GM Tomppa's page

Hi,

How many atacks can I make if use Ranged Spell Combat?

Ranged Spell Combat (Ex)
Instead of a light or one-handed melee weapon, an eldritch archer must use a ranged weapon for spell combat. She doesn’t need a free hand for ranged spell combat. The eldritch archer cannot accept an attack penalty to gain a bonus on concentration checks to cast a spell defensively.

My BAB 8/2:

1. I can cast and use bow for 1 shot: +8

2. I can cast and use bow for 2 shot: +8(with spell), +2 empty

3 I can cast and use bow for 3 shot: +8(with spell), +8/+2 empty

Your BAB should be 8/3 fi you're level 11.

Spellcombat says:

At 1st level, a magus learns to cast spells and wield his weapons at the same time. This functions much like two-weapon fighting, but the off-hand weapon is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his melee weapon at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). If he casts this spell defensively, he can decide to take an additional penalty on his attack rolls, up to his Intelligence bonus, and add the same amount as a circumstance bonus on his concentration check. If the check fails, the spell is wasted, but the attacks still take the penalty. A magus can choose to cast the spell first or make the weapon attacks first, but if he has more than one attack, he cannot cast the spell between weapon attacks.

So, as a full round action, you make all your attacks at -2 penalty, and also cast a spell. That would be: Spell, attack at +6, attack at +1

Ranged spellstrike:

At 2nd level, whenever an eldritch archer casts a spell that calls for a ranged attack, she can deliver the spell through a ranged weapon she wields as part of a ranged attack. Instead of the free ranged attack normally allowed to deliver the spell, an eldritch archer can make one free ranged attack with a ranged weapon (at her highest base attack bonus) as part of casting this spell. The attack does not increase the spell’s range.

So you could shoot the bow to deliver the spell. This would be at your full BAB, -2 for the spellcombat

End result would be:
Spell (delivered at +6 bab), +6 bab, +1 bab

Some people want to use a broom because they like the idea of wielding a broom,

I totally get that, and that's why I think it's totally fine to say you're using a broom - And reskinning a staff as a broom is fine in my opinion, because they are very similar - a long wooden stick. "This long wooden stick has brushes on one end" is not different from "this wooden stick has been ellaborately carved to look as if it had a scaly egg on the end, and it's been painted in rainbow colours". It's just a visual difference.

and are happy there are rules that support that fantasy.

That part is the issue though. The rules support *improvising* a weapon. If you use a broom to fight all day every day, you aren't improvising. You could be a fighter and just pick club weapon group, and voila - you're master in using your broom. Cool! However, picking improvised weapons is a *different* class fantasy. It's not about training to be the best with a broom, it's about *improvising* your weapons. Using whatever you have at hand. A broom that you carry around all day every day and then beating someone up with it is not an improvised weapon, it's a weapon you've trained in extensively.

I really don't get your "You're not improvising enough" argument. I mean that in the sense that I don't understand you, not that I disagree with it. Yes, the character is really trained with brooms.

That's is exactly the problem. The character *IS trained* in using a broom. There's nothing wrong with that! But why would you pick an archetype that's specifically about using **things you are NOT trained with** to represent **BEING trained in** a very specific weapon?

So what? What's the harm in that? As long as the character isn't fudging the rules (bulk limits, costs, whatever), why wouldn't you allow it?

I'm not exactly saying that a GM shouldn't allow a character to use weapons that are not improvised, for feats that require improvised weapons. I'm saying that the *player shouldn't do it*.

The only argument I can think of is that improvised weapons might not be intended for long-time combat, and might break.

I think that's less of a concern - we're not considering maintenance of any other weapon either. Unless, of course, you're using the specific feats and abilities that can cause it to break.

The example of the table leg is a disingenuous one. That one doesn't fit the mechanics to the flavour,

Just like "improvising" every day with the same doesn't match the fact that you're actually highly trained with it. Or a wizard pretending to be an alchemist. You're portraying one thing as a different thing.

If a player shouldn't "pick random debris and use them as an improvised weapon, except that they are actually using their greatsword stats for each strike", then the player shouldn't "use the same weapon all day every day for every strike, except that they are using stats as if they were using random improvised weapons with every strike".

and almost seems like it's intended to deceive the GM.

Just like the example with the wizard pretending to be an alchemist.

Okay, for PFS it's a little more difficult, but you could easily discuss with your GM what the stats for each item could be, and if they agree to the reflavouring.

Yes... For a homegame, the GM can homebrew you a character that has the power of the wizard but without the magic.

I'd totally allow the Wizard to play an Alchemist (for a home game, not PFS).

I'll just respond to this by quoting yourself:

Yes, a broom is very similar to a staff, but you shouldn't just swap A with B just because B exists.

It further says that PCs can use their spells to clear conditions, but doesn't say whether those PCs should be allowed to rest a night (at the end of the adventure) to prepare those spells.

It seems to be generally accepted that the PCs can take the time required to rest and cast the spells, etc.

Guide says:

The following conditions are not automatically removed and must be cleared from the character before the end of the adventure or the character ceases to be available for Organized Play:

- Death
- Permanent negative effects, including polymorph or petrification
- Curses

Non-permanent effects are automatically removed. My understanding is that when you're looking at an effect, don't concentrate on what the written duration of the effect is - concentrate on what the end result is. For example, poison isn't permanent, and it isn't death or a curse, but if the last combat ends while a PC is poisoned with a poison that can result in their death (or something like permanent blindness), you shouldn't just handwave it - you should resolve it to the end - because the end result is potentially permanent.

Also it's possible for a character to be unaware they have an ongoing curse (or disease) until after the adventure is over. For instance, a character hit by an Animate Dream or an Augnagar will know that they are fatigued or drained, but might assume those conditions will wear off after a night's rest, not knowing they're cursed.

What to do in that case? Is the character to be marked dead? Or given a chance to buy a casting of Remove Curse or Pathfinder Condition Removal boon before being marked dead?

The GM should let the player know that they have a permanent negative effect that needs to be resolved, at the end of the scenario. This isn't a game of "GOTCHA!" - you can't just wait until the player is about to get up from the table to announce that actually their character contracted a curse and are now permanently dead since it wasn't dealt with.

Or allowed to roll the saving throws for each stage? Or (if non-deadly) assume they will eventually make their saving throws, so they're just fine?

So - I'm not sure if there's an official clarification anywhere, but as far as I know and as far as I've seen other GMs and VOs discuss this, it seems that the common method of resolving these issues is:

You have a condition. Is it permanent OR does it have a chance to permanently affect (such as, kill) your character? No? Then no need to worry, society takes care of it, or it goes away on it's own.
Is it permanent OR does it have a chance to permanently affect you (such as kill)? Seems it's common that GMs let you roll your saves until you either die/reach a point where the effect is permanent/saves no longer help or you decide to pay up for the removal.

So, from your examples:
1. Permanent effects, need to be removed through boon/spellcasting
2. You'll eventually succeed at the save, no need to worry about it FOR GOBLIN POX, but for graveknight's curse, you need to either save against it until it's gone, or get help in removing it, or you'll die to it. Since a crit failure may immediately result in death, spellcasting services (or spells from other PCs) is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED. I have no idea how you consider Goblin Pox to be potentially deadly - it can not ever kill you - or why it's compared to graveknight's curse.
3. This WILL kill you without spellcasting: It is literally incureable without intervention, the damage can not be healed. You need boon and/or spellcasting to get rid of the curse.
4. This doesn't permanently affect you, and will go away on it's own, eventually.
5. This is exactly like Bog Rot. It is permanent without intervention. Must receive boon or spellcasting or the character is unplayable because of a permanent negative condition.

1) Does a type 4 curse even count as a permanent condition? Or a type 2 for that matter.

