Errenor's page

Errenor wrote:

Oh, oh! Reactions are one thing. What about free actions? Particularly when sleeping barbarian rolls initiative. Can they rage while sleeping? :)

I get that this is in jest, and it would be fun to just watch a barbarian start shouting and tossing himself around in his sleep. Or eyes just suddenly popping wide open like that one squidward meme.

Free Actions are the same as Reactions in that they require a trigger to happen. A sleeping barbarian however cannot act due to being unconcious.

It's not really a jest, it's a situation from my last session. It looked weird, but I couldn't get the reason why it should be forbidden (Quick-Tempered free action).

1) Is an Airship immune against Fireballs because there is no reflex save?

2) Does the Airship fall out of the sky once it reaches its BT (which is easier than killing an on level creature)? If so, it's the easiest way to TPK a party.
3) How are stats like AC and Fort even coming up during gameplay?
4) How can I justify the Gold cost to make it worthwhile without homebrewing and replacing everything?

Some of it could be answered by just reading the rules in full. Some of it - by thinking about your campaign.

A vehicle reduced to 0 HP is destroyed, like any other item. If the vehicle is in water when it's destroyed, it sinks; if it is flying, it falls and everyone aboard takes falling damage. A pulled or rowed vehicle that becomes wrecked, regardless of which method of propulsion the vehicle is using at the time, deals its collision damage (no saving throw) to the creatures pulling or rowing it, and the creatures may have to be physically freed from the wreckage."
3) See above. Also remember immunities.
4) What do you need for your campaign? Do PCs need to get somewhere inaccessible by feet? Do they need to move faster? On a difficult terrain? Move a lot of cargo? Have a ship battle? Is this justification enough?
If you or your PCs don't need anything from the list, why are vehicles even a thought?

Oh, oh! Reactions are one thing. What about free actions? Particularly when sleeping barbarian rolls initiative. Can they rage while sleeping? :)

Granted effects suppressing other effects is less detailed and nearly non-existent within the rules appart from in relation to conditions

Light and Darkness though. Quite a large category. Also suppressing here is much more understandable and defined than counteracting, surprisingly.

Though the ruleslawyer in me would like to point out that the remastered version of Reach Spell does not have the Metamagic trait any more. (Remastered replaced it with Spellshape...and no that argument would not fly at my table either heh :).

Even a hardcore ruleslawyer should be able to correct for the terminology change and take into account that DA hasn't been remastered (yet?) :)

Thanks for the clarifications and examples, guys. I think I better understand the discussion.

Unicore wrote:

I prefer a game that tends to have the highest chance of random death occur early, like at level 1, rather than wait until really high levels to suddenly start offering such threats.

I tend to prefer a game where random deaths aren't a thing at all.

I want my character deaths to be a result of bad decisions between myself and my party.

Hmmm. Is a death in a battle against difficult creature using suboptimal preparation and tactics random or not? Not meaning taking unneeded risks or being totally unprepared, just a normal more or less planned difficult encounter.

Yeah, we probably should start by finding out what exactly TS means. What is 'spell research'?

RPG-Geek wrote:

Name something *objectively* better. Not subjectively, not your opinion, objectively better.

Fabula ultima

Oh, no. Not even close. It's not even really a good game. It's very boring as a character building game. It seems like there's a lot in being a character build constructor, but when you play for some time you'll see that you'll just find optimal things and repeat them. There's no real different interesting ways to build a 'mage' there for example. You'll always get these same needed spells and feats and that's all. Only the sequence could maybe be different. And then 'different' spells are the same with just different damage 'tags'. And that's because of the primitive game mechanics: no battle map and moving, one action per turn and so on. It's extremely uninspired after some time.

Though I do have to say that the question is very unfair and impossible even: there can't be 'objectively' better games most of the time. At least when they are different and not versions of the same.

I knew runelord got the standard 5 at level 1 and 2 more per level up base but the wording for runelord specifically seemed like it just gave them all curriculum and sin spells.

Where?

