Fuzzy-Wuzzy's page

I think the Elf ancestry's Elven Lore feat (for instance), should teach you Elven---with the all-important line "if you already know Elven, you learn any one new language you have access to."

This matters for characters taking Adopted Ancestry after creation, or those taking it during creation with Int 10 (no spare language slot). Yeah, I know they can take Multilingual, but if they want Species Lore for other reasons now they're taking two feats just to fit in.

(This seems obvious to me now that I thought of it, but I searched the boards and it didn't turn up.)

Thoughts? Do I win the prize for "tiniest piece of pf2 homebrew ever"?

Is there a dedicated thread for APG errata? I looked but couldn't find one.

My erratum: create demiplane is an 8th-level ritual that costs 800 gp in precious materials. 800 gp seems awfully low for 8th level. Worse, heightened to 10th level it costs 20,000 gp. That's one hell of a jump.

I suspect there was a typo and the cost for the base ritual was meant to be 8,000 gp of materials.

I've seen a lot of discussion about what does or doesn't meet the requirement, but none that I recall about why it's there, and I want to know.

Is it for flavor?

Is it for realism?

Is it for balance? How would the stance be overpowered without the requirement, and how does the requirement fix that?

Working on a character's backstory. Where might I be if I'm somewhere that
* is in Avistan or northern Garund
* is not evil
* has a hereditary aristocracy
* is mostly human, especially the aristocracy
* is far enough from Elven population centers that Elves are rare and exotic there
?

Slings have a listed "hands" entry of "1" not "1+". So if I have a tower shield totally occupying one arm/hand and a sling in the other hand, I can use and reload the sling with just the hand I'm holding it with? I'm having trouble visualizing how this is supposed to work, making me uncertain that I understand correctly.

Playing around with a backstory where the character first came to Absalom as a teenager to take the Test, then ended up becoming a Pathfinder. First I assumed they backed down from the Test, but then it occurred to me that maybe they took it, passed it, and got some minor wealth that they subsequently drank/gambled away.

Other than needing a plausible way for them to cross the chasm, are there lore problems with this as backstory for a 1st-level character?

The pathfinder wiki claims "The trials in the Test of the Starstone are set specifically for each individual that takes the Test, depending on their fears, strengths and weaknesses." I figure that means low-level characters can stand a chance too.

(Ideas for something more interesting than 'minor wealth' that they can be given by the Starstone and then squander pregame are also solicited.)

The APG introduced the Acrobatic Performer skill feat:

ACROBATIC PERFORMER [FEAT 1]

[GENERAL] [SKILL]
Prerequisites trained in Acrobatics

You’re an incredible acrobat, evoking wonder and enrapturing audiences with your prowess. It’s almost a performance! You can roll an Acrobatics check instead of a Performance check when using the Perform action.

At first I mistakenly thought you could make a living with this, since you can with Performance, but the Perform action is not the Earn an Income action, so you can't use Acrobatics with it. Which is a shame, if "performing" with Acrobatics is reasonable then making a living with it should be too. But the Bargain Hunter feat establishes that being able to Earn an Income with an unusual skill is worth a skill feat in its own right, so I understand why they couldn't just toss it in. So I propose a new skill feat building on it.

PROFITABLE ACROBATIC PERFORMER [FEAT 1]
[GENERAL] [SKILL]
Prerequisites Acrobatic Performer
You've done enough acrobatic performances to figure out how to make money with it. You can use Acrobatics instead of Performance to Earn an Income.

Are the thought and implementation there reasonable? If the Acrobat background is tweaked to allow the player to choose Acrobatic Performer instead of Steady Balance, a PC could make a living with it from level 2, or level 1 for a rogue.

Some of the monk stances make reasonably clear that you need to be using your arms (crane) or legs (dragon). Others don't. Is there a default? Should you pick either "hands" or "feet" when you take the feat and stick to that thereafter?

