowing away the doors or trying to remotely hack them open; and (2) still think that once they've infiltrated it, they -can- bring the ship there and Not Instantly Die from the anti-ship defenses. The confusion and diversion won't last forever, but it'll give the players a head start and a reasonable chance to get away.

For the aftermath, as noted above I'd argue that the station should be damaged and that even if it didn't seem to be, the Eoxians would insist on taking the time to study it before activating it. After all, what, just making a planet reappear is going to *do things* as a result of gravity... even if the results weren't rather more catastrophic, like the planet reappearing right where an asteroid is about to go. This buys time before the setting potentially radically changes.

On a far less significant note, I really don't like the idea of Athletics and Melee Attack being used for the "Just Boring" part of the prologue. It's not like the character is a Shadowrun rigger 'riding' a vehicle. If you have a character who's particularly good in those skills and want to give him a chance to shine, and you want high drama from potential high lethality... take "First Class Disaster" and go all *Mulholland Falls* on it. I absolutely would not inflict that on a party that doesn't have anybody who would do well in that particular dance routine, however.

Some nitpicks and issues and weirdness that I noticed from a quick initial read, of varying severity (mostly minor, but the Chapter 4 Reciprocity one is serious) --

Chapter 1- "Echoes from the Grave"; recommend adding 'each' after "Base pay is 500 credits" in order to clarify. This is clear from the end of the chapter, but not up-front.

Chapter 1 - A2; "a small cache of additional grenades" does not specify
how many. One per party member, perhaps?

Chapter 1 - A3; very strange to me that it would even be *possible* to Decipher Writing to interpret the checklist without any knowledge of the language it's in.

Chapter 1 - A4; this is probably intended but if so, explicit confirmation might be a good idea: if the cyberzombies are meant to fight side-by-side, then the Self-Destruct of one will prevent that of the other since it does electrical damage.

Chapter 1 - A26; probably should specify an eye scan in addition to "genetic information", because savvy players could easily conceive of more subtle ways to get sufficient DNA to sequence (e.g. from saliva or skin cells) when in the Hall of the Living.

Chapter 2 - Snake in the Grass encounter treasure; there is no Bulk for the iridium amber sample, nor information about how to extract it from the vein (time/skill/tools).

Chapter 2 - Eterrina Rikutan encounter; there are two obvious issues here. One, there is an outcome in which she fires her gun at the party, but there are no statistics regarding it. She is described as wearing a customized pistol, but that is all the information regarding that firearm; another outcome involves her giving a firearm which is clearly different, since it's a seeker rifle. Second, in the event that she fires at the party... she has no combat stats, including attack/damage for that shot.

Chapter 2 - Etched Memories -- the textiles and jewelry have no Bulk value. The jewelry might be - or L, but I rather doubt that for textiles; and at this point in the story, it probably matters because they don't yet have null space chambers and are on foot.

Chapter 3 - Let Them Cook -- Sabotage Spinner; "Zo! activates
the sabotage spinner on initiative count 10 every round,
interrupting each course with some bad news" should probably specify "the first round of each course" rather than "every round", because there are three spinner events, three courses and -six- rounds.

Chapter 3 - Cooking Challenge Results -- for the "additional items" upon receiving 4+ cooking points, it is not entirely clear whether it's the party getting one scepter and one crown, or whether this is given to each.

Chapter 4 - D3 Gravity Well -- there is no specified value for the planar magnetite (monetary or utility). It is entirely possible that the players would actually be worried if simply told that it bonds to their ship, and be concerned with figuring out ways to get rid of it due to not having in-character knowledge that it's an undroppable mandatory quest item that *interferes with their ship's ability to travel*. This is... iffy.

Chapter 4 - Reciprocity; "Scan" action is broken (refers to Escape Points, which are not part of the sole victory condition of reducing the Amaranth to 0 hp)

Chapter 5 - Turret Defense; if the turrets are hidden (implied by Stealth w/ a 'trained' prerequisite) and they themselves can only detect and engage at 120', why is the encounter starting at 200'? Is the expectation that the party will be able to detect it with a Search exploration activity at this distance? If so, then the party might be able to destroy them with a Seeker Rifle or Laser Rifle w/o the turrets being able to fire back. Is the idea just to check whether the players would guess that they work by lifesense and expend shredskin for a minute of coverage to triple-Stride past the turrets?

Looks like the chapter 1 Scan action got copied over for the repeat starship scene against the Amaranth. I pulled the Scan action from the Cosmic Sortie starship scene, is that what y'all are thinking?

This appears to still be unanswered, and as far as I can tell, there are no official errata whatsoever for this AP on the Starfinder FAQ.

Gauntlet Bow as well, fwiw; it's clearly described as a crossbow.