Does runelord auto learn all spells from both curriculum and sin?

If so that already gives them more spells known than a normal wizard at the cost of not being able to cast non curriculum/sin spells against their anathema.

No, I see nothing of the sort, the same [2 free]/level+[1 from curriculum]/[spell rank]. Only 'free' is 8th level feat for school focus spell, that's all.

They may not have intended it to the final, printed, version of the ability, but its a clear vision of a feature which is perfectly functional as written and makes sense.

It's all very well, but there's one small hitch: all this text never said anything that the base rule 'prepare only one staff per day' is removed. So yes, you add charges from a prepared staff. And your weapon is a staff. You prepare only one as usual though. So it always was only one set of charges. Functional and makes sense.

It doesn't make sense to release two things in rapid succession with drastically different wording that are intended to work exactly the same way.

It is rather bad, but it makes perfect sense when you don't have enough coordination between designers.

Errenor wrote:

Old_Man_Robot wrote:

The additional Runelord restrictions all made sense in this context and it served as a great example of the carrot and stick coming together to make Wizards that not only felt different from each other, but were actually more defined by the spells they cast.

Then they threw it away.

Regardless of other assessments, it is quite clear that they never intended for 'carrot' to exist. So they never threw anything away because 'it' never existed.

What they intended and what they actually did are often not the same thing. It would hardly be the first time Paizo intended one thing but actually wrote something different.

That's something being more active in the community used to fix, since we at least understood their intentions. These days we're left guessing for weeks/months and during that time we only have what they actually wrote to work with.

If we don't know what their intentions are, then their intentions are irrelevant. What they actually wrote is what matters. So 'it' existed in this case and was removed. People can agree or disagree on if that's a good decision or not, but the idea that it never existed because they didn't intend for it to exist doesn't matter when people can't possibly know their intentions until this far after the fact.

The post I answered to ascribed thoughts and deeds to designers, but you are talking about us and our perception. There's a difference. I was saying that the designers apparently had no intention to give this number of charges/highest level slots to the subclass, they just messed up the wording of the rule a bit. That maybe irrelevant for us, but it is not irrelevant in general.

The additional Runelord restrictions all made sense in this context and it served as a great example of the carrot and stick coming together to make Wizards that not only felt different from each other, but were actually more defined by the spells they cast.

Then they threw it away.

Regardless of other assessments, it is quite clear that they never intended for 'carrot' to exist. So they never threw anything away because 'it' never existed.

Finoan wrote:

I was more thinking varying the same hydra in different playthroughs of the same scenario or AP. A fun way of anti-meta-gaming. Just because the last time you (as a player) played this scenario and battled this Stargut Hydra and the party cut off all of the heads at once and so the creature dropped unconscious and its regeneration became ineffective - that doesn't mean that it is going to do the same thing in this playthrough.

And yes, I really like coming up with interesting lore and explanations of why magical and fantastical things work the way that the game rules describe them as working.

I don't like it when it is done the other way - trying to use the lore and description of something (or worse, 'real life' expectations) to argue for rule changes.

This is why I do not GM. There's always a detail or two I'd forget to consider that could end up being exploited, but when these details are remembered by my GM as a player, I truly appreciate it.

If you are a GM and it's really-really exploiting, you can put a stop to this one way or the other.

I wrote up a table top system years ago that used stat pairs of physical and mental stats. Things like turn order or to hit stamina ect..in the game was generally a combination of one of the mental and one of the physical stats.

I never attempted to run the system though.
The idea was to represent all actions as a combination of mental and physical abilities in some way.

Fabula Ultima does almost this. Only it doesn't restrict strictly physical+mental, just any two. Sometimes even the same one twice. It works, I think (this specific thing with stats).

There's also the interesting question of, if a hydra's head is cut off, and the rest of the body is destroyed via something like disintegrate (which would turn the body to dust) does the head start to regenerate the rest of the body? Does the pile of dust start reknitting into a headless body?