Particular case: say I'm in Mountain Stance and my hands are both occupied, one with a shield, one with a grabbed opponent whom I wish to Strike. Since I'm in Mountain Stance I can only Strike with "falling stone" attacks. Can I make those with my feet/knees?

I'm pretty sure the answer is undefined and the question should go in the errata thread, but I thought I'd solicit others' thoughts first.

The purpose of this thread is to collect likely errata (mistakes, typos, etc) in the recently released "Gamemastery Guide: Monster and Hazard Creation," a partial release and preview of the true, forthcoming GMG. The point of collecting them is to make life easier for the devs. Therefore, errata reports here should not be disputed here as that doesn't make life easier for the devs but does clutter the thread. If you can see that someone's report is somehow bogus, rest assured the devs will see that too, and leave be or dispute elsewhere. Thank you.

Some or all of the Lost Omens World Guides archetypes are Uncommon, with Access like "You are from Absalom." Outside PFS, is there any decent definition of "where you're from"? Do I have to have been born in Absalom to be from there? Or to have lived there in recent years? Or both? If it's not by birth, can I be from more than one area?

One of Pharasma's three edicts is "strive to understand ancient prophecies." Isn't this edict totally obsolete in the Age of Lost Omens, when prophecies are no longer valid? Are you supposed to study them anyway and figure out what should have happened / been going to happen?

I don't see this as having any noticeable impact on game, I'm just wondering what lore I might be missing.

When you use Survey Wildlife to Recall Knowledge about the creatures whose marks you've seen, what skill do you roll against? Does the GM use whichever of Arcana/Nature/Religion/Occultism the creatures fall under, or do you use Survival (making SW much more useful)? Or does only Nature ever apply and you'll just fail to identify non-Nature creatures?

One, why does Shadow Hunter (feat 18) say

While in natural terrain, you're always concealed from all foes if you choose to be, except for your hunted prey.

Shouldn't you be better at hiding from your hunted prey, if anything?

Two, To The Ends of the Earth (feat 20) reads like you would might use it to track your prey for weeks or years. But it relies on the creature remaining your prey, and

You can only have one creature designated as your prey at a time. If you use Hunt Prey against a creature when you already have a creature designated, the prior creature loses the designation and the new prey gains the designation. Your designation lasts until your next daily preparations.

So if you try to follow your prey to the ends of the earth and it takes more than a day, you have to refrain from conducting daily preparations until you catch and take down your prey. According to the definitiion on page 480, daily prep includes regaining spell slots, regaining focus points, donning armor and equipping weapons and other gear, and investing your magic items. I guess it's a good thing rangers get the ability to sleep in their armor at 19th level.... But all their items will have de-invested and they can't re-invest them. That's going to be totally hosing.

So am I misreading or miscalculating somewhere, or are you supposed to go to the ends of the earth in a single day, or does the feat really need a line about how your prey remains designated throughout your hunt now?

(Actually I'm not sure why your hunted prey designation should expire at daily prep in the first place. How does this contribute to the game?)

The 14th-level ranger feat Sense the Unseen is a reaction whose trigger is "You fail a check to Seek." But Seek has the secret trait; you don't know whether you failed the check or whether there just wasn't anything around to find. So how do you know whether or not you can/should use this reaction?

Is there any rule or feat I'm missing that allows for substituting maneuvers like Trip for Strikes in reactions like Attack of Opportunity? I'm working on a whip user and my PF1 habits keep messing me up.

What are people's experiences with allowing dedications at first level? (I figure this must be a popular houserule, there having been a lot of annoyance at it not being that way in RAW.)

Is the Ride feat necessary, helpful, or useless outside encounter mode? Without it do you have to roll to Command your horse to keep going every once in a while in exploration mode? I'm trying to figure out whether a character who'll dismount to fight ought ever to take it.

EDIT: I'm thinking of a normal riding horse or warhorse here, not an animal companion, if it matters.