Apparently I noticed this when it released in FG VTT but I never posted the errors here. :D

There are creatures that can apply Broken to armor, rather than merely applying damage ala Shulns. The examples I've found so far (e.g. Smilodon, Deadly Mantis) phrase it as "if the creature is wearing armor with Hardness <X> or lower, the armor is broken".

The blades travel on randomized paths through grooves, so it's probably reasonable to say that there's time during which they're visible doing so before they actually (potentially) connect with a target.

Might also note that the trap description indicates that it's based on pressure plates. Combine these, and I think it's plausible that a clever party could do something like toss a heavy object into the targeting area to get the blades going. That would provide an opportunity to use something like a reach-metamagic Rusting Grasp from a safe area, or perhaps firing corrosive ammunition, or anything else with a good chance of not being thwarted by decent hardness + object immunities.

It's unequivocally the latter.

Both take the full remaining damage after hardness is subtracted -- it isn't split.

Two points:

One, even if you successfully Hide, that doesn't mean that you can simply Step up and attack somebody and still be hidden when you attack.

If you successfully become hidden to a creature but then cease to have cover or greater cover against it or be concealed from it, you become observed again. You cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step. If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains off-guard against that attack, and you then become observed. If you do anything else, you become observed just before you act unless the GM determines otherwise. The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check.

If you Step, but at the end of that step you no longer have cover and there is nothing concealing you, you are immediately observed. And Sneak requires this, too:

You don't get to roll against a creature if, at the end of your movement, you neither are concealed from it nor have cover or greater cover against it. You automatically become observed by such a creature.

That is, you can Sneak from cover through open ground to cover, and remain hidden; but if you Sneak from cover, out of cover, and do not return to cover at the end of the Sneak, you are no longer hidden.

These will significantly limit the ability to stealth-melee enemies that are not adjacent to cover.

Point two is that if you're Avoiding Notice as your exploration activity, you're slowed to half speed; and in addition, you have the opportunity cost of not doing other alternatives -- such as Searching. This means that you typically would have zero chance to notice things like hidden doors and traps (e.g. there's specifically a feat that lets you passively search for traps even while doing other activities; it's not a baseline ability).

I read an interesting comment on a related Reddit thread that pointed out that the choice of damage type to resist is not necessarily obvious, and that it will impose some friction in VTT implementations.

In particular, while it's obviously a simple mathematical optimization problem to determine ways to use Resist All to minimize total damage taken when considering that damage may be partially mitigated by other, specific resistances... minimizing total damage is not necessarily the best decision. Perhaps a target regenerates, but this regeneration is temporarily deactivated if it takes *any* fire or electricity damage, for instance; perhaps an injury poison is involved, so completely eliminating slashing or piercing damage would negate the poison rider, too.

So if a Thaumaturge uses a +1 holy cold iron spear to attack a creature against whom he has already used "Exploit Vulnerability" to get a "Personal Antithesis" effect, and that has weaknesses to "holy", "cold iron" and "piercing"...

OK, we should only apply the higher weakness regarding "cold iron" and "piercing". This is clear from the example. If it were instead weak to one and resistant to the other, we would apply both, I suppose.

But would both the "holy" and "personal antithesis" weaknesses to be applied in full, treating them as independent and not as applying to the same "whole-strike pseudo-instance-of-damage"?

Did the pdf’s get delayed, or am I missing something? Society play has already said changes apply immediately, and it’s hard to comply without the pdf. Thanks!

When I checked today (as a non-subscriber, but who owned the PDF version of the original DA), specifically in Store > Your Account > Library, it listed the PDF as having been added 1/29, and downloading it verified that it was such.

For what it's worth, today was when I also got an e-mail from DTRPG notifying me that I now owned the remastered version on Demiplane, where I also owned the original version of DA.

It will not, however, be added to the "Legacy Digital Content" section of "Account", in case that's where you were checking.

No restriction. The temporary immunity only applies if the spell is heightened.

With regard specifically to the Beginner's Box, note the guidance re: the final enemy's behavior. It is explicitly intended that it not use optimal combat tactics.

Regarding videos, maybe check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsTxtn8ARB0 from the "Narrative Declaration" channel, which features the GM (who at one point was a social media producer for Paizo) run four new players through the Beginner's Box using FoundryVTT, so there's a fair bit of explaining that happens.

Something to keep in mind is that it's absolutely okay to get things 'wrong', and that it's better to make a ruling and move on (and look things up after the session) rather than have a prolonged argument. This is pretty normal for new groups. If you think you understand a rule and why it's written as-is, but you disagree with it... likewise, feel free to run it differently; it's your table, your group, your fun.

Re: dice, I would second Chessex dice if you want very inexpensive but very very usable ones (e.g. 7-die opaque polyhedral sets go for $4.18 from them). My fancier dice are from Die Hard Dice. You can also get a dice tray for rolling (and, if you ever get metal dice, you *should* get a dice tray in order to protect the table...).

"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.