Interestingly, Disintegrate doesn't have Death trait (though it's logical as it should work on undead too). But still I'd rule the same: dust is dust, no regeneration.

I would say consciousness is questionable. It's "conscious" in the same way a headless chicken is conscious, which as far as we've been able to deduce with modern science is more just nerves firing randomly (and in some cases bits of brain that weren't actually removed with the head). I would say that a hydra with no heads probably shouldn't count as conscious.

Does it mean it has mental immunity when headless?

Yeah, I will be honest, A Computer System Admin, a PC Tech, a Former Collage Professor, and an Accountant, cannot figure out that table/chart

Then figure out the text which existed from the beginning, before the remaster. You repeat this but this doesn't become more believable. It's just one simple totally normal check with one additional comparison on top. It's not the simplest mechanics, but it shouldn't be a problem for such people at all.

* The GM isn't going to let Dispel Magic work and instead will only allow Rank 4 Clear Mind to work and isn't telling you that but is instead letting you waste spell slots.

I think I need to highlight this as almost nobody else mentioned it.

Dr. Frank Funkelstein wrote:

"I attack them if they move" is natural language and only relies on your perception of them moving, it does not care about stride, step or jump.

Standing up could also count, just clarify it.

A GM and their players are usually not caught in a "gotcha"-contest of tricking eachother with semantics.

Exactly my point if they are visibly moving they are fair game.

But step does not trigger movement based triggers simply because thats the entire point of step.

And reacting to changing position is the entire point of reacting to changing position. Which is in-world and obviously visible. It makes no sense that Stride would trigger that custom reaction and Step - not.

Envy is terrible, no offensive spells outside of Mental damage!?

Force? Sonic? Physical/Bleed? Poison? Acid? Cold? Electricity? Possibly but improbably Spirit. Of course, if any spells has Air, Water, Earth, Fire, Metal, Wood traits it wouldn't work I suppose. But not all of them have.

They do this without any understanding of the meaning of such text.

As said earlier, you can never rely on AI if you need something factually accurate.

I'm not trying to dispute that btw, you don't need to tell me this. They can't think at all, they can't do math, even simple counting, and so on.

Farien wrote:

Well, kinda.

But by the same logic that would mean that Minions are supposed to not have a defined length of time that they follow directions for when not in combat. And I refuse to believe that. It causes too much variation in how useful (or how much of a liability) Animal Companions and Familiars are during exploration mode.

The difference is that the minion thing is a grey area that only rule sticklers will create problems.

Well, let's pretend I'm not a rule stickler (absurd, I know). How should I rule to not create a problem? I have basically nothing to rely on. Only allow unlimited exploration use for familiars? Isn't it a problem itself?

Being a wizard is a very substantial part of this character. ... I just have to decide whether to stick with Greed Runelord or go back to the original (pre-Rival Academies) plan of being a universalist.

Ah, ok. Great! If that's the concept I guess not much can be done. I thought of a witch that pretends to be a wizard, but you have witch. And I guess a studious sorc (like Imperial one) or other class won't do if you really-really want them to be a wizard...

it makes complete sense to state that you "Ready an action if the enemy moves".

Yes it is. And that's why it works. It's an observable in-universe thing. So, valid for Ready. Probably doesn't include standing up though. And is still a bit abstract because not moving from your square doesn't actually mean you stand absolutely still.

I never liked the entire concept. Wizards and sins don't mesh at all.

I'd say they could have them, getting power from them is a bit jarring (even though unconventional and so a bit interesting), but the list being the copy from a real-world religion is utter absurd for a fantasy world, repulsive and an exceptionally bad move.

It's probably too late to switch my character (or at least his class) for our new campaign starting this sunday. But if the errata happened two weeks ago, I would seriously have considered dropping the Runelord archetype - and maybe even the wizard class entirely.

I don't know your table, character concept and situation, but why not? Taking another caster, making some background adjustments shouldn't be too hard I suppose?

But you are probably not going to be able to spot the difference between remaster content and legacy content. I for sure can't unless I know for certain what source it is from.