Unclear. It is a curse, so according to the guide, it needs to be cleared from the character... But you can just clear it by waiting a few days and rolling a few saves, so it should be fine?

2) If it does, should the player be informed their character has a curse before the end of the session, so they can do something about it?

Yes, you can't just stealth-kill their character without giving them a chance to resolve the issue.

3) If the curse is noticed, are they allowed to make the expected saving throws for each stage, on subsequent days?

Very likely yes. If the rest of the party is allowed to use their spells or class abilities to help them, then they are probably allowed to rest in order to use those abilities, so your character is also probably allowed to rest, and if you do, you'll need to roll for a new save.

4) If the curse is noticed, are they allowed to rest a night and prepare Remove Curse to cast on themselves?

Same as above. If you can remove the condition yourself, you should obviously be able to remvoe it from yourself.

5) If they are allowed to rest an extra night at the end of the adventure, is that exploitable somehow? I dunno how... maybe taking extra time to learn a spell or replace a dead familiar or craft some arrows... or maybe go back to look for more treasure they missed earlier?

Not really, no. If you think you found an exploit, you didn't.

Talonhawke wrote:

Spells

The following spells found in the Core Rulebook are not
legal for play and may never be used, found, purchased,
or learned in any form by PCs playing Pathfinder Society
scenarios: awaken, permanency, and reincarnate.
Any spell cast by a PC during the course of a scenario
that is still active at the end of a scenario ends when
the scenario does. For example, if your cleric PC casts
bless on the party and bless is still active when the
scenario ends, the bless spell ends at the conclusion of
the scenario. This includes spells with an instantaneous
or permanent duration, such as continual flame, create
undead, or fabricate.

I see nothing here that prevents you from raising undead just be careful how you do it and balance it with good acts.

Heck create undead is even called in in the list of spells that end after a scenario.

Well, I think that necromancers can definitely be good-aligned. Simply put, they can raise the undead for things such as public works or clearing out dungeons that are a threat to innocents. Put a mask on the faces of the cadaverous undead so that relatives cannot complain, and you can easily have a good-aligned necromancer.

Just my personal opinion.

Well, you're certainly a good aligned necromancer, at least based on the age of this thread you just lifted up from the grave :P

In 2e, Animate Dead is no longer an evil spell, so casting it in PFS missions is just as fine as Summon Animal or Animate Construct. There's even options (some of them unlockable with achievement points) for undead companions, familiars, eidolon, or you could even play a skeleton if you wanted to make an undead necromancer.

That being said, the sort of permanent-but-expendable undead minions that the old Animate Dead spells created are not accessible. (It's now a ritual, but there's no access for it for pathfinder society), so the best you can do if you want a permanent undead companion is probably a summoner or a class with animal companion - or picking up the beastmaster archetype + undead companion.

These checks typically take place over 15 minutes to an hour in-game time.

A more accurate representation of a real social encounter is knowing how to influence. After all if I met many of you at a party I could probably glean that I could influence you with multiple things like Pathfinder Lore and whatever else you’re into after an hour of friendly conversation. Forcing pc’s to spend an hour to make a check to maybe learn the obvious doesn’t seem realistic.

That's the thing. You need to chat with someone for a while before you figure out what buttons to push. "After all if I met many of you at a party, I could probably glean that I could influence you with multiple things like PF lore and whatever else you’re into after an hour of friendly conversation." Yup. That hour was probably 1-4 discovery checks.

It is a gotcha. If players read the blurb and catch that speed is of essence, they can purchase mounts before scenario begins.

It is also a gotcha because a relatively small difference in speed (25vs30) results in outrageously big penalty/bonus: just 5ft more gives DOUBLE actions.

It's also a gotcha because it penalises new players. If you've already played a hexploration before (year 2 for example had one) you'd know how critical that 25vs30 is.

It's also a gotcha because society KNOWS they are sending you to a time sensitive mission and the player might know it too if they read the blurb but if not, it's sprung on the players at a moment when they can no longer make purchases. The scenario COULD just as well begin in the city, with GM asking for final purchases before you begin a travel to the base camp, warning that there might not be a chance to make further purchases.

Indeed, a player might have thought about purchasing a horse but might wait until briefing because usually you get to say what you want to purchase at that point, only to get "oh, adventure begins with you already in the desert".

As a GM, at minimum I'd tell the blurb to players and ask them to make purchases, starting the scenario when they are ready.

Probably not the intended way but here's what I would do:

Since you're the GM, report the game with just your information and the PC number you assume would want the boons most.

Claim said boons for said PC, download them.

Check what the boons say.

Fix the character number if it turns out the boons are locked to the character so that the correct character gains access to the boons.
If you want some boons to one PC and some to another, remember that you can transfer some boons with the bequethal boon which is pretty cheap in terms of acp.

Tell your players what boons they get from the chronicle sheet, and ask which PCs they want the sheets to be assigned to.

Fill in the player numbers into your report.

That being said, unless the boons were changed from the original sanctioning, all of them only apply to the character that receives the boon.

Since Bequethal only allows you to transfer a single thing (as far as I recall), I would prioritize snare crafter/expanded summoning and apply the sheet to a character that benefits from those, and then bequethal the archetype (or a single interesting snare/summon if you really want to).

Free hand is not the same as empty hand.

Nope, free hand equals empty hand, unless you have something that explicitly says that "this still counts as free hand despite you using it for something else" like the free hand weapons.

This is pretty evident from spell components:
Somatic components require you to wiggle your fingers, which can be done while you're holding something in your hand.
Material component requires you to have a free hand.
Two things. One requires a free hand, one requires that you can use your hand but you can hold things in it. Ergo, Free equals you not holding anything in it.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=281
The intent is super clear, arguing that free hand is "something other than an empty hand and some specific exceptions" is so infuriatingly rules lawyerish that you instantly reminded me why I hate these forums and why they are completely and utterly useless for resolving any sort of rules related questions.

Some thoughts on this:

Shield and towershields aren't allowed, regardless of whether the boss is your implement: Implement's Empowerment clearly calls out what you are allowed to hold in your hands and shields aren't one of those things.

That being said, can you wield a buckler? Strictly speaking, you aren't Holding it, so I guess you can. Looking at the mechanics and what's the likely intention, Thaumaturge can already get +1 AC from using parrying weapon or casting shield cantrip, so using a buckler grants the same benefit of +1 AC and seems "acceptable".

Dueling Parry doesn't work if your hand isn't free. If you're wielding an implement in your hand, it's clearly not free.

You keep your esoterica in easy-to-access places on your person and are well practiced in brandishing your implement and esoterica together, so you can draw and use esoterica with the same hand you're using to wield an implement.

First Implement and Esoterica explains that you can draw and use esoterica with the same hand you wield an implement, but makes no claims about that hand counting as free for anything else.

I *think* you could have a spiked gauntlet in a hand and use that hand to wield an implement or esoterica - however, you wouldn't be able to attack with that spiked gauntlet since you're using that hand to wield your implement.
Meanwhile, if you tried have a spiked gauntlet in one hand and a one-handed weapon implement in the other and tried to benefit from the implement's empowerment while performing some sort of two-weapon attack like twin feint, you wouldn't benefit from implement's empowerment since it's text clearly limits you to a single one-handed weapon - it's not intended to be used with 2 weapons or a 2-handed weapon.

Homebrew forum would probably get more interest for your adventure, since this forum is for pathfinder society gm discussion (and homebrew adventures aren't part of the pathfinder society).

That being said, a few notes: DC 10 is Really Low - all PCs start with at least 2 for perception (minimum 3 if they don't have negative wisdom) and maxmimum +9. Standard DC by level is 15 for level 1 stuff.

With 3 combats and some exploration, this sounds like it might take maybe 4ish hours to play depending on party and amount of RP/investigation. The 2e Beginner's Box adventure has very similar encounters, I'd recommend taking a look at that for ideas and comparisons.