If you have a high proficiency in some (non-Lore) skill, can you Earn Income by teaching it to NPCs who are less proficient?

The CRB makes it a big deal to use a non-Lore/Craft/Performance skill this way;

In some cases, the GM might let you use a different skill to Earn Income through specialized work. Usually, this is scholarly work, such as using Religion in a monastery to study old texts—but giving sermons at a church would still fall under Performance instead of Religion. You also might be able to use physical skills to make money, such as using Acrobatics to perform feats in a circus or Thievery to pick pockets. If you’re using a skill other than Crafting, Lore, or Performance, the DC tends to be significantly higher.

But it seems to me that using a skill to teach that skill should always work, and moreover in a decent-sized settlement you should find potential students for many/most non-Lore skills.

So, can I use Athletics to teach athletics, or would I need Athletics Lore? Or maybe I need Teaching Lore and Athletics? Realistically I should be able to teach it with just Athletics but get lower DCs with Athletics Lore or Teaching Lore.

You’ve familiarized yourself with a particular weapon, potentially from another ancestry or culture. Choose an uncommon simple or martial weapon with a trait corresponding to an ancestry (such as dwarf, goblin, or orc) or that is common in another culture. You gain access to that weapon, and for the purpose of determining your proficiency, that weapon is a simple weapon.

If you are trained in all martial weapons, you can choose an uncommon advanced weapon with such a trait. You gain access to that weapon, and for the purpose of determining your proficiency, that weapon is a martial weapon.

Say a human monk wants a long-range option. If they want the halfling sling staff (uncommon martial weapon with the halfling trait), they can use Unconventional Weaponry to gain access to it and treat it like a simple weapon for proficiency purposes, which means they'll get to expert at 5th and master at 13th. OTOH, if they want a longbow then Unconventional Weaponry can't help them, because it's a common martial weapon and U.W. only lets you choose uncommon weapons.

Does this seem wacky and maybe even unintended to anyone else? Being able to select uncommon but not common options strikes me as like being proficient in martial weapons but not simple weapons---it shouldn't happen. But maybe I'm biased by my desire to build a monk with a bow who gets past trained reasonably quickly (elven weapon familiarity + elven weapon expertise will do it, but not til 13th).

In PF1 there were a lot of threads in the General Discussion forum. In PF2 90+% of them (really! look!) are being moved to other forums, often to my surprise. So, like, what's up with that?

It seems like either the posters or the moderators are basically doing something wrong now. Unless General Discussion is no longer really meant for actual discussions to take place there and is just where you start a thread when you're not sure where it belongs and want that decided for you....

Within the past week or so I've had this issue a few times: I submit a post and am shown the same trailing posts as before (i.e. without mine). I can go to an overview page and it shows Last Post by Fuzzy-Wuzzy correctly, but going to the thread still doesn't show the new post until a minute or two after I posted. Previously my submissions always showed up immediately.

For a week or two now I've been noticing that some threads are shown (in flattened mode, if it matters) as having one less post than they actually do. For instance, as of this moment this thread has 3 posts but the Posts column claims 2 posts for it, while this thread has 2 but claims only 1. I haven't noticed any errors that weren't off-by-one or were in the other direction. Just something to think about in your copious spare time! :-)

I habitually browse the forums in flattened mode, and 1st & 2nd edition Rules Questions forums both show up as just "Rules Questions". Often I can guess which a given thread is from the title, but it's still kind of annoying. Any chance they could get a relabelling like General Discussion did (presumably to Pathfinder First Edition Rules Questions and Pathfinder Second Edition Rules Questions)? When the heat dies down, of course.

Whether by the Starstone or more mysterious means, some mortals become gods. How does anyone on the Material Plane find out this has happened? Does everyone get to know, or do a select few spontaneously become their clerics and start spreading their word, or what? If it's different for each of the Ascended, what's it been for the ones so far?

