Ectar's page

Sorry for the necro, but I didn't see the point of creating a new thread when this one already exists.

I wonder how you, as a GM, would react to a player asking to use an Exploration Activity similar to Defend but with feats similar to Raise a Shield, among others:
- Twin Parry
- Extravagant Parry
- Hydraulic Deflection
- Ceremony of Protection
- Flowing Palm Deflection
- Defend Summoner

Yeah, I'd allow all of these as exploration activities. Unless there was insufficient humidity to permit Hydraulic Deflection, but that'd be a real odd case.

Count me in the "It's just flavor text" crowd.

This seems plausible, but it begs the question:

I don't feel the current disagreement is in keeping with the purpose of this thread.
Take it to the rules forums.

Can you simply ask the GM after a session why you failed to Aid so many times?
Or perhaps, what you could have done better to aid more successfully?

I think it's important to discover what the GM has changed before attempting to convince them to change again.

Book 3 provides access to the ring of stone shifting which allows one person to travel through stone for 100 miles up to three times per day. If the PCs travel to the south east portion of the Swardlands right below the mountain range, that puts them within 100 miles of Absalom so one person can go there for a shopping trip and be back before the end of the day. I love the ingenuity of my players! That was probably the best used option in that book.

In book 4 they also traveled back to Escadar by boat to buy slightly lower level items, check in with their old friend Chief Constable Paldreen, and gather the resonant reflection for new PCs. Yes, finding places to buy appropriate gear for this AP has not been easy, but also not impossible.

Given the PCs are running what is functionally a small company, I consistently let them purchase nearly anything by way of sending out some low level circus employees to Absalom to purchase items on their behalf. It took a few days, but it worked well enough.

On the whole tho, it sounds like you have a reasonable enough opening set of maneuvers.
Is anyone identifying the enemies in your party?
Walls are also really strong. A Chromatic Wall or Wall of Force can be an extremely effective round 1 in some fights.
To save on higher level slots, Rank 3 Fear never really goes out of style.

Coffee counts as food?
Good news! It turns out I have been eating breakfast every morning.

Also, booze is food. Someone tell Nathan Explosion.

Follow on Twitch to be notified when we go live.

Any chance we could get like a ballpark time?

Whenever we GM, we can all decide whatever we want, but the rules definitely say no damage.

The big issue to me is, if you allow damage at all, then if you can fling someone 30ft straight up then even on a save they're going to take damage and fall prone, unless they crit save.

And I'm pretty sure that's not how the ability was intended to work.

Agreed. I wouldn't have it do anything noteworthy for a fling upwards, because it says it doesn't.

In most cases if an enemy gets flung off a cliff, they're out of the fight anyway, so the ability dealing damage or not is kind of moot.

However, because the full description of the ability says:

Quote:

A speeding wind heeds your call, picking someone up and depositing them nearby. Choose a creature within 60 feet of you. The target jumps in any direction, up to a maximum of 30 feet. If the target doesn't land on a space of solid ground within 30 feet of where it started, it falls unless it has a fly Speed but doesn't take any damage from the fall. You choose the distance and direction of the jump.

I wouldn't under any circumstance allow the ability to cause damage. That's not what it's for, it's for repositioning/movement.

Even if the victim is launched off a cliff several hundred feet high?

I stopped into the wiki for the general look, but I was hoping there was a bit more since I noticed the wiki isn't always up to date.

In any case, thanks for the information.

If you are able, I'd check the sources listed on the wiki page, if you have access:

Edit: wait, that's stuff about The Newborn, specifically. Sorry, I got nothing.

Dark Tapestry also includes the Dominion of the Black, a totally separate, evil organization of malevolent forces that occupies the space between stars.

They play a backgroundish role in

I believe they also have heavy involvement on Aucturn, which has received some very interesting updates in Starfinder canon.

General info:
Hyperlinked, because if you don't on these forums someone will feel the need to come in behind you and post it for you and say "linkified"

Finoan wrote:

Not having an AC implies that you can't attack them at all with Strike or with spells with a spell attack roll.

You already can't attack items with Strike or spells with spell attack roll. They all target creatures only.

