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I was disappointed to not be able to get tickets for the special events. But when I got to Gencon it was clear why: the Pathfinder presence seems to have shrunk considerably since the days of 1e. Where once we had all of Sagamore ballroom, now we have shrunk down to 1/3 of it or less.

Does anyone know the reason for the decline? Is 2e less popular?

I had a few questions about scroll crafting.

First, there is the general rule that crafted items require you have the formula. Is this true for scrolls? The rules on crafting a scroll state:

"The process to Craft a scroll is much like that to Craft any other magic item. When you begin the crafting process, choose a spell to put into the scroll. You have to either Cast that Spell during the crafting process, or someone else must do so in your presence. Casting that Spell doesn’t produce its normal effects; instead, the magic is trapped inside the scroll. . . ."

Does casting the spell replace the formula requirement or is it in addition to the formula requirement?

Assuming the later, then what is the utility of the 10th level feat "Scroll Savant"? This feat says:

"During your daily preparations, you can create two temporary scrolls containing arcane spells from your spellbook. These scrolls follow the normal rules for scrolls (page 564), with some additional restrictions. Each scroll must be of a different spell level, and both spell levels must be 2 or more levels lower than your highest-level spell. Any scrolls you create this way become non-magical the next time you make your daily preparations. A temporary scroll has no value."

Does that mean that wizards who use scroll savant have to have the formula and cast the spell to make the scroll? If so, and given that the spell lasts until the next daily preparations, what is the benefit as either way you use the spell slot for the day?

Thanks in advance for your response.

I had a nice report that I wanted to share with the 2e team. My teenaged son has been playing Pathfinder for several years in a game I run. Twice in the past he has tried to run games for his teenage friends (Pathfinder and Starfinder) but they were unsuccessful - the rules were too complex for the group and they grew bored. He was reluctant to try it again.

One of his friends mentioned giving it another try. My son was reluctant at first but decided to give 2e a try.

The result? They played their first game this Saturday for three hours. They were so excited they played again on Sunday for another six. Their next game is set for this Friday.

My son credits the new rules for getting it to stick. (I also think he increased experience as GM was a factor).

I had my first chance to run 2e and I was pleasantly surprised by a few of the new rules and their effect on my game. I ran the first part of Age of Ashes basically as written.

First up: Secret Checks. I thought that the rules for secret checks would slow things down. I needed to know everyone’s scores and then personally roll for everyone. It sounded like a drag. Plus, it seemed to take some of the fun away from the players. In fact, the secret checks worked great. It actually sped things up because I could just roll quickly for everyone and do the math in my head. When it came to searching in particular, it really helped with meta gaming as people were basically forced to accept the result of their effort. There was also a nice feature of the adventure that basically changed the results based on how much time the party allocated to the search. This made searching into a game of resource management. Finally, the secret knowledge checks were also fun. We had one critical failure when one player tried to find the way toward the tower that sent the party on the wrong direction. We also had a critical success that resulted in another player learning some interesting information about the goblin tribe they were dealing with. In both cases it changed the story in an interesting way.

Next surprise: Damage was not spikey as I thought it would be. I assumed with the new critical rules that combat would involve a lot of burst damage and sudden kills. That wasn’t the case. First of all, criticals were still not all that common. In most cases you would need to roll a 20 to crit by getting 10 over the target number. Second, everyone had enough HPs that the occasional crit could be absorbed by most combatants. Finally, they seem to have made damage from spells more consistent and less spikey. The really strong effects only happen on a critically failed saving throw which only comes up about 5% of the time.

Next surprise: Mobility Equals Resiliency. Speaking of resiliency, I was pleasantly surprised how increased mobility changed the game. 2e does two things to increase mobility: it got rid of most attacks of opportunity and got rid of full round actions. The big beneficiaries seemed to be the glass cannons such as the rogue and the casters. Our rogue was able to move around the battlefield from cover to cover and then spring out with a surprise attack, and then duck back into cover if need be. The casters could back off and position if they were targeted. All players easily able to pull back out of combat when they saw that they were in trouble. Finally, when characters went down it was easy for other players to step up and help them. My impression was that all the mobility kept players from feeling “locked out” of the game by being limited only to certain options. Instead a number of tactical opportunities were opened up to all players and they used them to make the party more resilient as a whole.

Next surprise New and interesting treasure I think we are all used to the usual first level treasure haul. Scrolls, potions, etc. 2e opened things up a bit with new kinds of consumables that could be applied to weapons and armor to give truly powerful bonuses but only once. For example one player now has a modification to his battles axe that will let him at +1 and an extra die of damage for one attack. These new magic items seem fun.

Overall, our group had a very positive experience.

In 1e many monsters had "Supernatural Abilities" that couldn't be affected by dispel magic, SR, etc. My read of 2e is that monsters now only have "Innate Spells" that follow the standard rules for all spells (i.e. they can be dispelled).

