Glav's page

Glav wrote:

I've been subscribing for years, and being able to get my scenarios and discounts has been a big part of why I did it. I don't have to think about it, I just get what I want, and I can come grab them when I have time, which often, I don't. The discount made it worth it.

Now I won't get the scenario, and I won't get the discount any more, for a year?

And I have to come in and buy the scenarios with gold?

This is a miserable change. Please do something to let those subscribed to the legacy plans keep them.

Have you read Jim Bulters' last comment? I think he already answered your question about legacy plans.

Glad to hear it. It wasn’t in the article. Would be helpful to as it to the FAQ section.

The point about the subscription to scenarios still stands.

I've been subscribing for years, and being able to get my scenarios and discounts has been a big part of why I did it. I don't have to think about it, I just get what I want, and I can come grab them when I have time, which often, I don't. The discount made it worth it.

Now I won't get the scenario, and I won't get the discount any more, for a year?

And I have to come in and buy the scenarios with gold?

This is a miserable change. Please do something to let those subscribed to the legacy plans keep them.

After reading this, I told my daughters (6 & 10) that if you cut off the head of a giraffe, multiple heads grow back to take its place... and showed them one of the many online photos of giraffes looking like a hydra.

It broke my 6yo's brain a little bit. Even my 10yo had to look twice before she said it was multiple giraffes standing lined up just right.

So, definitely keep Dazzling Display... even if it means not having Multi Attack... it's a giraffe, after all... not a lion.

That's adorable :) Glad to hear it's making an impression on someone else!

I know I'd be dazzled if I saw one of these in the wild. I was lucky enough to have a "Giraffe encounter" at a local zoo a few years ago, and it was amazing enough when they had one head!

nice!

only thing I'd add in the descriptive text is how fast they can de-leaf an area!

Oh man. I was theory crafting this with a friend, and at the time mentioned that they probably eat some kind of tree or grass that has fast healing too, because a herd of these moving through an area is probably devastating otherwise!

And then...what happens after five heads eat through an area. All I can say is, there's probably some really happy critters down the food chain that are enjoying what massive volume of droppings these hydraffes leave in their wake. (I'm thinking...Ian Malcolm and the sick triceritops in Jurassic park.)

Thanks for the feedback avr! I thought about multiattack, and almost added it. Didn't seem quite right, given the "defender" and "protector" motif, and would have made it challenging to get dazzling display into the design. Seemed to me that seven attacks a round for a CR6 is already pretty good, and the prerequisite weapon focus is about 1/3 of a multiattack, so, I stuck with that. That, and +12 and +8 line up right with CR expectations for primary/secondary to hit, so I left it at that.

I saw this piece of art about a giraffe/hydra hybrid earlier today, and felt like it deserved some stats. So without further ado, I give you the Hydraffe.

Hydraffe CR 6

This animal, covered in a spotted pattern, has five heads at the end of five disproportionately long necks. Three heads stretch upwards, vigilant scanning in all directions for threats. The remaining heads browse nearby vegetation.

XP 2,400
N Huge magical beast
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60ft, low-light vision, scent; Perception +13

Defense

AC 21, touch 10, flat-footed 19 (+2 Dex, +11 natural, –2 size)
hp 67 (9d8+27); fast healing 5
Fort +9, Ref +8, Will +5

Offense

Speed 50 ft.
Melee 2 hooves +12 (1d8+5), 5 slams +8 (1d8+2 plus push)
Space 15 ft., Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks push (slam, 5 ft.)

Statistics

Str 20, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 7
Base Atk +9; CMB +16; CMD 28 (32 vs. trip)
Feats Alertness, Dazzling Display, Endurance, Run, Weapon Focus (Slam)
Skills Intimidation +8, Perception +13, Sense Motive +4 ; Racial Modifiers +2 Intimidation, +2 Perception
SQ: hydra traits, regenerate head

Ecology

Environment warm plains
Organization solitary, mating pair (1 hydraffe, 1 giraffe), or mixed herd (1 hydraffe, 3–10 giraffes)
Treasure none

Special Abilities

Natural Weapons (Ex) A hydraffe's hoof attacks are primary attacks and its slam attacks are secondary attacks.

