Easl's page

Tho, on the main point: the aura i could get reduces frightened, which Is usefull when it's usefull but also insanely situational,

Well 4th level also gives you the feat Security. You said above you're specifically looking to buffs to sword and board, and that you want something like aggro i.e. to give the enemy a reason not to attack your teammates. Well, security is a sword and board buff that makes it less optimal for an enemy to attack your shielded target. Does it work well in play? That you'd have to ask someone else. But it seems to tick your boxes in terms of the sort of feat you're looking for.

Like, nothing really "adds" tò my character, they give some situational stuff which Is cool but meh.

Yes, a LOT of PF2E feats are like that: they may be good, but they often add 'horizontal' capability rather than 'vertical'. I.e. they do not make your Plan A attack do more damage or hit more often, they instead give you Plan Bs, Plan Cs etc. that you didn't have before. There are some exceptions of course, but not every class has them. It seems to be both a common design element and a common player complaint, and it's not limited to Champion. PF2E is designed against winning combat via character generation or just picking the right feat combos as you level.

I do agree with you about the reaction thing though. It does get a little frustrating having feats that add reactions to a class which is given a class defining reaction as one of it's core 1st level 'things'.

-i get no progression, It gets boring when you basically gain NOTHING of value inbetween level 1 and 7 (1 to 6 feats suck and everything you Need Is already given at level 1)

Blessed, a couple 'bonus to save' feats, auras, expansion of auras, a full reactive strike if you don't like how your champion's reaction is working. It seems like a pretty solid set of options to me.

i wanna be a tank and play Someone big with a shield but now shield Champions get basically nothing for being shield Champions (worst remastered change ever, if i wanna play something i Will be able to spend Gold for It)

They get several abilities that buff the use of their shield - making it tougher and blocking more useful or buffing shields of the spirit.

But as someone else mentioned, there is no equivalent of 'aggro' in this TTRPG. Enemies can choose to attack whom the GM wants them to attack, and you have to use tactics (i.e. get in their way, with a reaction, or have your other party members move to unattackable positions) to prevent them from attacking other targets.

***

If you are looking for aggro specifically, then the upcoming Guardian may be something you should look into. While it got mixed reviews on these fora during the playtest, it seems pretty clear Paizo was at least trying to give that class an "attack me not them, or suffer bad consequences" vibe.

I'd rule like Yuri.

Yes in a 30' room it goes only 30' and there is a final square of the line, that's the square next to the wall.

No you cannot voluntarily end the line early, such as having it go 30' in a 45' room.

AFAIK no line effect gets that. You can't do it for lightning bolt etc., and you can't do it with this. Each AoE shape has it's inconveniences, this is the line one. But I just looked up "line", maybe there's another section of the rules I missed.

Easl wrote:

So it's been almost a week now since you started the thread. Have you been able to talk to your GM about it?

I've been waiting for the next session to bring it up since the GM is hard to reach between sessions and generally doesn't like to be bothered by such things unless we're in session.

Well good luck. I'm 90% sure this isn't about DCs and it's about your description. Hopefully either they give you guidance on what sort of description will count, or you can throw some ideas at them and see which ones they would agree to count.

The GM controls which skills are valid to use for Aid. The GM controls the DC.

If you don't like the results you're getting, examine those two things and ask yourself if you're being too permissive.

Yes exactly. I don't see any reason to add mechanics, change the rules, interpret it to be like some other bit of rules etc. to 'keep it in check'. Maybe some tables don't like the whole judgment call aspect and would prefer the GM create additional rules that dictate exact skills, bonuses, penalties to rolls etc. If that's their preference, I guess making up more structure makes sense for them. We're old fogies though, GM judgment calls and even intentionally breaking the rules for some cool roleplaying reason is just part of what we see as the ttrpg experience. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. :)

If I take a very simple example: A Wizard who happens to carry a bow and uses their third action to Aid their Greatsword Barbarian player first attack. On paper, it's not the most impressive use of Aid one can think of, it's still as good as the same Wizard with maxed out Dexterity and a fully Runed Bow (including Elemental Runes) making an attack but with no character investment but level.

If this Wizard starts giving a +3, or even better a +4, because the GM is nice it becomes the de facto third action as it now competes with a martial second attack.

No wizard gets +3 or +4 by using a bow attack Aid, because they don't reach Master or Legendary in bow.

So this example amounts to saying "if the GM houserules Aid to be much stronger than it is in the rules, then Aid can be disruptive as a 3rd action option." Sure. How does this matter to GMs who are following the RAW?

So I highly disagree when people say it's not disruptive. All it takes is a permissive GM and a bunch of optimizers to turn it into a real high level issue.

"All it takes is a permissive GM" is a wild card argument. "A permissive GM" using house rules could create all sorts of imbalances and shennanigans in any part of the system, not just with Aid. The ability of a houseruling GM to make Aid disruptive doesn't mean Aid is disruptive, it means that GM is disruptive. If you follow the rules, it's +2. Which you yourself said less than an hour ago wasn't an incredible bonus.

That doesn't seem to be the case. A couple times I crit succeeded against 15, which would have been at least a success had the GM been assuming DC 20 instead. Yet, he said I had failed altogether.

So it's been almost a week now since you started the thread. Have you been able to talk to your GM about it?

Also, I love when some of you use the argument that Aid should work like "other reaction attacks" but then you bring the argument that it shouldn't work like Ready (which is the closest reaction attack to Aid in the game).