Depending on how difficult the fights are, I'm guessing that this might reward maybe 1/4th or 1/3rd or maximum of 1/2 of a level in xp, 100gp reward is quite a lot of gold for a level 1 party for such an adventure.

I would suggest either giving party some recall knowledge checks to realise that they can just remove the gem (or maybe to learn a ritual to purify the gem) instead of just leaving it up to the players whether they want to smash it or not, OR, if you leave it to the players without giving them any way to know what they should do, make an alternative reward to compensate for the lost 100gp.

Kobolds are small, there are a few player ancestries that are also small: Instead of flat out stating that they can't be followed, maybe have a player who wants to follow to roll acrobatics and on a failure they don't fit in, on a success they can fit in but tell them that they realise that they would be in a situation where they are unable to defend themselves and if the kobolds are waiting for them, it'll probably end badly for them. (basically, giving the illusion of a choice but actually both results are "pls don't try to follow").

I recently played this, with a curious result. I'm here looking for an explanation. The group achieved both objectives and all treasure bundles, defeated the bearded devil, did the ritual, and returned the documents and such to the venture captain. But we still didn't get the first boon because "You did bond the demon, but you didn't take over ownership of the keep." Is there something else that need be done to properly take ownership?

You should probably contact your GM, and direct them to this thread - if you check my posts on the previous page and Sayre's reply, you'll notice that the requirement for the boon is, specifically, sealing the devil into the throne, and that unlocks the boon for you. If they disagree (if there's a detail we're missing here), they could ask about it here to clarify the issue.

You could also contact your local venture officer to clear up the issue if contacting the GM isn't a feasible option.

Not really, I'd be glad that I get to save my water breathing potion for when the need arises without prior warning - without this adventure, I might not have even purchased one.

Unless the alchemist prepared Bravo's Brews for -everyone- in the party, this didn't really negate their abilities - rather, it complemented their abilities: instead of alchemist being able to spare a couple reagents to help half of the party, now the full party gets helped.

If the alchemist did prep for everyone (or prepped enough that there were brews left over), yeah, it can be annoying, but consider the alternative:
If they hadn't prepared bravo's brews, they would have prepared something else. Like antidotes or Antiplagues. Would it have felt better for the alchemist to prep something that wasn't useful at all in the adventure?

It can suck when your abilities don't work, but for comparison, you failed to provide +1 or +2 to a specific saving throw vs one encounter - compare it to the experience of a rogue or mental spell magic user in a scenario where just about everything is immune to your special gimmick. This thread is simply making too big of an issue about a scenario offering a minor bonus one of you already was providing.

Level 1-4 scenarios can feel difficult and the enemies are sometimes tough, but this isn't such a huge problem as this thread seems to suggest. Even at level 1-4, actual deaths are rare. The only thing that really needs fixing is how the massive damage rule can kick in from a regular boss crit at level 1-2, but not at later levels. It's clearly unintended.

Other than that: Don't apply your valuable AcP boons at level 1. Play 3 games, and apply the boon during the rebuild before you level up to 2.

Stock up on healing, play something sturdy, GM games, play Beginner's Box and bounties, or one-shots, or apply AP or module chronicles. Coordinate with the rest of the players to ensure your group has out of combat healing, or rebuild your character before the game as needed to fit the groups needs. Save your hero point for stabilising, instead of using it on a random skill check or attack roll. Avoid joining 1-4 games with a level 1 character if the adventure will be on higher tier - play a level 3 pregen instead, you can still apply the chronicle directly to the level 1. OR, just play a level 3 pregen regardless of what the rest are playing, and you're lot less likely to die.

I'm not strongly opposed to the idea of AcP boon letting people start at level 2 or 3, I just think it's one of the worst possible fixes for this problem, because those boons tend to give you considerably less gold than if you actually played the games, leading to rougher start for your character as they can't afford as much useful equipment as they otherwise would.

Generally speaking, you can't add the same thing together twice. Ability bonus does not stack with itself, magical bonuses from the same source do not stack with themselves, class features do not stack with themselves unless they specifically say so.

While familiar says that sorcerer levels stack with wizard levels, that doesn't mean your -wizard- levels stack with your -wizard- levels. It seems highly unintended that you get to count your wizard levels twice for the same ability.

If you had 3 wizard levels and 1 sorcerer level, sure, you have effective level 4 for a familiar. If you have 3 wizard levels and an ability that counts your wizard levels -2 for a total of 1 wizard level, that's still the same wizard level you already counted once, so no extra familiar powers for you.

I mean, you could try this, but I would highly recommend making two statlines for your familiar, one where you assume it works as probably intended (can't count the same levels twice) and one where you assume GM allows you to count the wizard levels twice, and use whichever version Gm thinks is the intended outcome.

Personally, less numbered PFS scenarios is less pathfinder my group will play. We do not enjoy the one-shots, don't run APs due to rotating players because of schedules, and don't play SF or SFS. This announcement just means we need to find a new game system to play multiple times per month now and frankly, that's a bummer.

So, during the rest of the year, we'll be missing One scenario from what we were used to - Instead of 2 per month, october we only get 1.

Sure, A couple less scenarios per year isn't ideal, but I don't think it's as big of a problem as some people seem to be making it, especially if you're limiting the available content yourself by not playing one-shots or bounties.

Maybe you should give SFS a try?

(And why aren't you enjoying them? They are practically speaking the same as a stand-alone-scenario that doesn't tie into metaplot, only difference being that they are designed for 1 specific level instead of a 4 level range, and they give more freedom for GM to run it as they see fit. The biggest problem is that one-shot-2 pregens are poorly equipped to handle the threats thrown at them, but that's nothing a GM can't fix, and you don't have to play the pregens if you don't want to.)

Gotta take a look at this at some point, but I have to say that a lot of the examples in this blog feel -very- niche.
(How often you get to shoot stuff from a high vantage point, or how often you fall down in combat to a position where you can still take part in the fight, to justify spending resources on making you better at those things?)

Shadow Wisps are Tiny, meaning they need to enter an enemy's square to use their melee strike. This makes their Shroud ability never work since they can't strike an "adjacent creature".

Monster statistics seem to only list reach for attacks if it is other than 5ft. You can observe this in, for example, all large monsters having reach 10ft explicitly spelled out. Tiny creatures "typically" have a 0 feet reach, but there's actually nothing saying that you should "run their reach as 0 feat unless told otherwise" so, it appears that the wisps do reach to adjacent square.

Considering that the ability specifically says that they'll step into the square, and that they don't have a reach listed, they should probably be run just like any other creature - defaulting to 5ft reach. That's how everything else works, and using that 5ft reach their ability makes sense.

Does that really matter? How often, if ever does a PC playing the high sub-tier not have access to the lesser version due to normal progression tables? Unless, I suppose if the item in question is named/unique.

Doesn't CORE characters work that way? Only available items are those from Core and those unlocked through chronicle sheets? That's one situation where it matters. Other is with partially charged wands - can't normally purchase those, and higher level wands are generally a lot more expensive, so the lower tier wand is often more desireable.

(Other one is that there are several sheets that include a 'unique' lesser version that does not exist outside of the chronicle sheet.)

There's a similar question with toppling spell and magic missile (does the target get 5 chances to fall down if you hit it with 5 missiles).

If I were the GM in your situation, I'd let it affect every target once, when they first roll the save (There's nothing in the description saying anything about multiple instances of damage proccing multiple saves or not), and even then it's extremely good.

I'd point out that whether the orb is supposed to give you a daze attempt against multiple opponents each round when combined with dazing spell is, at best, questionable.