I'm mostly wondering whether this is at all explained / hinted at somewhere in the actual lore, but imaginative suggestions are welcome too!

My search-fu is failing me. If a monster uses the push/pull monster ability on someone, or an eidolon uses the push/pull evolutions (basically the same as the monster abilities) on them, does the victim get an attack of opportunity?

The use of push/pull is consistently described as a combat maneuver check.

Unless otherwise noted, performing a combat maneuver provokes an attack of opportunity from the target of the maneuver. If you are hit by the target, you take the damage normally and apply that amount as a penalty to the attack roll to perform the maneuver.

The similar monster grab ability specifies it is used "without provoking an attack of opportunity" (though the grab evolution doesn't say that). The push/pull entries say no such thing.

OTOH, someone could argue that push/pull are not actually combat maneuvers, just something very similar that is implemented as a combat maneuver check.

So... which way is it? (Please don't say "ask your GM" as I am the GM and I've been waffling over it.)

As I understand it, gnomes are subject to the Bleaching because their fey ancestors came from the First World where they had First-World-y experiences all the time, and the experience of living on the Material Plane doesn't measure up. It can't nourish their spirits, or something.

But don't all fey in Golarion trace their lineages (if they bothered to keep track) back to the First World? Why are brownies, famous as homebodies, not Bleaching left and right?

Alternatively, if we consider Golarion fey the normal case, what the heck is wrong with gnomes that makes them so... spiritually fragile?

IIRC, the code

• foo
  
• bar
  
• baz
  

used to list foo, bar, and baz with each preceded by a nice big dot. When I preview this post, a dot appears next to bar, but not foo nor baz.

This spell frees victims from enchantments, transmutations, and curses. Break enchantment can reverse even an instantaneous effect. For each such effect, you make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level, maximum +15) against a DC of 11 + caster level of the effect. Success means that the creature is free of the spell, curse, or effect. For a cursed magic item, the DC is equal to the DC of the curse.

If the spell is one that cannot be dispelled by dispel magic, break enchantment works only if that spell is 5th level or lower.

If the effect comes from a permanent magic item, break enchantment does not remove the curse from the item, but it does free the victim from the item's effects.

I don't understand the game design motivation behind the cap at +15. Why should a 20th-level spellcaster have a harder time breaking a CL 20 enchantment than a 10th-level spellcaster has breaking a CL 10 enchantment?

Lots of spells have similar caps on how much damage they do, but that's because (I think) at higher levels you're supposed to use a higher-level damaging spell. But there is no greater break enchantment to use.

Is there some way in which a lack of CL cap here would break high-level play that I'm not seeing?

I have "digital content updates" set in My Accounts. In My Downloads I see "Pathfinder Playtest Rulebook Updates" (which I've downloaded three times, for Updates 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2) as a single item, last downloaded Today, last updated Today. Shouldn't I get getting automatic email notifications when this item updates, i.e. today at Update 1.2 and two weeks ago at Update 1.1?

Assume I'm capable of crafting, say, a greater cloak of elvenkind or a bag of holding type III from scratch. If I happen to have a cloak of elvenkind or bag of holding type II already, can I upgrade them by Crafting the difference in cost, instead of Crafting from scratch? Do the rules address this one way or another?

Consider the following alternate rules for crits:
If you exceed the DC by 10 or more, you have a critical success.
If you miss the DC by 10 or more, you have a critical failure.
Obviously this is a lot simpler w/o the stuff about a natural 20 is a crit success, unless it wouldn't be a success at all, in which case it's a normal success, and similarly for a natural 1. And simplicity per se is a good thing. OTOH we are departing from tradition, which is at least a bit of a shame.

Now, this does change the possible spectrum of outcomes; you can be so good at a task that you auto-succeed, or even auto-crit-succeed, against a particular DC, and similarly for being so bad you auto-fail or auto-crit-fail. Personally I think this is OK, and possibly even a good thing in its own right.