Is that correct?

I understand that Scotty’s brew pup has closed in the past year. Is Paizo sponsoring a replacement location?

One issue that has come I my group's playtest: clerics are perceived as "mandatory."

The feeling is that the swingy combat from high crits necessitates the ability for significant in combat healing and post fight recovery In current playtest. The perception from my players is that only clerics seem to be well suited for that job because of their ability to use a special resource (channel) to heal. This has resulted in a certain "sameness" of their party composition.

I would propose that Paizo consider adding a "healing spec" to other classes by adding a channel-ilkei ability based on Charisma. For example, the Bard Maestro muse spec, the Druid Leaf order and the Angelic bloodline for sorcerer all seem uniquely well suited for this. Perhaps the alchemist could be granted an option for channel like healing from elixirs?

Obviously, these would not be true channeling -- that power should be reserved to clerics. But Leaf Druids, for example, could have to ability to a plant based healing a number times a day equal to their charisma modifier. (perhaps by generating healing spores). Like a maestro bard could perform a healing performance a certain number of times per day, etc

My feeling is that spreading out the Channel style healing will improve party variety and not force every cleric into the heal role

One of the best things about the playtest rules is the acknowledgement of three modes of play: encounter, exploration and downtime. The rules also do an excellent job in making sure that no one class exclusively grabs the limelight during encounter mode. All classes have a chance to shine.

But that isn't true for the other two thirds of the game. For legacy reasons, some classes can become trained in ample skills to be effective during exploration and downtime modes (rogue, ranger) while others do not (fighter, barbarian). Worse, in order to maximize their effectiveness in encounter mode the unskilled classes are encouraged to use their limited resources on skills such as athletics that have less use during exploration mode. As a result, exploration mode is the time when the fighter catches up on his social media.

I understand that historically the rogue (i.e. thief) was the only class to have any skills at all. But I don't see any story reason that fighters and barbarians are automatically unskilled morons. In fact, the literary versions of such characters are often the opposite (Conan, Fafhrd, Elric, etc).

Why not give the same number of skills to all the classes? If anything it would increase the customization of all classes.

If that is not possible for legacy reasons, then I have another suggestion. Most of the classes have one or two "must have" skills. For example, Thievery for Rogues, Perform for Bards, Religion for Clerics, Arcana for Wizards, Athletics for Fighters/Barbarians, Survival for Rangers/Druids, and so on. Without these key skills each class is not functional.

Why not just give each class their key skills without having it count toward their total number of skills? In other words, just give Fighters athletics for free and let them use their skill training on the truly optional ones.

It looks to me that for Rangers the advantage from Hunt Target (-3 for second attack from agile weapon) is trumped by Double Slice (no minus for second attack from agile weapon).

I guess that the one advantage to Hunt Target is that it would let you make a third attack after the double slice at an increased accuracy.

Is there any way to make the signature class feature for Rangers more useful for Double Slice Rangers or are these abilities intended to be somewhat redundant?

I see that there is a Starfinder Special event that is scheduled for Saturday night at Gen Con called "SFS Interactive #1-99: Invasion of the Scoured Stars (Levels 1-2)."

Will all the tables interact? Or will it be the same adventure that is concurrently played on all tables?

Would Paizo consider putting out an "Unchained" style book that offers Starfinder-style reworked character classes for Pathfinder?

I really like the themes, improved health/death mechanics, and the steam-lined feats -- among other things.

Is that something that Pazio would consider?

I have the good fortune of playing "PFS Gen Con Special: The Sky Key Solution" at Gencon this year. I haven't had a chance yet to play many of the Season 6 adventures. Which ones are the best to play as precursors to this special?

In reading about the Dungeonscape software for 5e, I was intrigued by the network between the DM and players tablets. Apparently, this will allow the DM to control combat and push notifications to the players tablets. Is there anything like this out there for Pathfinder? Will Game Space work with tablets?

I just wanted to say that you did a great job with the Gen Con special on Friday night. My group had a blast and the plot twist caught us by surprise. It was a very enjoyable night. Nice job.

ICv2 posts a quarterly chart of the Top 5 Roleplaying Games as reflected in surveys of hobby stores. (See http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/29329.html for one example).

So Im curious as to what your best guess is as to how many quarters will D&D Next beat Pathfinder on the ICv2 list (if any)?

I have seen it represented on this message board and especially elsewhere that the "math" of Pathfinder "breaks down" at the "higher levels." I've seen this repeated without explanation.

My question is: specifically which parts of the game stop working as intended at higher levels? Is there really a specific issue or is this one of those things that gets repeated without any real substance to it?

Will there be a third (final) revision to the classes at the end of play test?

I apologize if this has been asked an answered already.