That's not the argument.

So why so much back and forth discussion? We don't read the same intent, which is fine.You won't prove me wrong because you just can't, rules allow me to use my ruling. Both our rulings are legitimate. So we should just agree to disagree.

I agree the rules let you apply any numerical penalty you want. I don't agree with your reasoning or your contention that the rules are supposed to work that way.

Aid is quite simply not a subset of Ready. Aid requires only one action where Ready requires two. Ready always has the concentrate trait; Aid does not (unless the GM imposes that). Ready converts any single or free action into a reaction but cannot create new actions or bonuses. Aid is the opposite: it cannot convert any existing action choice into a reaction, but it does create a new bonus. Claiming it is the intent of the rules that Aid be adjudicated as a type of, subset of, or otherwise using the specific, unique rules for Ready is IMO getting the RAW wrong.

Easl wrote:

Why is Bob the fighter aiding by a reaction 'attack' (which does no damage) harder than Bob the fighter striking by a reaction attack?

It's not harder.

Bob strikes twice. He then uses Aid. Bob now has a choice about how to use his reaction: during the opponent's turn, if opponent moves etc. then he can reactive strike the opponent. There will be no MAP. Or during his friend's turn, he can use the Aid reaction at -10 MAP penalty. That is how you would GM it, correct?

First, yes, you the GM applying that MAP is indeed you making Aid harder.

Second, that seems just incorrect to me. It's saying a feint to distract is harder than actually attacking someone.

If I were a GM who wanted to increase the difficulty of Aid for "feind to distract" type of aid, I would probably choose to increase the DC to opponents' AC-2 or something like that. Using the reasoning that to distract an enemy, you have to pose at least a credible threat to them. I do not get the logic of increasing it by MAP, particularly since the MAP section of the rules very clearly states that reactions don't have that penalty.

The closest rule to Aid is Ready which applies MAP.

There is no need to use any "closest rule" proxy to determine how Aid works, because Aid has it's own rules.

So, when a player wants to Aid through an Attack Roll, I give the Attack trait to Aid. And the Attack trait is affected by MAP.

Attacks taken as part of your turn are affected by MAP. Attacks made as reactions done during someone else's turn are not.

But I think we may be arguing in circles, as this exact point was brought up by another poster earlier in the conversation.

But the Aid reaction gives me leeway to increase its difficulty if tasks are harder. And penalties are clearly making a task harder.

Agreed, as the GM you have the choice to increase the difficulty if tasks are harder.

Why is Bob the fighter aiding by a reaction 'attack' (which does no damage) harder than Bob the fighter striking by a reaction attack? I will presume you don't add MAP to the latter, so why are you adding it to the former?

Simple, I just tell the player that an Aid through an Attack will be affected by MAP.

Its simple. It's not RAW because MAPs don't apply to reaction attacks. And there's zero reason to call the penalty you give to Aid a MAP penalty since there's no requirement to call it or categorize it as anything other than a penalty to Aid for attempting to do something especially difficult. But you've also, in my mind, not articulated why an aid-attack is especially difficult compared to a non-aid reactive strike.

Easl wrote:

The problem there is that it introduces an 'ordering' effect. Strike/Strike/Aid will be much harder than Aid/Strike/Strike, when ideally the order of actions shouldn't matter.

It's a non issue. Either you give the Aid action, in general, the attack trait

Why would you do that?

Or you just consider that Striking after the Preparation breaks the Preparation

That's awful. That's another house rule that makes Aid worse.

Applying MAP to attack based Aid doesn't create any problem.

I disagree. I wouldn't use any of the house rules you've suggested. Whatever the positive intent, IMO the effect would be to just make a players' play experience worse and more complicated. PF2E does not need third actions to be ganked.

If you target someone with a Strike and miss your target, then it returns... if you hit something with the boomerang, it does NOT return.

I agree. That's a very natural read of entirety of the entry, plus it's consistent with RL boomerangs. Now, if the RAW were clear in some other way, I'd go with rules over physics. But in this case there's a simple and obvious rules reading that aligns with the physics, so take it.

Im only arguing a GM has the rules as written justification to make a call on what is particularly hard and that map can be a reason for that GM.

The problem there is that it introduces an 'ordering' effect. Strike/Strike/Aid will be much harder than Aid/Strike/Strike, when ideally the order of actions shouldn't matter. I'd stay away from introducing such effects. Tactics are already a big part of the game, introducing a 'gotcha' hassle that requires the players to track one more tactical thing just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

Going back to the OP and what Ravingdork has said, I don't think they're having a "GM adjusting DC" miscommunication. I think it's probably more a 'describe what you do to aid' miscommunication.

It's too much alien for me this thing of force failure an Aid without even ask: "OK, how do you want to Aid?" question nor "Sorry it isn't enough to Aid" this thing about just say "you fail" is just bad.

Yeah it seems weird. But from Ravingdork's description, that's my best guess as to what's happening here.

In any event, the best way to proceed is to talk to the GM (outside of game time, don't put them on the spot cause that's unlikely to be a good time for the discussion, but rather very reaction rulings especially if done in front of the other players).

Yes exactly.

But this assumes you can get your GM on board with the idea of telling you "no, that description won't work for Aid" - which right now does not seem to be happening. So fix that first, but then still have a backup 1a for those rounds when you get negative GM feedback about your Aid idea.