Well, spells are very discernible: if there're components, it's legacy. Alignments for creatures. Negative/positive damage. Well, anything which was renamed or removed.

Some like chatgpt are just there to mimic speech

While their functionality is not universal and comprehensive and there are a lot of problems, that's a gross understatement. They absolutely can work with texts, reformulate, change styles, formats, even make summaries (most often quite decent). They can generate some simple content or at least starting ideas for it, which is useful because you alone can't think about everything possible and so this breaks patterns of thoughts for you and allows new directions. Probably there's more. And likely more will be possible.

Personally I didn't even know about existence of that feat and don't know of any other such abilities. Also that it's 18th level tells me this is an extremely valued quality - ignoring immunity to precision (and understandably). So if you want something else you should search for things about this level. Which is not helpful for PFS as you yourself see.
Vulnerability to physical damage is a bit easier and I suppose I've seen something with this, maybe. But again I don't remember where.
This leaves us both with a need to use search engines and search. As it's you that's interested I suppose it's logical if you'd use AoN and do it.

I decided to bring this up because is Spellcasting ca be universal why can't Class DC?

Firstly, because rules don't say it is. That is definitely true. And secondly even spellcasting DC isn't universal because it still uses different stats.

I consider Class DCs different and separate and would not allow this, even for archetypes. Unless there's explicit permission in the rules or something really breaks (and lack of several points in DC is not something breaking).
As for the rules, there's no explicit statement that they are different I suppose. But I think that "A class DC sets the difficulty for certain abilities granted by your character's class. This DC equals 10 plus their proficiency bonus for their class DC (typically +3 for most 1st-level characters) plus the modifier for the class's key attribute modifier" and lines like "Trained in investigator class DC" implicitly mean exactly that.

Terrifying Teeth

Sorry for offtop (kind of), but it's just funny how bad this spell is comparing with Phantom Pain. I suggest using it and reflavour it as horrifyingly as you like :)

Also, how could everyone forget Worm's Repast? It's also a good spell.

As other creatures cannot see or hear you, you ... cannot cast spells unless they have the subtle trait.

I will say one thing: this is very unreasonable. You don't need to be heard (and by creatures!) to cast spells. You must be able to speak. Disappearance does not prevent you from speaking, it's not Silence. It's not that lore and game system.

Good afternoon. I did not find the rules for fighting with two weapons in two hands in RB. There are skills that allow you to benefit from two weapons, but I did not find a separate rule. Tell me how a two-weapon battle works.

Thank you in advance

There's no separate rule (without feats). You just can Strike with one weapon or another one separately as normal. For one action, as normal.

There is also a bit of narrative dissonance on if a construct can imbibe potions and elixirs. But if an Automaton or a Poppet PC is allowed to use potions and elixirs, then the narrative excuses for them can apply to a construct companion as well. And if Automaton or Poppet PCs are not allowed to use potions and elixirs, then that is a rather big balance problem that has no rules justification for it.

Here you are going way too far. Automaton or Poppet PCs are exactly that: PCs. They are special. Companions are not. So, let's look at the rules:

One of these parts cannot exist underneath the written rules if the death trait is part of it. You have to assume the trait isnt part of this effect.

The other part one can exists and function as normally.

I assume the actual correct thing: this trait is broken on this spell and must be removed because it's an error. I'm not trying to invent farfetched reasons why it makes sense when it doesn't make sense for the spell at all and doesn't do anything.

Not written but it is implied isnt it, Or else the spell wouldnt work against undead since they are all supposed to be immune to death effects. But it still says that it works against undead.

There are living that are immune to Death Effects
most notably, Spirits, Deamons and fiends, Psycopomps and monitors.
So they obviously cannot suffer the reduced healing.

By your logic you must NOT use the trait with creatures immune to the trait already. You did this with undead, why are other creatures immune to the trait better? :D I remind you that the spell says it works against living too!