"As a Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild GM, you have

the right and responsibility to make whatever judgments,
within the rules, that you feel are necessary at your table to
ensure everyone has a fair and fun experience. This does
not mean you can contradict rules or restrictions outlined
in this document, a published Pathfinder RPG source,
errata document, or official FAQ on paizo.com. What it
does mean is that only you can judge what is right for your
table during cases not covered in these sources."

Making the judgement that the dazing only applies once per target seems fair and, in my experience, within expected table variation.

(I used to run a similar sorcerer that used toppling magic missiles, which seemed cheesy as well. Decided I would only apply to one target per casting, not to all targets, and certainly not multiple times to the same target.)

I love having a challenging game, and I love to provide my players an honest challenge, both in 1e and in 2e.

We're currently playing 1e AP where the end boss for one book was a...
Let's call it "essentially a Huge sized magical bat" with CR 14. Our PC's were level 10 or 11 plus 1 mythic rank. I -think- we were supposed to have some help in this fight from NPC's since CR 14 is Epic encounter for a group of our level.
Our characters aren't... minmaxed per say, but our group is very competently built, we know our way around buffs and tactics and consumables - we're all veteran players.
Our GM wanted to provide us a real challenge, and so, they slapped on a size increase, giant template, advanced template and a mythic agile template on the boss, plus some "mooks" in the form of couple greater shadows (CR8), couple CR 9-10 other monsters, plus a CR 12 pallid angel (which left the combat after the first PC fell unconscious because of some plot related RP stuff).
without this frankly amazing amount of prep and -way above our paygrade- buffs and additional monsters? Against just a single CR 14 huge bat? It would have been a cakewalk. Now, it was an amazing and super epic encounter, one of the best we've had. We still won, and it was a tough fight, and we enjoyed it.

Problem is, 1e requires a huge amount of work from a GM if they want to challenge a competent party, and most encounters are skippable because they are just time sinks. If our group is unprepared, my mediocre +16 to hit and 1d8+8 dmg isn't just cutting it, even if I do get to make some 4 attacks per round. I just can't hit targets, and if I do, I'm not making a dent. If I turn my power attack on, I'm certainly not hitting targets.
If I get my buffs on, we get to flank, target gets debuffed by the witch, it's an entirely different story - instead of not hitting a single blow, I can land 4 out of 5 and take out half of the hp from a level appropriate monster in a turn.
I enjoy the challenge. It's just really, really hard to balance when "ambushed" = certain TPK and "prepared" = cakewalk - it's very hard to find a good middle ground.

Meanwhile, in our recent 2e campaing, I ran the end of the book boss encounter for my PC's, as written. PC's had a horrible start - crit from the boss (we use crit and crit fumble deck) left their divine sorcerer confused and stupefied, and monster caused 3 out of 4 PC's to be slowed and not able to use reactions - all in round 1. It looked like it might be a TPK for the PC's, especially since they were super low on healing as they had spent most resources on the dungeon crawl before this.
Good tactics saved the day, tho. Swashbuckler/Marshal buffed the party with a stance, slapped the sorcerer to get them out of confusion. Rogue demoralized the boss, sorcerer casted command from a scroll to force them to drop their weapon -> 2 actions taken away from the boss (one to drop, one to pick). Other rogue moved to flank, -3 ac (flat+frightened), plus +1 ab from buffs, turned an unlikely strike (+11 vs ac 24) into a probable hit (+12 vs 21).
Nets, bon mot + fear from spell, sickened from goblin pox from the other rogue's multiclass dedication to prevent the boss from drinking healing potions, recognizing enemy to know it was capable of attacking basically everybody around it and maneuvering to avoid that... All the random "other than a basic attack" actions really saved the day for the group. If they had just "move, attack, attack", they would have lost by simple math, boss would have kept removing one or two of them each round.

And that's why I like 2e. The fights are challenging and rewarding without requiring noticeable prep from the GM... And if you think it is too hard, it's always easier to adjust the difficulty down mid-combat than it is to adjust it up mid combat.

(I also love the character creation of 2e, but I'm running out of time here. Maybe I'll return to this topic later).

I would consider picking medicine.

True, 2e has plenty of healing options: Divine and Primal casters can prep heal, Occult casters may have soothe, Alchemists might make elixirs, everybody can pick healing potions from school items (or buy them), and anyone can pick up medicine.
Sometimes though, you might end up in a party that has none or very little off-combat healing, and having a medicine hireling in your backpocket could be useful.

Another one is Survival. Not needed very often, but it also seems to be a kind of a rare skill to be picked. While you rarely need survival, it's one of those skills that when you do need it, consequences for not having it could be dire (such as not finding your way to your target and wasting precious hours, or getting totally lost!).

Society seems a pretty common skill and not as dangerous to be lacking, but crafting could be really useful in some situations.

Oh.

There's one caveat here. Sometimes, you only get one try (or have to wait a while until you get another try), such as Medicine to treat wounds (1 hour cooldown). In those cases, you should probably just talk it through with the group if the "trained, wisdom 10, no skill feats" fighter wants to use medicine when you've sank considerable resources to become -the best at it-. Even then though, it's less about stealing shticks and more about party coordinating effectively: Instead of the fighter trying to heal the badly wounded barbarian and thus locking you and your continual recovery out, the fighter can complement your skills by acting as an assistant: While you're spending the next 30-40 minutes taking care of the near-death barbarian, the fighter could try to take care of the wizard and sorcerer that took light wounds from a stray AoE blast.

I think there's a clear shift in focus from "niche specialists" into more well-rounded characters.

Just a couple simple observations:
Spellcasters have gone from "couple of nukes per day" into a more sustained mode, with cantrips being perfectly viable combat routines that you can cast all day long.
AC/AB/saves between different characters should be way closer to each other than in 3.X-PF1. Specialists will still have noticeably higher stats than those who've decided to ignore some aspects, but there's no longer situations where you have an AC 40 monk tanking and a AC 16 wizard on the backline.

Biggest difference is in skills, however:
3.5: Something like 35 different skills. Practically speaking, party will have gaps in skills even with considerable investment to skills. My pet peeve is Monk - already a very MAD class gets just 4 skillpoints and has to decide between such things as "Do I want to see traps or creatures or maybe listen well instead? Should I be able to hide or move silently? What If I want to be an athletic guy, which one do I want to drop: Swim, Climb, Balance, Tumble, Jump, Escape Artist?"
PF1 was a considerable improvement with 26 skills (Said Monk could be both athletic, stealthy, AND perceptive! Whoo!)
PF2 has vastly different approach. Class ability score focus has moved considerably from Multiple Attribute Dependant towards Single Attribute Dependant so it's easier to invest in intelligence. All characters get 1 skill (and 1 lore) from their background, and all classes get at least 4 skills and (I think) all races have an ancestry feat option at lvl 1 to gain 2 extra skills. That's 5 skills on minimum. There's 16 different skills (plus lore). A party of 4 should easily have nearly all skills covered even without a skill monkey - they might not be "the best" in all skills, but they certainly should be able to at least try.

In addition, anyone can pick up some elemental attacks with cantrips with a spellcasting multiclass dedication (or in case of some races, an ancestry feat). Anyone can be a perfectly capable healer by investing in medicine, you're no longer dependent on clerics or CLW wands or potions.

I think there's been a clear shift in focus of the game. It's no longer a team of highly specialized one-trick ponies/specialist - In 2e, it's more often a team of highly capable professionals who're complementing each other and patching up each others weaknesses, being able to often fill their main specialized role AND perform adequately in 1-3 other roles too - and it doesn't even take a lot of effort to accomplish that - I feel like it comes naturally from the way 2e character building is done.

Instead of worrying about niches and stealing shtics, I think players should focus on being a bit more flexible instead of focusing on one trick. If your sorcerer casts a fireball and my monk/wizard MCD responds with "That's a good idea! Fireball too!", I don't think that's stealing your shtick, that's complementing it by switching from my single target damage punches into AoE mode to suite the party's tactics.