Fast Healing (Ex) A hydraffe’s fast healing ability is equal to its current number of heads (minimum fast healing 5). This fast healing applies only to damage inflicted on the hydraffe’s body.

Hydra Traits (Ex) A hydraffe can be killed by severing all of its heads or slaying its body. Any attack that is not an attempt to sever a head affects the body, including area attacks or attacks that cause piercing or bludgeoning damage. To sever a head, an opponent must make a sunder attempt with a slashing weapon targeting a head. A head is considered a separate weapon with hardness 0 and hit points equal to the hydraffe’s HD. To sever a head, an opponent must inflict enough damage to reduce the head’s hit points to 0 or less. Severing a head deals damage to the hydraffe’s body equal to the hydraffe’s current HD. A hydraffe can’t attack with a severed head, but takes no other penalties.

Regenerate Head (Ex) When a hydraffe’s head is destroyed, two heads regrow in 1d4 rounds. A hydraffe cannot have more than twice its original number of heads at any one time. To prevent new heads from growing, at least 5 points of acid or fire damage must be dealt to the stump (a touch attack to hit) before they appear. Acid or fire damage from area attacks can affect stumps and the body simultaneously. A hydraffe doesn’t die from losing its heads until all are cut off and the stumps seared by acid or fire.

Description

The origin of these multi-headed long-necked animals is unclear, though some ancient books speak of experiments with hydras, herd animals, and a demented arcanist with an over-crowded zoo. Whatever the actual case, the rare hydraffe exists today in the wild.

These creatures roam across plains as gentle protectors of herds of giraffes, with rarely more than one hydraffe per herd. They are able to graze quickly with their meany heads, preferring acacia trees. Hydraffes attempt to scare off dangerous creatures by loudly and wildly thrashing their necks into each other. If threatened it attacks ruthlessly, striking with its powerful hooves and bashing back foes with its many heads to let its herd flee to safety before retreating itself. A hydraffe may mate with a giraffe, but in these crosses, only one in twenty offspring are born as hydraffes.

A hydraffe is between 18 and 22 feet tall and weighs 4,500 pounds.

You can make more powerful hydraffes by increasing their Hit Dice—each added HD increases the hydraffe’s statistics as appropriate, but also gives it one additional head and a +1 increase to its natural armor. A hydraffe’s CR increases by +1 for each Hit Die it gains.

Notes

Also posted to reddit, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/mkr4ea/the_hydraffe_a_haun ting_new_hybrid_for_your_games/

Inspired by https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/mkdwiu/hydra_or_something_me_acrylic_ 2021/

Which was in turn inspired by https://youtu.be/19JYOVPmwDM

Usage

Content in this post is released under the OGL: https://www.aonprd.com/Licenses.aspx

Xenocrat wrote:

Saros Palanthios wrote:

Angel Hunter D wrote:

We dont have a GM here, that entire argument doesn't work.

Are we not all GMs and/or players, here to discuss how to run/play the game properly? Or are we just arguing for argument's sake?

My only point is that saying something like "according to the Rules, only things with the Disrupt tag can possibly disrupt an action, and nothing else can, ever" is idiotic, not least because the same set of Rules explicitly tells you to "work with your group to find a good solution, rather than just playing with the rule as printed".

For the purposes of the rules forum, a rule to houserule, which is what you're citing, is pointless, because it's not an answer to what the rules require. Such discussions belong in advice or general discussion threads. Here the answer is either (1) this is what you do, see pg XXX, or (2) ask your GM, there is no rule.

You're still thinking in terms of PF1, which inherited 3.5's proclivity for trying to predict and legislate for every possible circumstance or corner case that might come up in anyone's game. That was always an impossible task, and PF2 doesn't attempt to continue in that futile direction. Instead it intentionally relies on players and GMs to apply their common sense. In PF2, "ask your GM" oftentimes is the rule.

It's a different paradigm, and some people won't like it. PFS GMs in particular will have more personal responsibility now-- they won't always be able to just shrug their shoulders and say "that's the RAW, it's out of my hands". They'll actually have to engage their brains (and their social skills) and make a judgement calls, in a way that doesn't piss off their players. Some GMs will welcome the freedom, others will hate the lack of certainty. It is what it is. The only thing it definitely isn't is PF1.

It’s true GMs have more personal responsibility now. I also appreciate that :-) I agree that waking into a force wall of dying will likely “disrupt” (in the general sense) an action.