I think there's another potential outcome to the army scenario we haven't considered. If enough of them have force barrage or other means of automatic damage, it's actually possible for the survivors to defeat the PC through sheer numbers. How many survivors would this take, I wonder?

In my mind that would be a "Yes, but..." sort of call.

Player: "I would like to stand in front of the army I just decimated, and yell at them, hoping my words will cause them to retreat. I don't have the group coercion feat, can I still try?"
GM: "Yes, but since you're not a compelling group speaker you risk some of them using the time to take pot shots at you instead of stopping to listen to you."

With PF2E's one-person-at-a-time turn order it's a bit clunky, but storywise something like that may be a reasonable GM option.

Most commonly, I'll be in melee with an enemy* and an ally, often flanking. Then I declare that my third action will be to Aid my flanking ally, to better ensure they hit or crit. Then I make an attack roll, and seeing that it's a success or crit success against DC 15, even with the occasional MAP, I declare the roll total to the GM.

So that would be completely insufficient for my GM. However he would tell me it's completely insufficient and ask for a better description. He would not just let me roll and then tell me it didn't work.

So my suggestion is put more work into your description. I'd also have a talk with your GM because it sounds like you and they are not seeing eye to eye in terms of GM-to-Player feedback on this. You need to iron out with them the sort of description quality they expect/demand for Aid to have a chance of working. Make up a bunch of examples and have them say yea or nay. Or ask them to tell you the sort of thing they're looking for.

Worth remembering the text: "You must explain to the GM exactly how you're trying to help, and they determine whether you can Aid your ally."
Saying "Look GM, I rolled a 16!" is not an explanation of how you are trying to help.

Bob would have low charisma and no diplomacy proficiency. Churchill, would have high charisma and proficiency.

Churchill would have feats that represent his ability to succeed at things that Bob has no realistic chance of succeeding at.

Because like it or not, yes in this game's mechanics feats sometimes represent 'I have a realistic chance of doing something that in RL, anyone could theoretically try.'

In RL, anyone can pick up two swords and swing them both at the same time for a combo attack. In the game, you need a feat to do that. In RL, anyone can try to trip an elephant, but in PF2E, you need a feat to even try. These feats represent you have the training to have a realistic chance of success. Without it, sure you can leg sweep the elephant, you'll just never succeed. Influencing groups is the same - the way the game represents "you are good enough to have a chance to succeed at this" is that you take the feat. Without it, yes you can direct your angry words at 10 people hoping to cow them all, you'll just never succeed. You're doing the exact same thing as trying to trip the elephant without Titan Wrestler.

If you don't like that part of the game, I get it. IMO it's a reasonable "heroic action" variation to remove feat requirements plus "(trained)" requirements from skills so that anyone can try anything with at least a 5% chance of doing it. But, that's not RAW. PF2E is high fantasy, which includes unbelievable stunts and magic, but it is not action-heroey in the sense of the PC completely untrained in Arcana, Occultism, Religion, or Nature still gets to roll to decipher writing.

I could partialy, PARTIALY agree with skill substituion being locked under feat. But not with fact, that a player roleplayed and come up with fake stories to impress someone and GM saying "Nah, you can't roleplay like this, because you do not open mechanical oppotunity to roleplay". Do you undestand that it is absolute nonsense? So it absolutely couldn't be turned around

If your table wants to reward excellent role-playing by allowing it to have a mechanical effect, go for it. Our table does that too. The only caveat would be Finoan's comment: if you have one player who is really good at ad lib acting, and others aren't, this could become unfair in the sense that the same PC is getting the bonus over and over again because of player skills rather than character skills. Something you absolutely want to avoid is 'punishing' players for lacking some real life skill (by constantly rewarding the player who has them). But that's something of a rare case. In general, I think it's a good idea and fully supported by Paizo through things like The First Rule, the Yes, But concept of GMing, stuff like that. Good role play which doesn't fit the mechanics should have a place.

The rules are there to help GMs navigate normal ttrpg situations, not to deal with every weird or awesomecool thing an imaginative player thinks up. For the latter, a GM has to use their judgement. In my mind, leading an army or intimidating an entire army is clearly in the judgement call category. There's just no regular rules for it (...yet...in remaster...), so trying to use the rules designed for small group tactics to represent it just isn't going to work.

Let me turn it around on you: why do you want Bob the Plumber to have the same ability to get an entire army to jump into danger that, say, Winston Churchill would have?

You put me in front of an army, I'm Bob. I'm gonna stutter. Mumble. Make the wrong cues. Pitch my voice wrong. Nobody's going to listen. Getting them to listen takes training, and in PF2E "training" is represented by both Proficiencies and Feats.

I get the idea that for a game, you want the protagonists to be able to try a lot of remarkable things with a reasonable chance of success. Not necessarily because that's realistic, but because they are the main characters of the story. But still, part of me wants to lay 'look, if this is something a player in your game is going to want to try and do a lot, tell them to buy the feat and stop trying to argue they should get it for free.' Same thing for Diplomacy vs. Deceive; if they really want to get NPCs to like them, tell them to buy Diplomacy instead of asking for a free skill substitution.

Charming liar is even more problematic. Why I can't make in impression on someone with Deceive in the first play, if I roleplay it with telling false stories about me, or pretending that I am more...

I would consider your first two examples to be better addressed through a mass combat system that contains leadership actions. Small party tactical & social system rules aren't designed for that.