Targets 1 creature, unattended object, or force construct

This thread has got me thinking of the Trolley Problem.

Ravingdork wrote:

You could portray the priest as being corrupt, using his stance as an excuse to garner (or maintain) favor with the wealthy elites. He's lying to himself and others though, as he would be in clear violation of his faith' tenants. Might make for a nice villain for the PCs to oppose on the social stage.

QuidEst's other suggestions also work well if you're not looking for a villain.

Wouldn't the cleric be at risk of losing their spellcasting privileges then?

I wonder how the different inner sea faiths would respond to the trolly problem of 5 lay worshipers on the tracks, but you can pull a lever to divert the trolly to a track with the church's high priest on it. What should a worshiper of said faith do?

You could pose it as a kind of "quality vs quantity" dilemma?
Save 75 of the cities wisest leaders, most beloved benefactors, most skilled artists
Or
100 unremarkable level -1 commoners.
Or maybe 100 prisoners-of-war or 100 convicted criminals.

Ya know, something like that.

I don't know that many players would be convinced to save art or music at the expense of lives, tbh.

And this is where I'd flag the original post as an FAQ candidate, if such a flag existed.

I'm going to start running this is the next few months and I plan on making her not a child eating monster but instead a person that started netural but has gone a bit more chaotic evil in the last few thousand years. I like how in her stories she is annoyed at people bugging her especially if they want some of her magic.

My Black rider will paint her as saving Irrisen from a second world wound by creating the permanent winter (our table is a little loose with the world building). Irrisen is somehow connected to her homeland is why she cares. She replaces her daughters every 100 years because the first few kept getting so evil and currupt by that time that she was afraid they might loose control.

I don't think I need the geas and the rider has to give the PCs his blood in order for them to enter the hut and make the reconizable as allies to a few NPCs. It also gives his last bit of power to help them get to the hut. I do want to make sure they know that she beguilingly owes them a favor if they release her. In book 6 when they can start talking to her more and more as they remove layers of the doll, I want her to be very smart (but a bit forgetful), bitter, angry, and a little funny and charming.

I'm looking for more fairy tale flavor and may add the harrowing to book 4. I've already run 'murders mark' as a prequel and had the fortune teller give a few clues going all the way to book 5.

Book 6 details her origins. Baba Yaga definitely did not start out her mortal or immortal lives as evil. She was quite decent for a while, even.

PathMaster wrote:

So, we've established that Fighter in its current state is literally unplayable by being forced to only pick a single type of weapon.

Did we, though?

Also, I love how weapon proficiency goes from "the class' unique niche" to making fighters "literally unplayable" in the space of just one or two paragraphs; that's got to be a new record.

IMO, the quoted passage is pretty clearly hyperbole, in an effort to inject humor to an otherwise long and detail-oriented post.

Edit: though with 3 people taking "literally" literally, maybe I'm the one mistaking OP's intended meaning.

But using only the wand once per day everyday for 6889 days, while reinvesting the wand-generated good in to more wands, you'll start producing >1 wand's cost in gold per day!
That's when this gold farm REALLY takes off.

It does, of course, assume 100% of created gold is reinvested at the earliest opportunity, so we can't use any of it to provide for our needs.
Also we're spending 93 minutes per day purely casting from wands, not to mention the logistics of going through 923 wands, actions to pick up and set down the wands, moving, managing 93 bulk worth of wands.

It's probably still worth it, tho.

Rival Academies gives us the chrysopoetic curse spell, which creates instantaneous gold from nothing.

What is stopping a sin mage (who would have access) from getting a wand of this, then casting it on their pet goose every day until they can afford a second wand, then rinse and repeat until they are generating enough wealth to satisfy their greed?

Devaluing gold by artificially injecting more in to the supply chain.

Or a much weirder interpretation:
As the value of a given mass of gold goes down via increased supply from your repeated spell casting, the spell will slowly start to yield a larger mass of gold to maintain that constant worth of 2d6gp.

The fact that the Shifter wasn't printed in Howl of the Wilds makes me think it will be ages until it comes to 2e.
Real shame since so few d20 games have a dedicated shape-shifting class.
And what with how well received that D&D movie lass was, being closer to a Shifter than a real Druid, I feel like the desire is there.