EDIT: Just wanted to add to the 3.5->PF1 monk comparison the note that my 2e monk has (at lvl 8): Religion and Nature (11), Society (13), Acrobatics, Deception, Occultism, Stealth, Thievery (14), Arcana (16) and Athletics (17). I lack Crafting, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Medicine, Performance, and survival. My style + shield gives high AC; wizard dedication gives elemental and ranged options. I greatly enjoy the way 2e enables players to make this sort of well rounded characters, and so far the adventures seem to encourage it too.

My animal Druid with Expert proficiency in Nature with a +11 modifier is going to remember something untrue about at least one of: a bat, a cat, a cow, a dog, an eagle, a fox, a goat, a horse, a pony, or a raven.

That's actually not true. Considering that all of those are probably creature -1, 0, or 1 at most, a roll of nat 1 with +11 modifier is still a success, downgraded into fail for the nat 1 - not a critical fail. At most, you can't tell what kind of a bird it was, or whether it's a young horse or a pony.

I do think that the crucial point here is that a crit fail doesn't make you make up some random stuff about a creature you don't know - rather, you misremember something you've read, or you've heard a false fact earlier. A lot of this rests on the GM giving you logical, believeable information.
As an example, an adventure has canine creatures that are fiery in nature. The one PC that tried to identify them rolled a crit fail.
Instead of going wildly off the rails and claiming they are ice creatures instead of fire creatures, I merely changed the name a bit (In the lines of: Instead of calling them Ember Hounds, I called them fire wolves (or something similar)) and instead of telling that they had immunity to fire and weakness to cold, I told that they resist both fire and cold.

It's not like the GM has to go wild and claim they are octopi instead and that they have tentacles with grab, when they clearly don't.

With the Guns and Gears playtest going on, are there Gunslinger/inventor/Gun/Gear themed options available?

I think the issue is that Scare to Death is Cheap to Use, and can be used All the Time, because combat and violence and killing enemies is so commonplace.

It's true that other legendary feats may provide effects of similar magnitude, such as an orbital drop without scratches, but the difference is... How often do you really drop from a great height?
It's just not similarly spammable or applicable as often.
Likewise, you can produce similar effects with spells... But not all day long.
And I feel the "I can keep killing people with my gaze all day long" really cheapens the feat. It's probably dramatic the first time the paladin uses it to scare some filthy slaver to death with appropriate roleplaying and atmosphere, but if it becomes a routine where the "Goblin looks around the battle field and shouts! 'I'll KILL YOU! And YOU! And YOU!'" "Okay, two of the three are now dead.", that's anticlimatic.

I'm fine with the power of it's use... Kinda. I'm not happy with how it easily becomes a routine. I'd slap a limit on it - maybe once or thrice per day, or once per hour max 1 successful use per day, personally.
Alternatively, tell the paladin that it has 1 charge, and that recharges every time everybody else in the party has had a legitimate, not-self-created-use for their legendary feats.

I mean, compare it to legendary survivalist. Yeah, I'm sure that'll come up often in a campaign, and certainly in ways which you couldn't handle with a couple low level spells or items anyway.

On my Alchemist, on the other hand, my Familiar is extremely important. Depending on the party I end in, I can go for Extra Reagent + Poison Reservoir to poison my weapon or an ally's one for one action. Or Extra Reagent + Manual Dexterity for a one action Stride + Elixir of Life. Sometimes I go for Extra Reagent + Valet if I want to go full Bombs. Or even Manual Dexterity + Poison Reservoir, hand it to our main frontliner and get a 1 action Elixir + poisoned weapon.

How did you get a homunculus familiar? Poison reservoir requires a homunculus, and I haven't been able to find the rules for making a homunculus familiar despite trying to - archives of nethys suggests that the only "special" familiars are Aeon Wyrd, Calligraphy Wyrm, Dweomercat cub, Faerie Dragon, Imp, Poppet, and spellslime.

It's a shame because the poison reservoir seems pretty interesting, but there doesn't currently seem to be any support for anything that could take it, except for an NPC maybe (or House Rule from GM, but I'm playing society so that's not an option)

It's a 4 hour scenario, there can't be *that much* more extra to find.

Can you tell us what it is, so GM's know which of their characters to apply the credit towards?

It's basically nothing, unless you die while between 44-47 xp.

Really a shame, especially how the special is levels 1-8 - half of the level range is already over the point where the boon could be useful.

Success is applying the effect with the swashbuckler gaining panache by knowing his actions have affected an enemy and been effective.

As requested, can you back this up by an actual rules text?

"Success" is a game mechanics term and has nothing to do with whether there's an effect or not:

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=314

1. Roll a d20 and identify the modifiers, bonuses, and penalties that apply.
2. Calculate the result.
3. Compare the result to the difficulty class (DC).
4. Determine the degree of success and the effect.

Step 3:
This step can be simple, or it can create suspense. Sometimes you’ll know the Difficulty Class (DC) of your check. In these cases, if your result is equal to or greater than the DC, you succeed! If your roll anything less than the DC, you fail.

Immunities do not play a part in determining the success of your D20 roll versus target DC.

"You gain panache during an encounter whenever you succeed at a Bon Mot against a foe."
Note: When you succeed at a Bon Mot. Not "When you apply the effects of a bon mot" or something similar.

At this point, you haven't provided any sort of rules to support your argument and your ruling results in basically telling a player that they shouldn't play a swashbuckler because you won't let them use their core class ability at random times when you feel like it, and I'm starting to feel like you're just a troll.

I believe degree of support for the one minion rule is directly proportional to the number of times you've been at a table where one of the players is utterly terrible at decision making and/or math yet has multiple minions in play.

** spoiler omitted **...

While I recognize the situation that you describe:

1. The problem is the player, not the rule.

2. PFS1's limit on companions clearly didn't do anything in the example situation because it limits you to 1 combat mionion (excluding summons)

3. The proposed change for PFS2 minions doesn't affect a similar situation in PFS2 for the same reason it didn't affect the situation in PFS1 (because it doesn't affect summons)

4. PFS2 already limits summons by making them 3 action cast, 1 action sustain - currently only a witch with a cackle can pull off 2 summons at once, and the rule, again, doesn't affect summons. In the event that the witch does pull off 2 summons, they are basically unable to do anything else (because 1 action isn't enough to cast any offensive spells, and even the non-offensive ones are pretty limited).

Here is the *exact* text that will be in the new guide (dropping Wednesday)

Minions: With the exception of temporary creatures, such as those created by summon spells, no character can have more than one minion. Purchased Mounts do not count as minions, provided they do not take part in combat.

Yes. It will affect Familiar + AC builds.

It will not block people with Minions from casting summon spells.

Also, this rule is -considerably- more restrictive than the PFS1 version (In which you could have a beast of burden, a non-combat familiar, and an animal companion). I could accept a rule if it said that you can't have more than "one permanent minion participating in the combat as a pawn, but they can still use their other abilities" - That's... more convoluted but more reasonable, and would allow (or would need to be worded in a way that allows) you to have an animal companion as an active combatant, plus a familiar that normally does nothing during combat except provides you with an extra cantrip, or maybe generates you a focus point back if you spend an action to give it two actions. But frankly, I'm not sure if even this restriction would be necessary or warranted.

You could, by the rules, have a mature animal companion that can take 1 action per round, and an independent familiar that can take 1 action per round. Why this need to suddenly deny this or nerf it? If there's some cheesy "my cat rides my wolf to break action economy and deliver spells at longer ranges" or other such nonsense, these issues should be addressed at other ruling levels instead of outright saying that "no, gotta decide between AC or familiar, can't have both."