For the third one, for any fixed attribute+ fixed skill ttrpg system it makes sense to put some useful skill substitutions behind character advancement walls. Because that's the sort of thing players are going to find really useful as their characters advance. If however your table thinks the venn diagram of 'what Diplomacy does' and 'what Deceive does' should overlap for making an impression, then yeah you can give that substitution for free. That's just not the default.

It also makes no sense to me that someone trained in a skill who had absolutely no hope of doing the thing themselves is capable of providing meaningful assistance to someone who is legendary in the skill doing something extremely difficult. Like, my training in first aid is not going to allow me to assist someone doing surgery, let alone allow me to critically succeed at said assistance 95% of the time. That doesn't make any sense at all.

I disagree.

Another example would be a ranged combatant aiding a melee combatant. The person at range has literally no hope of performing a melee attack on the target. They simply cannot do what the target of the Aid action can do, because they are out of range. But distracting the opponent, making them think you are shooting at them, etc. could, for some GMs and depending on the circumstance, be considered a reasonable basis for Aid.

FWIW I don't disagree with your comments about raising the DC at higher levels.

Is he telling you "yes, if you roll well this will work" or more importantly, is he informing you "that won't work, even if you roll well"?

IOW, could you be failing because the GM has decided ahead of time that your aid won't work based on the description of what you do? Because GMs are not required to allow any/ever description of aid work (...though usually, they'll tell you 'that won't work, try something else' if it won't).

First thing I would do if high rolls were failing on standard monsters would be to change what I do to aid, because it sounds like what you're doing may not be something the GM considers an effective way to aid attacks.

If there was a situation specific idea for how you're Aiding that could reasonably call for setting something up to do it multiple times, I might allow it.

Yeah. I mean good story trumps a lot, so if the player comes up with something cool and creative I'd maybe go with it. But in general, the plain RAW meaning seems obviously that you use 1 action and a reaction to give a bonus to 1 roll. Not 1 action and X reactions to give bonuses to X rolls. That's how I'd read any sort of "1a. Title. Description: as a reaction you can..." Your 1 action pays for 1 thing.

Maybe however the difference is semantic. Here's an example:

PC1: "I pull the curtain down, throw one end out the window, and secure the other".
GM: "okay, that takes an action. Now everyone using it will get a circumstance bonus to their attempt to climb down. But you don't have a good hook, so the person at the top of the makeshift rope has to use a reaction to hold it in place, each time."

That would be something like what Bidi wants to do. But I would not try and make that player description fit into the formal Aid action, I'd just call it something inventive the PC did which changed the scene.

But for summoning it feels more like its just past that edge. its mainly because casting an elemental minion that is going to use elemental damage abilities on enemies feels like cheesing the system to still be able to use elemental attacks as an envy Runelord. There is a spirit of this is a thing my character is giving up that isn't being given up.

Searching AoN for 'elemental trait' monsters...limiting to Monster Core...oh look, the Earth Scamp does bludgeoning only. So does the Living Whirlwind. Moving up, the Jabail does B or S.

There are certainly elementals that do primarily six-element damage. Or the 'expanded' types like cold and electricity. There are also some that do primarily B/P/S with a bit of add-on elemental damage which could be used to trigger weaknesses or get around resistances. But IMO eliminating elemental summonings altogether is waaaaay overbroad, because many of them are residents of an elemental plane that use regular old attacks.

Its actually really easy and sensible. Just dont cast offensive elemental spells. Maybe they should have said that instead.

I think Paizo's now being a bit cagey with anathema on purpose, to allow players, GMs, and tables more leeway in how to apply them.

So yeah that's a fine and easy way to apply it to your table. But for ElementalofCuteness' table, they are probably better off thinking about what the anathema means to their PC and what the concept is behind their personal Envy rune. Then taking their list of spells and character concept to their GM, and seeing if the GM agrees with it. In this case, trying to figure out the single correct RAW meaning from the words may be doomed to failure because - unlike more technical rules - there may not be one.

One of my favourite examples of game concepts combining in unexpected ways with "the real world" (or stuff like kingdom building) is the Bottled Monstrosity Worm Vial.

I never meant to cause you any sorrow

Dont you think summoning specifically something like an elemental creature is both causing harm because harm is the purpose of summoning it and an attempt at cheesing the elemental restriction?

It's possible a GM could do that. I wouldn't.

IMO a good anathema is a role-play challenge and opportunity that avoids either extreme of 'trivial' or 'crippling.' Combing through every spell for any possibility of damage from some elemental concept is IMO getting into the 'crippling' extreme. Plus we know from the original Runelords that the focus was evocation magic. Blasting with elements. I think that's really where both the PC and GM should make the restriction pinch (but not completely ruin the fun!)

As for the player, they should ideally consider it as a "Challenge. Accepted." moment and dive into the persona and tactics of a wizard who voluntarily avoids using that sort of magic. If the player is seeing it as a "how can I work around this so I can argue for the same spell list I always use, and thus render the anathema irrelevant" moment, then the GM and player are likely in for a lot of friction moments no matter what rules the GM sets for what is included in the anathema.

Easl wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

In my mind, the aura trait means anyone who enters the aura is affected immediately...

...{On Dirge of Doom} So I apply it using the emanation rules meaning the effect only applies when the Dirge is cast and the area of the emanation is always calculated off the location of the bard for the qualifying effect.