More than anything, the Shifter didn't get a fair shake in 1e. As the last class released before the edition change, it never got time to come in to its own.
Plus, arguably the druid was still a better shape-shifter than the Shifter (especially with archetyping). But I feel like that last issue would be pretty fixable in 2e.

But alas. The most appropriate book for the Shifter to make its triumphant return has already shipped.

Edit: RIP Oozemorph. You were never a good archetype in 1e, but boy did it hit the feeling of "You are an ooze that takes on a humanoid form, not the other way around" amazingly well.

Potion of Emergency Escape plus Retrieval Prism

Alternatively

Snapleaf and jump off a cliff.

In any case, make sure they retreat with enough health to survive another few hits in the escape attempt.

Unicore wrote:

An important thing to remember about spell casting in PF2 is that using spells are many ranks below your top slots in combat can often be a detriment to the party as a whole, especially if they are taking up 2 or more actions in combat. So casting bless and expanding it once or twice before opening a door can be a decent use of a rank 1 slot, but casting it once combat has already began might be a bigger waste of actions that even using a cantrip or getting out a better spell on a scroll.

Not sure I am following the logic here.

Bless doesn't have any heightened effect. A +1 status bonus to attack rolls is a +1 status bonus to attack rolls - and is good at all levels, just ask a Bard.

So casting a Rank 1 Bless as a level 2 character has the same action cost as casting a Rank 1 Bless as a level 12 character.

Now, if you are saying that Bless is never good to cast in combat and should be relegated to a pre-buff role entirely at all levels, that makes sense. I don't necessarily agree, but it has valid logic - the action cost of Bless isn't worth the benefit once combat has already started. But that is also a problem specific to Bless itself, not a general thing for casting Rank 1 or 2 spells.

Saying that Bless is good to cast after the start of combat at level 2 play, but bad to cast after the start of combat at level 12 play doesn't make any sense to me.

It's about opportunity cost: what else could you be doing with those actions?

At level 12, you could cast Synesthesia, Wave of Despair, or Rank 6 Heroism.
It might be the case that casting Rank 1 Bless is the best thing you could be doing with your actions as a level 12 character, but that situation is uncommon.

The Bless is as effective as it always was, but it's a less attractive option by comparison to the higher rank ones.

Flagged to move to Advice.

To the question, that depends, imo, on what level the character is.

My rank 2 spells for a level 3 character are different from my rank 2 spells for a level 9 character.

Also, what spell list?

The lack of mention regarding Necromancer Focus Spells is mildly concerning.

Many forum comments spoke about how the spells themselves were, at best, barely better than other class focus spells, but frequently required a third action to set up a Thrall in a relevant location.

Ditto the class feeling like it really comes into its own at level 7 with 2 thralls per action.

I think Pactbinder is super cool.

If the group is okay with a kind of rotating spotlight, the Pactbinder let's you have some Powerful roleplaying hooks and opportunities of the most classic variety: bargains with supernatural entities.

You might roleplay meeting the creature and initiating the pact or be put in to situations where the pact is making things difficult because of the terms that you all have to work through.

Plus the mechanical benefits are good. But it's most cool factor and roleplaying hooks.

The Wandering Chef, for those who want to play like Delicious in Dungeon, without all the ethical dilemmas and body horror.

I'm not an anime person, myself, so I asked my wife and she assured me that the ethical dilemmas and body horror are the best parts.

Ectar wrote:

So he doesn't actually care about that thing mentioned in that list of things he cares deeply about?

He probably doesn't care about the weak ones that die and aren't any use to him. Areas of concern doesn't immedietly mean that you care deeply about it.

GM Core 140 defines it as
"Areas of Concern: Each deity has one or more areas of concern they have divine influence over."

Dahak has divine influence over wicked dragons, he doesn't have to treat them very well.

Areas of Concern: The topics that the deity cares most deeply about.

Related, does he care about the strong ones that die?

So he doesn't actually care about that thing mentioned in that list of things he cares deeply about?

All well and good, I suppose.

But given he's so pro dragon death, why are wicked dragons in his area of concern?