*Especially* because familiars are so damn frail that they are practically speaking instantly dead if they do anything other in combat than "sit in your pocket".

EDIT: Also, 100% of what Lau said.
"don't flood the board, play nice with the other players"
"we should have a more generic rule / guideline for the GM to make players play together in a considerate way"

Based on feedback from this thread and the others on the topic, the leadership is revisiting the form of the rule. I expect to have more information from them to pass on in the next day or two.

I can share the following.

The intention of the rule was to avoid clogging the board with minis / avoid situations where PCs have multiple allies who can act independently. (for example, certain Animal Companions get a free action per turn.)

The *origional* form of the rule was:

"With the exception of summon spells, no Player can have more than two Pawns on the table. As such, a player who has already placed a second Pawn, either as a result of a class feature (such as a familiar or an animal companion) or as a result of using an Ally boon, cannot benefit from any Boon or Ability that places a pawn on the table. Player purchased mounts do not count as pawns assuming they do not take part in combat."

We went to "No more than one Minion" to try to reduce the number of new terms we were defining. It sounds like it will be going back to "no more than 2 Pawns" (With your character counting as one of the two.)

Okay, considering that one goal for the organized play is to be "as close to PF2" as possible with very little need for "house rules", this change goes directly against that philosophy. Going for the wording "no more than 2 Pawns" would sound like a witch (1 pawn) with a familiar (forced class feature, also 1 pawn) would be unable to summon a creature (another pawn). I know you said earlier that "with the exception of summon spells" but for this particular reason, I think the Pawn word is a horrible choice.

Secondly, "clogging up the table" is more of an issue with how maps are drawn and how spawns are placed, less with how many miniatures are on the maps. Sncearios tend to give PC's very little room for placement, and tends to place the PC's at the edge of the map with no room to back away. This is a problem with scenario/encounter design, not a flaw in the system that requires fixing by telling people that they can have a familiar OR an animal companion, not both.

It's especially annoying given how well they seem built - keeping an AC up to the task requires spending considerable amount of feats, while keeping them active in combat eats an action. Keeping two minions active in combat eats two action, leaving you unable to cast spells (or for a martial, to do anything other than strike once).

(For examples of poorly designed map, there's 2-00 page 10 (encounter A) and page 11, encounter B - A is horribly designed and will cause trouble for party full of creatures and minions, B is awesome and works very well for any size of party, and gives everybody room to maneuver
Another example is 1-05, Encounter A (page 8) has PC's in a small area, against a foe that they probably want to pull back from, except that they map ends right behind them so they'll be retreating over it's edge, while 3/4ths of the map won't be used for anything. Meanwhile, Encounter C (page 13) does have a small placement area, but it has plenty of room for the PC's to maneuver and move if needed without the map ending as abruptly (though again, half of the map will go unused - no reason why the PC's and monsters could not have been placed closer to the middle of the map).

475 gp isn't that much at 9th level. It's 25 gp more than 3 scrolls or enough for a single level 7 item.

Considering that expected items of a level 9 pc are:

I would go so far as to say the gold reward should be static for completion of a scenario, regardless of success because after playing 7 scenarios, it is economically advantageous to rebuild if you've been getting less than full rewards.

What do you mean by that? Rebuilding reduces your gold to 85% of what you've earned through your chronicle sheets - unless you've made some big sell backs or bought and used a lot of consumables, rebuilding leaves you with sligthly less gold than what you would have otherwise had.

The wealth by level tables are an odd thing to bring up by comparison... who thinks that a lvl2 martial PC isn't going to buy a magic weapon the very first second they can? Or a lvl4 martial PC isn't going to get a striking weapon? Yet the wealth-by-level tables assume these very things. Outside of PFS, I would not be surprised to see PCs trying to get those things a level early.

Not sure what you mean by this. In a home campaign, you might purchase a +1 weapon at level 2, in PFS; that's probably not necessary since you might adventure with people who can cast magic weapon for you (making it +1 striking) but magic weapon can't target a +1 weapon. I don't usually buy a magical weapon until I can go straight for the +1 striking.

Also, the wealth by level tables are brought up to show that pathfinder society does in fact give out more gold than the normal PC wealth level assumption is, and thus shows that while you might not get all the treasure bundles always, you're still ahead of the curve.

I do agree that the loss of bundles has to be fair, though. Players -can't know- if some nook or cranny is "outside the scope of this adventure" OR "something you should explore", so expecting PC's to "randomly go further than reasonable" isn't fair.
I think it's fair:
1. To place treasure bundles behind encounters - you beat it, you get the tp.
2. Put them behind a skill challenges - Again, you beat it, you get it. This usually includes couple different rolls by all PC's, and there should options for different skills.
3. Put them behind a simple skill check: In this case, it should be a really common skill(s) or a perception check. For a perception check, you could require that the PC's are actually searching. For a non-perception skill check, the skill should be something every PC can try, and the DC should be such that a party with 1 dude trained and 3 people untrained still has a "decent chance" at success. Requiring a crit success, for example, isn't fair - that's basically saying that at most every other party will get the bundle.

The TP's should not:
1. Require PC's to go somewhere that seems like it might be outside of the scope of the adventure ("Oh, maybe we should stop here and go search those hills for a cave, I wonder if we find loot there")
2. Require active actions from players ("Oh, you can only find this if you specifically say that you Also search from under the rug. Just being in search mode isn't enough, you need to actually say it.")
3. Require a single very high DC/crit success roll. Something like, DC 25 for a 1-2 party (a "reasonable" max bonus at skill would be maybe 5 or 6, needing 19 or 20 to succeed)

And most importantly: I think TP's could/should be dependant on your choices during the adventure. I also think more boons should depend on your choices, not on how well you did, and I would love to see more adventures where your choices matter. Unfortunately, the campaign moving away from items and boons on the sheet (in which it would be easy to reflect your choices: Did you unlock item A or Item B, and did you get boon X or boon Y), this is probably something we won't see much in the future.

Hi!

I have two subscriptions - Please cancel the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription, starting on Advanced Player's Guide if possible, or after Advanced Player's Guide if it gets shipped before you react to this, that's okay as well.

I still want to continue my Adventure Path Subscription, so keep that one as it is.

Quote:

as we play more frequently with people from different belief systems and backgrounds during the COVID era, it's even more important to communicate the values of PFS.

And this is where I think a lot of the resistance comes for me. I don't like being prodded or poked into overtly spreading a social message that isn't an issue for me, I 'm not qualified to talk about, don't really have any feelings for, and don't feel comfortable discussing.

This was my original thought/response too, but as a friend explained it to me: I'm now a seasoned gamer in PFS. I know our lodge, and I play enough games online to not get stressed or anxious about playing with total strangers. I'm also one of our regular GMs.

A new(er) player does not have the same experience. They might not have the same confidence. They might not know the players or handle strangers as well as I do. They might be non-cis, and/or they might want to play characters that are non-cis. They may (probably have had) bad experiences before, they may have been threatened, discredited, made fun off, and they might not be willing to risk facing discrimination or (micro)aggression on a gaming table -just for the desire to be addressed correctly-. They might even fear that asking for pronouns or displaying theirs forces them to 'come into open'.

I don't. I literally have nothing to lose by being an ally, and by making the point of asking for the pronouns or displaying mine, I am making room for them, showing them that our society/group is inclusive, and encouraging people to be themselves instead of hiding in fear of reprisal.

I might not *personally* feel strongly about this, but I *do* want to make sure all our players feel welcome, and thus, in future games, I'll try my best to show my support for them, even if I don't know if there are any of them at the table with me.

(I'm assuming I might face objections or criticism at a table at times for asking for the pronouns, but so far I plan to respond by explaining that it's not a debate/discussion I want to hold a game up - But I'll gladly discuss the issue after the game.)