Errenor wrote:

Also found that Reaper’s Lantern is not only bad, but also broken: it has death trait which does nothing at all (the spell deals no damage and has no killing effects) but making all undead immune to it (as undead are immune to death effects).

Thats actually not the case, The reduced healing that the living suffers is a death effect, The enfeeblement of undead is not.

Firstly, it isn't written. So we presumably need to (un)assign the trait ourselves. But ok, let's assume you are correct. So... What exactly does the part of the trait that 'works' on living?

Errenor wrote:

What's edgy about it though? O_o

The outcome is not necessarily what players may be expecting. It is typical for Death effects to cause death instantly without dealing damage, so those types of effects intuitively make sense to not work with Breath of Life. Dealing damage that happens to also have the Death trait is not as intuitive. I could also see tables deciding to houserule that the Death trait of Curse of Death only applies to the 'stage 4: you die' effect, which is why a case like this is worth mentioning in this thread.

But... one of the most frequent (and iconic I would say) death spells is Vampiric Feast/Touch in pf2. And it's almost the only thing it does - deals damage with death trait, but no instant kills generally.

So this is going to need a table ruling.

Well, yes. But it is a forced one, and kind of normal part of the game: yes, sometimes order of things in reactions IS tricky. But in this case you and other people here already wrote what happens if we don't choose this solution. Or add death trait, yes, but I see this as much stronger 'homerule'.

Well the easy way (and looks RAW) - you get doomed 4, you "instantly die. When you die, you’re no longer doomed" - you don't die because of the spell. And doomed already went away.

so ither the spell dont work at all or that is legal.

While I'm heavily inclined to agree, I can imagine the case where the devs thought of the wall only as shaped and never intersecting, something like this.

Still quicker than parcel delivery.

You just haven't got your parcels delivered from ethereal plane.

Ryangwy wrote:

I'm going to point out the developer-suggested solution to that is 'increase the DC each time Aid is used against the same creature' (if we base on Recall Knowledge, +5 each time) not 'increase the base DC'

I'm going to be honest, and say as a GM I'm just going to run Aid the way I want to get the results I want, so I'm going to modify it how I see fit.

So you can try to argue about what is and isn't right or base DC or not...but I'm going to ignore everyone (not just you) and do what I want.

Just out of curiosity, and what do you want?

Finoan wrote:

Zero Aid checks with Attack Rolls have MAP.

All Aid checks, whether they are Attack Rolls or not, are made when it is not your turn and so by RAW do not have MAP apply. I already quoted the rule for Multiple Attack Penalty that explicitly says that.

I seriously don't understand why that is a difficult rule to read.

And I also explained you why it is flat out wrong. We will run in circle again ;)

We could have disagreements about what 'adjustment' should mean, but the case of reactions and MAP is really crystal clear, in RAW. I'm as baffled as Finoan by your stubborness.

the rules themselves say and hopefully we agree a GM can and should make adjustments when warranted.

People are saying (and I agree) that making this DC level-based (AC-based included) or simple DC is NOT an 'adjustment'. It's a complete replacement. That's the root of the disagreement.

OK. I am convinced. I am convinced that this is a rules problem still.

Yeah... I constantly forget what are the consensus options, why, which is prevalent, what I think about that and why and which I want to implement for my games. And what changed with the remaster if anything. Then start to read and remain unsure.

Errenor wrote:

The action is "you are fencing with an enemy and waiting for the perfect moment to strike so that they wouldn't be able to avoid ally's strike". Or "you are observing an enemy and waiting for the perfect moment to strike so that they wouldn't be able to avoid ally's strike". And the reaction is that striking/feinting attempt which results in a check. For example. You could make your own description.

Or "Their shield gets stuck with your weapon and you keep it that way while your ally attacks the enemy" or "you grab the dragon leg for a couple of seconds while your ally attacks". There can be 2 ways of describing it, either focusing on the reaction or on the preparation.

Yes, but I was focused on that you can describe both action+reaction if you really want to. And as this is the existing mechanics and it isn't really jarring we can do just that and happily continue playing.