From the Divine Mysteries web supplement:
Areas of concern "Destruction, greed, wicked dragons". Cool. Pretty classic for a formerly Evil dragon deity.
Edicts "Kill dragons, destroy things at your whim, study past disasters"

Bolded for emphasis. Not kill benevolent dragons.
Kill. Dragons.

Seems odd that his concerns include those which he seeks to destroy.

Is this any intentional shift from the older "Kill metallic dragons" towards kill all dragons? If so, why are wicked dragons a particular area of concern?

Or is it meant to be more akin to Kill benevolent dragons?

And as already explained, the Attack trait doesn't mean its hostile. Using Healing Bomb has the Attack trait because you're Striking with a bomb. But that's obviously not a hostile action on an ally, right? All the Attack trait is doing in this case is making MAP apply.

Providing this from earlier.

I guess I have a pretty strict view on this.

I actually consider buffing or healing indirectly harming as well when done in combat.
I see it as two groups are fighting, healing or buffing one side is harmful to the other indirectly. healing is no different than giving someone runic weapon, or haste or summoning a creature. your contributing indirectly to the harm of the other side of that fight.

Think of it this way. Lets say you see two groups fighting eachother and you start healing people on one side of the fight. You think the other group is going to just ignore you? No they are going to consider those actions hostile against them. You are making the other side better able to stay alive and harm them.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

It absolutely is possible to publish more impulses and I dearly wish Paizo would just get on with it. :)

For whatever reason, Paizo is sort of allergic to print more class specific options for most of the lifespan of PF2. Back in PF1 we would have a new sorcerer bloodline every other month in APs and player companions, but now I think they've added like 4 in non-rulebook sources. There's a great many things that could use more feats for them (most uncommon ancestries are pretty limited here) and they just don't print them.

I assume the reason for this is that they'd rather print a player option that appeals to more classes than just one, so they'd rather do archetypes than class feats, but still there's a bunch of classes I'd like to see more stuff for.

Well, I can only hope that they'll do a big book of specific class options one day. It'd be more interesting to me to have broader way to build the many classes already out than to get more and more base classes, since we will be almost at 30 of them once this year is over. IMO, they should slow down a bit with that and focus more on broadening options for what already exists.

More than 30, if you count the fully compatible SF2E classes!

This time, we didn't post a reminder in a blog, but we did post multiple reminders on all of our social media (Facebook, Instagram, X, and Bluesky), it was mentioned in a Paizo LIVE, we sent email reminders to all those subscribed to our newsletter, and we sent email reminders about the playtest to all our customers. We thought this would generally cover the bases, but it's good to know from you all here that a reminder in the blogs would have also been helpful!

Add me to the list of people who don't follow Paizo (or most any companies) on social media, don't subscribe to any newsletters, don't watch Paizo streams (except for the occasional panel at major conventions), and unsubscribe to as many corporate email lists as I can possibly manage. But I DO visit the forums regularly, usually several times a day.

If this game doesn't want invisible summoners why allow invisible buffers or healers. Same for sanctuary for that matter.

Correct me if my assumption about summoning is off.

To my knowledge, summoning is not clearly defined a being harmful. But given that the language in modern summon spells is "You summon a creature that has the XXXXX trait and whose level is YYYYY to fight for you."

If the creature is a wolf that immediately bites an enemy, then that wolf did direct harm. And since the wolf is your summoned creature, I'd argue the caster caused indirect harm.

If the creature is a celestial and only heals or buffs allies, perhaps Summon Celestial is not doing direct harm to your opponents, and therefore the caster, imo, did not cause direct or indirect harm.

Arguably the caster in the second example caused indirect-indirect harm. But imo harm twice-removed from the source shouldn't count as the source inflicting harm.

On the flip side "fight for you" is arguable for hostility. It's not my personal take, but I think it's a valid one.

If you're in a home game, it's an easy house rule.

If you're in Society, you're screwed until errata. Keep it in mind during character creation.

Ectar wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

Ectar wrote:

Imagine grabbing someone, restraining them with both arms, then repeatedly yelling "They're attacking me!" as the victim tries to escape.

A ridiculous example, to be sure, but I really find the notion that someone attempting to cease being Grabbed by someone else is harmful to the someone else to be equally ridiculous.