Watery Soup wrote:

Leg o' Lamb wrote:

the amount of evidence against both men (Mentzer and Webb) was rather overwhelming

So what do you want me to do about it?

I had to Google Mentzer, Webb, Zak S, Erik Tenkar, and TotalCon. I have no idea who any of these people are, and I've never heard of the convention before. To that end, I don't know who Adam is either.

That's my point - not that someone is guilty or not guilty or someone else is credible or not credible, but that (b)telling me won't help in any tangible way.[/b]

I'm not going to stop playing PFS because someone that I've never heard of accused someone else that I've never heard of do something that's going to be disputed at some event I've never heard of.

So now that you have educated yourself, would you still pay money to attend a con where any of the above people were VIPs?

That’s my point. I don’t need to worry about inviting any of the above to one of my cons. You have the choice to pay money to support a con that does invite that person. I won’t.

I'm still confused about what's the goal here. Are these two VIPS (or attendees or program organizers) in a con? Which con?

Or is the point here just to more generally suggest that as a participant (not organizer or GM), one should check the background of con VIP's and program organizers?

You needed to look up who these people are; would you have done so with out the name and shame?

I think the point is that as a random PFS player, I didn't -need- to look these people up. Indeed, trying to shift the responsibility from the people who can actually solve these issues (The con organizer) to every single con attendee is simply not feasible, nor a realistic demand.

Now, if the problem was that there's a con where these two are attending AND the organizers have been alerted AND they aren't going to do anything about it, THEN you could try to persuade attendees to boycott the event. According to totalcon's page, next totalcon is in february 2021. The site doesn't list any guests yet nor sponsors. OP's post seem to be a complaint about some random podcast where a random name was pissed off that "everyone" was trying to shut down another person. There's quite literally no context on how this is relevant to PFS, PF, or Paizo.

From Tonya's response, it seems that Paizo/Organized Play has already looked into the issue and decided to stop supporting this event. That's probably the extent of what paizo can do, and is certainly way beyond what random forum readers can do.

GM Tomppa wrote:

When the issue is the misbehaviour (but not strictly a crime) of a member of the community, the proper channel you should contact is the customer service/administrators/moderators/organizers directly.

What makes you think that this didn't occur already? Also what makes you think that this is a safe idea?

If you are pushing the issue forward through the proper channel, why make a post on the forum? What, specifically, do you hope to achieve or accomplish with this post? Also, what do you mean by the last part, "what makes you think this is a safe idea"?

I want to emphasize that I do not condone the sort of behavior you are describing: however, I'm not going to get into this specific case, I'm merely speaking on a generic level here:

You're making a post in a public, RPG focused forum about specific people - your post is, essentially, addressed to whoever reads these forums, but people aren't reading this forum for post like these: They are reading it to find out rules/ideas/enjoy an RPG, and that's the first problem: This isn't the right forum.

I'm probably a pretty average forum user: I have no idea what you are talking about: I do not know these people, I do not know this con, I have no idea what has happened to spark such a post, and I don't know who you are, and that's the second problem: your readers are ill informed about this issue.

In society, people are innocent until proven otherwise. From my perspective, you make accusations that I've no idea if they are true or not. Your post may or may not be convincing, but it doesn't really have anything to back it up, and that's the third problem - you are judging, or asking others to judge people in a situation where they simply do not know enough.

In theory, I could start to do some research to follow up on these to see what you're talking about, but that's not why I'm here on this board, and it's not my duty or job to do so. You are relying on people either investigating the issue on their own, or simply taking your word as you've written it, and that's the fourth problem - You are assuming, or asking, that people accept the responsibility to get to know this issue before they respond. They probably won't.

Even if I did research these events, and came to the judgement that whoever you are posting about are bad people - what can I do but to offer my sympathies? I have no idea who they are, I wouldn't even recognize them if I met them, and I probably won't given how I'm on the other side of the globe from you, and I can't prevent them from taking part in the PFS scene, and I can't punish them in accordance to their crimes - and that's the fifth problem. There's practically speaking nothing the readers of this board can do to help or aid you.

There's also a sixth common problem in these "name and shame" posts: Whoever you are talking about doesn't necessarily know that you are posting about them, and they have no way of responding to your post.

Now, I want to again emphasize that I want to offer you my sympathies, and I condemn the kind of actions are speaking of - RPG's should be safe places for everyone to take part in without fear of physical or mental harm or harassment. When that kind of actions happen, it is a duty for all of us to call it out in that moment, and show that the behaviour isn't accepted before, after, or at the table.

However, "name and shame" posts easily create a toxic environment without solving any of the issues because of the problems mentioned earlier, and I simply can't see anything good coming out from them. If these people are active in PFS scene, take it up to the VO's, escalate as necessary. If these people are arranging a con, take it up with the con organizers. If there are actual crimes involved or you are being threatened for taking it up with the Right People, take it up with the police. Primarily, these are the people who can, and who's duty it is, to help you.

Speaking as a player/customer/GM - not as a VO nor representing paizo in any capacity:

In general (not just on paizo forums),

When the issue is a crime, the local authorities are proper channel you should contact.

When the issue is the misbehaviour (but not strictly a crime) of a member of the community, the proper channel you should contact is the customer service/administrators/moderators/organizers directly.

The community/regular forum users can't really help you and "naming and shaming" isn't a solution to any issue - and on many forums/servers/communities, such conduct is frowned upon or outright prohibited.

You may find that there are aspects of your character where you’re not entirely sure about your decisions, such as the ancestry or class feat you chose. Don’t worry! While your character is 1st level, you can rebuild as often as you need to, changing any of these choices. Until you play a game in which your character has 12 or more XP, you can freely rebuild your character completely except for Reputation earned and character number. Once you begin a session as a second level character, you still have options for changing your character’s choices. In addition to retraining, in which your character spends their Downtime to swap out individual features of their build, you can earn boons that allow you to rebuild your character more extensively.

It's pretty clear that level 1 rebuild can be used to change your ancestry, so unless the text is changed or the boons have a specific wording to prevent that, this also applies to boon races.

Given that the boon rebuild uses the same wording (rebuild vs something else), I see no reason to assume that somehow, one rebuild would be different from another rebuild in what may or may not be changed.

(Granted, maybe boons will say that "can only be applies to a character with 0 xp, but that's a bridge we'll burn when we get there.)

1. Yes. also note that you can freely rebuild your character as long as You haven't played it at level 2+ so, a character with 12 xp (technically level 2) can still be freely rebuild (because you haven't yet locked down the character by playing it at level 2).
2. Yes. Rebuilding encompases all aspects of the PC, including race.

So, you can play your guy as much as you want. The announcement also said that they'll keep the free rebuild for 2 weeks after the AcP launches, so you can play your guy even to level 3+ if you want to, and when the AcP finally launches, buy the rebuild, and then buy the leshy boon. (provided you have enough AcP for the leshy).

All them undead just decided to not be willing targets...

The undead don't need to be willing.

1 willing living creature or 1 undead

I think there are Two valid ways to rule the interaction:

1. You can choose not to be a willing (living) target even for the 3 action AoE, and thus you can choose not to accept the healing and adhere to your anathema.

2. 3 action no longer requires willing targets because it targets everyone. However, you are NOT actively and personally performing the anathema if someone else casts an AoE heal (unless you are getting yourself included in it on purpose >.>) so you're fine and anathema isn't broken.

I would go with the first one, but I could see a lenient GM going with the second ruling. In either case, neither should lead to any trouble for your character, and whichever ruling the GM uses, it shouldn't cause you any trouble to adapt to the table.