(In response to the various posts since my last one above)

When I talked about Disrupting an action, I’m talking about the mechanical effect listed on the book under disrupting an action on p,462. Sure, a force wall will make it impossible to move beyond that point. It may, in the general sense of the English word, “disrupt” the “sudden charge” activity. That’s not a “disrupt” ability per the book.

Let’s take readying an action to attack a spellcaster. Ready, page 470, says:

You prepare to use an action that will occur outside your turn. Choose a single action or free action you can use, and designate a trigger. Your turn then ends. If the trigger you designated occurs before the start of your next turn, you can use the chosen action as a reaction (provided you still meet the requirements to use it). You can’t Ready a free action that already has a trigger.

If you have a multiple attack penalty and your readied action is an attack action, your readied attack takes the multiple attack penalty you had at the time you used Ready. This is one of the few times the multiple attack penalty applies when it’s not your turn.

So you could designate, “I see that spellcaster start to cast a spell”. Awesome! You can use an action, such as strike, when that happens.

Strike says:

STRIKE [one-action] ATTACK

You attack with a weapon you’re wielding or with an unarmed attack, targeting one creature within your reach (for a melee attack) or within range (for a ranged attack). Roll the attack roll for the weapon or unarmed attack you are using, and compare the result to the target creature’s AC to determine the effect. See Attack Rolls on page 446 and Damage on page 450 for details on calculating your attack and damage rolls.
Critical Success As success, but you deal double damage (page 451). Success You deal damage according to the weapon or unarmed attack, including any modifiers, bonuses, and penalties you
have to damage.

No effect in strike says it disrupts (as in, the mechanic).

Sure, if they’re dead, they can’t act. A GM might rule that it took some time for an arrow to fly, and the player could finish the spell as they’re dying, or the player that kills the BBEG then they end the effect the BBEG wizard had before it goes off (or reverse the two for theme or time by the GM.). It probably kills them mid cast, and thus the action doesn’t finish. This is not the “disrupting an action” as described in P.462. This is the player succumbing to another status condition (dying) which prevents those actions in itself.

Mechanically, the “disrupt” effect only occurs when an ability says it. A readied attack has no way to disrupt a wizard the way it did in 3.5/PF1. Readied actions only do what they do: strike, move, or whatever other one cost action or free action you can do.

I’m happy to report, it’s likely a yes, an animal companion can be an ally.

From the index in the back,

ally An ally is someone on your side. You are not counted as your own ally. 456

Page 456 has information on allies in the top, saying:

Some effects target or require an ally, or otherwise refer to an ally. This must be someone on your side, often another PC, but it might be a bystander you are trying to protect. You are not your own ally. If it isn’t clear, the GM decides who counts as an ally or an enemy.

GM has final say. “Someone” might be ambiguous, and define a person as a qualifier for an ally, but it might be used here in the general sense too. So we look at the rest of the paragraph. Your animal companion fights on your side, and is not an enemy. If a bystander can be considered an ally, then an animal companion putting its life on the line for you fighting for you and accompanying you on adventures like other members of the party is certainly an ally.

“That implies that the general default is "reactions happen simultaneously with their triggers and can disrupt them" unless otherwise specified.”

Reactions can only disrupt if they say they do. If an action is disrupted, p462 describes the outcome: the actions are spent, and GM makes final call about the result. Usually this means the thing didn’t happen or succeed, but say a disrupted long jump doesn’t send the person back where they came from.

Nothing disrupts unless it explicitly says it does. Readying an attack to hit a spellcaster? Hits, only does damage because that’s all a melee strike does.

Very few things disrupt actions. The melee strike on the fighter’s attack of opportunity is one. It only works if :

1. It was a manipulate action
2. The attack critically hits.

Movement isn’t disrupted by an attack of opportunity.

The fighter feat Disruptive Stance expands this to concentrate actions too, and makes it work on a hit instead of a crit, but it still has to be from the attack of opportunity.

Rangers get Disrupt Prey, which lets them do a melee strike on a move, manipulate action, or leave a threatened square. On crit, the action is disrupted.

Rogues get Reactive interference, which lets them disrupt a reaction.

Casters may take counterspell to have a chance to disrupt spells.