Thoughts?

Some kits and tools exist in regular and expert versions, with expert giving a +1 item bonus to whatever; some exist in regular, expert, and master (+2 item bonus). I think all the ones that exist in regular & expert should also exist in master & legendary (+3 item bonus, of course). For instance, doesn't a legendary bard deserve a legendary instrument?

Since none of them have legendary versions I presume there's a reason behind the current setup, but I can't fathom it.

Currents and Flowing Water

Ocean currents, flowing rivers, and the like are difficult terrain or greater difficult terrain (depending on the speed of the water) when you’re swimming against them. At the end of your turn, the current moves you a certain amount of distance depending on its speed. For instance, a 10-foot current moves you 10 feet in the current’s direction at the end of your turn.

I don't see why someone swimming upstream should have their movement cut to half (or a third) in addition to being carried along by the current. Being difficult terrain should be a function of the water's turbulence, not its movement.

I can't find anything to tell me whether or not the PF1 FAQ about casting manifestations holds in PF2. If it does, I really think it needs to be in the CRB and not left to a FAQ this time.

If it doesn't hold on the grounds that all spells/powers have non-zero casting actions associated with them that can be noticed, I suggest that fact be an actual rule and not just something that happens to hold true until a splatbook accidentally violates it.

Persistent damage comes from effects like acid or burning and appears as “X persistent [type] damage,” where the “X” is the amount of damage dealt and “[type]” is the damage type. While affected by persistent damage, at the end of your turn you take the specified amount and type of damage, after which you can attempt a DC 20 flat check to remove the persistent damage. You roll the damage dice anew each time you take the persistent damage. Immunities, resistances, and weaknesses all apply to persistent damage. If an effect deals damage immediately and also deals persistent damage, you don’t take the persistent damage if you negate the other damage. For example, an attack that deals slashing damage and persistent bleed damage wouldn’t deal the persistent bleed damage if you blocked all of the slashing damage.

You can be simultaneously affected by multiple persistent damage conditions so long as they have different damage types. If you would gain more than one persistent damage condition with the same damage type, the higher amount of damage overrides the lower amount. All types of persistent damage occur at once, so if something triggers when you take damage, it triggers only one time.

As I read the second bolded part, if you're suffering 1d4 persistent fire damage and someone inflicts 1d6 persistent fire damage on you, you're now suffering 1d6 persistent fire damage, not 1d6 PFD + 1d4 PFD or anything like that. But that's because 1d6 is clearly greater than 1d4. What if the two PFDs are 1d6 and 1d4+1, or 2d4 and 1d8? Which one wins?

Or do you perhaps keep track of the 1d6 and the 1d4 PFD in my first example after all, and roll each of them each round and suffer the higher damage? That would be unambiguous, but if so then the second bolded part above needs rewriting, as it seemingly flat-out contradicts that interpretation. This would also make persistent damage considerably stronger, as you could re-inflict the same effect enough times that the victim would be almost sure to take the max possible each round.

This thread can still be read and even posted to, but no longer shows up in my feed.

So since (as I understand it) SLAs are now categorized as spells, does having them count as having a caster level for prereqs of feats, prestige classes, etc? I.e. is this FAQ implicitly reversed?

Personally I prefer having racial SLAs not allow early entry to prestige classes, but I don't see how to prevent it in PF2 (and of course many people don't want it prevented).

Pathfinder Unchained describes Lore as

You possess a specialized area of knowledge, generally narrower than that of a full-fledged scholar.

and

A Lore skill must be narrow—far narrower than the most relevant Knowledge skill. The broader the scope of a given category of Lore, the shallower your knowledge is on that topic. If you know about taverns in a wide region, you know less about each of them than you would if you had Lore in taverns of a specific city.

To me that means that Lore(elven history) should give you narrower but deeper expertise than Knowledge(history). A question about elven history should be easier to answer with the former than with the latter, and a high roll should give more tidbits of information.