The final version of the D&D Next playtest rules are out. In many ways they seem to be consistent with Pathfinder (although with the game's math flattened a bit). Skimming through them made me wonder if there were any rules that were obvious candidates for inclusion in a future Pathfinder revision?

For example, I like the way that the Monk's Stunning Strike works in next as opposed to Pathfinder as an "always on" ability that automatically triggers on a crit.

Anything else stand out to you as cool?

I had a lot of fun at the Diamond City special event on Friday night. The energy in the room was incredible and I was impressed by how well organized the whole thing was. The Society managers deserve kudos for such a well run event.

I have one suggestion directed toward improving future events. From the standpoint of a low level character at a first level table, it would have made the event more exciting if there was stronger feedback regarding the mechanical effect that our table's efforts were having in the game. This was particularly true in the final chapter.

Without getting spoilery, the final chapter involved a lot of repetitive activity for the sake of continuing a particular endeavor. But we never received much feedback as to how our particular endeavor was benefiting the higher level tables (except by inference).

If, for example, our "endeavor" was resulting in tangible aid to another table or tables (again the mechanics of this were unclear) then it would have made it more enjoyable for us if the GMs to arrange for some some of tangible feedback. (I cant get more specific without spoilers).

As it was, from our perspective, the game just ended with a sudden announcement of victory without a clear understanding of our contribution.

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but has Paizo paid any thought to possibly balancing classes through the point buy system? It might be a good way to encourage people to play classes that are significantly dependent on multiple attributes.

For example, you have have the rule that all classes are on a 15 point buy system as a default but that the monk class gets +5 points for a total of 20 points by default.

I am making a character for my first PFS game which will be at Gen Con. My buddy is playing a cleric of Cayden Cailean and I am considering playing a paladin to adventure as his "bodyguard." I would like to make my paladin dedicated to Cayden Cailean for consistency reasons.

I notice that the paladin must be dedicated to a god and must be LG. But I don't see where it says that your alignment must be the same as your deity.

What is the ruling for PFS paladins?

I plan on attending Gen Con have would like to play Pathfinder Society games there. i have never played as part of any organized play before although I have a lot of history playing role playing games. I have looked through the PDF materials available online.

I was curious on the process to join Pathfinder organized play at the Con. Specifically, do I register my character at the Con or before? Do I need to bring a hard copy character sheet or is a hero lab sheet on the ipad sufficient? Do i need to bring any other materials with me such as miniature, dice, etc?

Any other tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

So I have been thinking about what Paizo might want to do around summer of next year -- you know, the time that D&D Next will be released. I would guess that one option that they are considering is a new edition.

I have been wondering what that would look like. Folding the APG into the core rules? And then following up with a new APG? Are there rules that come to mind that could be fixed? Rebalancing issues?

What would you do if you owned PF?

The Alchemist visionary archetype says:

"At 2nd level, a visionary researcher learns how to create an experimental mutagen that benefits others, though not as well as his normal mutagen. The experimental mutagen works just like a standard mutagen, except the natural armor bonus and the alchemical bonus to the ability score are half normal (+1 natural armor bonus and +2 to one ability score)."

The rules for mutagen state:

"At 1st level, an alchemist discovers how to create a mutagen that he can imbibe in order to heighten his physical prowess at the cost of his personality. It takes 1 hour to brew a dose of mutagen, and once brewed, it remains potent until used. An alchemist can only maintain one dose of mutagen at a time—if he brews a second dose, any existing mutagen becomes inert. As with an extract or bomb, a mutagen that is not in an alchemist’s possession becomes inert until an alchemist picks it up again."

I assume that the visionary mutagen does not become inert out of the possession of the alchemist.

Does that mean that the Visionary can hand out a mutagen, have a party member drink it, and then immediately fashion another one so as to buff the entire party? Is this what was intended my the rules? Or would the first mutagen become "inert" as soon as a new one was fashioned?

I would like to make a cleric (who is disguised as a wizard using Hidden Priest archetype) that has a familiar. It looks like this might be accomplished by taking the Eldritch Heritage feat.

My question is: would the Cleric be able to use this power of the familiar: "Deliver Touch Spells (Su): If the master is 3rd level or higher, a familiar can deliver touch spells for him. If the master and the familiar are in contact at the time the master casts a touch spell, he can designate his familiar as the “toucher.” The familiar can then deliver the touch spell just as the master would. As usual, if the master casts another spell before the touch is delivered, the touch spell dissipates."?

Also, since Eldritch Heritage says "For purposes of using that power, treat your sorcerer level as equal to your character level – 2, even if you have levels in sorcerer. You do not gain any of the other bloodline abilities." would that power not be useable until level 5?

Alternatively, is there a better or cheaper way for a cleric to approximate a familiar perhaps through a pet or animal companion?

Thanks in advance.