I am not conceptualizing harm in terms of whos in the right.

It is purely the physical aspect of breaking free that requires harm to make it happen, otherwise the creature is not letting go. The character is right to do harm to break free, but harm is still required.

Your description is consistently one that implies a contest of force. What of the slippery character who does not "break free" but "slips out" or "wriggles free"?

IMO, things get even weirder when we consider Sanctuary.
- A foe successfully saves and then is able to grab the character with Sanctuary.
- The Grabbed character, naturally, attempts escape.
- Sanctuary ends since escape was attempted???

I considered that too. It has two things going against it.

First is the attack trait is not removed for acrobatics being used instead of the unarmed attack bonus.
Second is it would be giving special treatment to one form of escape over the other two even though its the same action with the same traits.

Yeah it would seem succeeding at the two checks needed to grapple a character protected with sanctuary foils sanctuary pretty good against that one foe. I think that is fair.

Of course it doesn't remove the attack trait, that'd be super imbalanced. Imo there's a reason that rolls with the attack trait of even Attack Rolls are not specifically called out as Hostile, even if they usually are.

Even with Athletics it strength-based unarmed attack escapes, you aren't attacking the other creature. It's not like in a film where the character is punching someone in the face or stomach to get them to let go. Breaking free of a grip probably won't feel good, but harmful? Nah.

Also, you have to succeed at two checks normally just to strike a character with Sanctuary. The aggressive character shouldn't be getting doubly rewarded for functionally the same rolls (Will Save + Attack (strike) vs Will Save + Attack(Athletics)) with a victim who further endangers themselves for daring to try to escape.
Removing the effect of Sanctuary is the effect of critically saving the Will Save. Getting it essentially for free because you chose to succeed at a grapple instead of an attack isn't good tactics, it's poor rules adjudication.

Ectar wrote:

Imagine grabbing someone, restraining them with both arms, then repeatedly yelling "They're attacking me!" as the victim tries to escape.

A ridiculous example, to be sure, but I really find the notion that someone attempting to cease being Grabbed by someone else is harmful to the someone else to be equally ridiculous.

I am not conceptualizing harm in terms of whos in the right.

It is purely the physical aspect of breaking free that requires harm to make it happen, otherwise the creature is not letting go. The character is right to do harm to break free, but harm is still required.

Your description is consistently one that implies a contest of force. What of the slippery character who does not "break free" but "slips out" or "wriggles free"?

IMO, things get even weirder when we consider Sanctuary.
- A foe successfully saves and then is able to grab the character with Sanctuary.
- The Grabbed character, naturally, attempts escape.
- Sanctuary ends since escape was attempted???

Imagine grabbing someone, restraining them with both arms, then repeatedly yelling "They're attacking me!" as the victim tries to escape.

A ridiculous example, to be sure, but I really find the notion that someone attempting to cease being Grabbed by someone else is harmful to the someone else to be equally ridiculous.

Enemy spellcaster standing by with Rank 4 silence. Capture a 2nd PC :evil grin:

I do agree, I wouldn't rely too hard on intent, and in that respect I think the rules text may be a bit unhelpful. I wouldn't rule that opening a door is a hostile action, for example, even if the person knows there's a violent monster on the other end. The intent is harmful; the mechanical action of opening a door is not. Similarly, I'd rule that Shoving someone is a hostile action, regardless of whether it's done in jest, to push an ally out of harm's way, or to push an enemy off a cliff. I'm personally in favor of consistency here, and while using natural language for rules can sometimes give a greater degree of freedom, in this case I think it creates a degree of ambiguity to what could otherwise be a fairly straightforward definition of acting against someone.

The rules define a hostile action is one which can harm or damage a creature directly or indirectly, mild paraphrasing.

Demonstrate that she will definitely keep her end of the bargain if her (usually ridiculously high) conditions are met.

Most of the times her prices are much too high, but if the price is paid, she'll uphold her end well, if begrudgingly.

Alternatively, express the futility of trying to stop Elvanna themselves, given that her ritual is already in motion and can only be stopped by the queen of witches.
They NEED Baba Yaga, they certainly don't have to like her.