Okay so Bob Bard casts Song of Marching. He and two of his party members are in the AoE. But fourth party member Alice was not. In round 2, Alice moves into range. But sadly, she can no longer ever be affected by this casting of SoM, because it doesn't have Aura. Too bad so sad, the three party members can hustle and do an exploration activity at the same time...but even though Alice can hear Bob perform and is literally standing next to him while he sustains it, she can't get the affect because "The effect only applies when it is cast". Is that how you'd rule it?

Do you think I would ever make Song of Marching so pedantically ruled?

That is saying "I will make up for a rule problem with common sense", it is not an argument that the rules are fine as is.

I keep trying to understand why some folks want to create such headaches for themselves when they're playing this game for fun.

I want to understand what Paizo intends. Your "auras affect anyone entering instantly, no-aura sustained emanations only affect those in it when it's cast" seems to me a reasonable way to draw a difference between sustained emanation no-aura and sustained emanation aura. However it does lead to some silly problems - such as Alice not being able to march along to the Song of Marching because she missed hearing the first two seconds of it.

Thus, in this case I would not say "it's fine." I'd say "Paizo errata SoM to have Aura, because the obvious usage of it is for the hustle bonus to be available to PCs who enter the AoE during the hour, and for it to become unavailable to PCs who exit the AoE during the hour."

It's magic, and it says the wind deposits them. It also says "...it falls unless it has a fly Speed but doesn’t take any damage from the fall." So yeah you can fling them 30' straight up but the impulse very clearly should not cause 15 falling damage coming down. The magic deposits them on the ground without damage. And same thing with flinging them off a cliff. Though I agree with Claxon that sending an opponent off a cliff could still in many cases be a valuable action, in terms of delaying their ability to participate.

From OP, I'd allow 1, maybe 2, not 3. Something something air elementals only provide certain specific favors something something magibabble. :) The rules lead and the in-game explanation follows - whatever in-game explanation you want to come up with doesn't trump the rules. The rules don't say they have to start on the ground, but they do say "someone."

In my mind, the aura trait means anyone who enters the aura is affected immediately...

...{On Dirge of Doom} So I apply it using the emanation rules meaning the effect only applies when the Dirge is cast and the area of the emanation is always calculated off the location of the bard for the qualifying effect.

Okay so Bob Bard casts Song of Marching. He and two of his party members are in the AoE. But fourth party member Alice was not. In round 2, Alice moves into range. But sadly, she can no longer ever be affected by this casting of SoM, because it doesn't have Aura. Too bad so sad, the three party members can hustle and do an exploration activity at the same time...but even though Alice can hear Bob perform and is literally standing next to him while he sustains it, she can't get the affect because "The effect only applies when it is cast". Is that how you'd rule it?

However, Electric arc of all spells arent on any elemental spell-list so it is entirely possible that electricity (when not part of Metal or Air) is entirely free to use.

So Electricity on its own, Acid etc.

So after reading the other posts, I'll change my initial answer and say as a GM I'd probably rule electricity and cold as out, while needle darts I'd say is in because the metal's coming from an item you own, it's not some magically conjured elemental metal.

But IMO the most important consideration is: talk to your GM and work it out with them. Because every table may be different, and frankly I think Paizo corporate is going respond just like the PFS announcement and not provide any further detail on how the anathema work. I think they are probably intentionally leaving that level of decision-making up to each table.

I don't care about the Aura trait or if the Emanation trait specifies that it moves with the target clearly or not (even though the implication is there).

Which is fine for in-play adjudication, but then the question is what the frak mechanical meaning does the Aura trait have for spells which are already sustained emanations?

3. Bard moves taking the emanation area with them possibly putting the target or targets outside the area.

Part 3 is where we seem to be in disagreement. Some want to say the 30 foot emanation remains centered on where the bard was.

Some of us say the emanation area moves with the bard so that the target is outside the area if the bard moves.

To me, the RAI for a magical bardic performance seems pretty clearly that it moves with them as they perform, affecting things within some range of the performance. The issue is whether the mechanical description and traits of the spells are consistent with that RAI. Specifically, if one composition has the aura trait and a similar one doesn't, what does that aura trait giver or take away from the spell? What did Paizo mean for the GM to do differently by adding it?

So for example, Songbird's Call is a sustained emanation with the aura trait. Song of Marching is a sustained emanation without the aura trait. What mechanical difference does the aura trait signify?

To the folks who say: "aura trait is what tells the GM that the AoE moves with the caster," does that mean sustained compositions without the aura trait should be errata'd to have it? I think that's the argument.

To the folks who say "aura trait is NOT needed for the AoE to move with the caster," then what, in your mind, does the Aura trait actually do? Say I take SoM and homebrew add the Aura trait to it for my games: how does it behave differently? How do I describe to the player the mechanical difference I made to their spell? If there isn't any mechanical difference, doesn't that mean Paizo needs to give us some errata on what the Aura trait does?

Easl wrote:

So bard casts. Moves. Next round: Sustains, Moves, Moves. The party moves with her. They are now 75' from the original casting spot. Spell is sustained.

The Bard casts, everyone's affected. The party moves. The Bard Sustains, all those affected keep the effect. And so on. The area serves only to determine who's affected originally.

So Level 18 enemy bard casts Voracious Gestalt. PC takes 14d6, then moves out of the emanation. Next round, Bard sustains. But poor PC continues to take 14d6 again because, according to you, "The area serves only to determine who's affected originally". Is that how you would play it?