But the rules don't seem to work that way.

Lore skills use the same DC scale as Knowledge skills: DC 10 to answer easy questions, DC 15 for basic questions, and DC 20 to 30 for really tough questions. In many cases, Lore can substitute for a Knowledge skill, such as Lore (elven history) filling in for Knowledge (history) in a check involving elves.

There doesn't seem to be a provision for specifying that the difficulty of a question depends on what you're using to answer it.

The particular case that prompted this is a PC wanting to max out Knowledge(local) because it's useful and also to take Lore(storm giants) because he has storm giant ancestry, but I'm interested in the general case.

How do I finagle things to get what I want? Right now the best idea I have is to multiply a Lore check by some factor set when the skill is taken that reflects how specific it is, defaulting to two. That effectively turns "really tough" questions (DC 20-30) into easy-to-basic questions (DC 10-15). It also means that while getting a 30 on Knowledge(local) to get the abilities and weaknesses of a storm giant (CR 13) gets two pieces of info, the same result on Lore(storm giants) gets at least eight. I'm not sure whether that's the appropriate amount.

How have other people dealt with this?

What is the reasoning behind paladins' divine weapon bond's list of properties that can be added?

FTR, the core paladin can use axiomatic, brilliant energy, defending, disruption, flaming, flaming burst, holy, keen, merciful, speed. Some archetypes/oaths modify this, but not much.

What makes flaming holier than frost and shock? Why can't they add ghost touch?

And the warpriest's equivalent list is actually more restrictive because there were so many more properties in existence when it was written.

There are certainly properties I wouldn't want to let paladins/warpriests add.

• anything with alignment opposing theirs: anarchic, unholy
  
• anything with a enemy designated at creation: bane, heretical, miserable, treasonous
  
• special case: redeemed because making one involves making an unholy weapon first and then redeeming it
  

I'm trying to write a generalization of smite evil that covers all the published variants and can expand. The Kraken Slayer archetype has

Smite Deepest Evil (Su): This functions as the smite evil ability, but the kraken slayer does not get a bonus of 2 points of damage per level on the first successful attack against any creatures other than evil creatures with the aquatic or water subtype. She gains a bonus of 2 points of damage per level on all smite attacks made against evil creatures with the aquatic or water subtype.

The Question:

From the Banishing Warden paladin archetype:

Banishing Smite (Su): At 3rd level, once per day when the banishing warden confirms a critical hit against a target of her smite evil effect, she can attempt to forcibly banish the target to its home plane. The creature struck must succeed at a Will save (DC = 10 + half the banishing warden’s level + the banishing warden’s Charisma modifier) or be sent back to its home plane as per dismissal. At 10th level, a creature dismissed in this manner takes an amount of damage equal to 2 points per paladin level at the start of its next turn. The banishing warden gains an additional daily use of this ability at 9th and 15th level.

This ability replaces the mercy gained at 3rd level. A banishing warden still receives the benefits of the mercy class ability starting at 6th level and onward.

To me the bolded sentence reads that the creature takes the extra damage only if the dismissal succeeds, and takes it only after returning to its home plane. Am I misreading? Or is there a point to this that I'm not seeing?

Buffering Cap

Aura faint conjuration; CL 1st
Slot head; Price 2,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
This cloth hat is floppy and shapeless. It offers its wearer an unusual amount of protection against particularly devastating blows. Once per day when struck by a critical hit, the wearer can spend an immediate action to convert the bonus damage of the critical hit into nonlethal damage. The cap has no effect if the wearer is immune to nonlethal damage.

Say I want a better cap. This isn't PFS, so I can combine magic items. I combine a buffering cap with... another buffering cap, so it functions twice a day. What is the price of the "combined" item?

It certainly doesn't fall under "multiple different abilities," but it's not a slotless item with multiple similar abilities either. Do I just double the normal price?