After thought: Only way I could see problems arise would be if GM went with the second ruling (Automatically affects everyone, willing or not) AND ignored the part of anathema rules that say you need to be actively and personally doing it for it to count, in which case you could lose your feat by being included in a heal, no matter the reason - But this would lead to a weird rules argument about PvP. An effect that disables some of your powers? Yeah, that's PvP, which means you can't be included in the effect unless you give permission, which means that the party cleric can't heal the rest of the party if you don't move, which means you can prevent healing of others by sticking to the cleric, and then we're going down the hill fast from there.

In any event: Sure, there's probably table variation on what counts as actively and personally breaking the anathema, but as long as you aren't trying to game the system and accept that you can no longer willingly receive divine spells, it shouldn't matter what version of the ruling the GM uses.

https://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/additional
http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/
And for PFS2 org play page:
http://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/encyclopedia/pfs2guide/
And 2e additional resources:
https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh3j?Pathfinder-Society-Character -Options
I use all of those links pretty much daily, aside from minor hickups they seem to be working perfectly.

I feel you. Long story short, there have been and still are technical issues, staff shortages, other things taking priorities, and now covid, throwing wrenches in the wheels. OP staff and Paizo are working as hard as they can, to pull through. A quick search (especially checking couple blog posts relating to organized play) should give you a better picture.

Yeah, GM prestige seems to be GM fame - 4 or 2 if you played normal/slow track.

While the system does not prevent you from leaving it empty and filling it later, you SHOULD fill it with a character number when you report the game. IF you don't have any character at all yet, I'd just assign it to -2001 and let your GM blob grow in the background as you run games. As with PFS1, you can make changes to the character until you've actually played with it at level 2+. (Guide says you Must write and give yourself a chronicle at the same time when you're writing the player chronicles).

I can't remember if it's been spelled out in the guide, but it seems that the consensus is that it works like in 1e - GM gets full rewards and items based on the level of their character, regardless of the tier the PC's played and what success/failure they got.

EDIT: Ninja'd. I guess writing posts takes a few minutes.

It took 3 whole days, with the PC's skipping most of the Sadist Spires (by dimension dooring straight into the jail room by luck, and then facing off the boss, skipping all other encounters) and skipping nearly all of the Forsaken Fane by dimension dooring straight into the F25 with pure luck, going to F24 from there, F23, and the teleporting out. (Had them face off with Thelamistos outside of the fane since we had some time left and that encounter was pretty awesome).

We started about 3 pm on friday, finished around midnight (I think we did the first part on friday from start to finish), continued at 12.00 on saturday, probably continued again close to midnight, and continued on sunday at noon, finished before 7 pm.

We ran it pretty close to a PFS sanctioned mode, and if you want to finish it in 3 days, some encounters need to be skipped. Luckily, the players took care of that with smart scouting, and lucky dimension doors.
I had asked my players to make me a copy of their PFS characters so that I could have all the info readily available - And I told them we'd be playing in PFS mode. In truth, I had the players just play *copies* of their PFS characters, and ran the adventure in campaign mode. I think this worked very well, because it gave me the option to adjust things as needed, while letting players believe that their actual PFS character was constantly in danger (as opposed to just telling the players that we'd be running in campaign mode). No encounters were skipped unless the PC's were smart/creative, but the PC's skipped a lot of them, including around 90% of the actual fortress or something. Things that took the most time was the first dungeon (which they fully explored), Aiyana's house (which devolved into a huge combat that took the better part of saturday, we had a break after it, and that was maybe around 7pm).
Sunday was mostly RP with the NPC's they saved on saturday, and then a surgical strike at the Fane.

I don't think there's any reasonable way to fit this in to a convention in PFS mode. You could run it in campaign mode to cut it a lot shorter by skipping some of the non-story combats and/or using a quicker method of resolving combat encounters, but I think that's a disservice to this module - due to the nature of the corruption, the adventure Really benefits from having the players actually fear for their character's lives, which is easier to pull off when they have their own familiar PFS characters as opposed to some "I just rolled this char for this module" characters.

As a side note, I had a non-PFS playing friend play Aiyana for the adventure, and I think it was awesome for the adventure. It made everything a lot easier for me as a GM when I didn't need to play Aiyana in combats, while maintaining some mystery (and the possibility of betrayal?) for the PC's when the players didn't get to see her character sheet. Also, I fed her a lot of the background info and lore, and let her answer Player questions as Aiyana, which worked very well.

I really loved running the module, but it -is- a long one. For example, despite a similar format, gallows of madness is way, way shorter, and could probably fit into two 4 hour slots if the Players know they gotta keep up a good pace and don't waste time, but this... just needs considerably more time.
Honestly, if you asked how long it would take to run this, I'd probably tell you that you should prepare to run it over something like 5 to 8 five hour sessions.

Indeed, I think that the wording may be a bit confusing, but the intent here (in my opinion) clearly isn't: "You MUST select flight if you want a bird!" but rather "If you want your bird to fly, you MUST select flight for it."
That is, you can't get "free" abilities by picking a familiar that can "naturally" do things, so your fish can't swim, your bird can't fly, your mole can't burrow, and your raven can't talk, unless you've chosen that ability, regardless of how Natural it would be for them to do those things.

Well, the only openly cannibalistic character I've seen so far in PFS2 was a goblin.

Other than that, though, PFS2 has brought in an influx of completely new players, and they haven't seemed to show much interest in playing a goblin. So far, I've seen just the one I mentioned, plus one pregen. At least locally, people weren't as excited to play goblins as at first seemed.

That being said, I haven't seen any paladins/champions armed with a "Holier Than Thou" attitude either.

I asked Sayre, and he said he had written the adventure with the intent that the boons are -not- mutually exclusive, but said he would confirm with Linda who did the development on the adventure, in case it changed.

I agree with you - that seems to be the intention, but I think the way it's written isn't clear:

What Diggen says:

What matters is that one of you place the item containing

me against his throne and speak the proper words, which I
will teach you. That’ll seal the bugger back up in his throne
and put him at the service of the keep’s proper owner. Once
he’s sealed up, place both of your hands against the object
you seal me in and speak the same phrase; I’ll be free to
travel on to the afterlife I’ve earned with my service to the
empire. Once I’m gone, you’ll be the keep’s proper owners,
with your own bound devil to oversee the place. What do
you say?”

Binding the Devil:

Nashaxian can’t truly be destroyed

as long as his contract with Diggen Thrune stands.
However, the PCs can seal him within the throne by
performing the brief rite described by Diggen Thrune on
page 13. Diggen’s ghost has spent decades preparing for
this situation, so the PCs’ role is relatively simple. As long
as at least one of the PCs is trained in Arcana or Religion,
they succeed. If the PCs successfully seal Nashaxian in
the throne, all PCs gain the Devil’s Keep boon on their
Chronicle sheets.

Chronicle sheet instructions:

If the PCs bind Nashaxian to the keep after defeating him, grant the PCs the boon Devil’s Keep on their Chronicle sheets.

Emphasis is mine - The first text says that they need to speak the words on the throne to seal the devil into the throne (and to put him into service of the keeps owner). Diggens then tells them that they need to release him to become the proper owners of the keep.

The GM instructions on binding the devil only speak about binding the devil to the throne, and makes no distinction between that and actually releasing Diggens and just doing what he told to bind the devil (which is pressing the magic item against the throne and saying the words).

The instructions on the chronicle sheet also only speak about binding the nashaxian and mention nothing about freeing diggens. I think it's not unreasonable to deduce that the first part - sealing the devil - is what's important for the boon, and what comes afterwards (releasing the diggens) isn't.

I'm saying that I *think* the intention is clear here, but for the record and for the future, if two boons are supposed to be mutually exclusive, it would be nice for them to clearly state so.

EDIT: I'm just saying that nothing is preventing the PC's from binding the devil to the throne, and then deciding to betray diggens and NOT free him. Sheet instructions say that you get the boon for binding, and makes no mention of freeing diggens as a requirement.