Here's another part of your post, which seems to support that:

Emanations without the Aura trait don't move, only those affected at the time of casting stay affected during the whole duration of the spell.

To me this is, yes, a radical departure from the obvious RAW. You put the surrounding squares on fire, you sustain it, someone avoids the fire damage by stepping out of it. That's clear, obvious, simple. But it also means: you create a magical 'Hustle' field, you sustain it, people stop benefiting from it if they step out of the field. Exact same spell specifications (sustained, emanation), so exact same rules applied.

So SoM as written is problematic, because the obvious way it is supposed to work is the Bard hustles while sustaining, everyone else Hustles while doing another exploration activity, and this works because the emanation continues to surround the Bard as they move. If you are next to the Bard but in a bear trap when she casts it, and then the rest of the party moves off, then a half hour later when you've freed yourself from the trap and the party is a mile away no you cannot still get the hustle effect. I have a hard time imagining any GM playing that way.

No.

When you cast the spell, everyone in the area gets a 1-hour buff

The duration is "Duration sustained up to 1 hour". Not 1 hour. Did you misread? So the effect lasts 1 round unless it is sustained.

So bard casts. Moves. Next round: Sustains, Moves, Moves. The party moves with her. They are now 75' from the original casting spot. Spell is sustained. Are they still affected now that they've left the AoE? If the answer is "yes," then either it moved with them, or ALL OTHER SPELLS that have a sustained emanation work the same way, and leaving the AoE does not relieve you of it's effects. That would be a radical re-interpretation of the rules, IMO.

OTOH if the answer is "no," then the spell as written doesn't do what it is obviously supposed to do, and errata is likely needed.

The area doesn't last one hour, it is instantaneous.

No, "Duration 1 hour" would be a spell that is instantaneous and then lasts for 1 hour. SoM does not have that duration.

The only other thing that stands out is the 30% hit success rate for the player's attacks. That should also be closer to 60%. That might indicate a character sheet calculation error such as forgetting to add the character's level to attack bonus.

The OP saying "especially in party vs single monster combat" leads me to believe the 60/30 is reflecting a L+1 or L+2 threat. In which case 60/30 may be about right.

To solve this, yeah tactics tactics tactics. The teams need to find ways to lower monster AC, raise their own, target a weak save, or drain away monster actions (making it move, tripping it, etc.). Remind your players that in a 4-on-1, the party using even 2 actions to nullify 1 enemy action is a good trade.

Second thought: OP saying "getting dropped in a round by a crit" makes me think this is low level play. Which yeah, can be one-round deadly. If OP is playing at L1-3, the issue of crits dropping PCs in the first round may sort itself out as they level up. Until then, the same 'tactics' advice applies but here the main tactic is really 'don't rush in without preparation.' Even be willing to retreat sometimes, if the dice don't go your way.

But also, some groups just don't want the tactical puzzle. And that's okay, there is no one right way to play. OP, if you have a group that just wants to rush in and play man-on-man because that's fun for them, then yes I advise you lower encounter difficulty, because the Paizo encounter difficulties do assume some amount of working together.

Easl wrote:

But then we get to...Song of Marching. Which is clearly intended to move with the party, is sustained, but does not have Aura. That spell makes absolutely no sense if it doesn't move.

Well, not really. It affects the allies that were there at the time of casting. I agree it's weird that they can technically part ways in the middle of the Song. But I think it's just an oversight.

It affects the party in while they are in the area of effect. If the emanation doesn't move, then they can't hustle+exploration activity after moving 60' away because they are no longer in the AoE. Thus if they move out of the AoE, they don't keep the effect because they are no longer in the AoE...unless the area of effect moves with them. Which it is obviously supposed to do.

If no errata is needed, that means errenor must be right and emanation-no-aura is sufficient to have a moving AoE. It's the only way the spell works as intended. Or my option, i.e. errata needed because it should have Aura.

As a side note, I don't think Song of Marching should have the Aura Trait. The Aura Trait means that anyone entering the Aura would benefit immediately from its effects,

SoM clearly says "you and your allies," so whether you consider it an Emanation or Aura or both, it only affects you and your allies. A case of specific (the wording of SoM) overruling general (auras generally affect anything in it).

Hmm yeah looks to me Paizo may need errata here.

At first scan, it looked to me like the remaster gave emanation-with-no-aura to the compositions that last 1 round with no sustain (like Courageous anthem), and gave emanation-with-aura to the sustainable ones (like Songbird's call).

If that were the case, it would make sense. Emanations without aura don't move because they are not sustained. The PC casts them, they affect the stated area for the duration. If the PC moves and casts again, the second casting affects the new area for the new duration. No problemo.

But then we get to...Song of Marching. Which is clearly intended to move with the party, is sustained, but does not have Aura. That spell makes absolutely no sense if it doesn't move.

I think they need to do an errata pass on all of these, make it a consistent trait use where effects that are sustained are emanation+aura while things that are more fire-move-fire are emanation only.

And I'm betting the Resistance to all creatures are usually higher level, at which point I would imagine you'd have worked out some ways to get around that, especially as a wizard, witching to debuffing or buffing spells.

For damage dealing backup, Force barrage. There's no to-hit roll, no save, and as Yuri noted Force affects just about everything. Scaling doesn't entirely keep up but your dpr should be fine because 100% chance for full damage makes up for smaller dice.