Also also, one of the end rewards the party can ask of her is that she fully abandons Golarion, thus largely saving Irrisen. You can maybe introduce that bargain very early.
Perhaps you can introduce a system wherein Baba Yaga has a wrap form of weak communication with her riders, so she can bargain very early either through the original rider and/or when the PCs acquire their mantle.

Hostile Action wrote:

For instance, casting fireball into a crowd would be a hostile action, but opening a door and accidentally freeing a horrible monster wouldn’t be.

My rule is: does the action you're performing right now cause any direct harm to, or impact in any way, the thing you're doing it to? Yes, the intent behind opening a door might be malicious, but other than regular wear and tear on the door, nobody gets hurt by that action. Stealing keys, a potion, or a coin purse? Not harmed in the sense of HP loss, but it's definitely a negative effect. Same as an Intimidate or casting a Slow spell: a direct debuff and status effect onto the opponent is most definitely a hostile effect.

Opening a door breaking Invisibility is ridiculous, under any circumstance. Yes, rules are muddy in some cases, but it's clear-cut here: opening a door is not harmful to the door...

In the examples given in the book opening a door and accidentally freeing a horrible monster would not be Hostile. But the implication is that opening a door and deliberately freeing a horrible monster (which would presumably start attacking nearby creatures) would be. That seems to be what the writers intended. I probably wouldn't run it that way, myself (for PCs or NPCs), but that's the way it reads.

Fwiw, I'd probably let both groups try to lift items off of each other without breaking Invisibility, too.

But opening a door is never harmful? What if the door is lead-lined and on the other side is a massive amount of radiation? Opening that door is going to cause massive harm to anyone in the adjoining room. And if the door-opening character knows about the radiation, I think they should 100% drop Invisibility for doing so.

[I think my personality adjudication is more direct than the rules prescribe. Releasing a creature is less directly harmful than releasing a hazard, to me. (I think it's because a creature has its own agency to cause harm, whereas a hazard can primarily only be endured. Even in the case where the creature in question is mindless. This might not be something I can fully justify, but I'm fine living with that incongruity)]
<in the above, "directly" is in reference to the invisible perpetrator, not the victim, who is harmed pretty directly in all examples>

I'd consider attempting to apply a negative condition to a creature to be harmful. So in my games, slow would be considered harmful.

Kobolds with a planet-sized benefactor could be fun...

Those Aucturn The Newborn kobolds must be something wild.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Unfortunately, no. I was very distracted trying to justify giving one of the tribes baseball for some reason. the flight speed will obviously be reserved for A Conundrum of Kobolds when this becomes a major franchise.

Obviously, it's the Starfinder 2e antigravity Kobolds heritage that grants a level 1 fly speed. This represents kobolds that grow up on low density planets, on asteroid warrens orbiting dense stars, and in the cracks of intergalactic colony ships DANGEROUSLY close to the engine.

Look forward to "To KoBoldly Go", a Starfinder 2e supplement that introduces them alongside Solar Kobolds and Nuclear Kobolds.

I've played enough Satisfactory to be thoroughly afraid of nuclear hogs Kobolds.

Yep. Clicking Community and clicking the drop down next to Community and then clicking Forums both go to the forums.

The same is true if you click either Community or Forums in the forum addressing.
Ie:
Community/Forums/Paizo/General Discussion

Both of the first two go to the same place.

Edit: Technically they're different urls, but visually and functionally, they appear identical.

*deranged laugh* I've shown them! I've shown them ALL!

(how cool the Remaster kobold lore is and how many opportunities it grants, which I have done by creating a supplement which provides five new unique warrens and a bunch of new feats and heritages to accompany them and publishing it on Pathfinder Infinite)

(it is my Pathfinder Infinite debut and the first serious TTRPG thing I have published not under my deadname.)

(people should look at it and admit I'm right)

Congratulations on publishing your Kobold supplement!

Perchance, does one of the feats provide a permanent flight speed? :eyes:

A significant part of the reason I posted this thread here and not in the Pathfinder General Discussion is because I guessed that this forum gets significantly less traffic, so it'd be less likely to end up the same way as the original thread.

On top of it just being a more appropriate thread location, since it's more about Paizo than Pathfinder.