The full list is easy to generate using an AoN search. There are 10 Cantrips, 7 1st rank spells, and then a total of 9 spells in ranks 2-9.

What about Poison?

It's not an "RoE" element (nor void), so personally I'd say you're good.

But I am not your GM. Simplest way to resolve this is to select the spells you think are valid choices (I'd go with Lia's suggestion and do a search), present them to your GM, and discuss.

1. I think no RGP relies primarily on the rulebook to tell people how to play an RPG or that RPG in particular. They all depend heavily on being taught by the GM or other players with some experience. Even with new releases, there's a learning curve amongst early players...who then propagate that knowledge.

2. I'll have to defer on value of beginner box. It sounds like it does a good job but I've never used it. But yeah if Fabios (the OP) wants to bring in new players, maybe start there?

3. On tactics...I would expect them to ramp up with level. So I wouldn't necessarily expect a L1 adventure to focus heavily on them. Not every detail of a game needs to be taught in session 1. Particularly with kids - I have found it immensely easier to teach modern complex board games to kids in a staged approach (1st run through, we only use part of the rules, second run through, we use more of them, etc...), and I think the same approach is fine for RPGs.

3. On dpr...I don't think it's a case of casters being bad so much as a few martial classes being frontloaded. So for example, take the Monster Core's L1 Dwarf Warrior. 20 HP. Four PCs doing between 2d4 and 2d6 or 3d4 (i.e. spell damage) to two Dwarf Warriors should be able to finish them in 3 or so rounds. IOW, that level of damage is 'about right' to make a moderate encounter actually moderate in difficulty. In contrast, a Magus doing 1d10+4+2d6 drops the encounter down to two rounds, or maybe one with a lucky crit. That is not 'moderate', that's easy. So it's not that caster damage is too low for the level, it's that the Magus damage is way high for the level. Now I'm NOT arguing Paizo should lower martial damage. Just arguing that early level casters are not underpowered compared to level-appropriate monsters, they are only underpowered compared to a few select martial classes which have been frontloaded with damage-dealing potential. As to why? I dunno, though just like old school classic D&D the casters eventually catch up due to high powered AoEs and because weapon damage increases slower. Unless/until Paizo changes that part of the balance, I guess some frontloading makes sense.

...a "reasonable" person just saw the barbarian take a lot of damage and not go down, and they're still a threat. So while generally I advocate against actions that would kill a PC, in this scenario I think death is actually more likely than if you didn't have it. Because the NPC is going to continue attacking, which is likely to drop the PC to 0 hp, causing dying condition which would be increased by the wounded condition to dying 3. Depending on the exact scenario, it could easily reach dying 4 instead (dead).

For sure, if you're the barbarian you want to back away ASAP and find another way to contribute to combat than just stand there trading blows. At least after they hit wounded 4.

In that respect, while the feat does keep you up and doing things - and from experience with Orc Ferocity, that can be very valuable - I would strongly guess that the feat will not give you that 'ha ha, I laugh at mortality and keep swinging' feel that the post's title might imply. Assuming it triggered on the first strike and the second strike doesn't just drop you, then the player is likely going to have to change tactics immediately if they don't want their PC to die.

Now, if you've got some good heal support which can bump you back up to "takes 3+ blows to take me to zero" before the start of your next turn, then yeah maybe laughing in the face of death and continuing to trade melee strikes is a viable strategy.

My opinion, familiars aren't worth it unless you're going to spend several of your character resources on making them worth it.

One of our players took a familiar with the independent trait and uses it for a free action demoralize attempt and other various skill rolls. The odds of the familiar succeeding at any of these rolls typically stinks, but since it costs the PC no actions in combat and he uses it all the time, the familiar usually succeeds at something once or twice a session. With many rolls, the unlikely becomes likely. :) Plus he also uses it for the light scouting they are typically used for.

Having seen it in action it still probably wouldn't be my personal first choice. But it has exceeded my 'going in' expectations, and I know the player is quite happy with their choice.

Claxon wrote:

a GM shouldn't be TRYING to kill a character.

But monsters should. That's actually their point.

I am not sure the GM has to really think about 'trying' or 'not trying' to make death a credible threat to a Bar trying this. If a monster takes their first action to attack, connects, damages the Bar, and the Bar is barely standing afterwards, then in most cases the 'natural' thing to do is have the monster attack with their second action. I wouldn't view this as malicious - a melee opponent taking two strikes in a round at the same target is just perfectly normal, average behavior.

One, you only have one reaction each round. If you get hit while you don't have your reaction available, then you can't use Unstoppable Juggernaut.

Bottom of the 5th (round). 1 HP. Two strikes, you're out! Whats that, you already had Wounded 6? Ejected from game! :O

Orc Ferocity has saved our party from TPK a couple times at least. Pretty sure we beat a lethal-severity encounter because of it. Effects like this ARE good. But they make the orc PCs in our party radically modify their tactics after use, at least until a big heal. I imagine being in the position above would do the same for a L20 Bar.

Take Ignition, of course. :)

Heat metal, Cinder swarm (with fire ants)....

Oracle of Flames also seems like a decent choice.

With a creature this size, if it had these reactions, no matter what I did, everyone non-rogue ally who passed by would be subject to AoO RS. They have 15 ft reach!

Clear the Way helps the own PC avoid reactions, but the allies have to fend for themselves.

I agree that neither interpretation of Clear the Way protects following PCs from reactive strikes if the opponents have a 15' reach.

I also think extreme cases are very poor basis for interpretation of rules (lawyers say: "hard cases make bad law"). To think about the RAW and RAI, it makes much more sense to consider the how Clear the Way functions against 5' reach opponents, which represent probably 90% of opponents amongst the levels that see the most play.

Moving without walking would still be an option. But I don't think that in some cases this

Nice pic. It would work. But it's still creating a narrow path where both the PC Clearing the Way and the PCs following them would be subject to reactive strikes.

Just looking at your two pictures, as the PC strides forward after the first shove, the NPC on the left would be able to use reactive strike against them - because they haven't been shoved yet, they aren't yet part of Clear the Way, and the PC just did a stride right next to them. Then if the PC has someone following them through the gap, that second PC would be subject to a reactive strike from the NPC on the right, who could not use their reactive strike during the first PC's shove-and-stride, but can certainly use it against someone else who strides through the 5' square next to them.

I think the clear purpose is that the PC can shove the left NPC left and the right NPC right. Neither would get a reaction to this because it's in the middle of the Clear the Way action. Then the PC can stride straight forward (again with no reactive strikes) and anyone following them has a nice 15' wide "corridor" they can move down the middle through, letting them also avoid reactive strikes. This also fits the descriptive text of creating a 'wide' path.

If you interpret this as 5x basic shove action with the stride (and then the final move), then obviously the PC must follow the basic shove rule about stride direction - i.e. they can only do that stride in the direction of the shove.

Which means this would NOT look like pushing one guy sideways, moving forward, pushing the next guy sideways, moving 5 more feet forward, etc. Instead, what would happen is the PC shoves one opponent back, then follows them, then shoves that same person back again, then follows them, etc. Effectively ping-ponging them back up to five times.

I think Lia Wynn's reading is correct. You do all the shoves with no 5' moves in between. This creates a wide path exactly as Clear the Way states, because it can move a whole bunch of surrounding enemies off to the sides. Then you make a move forward. Shove-move-shove-move-etc. creates a narrow skinny path with the same opponent ending up in front of you, it means that both you or any other PCs who follow you could be open to reactive strikes from the opponents left behind because they are still next to the 5' squares you moved through and haven't been shoved, and it also means your final move can't be in the direction you want to go, because there's an opponent standing in front of you.

Besides which, a PC with a 25' move speed getting 5x5'+10' = 35' move (60' of movement with 5 crits!) plus 5 shoves, all for a single action, seems a bit much to me. Though everyone's opinion of TGTBT may vary.

But I didn't look at Finoan's link to the earlier thread, so maybe this point was already covered and answered?

I think its far, far, far, far more likely that Paizo is quite happy with the fighter as is and will change absolutely nothing, totally ignoring this thread.

I think you're right. Fighter even got a new archetype in WoI, so I would not necessarily expect anything as big as that in the near future.

But...Battlecry! releases in July. The theme certainly fits the class. So maybe in addition to the two new classes we know about, Fighter gets some love.

easl wrote:

Do you agree that your proposed Allmaster is ahead in damage or not?

No, because the damage variation is so small that it is questionable whether it exists most of the time.

Sigh. Is increasing the average DPR by 2 while everything else remains the same a vertical change or a horizontal one?

I mean, you seem to be bending over backwards to avoid the obvious answer.

The point is that you are arguing that there is a (significant) vertical advantage in being an all-rounder over being specialized in a single group,

No, what I've actually said multiple times is that this is a vertical rather than a horizontal change. Because you keep claiming it's horizontal and it just isn't. I've also said that big or small is a judgment call.

***

Look, to try not to be a curmudgeon about this, I'll offer a positive suggestion. What do you think of this sort of solution:

1. Because we both agree this is a minority theme, make it a Class Archetype rather than revising the core class to suit this minority view. Class archetype is perfect for "a few people want to play this theme, but most don't." Adding a new class archetype is also a lot less disruptive to ongoing games, new fighters playing old APs designed with the old rules in mind, PFS, etc. than changing a core class feature.

2. Because we both agree that fighter is already a strong class, neither the core class nor the new archetype should be made stronger. IOW we're not going to give "L5 master proficiency for everything" to both and then a new bonus for the specialist and a different new bonus for the generalist on top. You keep saying this is about theme for you, not power, so there's zero reason to make a change that increases the classes power, right?

3. Because a class archetype that is strictly superior is no real choice at all, the allmaster cannot be strictly superior to the general class. So again, "L5 master proficiency in everything and all crit specializations, no other difference" is out as the archetype's class feature. That's just a strictly superior upgrade to the core class.

4. But if they don't get the Master proficiency with a single weapon class, they have to get something of good value at L5 to compensate. Because that's a pretty valuable benefit.

An allmaster fighter class archetype that tries to achieve 1-4 might look something like this:

-You do not get the L5 Fighter Weapon Mastery class feature.
-Instead, you get a feature that gives +1 (stackable) bonus to hit with all weapons.
-Crit specializations...one? All? Changeable? Paizo should use playtesting to get the right balance point because I don't have a strong suggestion here. But maybe a middle ground is that during your daily preparations you can select 2 to be accessible. Or maybe: you select 1 during daily preparations, but can change it after 10 minutes' "warm up" with the new weapon. Both of these suggestions are not as wide as everything all the time, but not nearly as restrictive as the standard 'requires a week in town to change' for a feat either.