That’s it. Those are the only ways to disrupt an action in 2E today.

The short answer is “yes.” It works.

Pathfinder 2nd edition rules do exactly and only what they say they do. If you take both feats you get the extra reaction twice.

The GenCon signup questionnaire says 7 to 10 slots are "Hotel or parking pass"

At what level gives the hotel for sure? Flying in, I won't have a car to park...or sleep in :)

This seems like a good direction.

Consider however that Staves and Wands are in many respects just another consumable. They’re also like s weapon: you pick them up or draw them, and use them.

Why not treat them like weapons too? You can pick up and use any weapon, wwands and staves should be the same way. No “resonance” needed to use staves and wands, just like potions, BUT every use can be empowered with focus.

The trick would then be “what is the effect of a spell when it’s focused”. That’s the time consuming, but fun part: add a focus effect to all spells. Examples that the spell might list might be extra duration, Extra damage dice, extra healing dice, or result is treated as result one worse/one better.

Then expand it to feats or class abilities. Some classes already have this with spell points. Fighters and other classes that don’t will need some generic actions, and a few class features, that can be enhanced with focus.

Treating all “consumables/weapons” the same way would help simplify the system for player. Yes this means a lot more up front work and balancing...which we appreciate, Paizo :)

The amount of page flipping we have to do is already quite a bit. I'd like to reduce it whenever possible. I'd prefer the spell entry to contain everything it needs for a new player to understand it.

I can echo a lot of things already said here from a position as a muster and station runner.

GMs:

• Thanks for being understanding about the stickers!
• Always be ready for new players, experienced players, slow players; that's the GMs job. No need to make "new player friendly" GM distinctions.

Mustering:

• would be handy to see the tier of the game on the sheet..
• would be handy to have a map of iconic locations.
• would be handy to have the list of games and their iconics per slot.

Boons + Tokens:

• The 4 -> 2 conversion created way more problems than it solved.
• PaizoCon has a "one slot, one prize" system. With that system everyone knew to cash in their token, and most did. Subjectively it felt like a smaller percentage of people held onto tokens at PaizoCon when they could get a prize every time they play.
.

Signage:

• A "map" of iconic locations for the musterers, HQ staff, and player boards would help. Distribute a page with game locations with each pack and to each HQ table will also alleviate any questions about where to go.
• BTW thanks for jumping on improving signage for locations after the Thursday AM slot!

Specials:

• post the plan for generics (where to line up) and share it with all Musterers. Have a board too.
• During specials Have someone walk/manage the line of Generics to keep them informed. We had a huge generic line for our second special, but then the line dissolved mid muster and we ended up with GMs without players
• Cards are awesome, as long as we can stick to only 2-3 primary colors. Us colorblind folk had to guess during the Assault on Absalom on more than a couple occasions.
• the "double diamond" formation for special relays seemed to work well (two in center, two at end of aisle, then one more halfway along each part of the room for a total of four per side, eight total.

Glav wrote:

Imbicatus wrote:

Varun Creed wrote:

It's very powerful against ranged and spellcasters, as they'll keep provoking. :)

It doesn't matter if they keep provoking, you've already used your reaction to step up.

Step up and Strike gives you the option to hold the attack from SUAS until later...such as to interrupt a spell caster.

Yes, but I was referring to Step Up alone.

It still lets the person who steps up have their standard and move actions. Otherwise it would be a move action to do a guarded step to approach. Trading a reaction for a Move action on your next turn is a really good trade.

SUaS as a follow-on feat just makes it even better...a move action and an attack all as a reaction? It's like getting two turns.

Pretty much every item in Starfinder has an "item level". However, the word "item level" does not seem to appear anywhere in the Equipment section on computers (p. 213). Computers instead have tiers.

Page 235 says we can craft a computer with tier equal to 1/2 ranks in engineering of computer, but doesn't mention anything about a computer's item level.

Com units say they can be upgraded at 110% of the price of a computer (p 218), but that doesn't seem to increase the item level. It also seems like it might to allow me to ignore the increased bulk, and ignore the need to pay extra to reduce the bulk of the computer to a smaller computer. (Intentionally?) I'd probably argue that to make a computer fit, I'd have to pay for the bulk reduction to the point it can fit in a commlink...but that also increases the price of the computer, so it seems weird to have to pay for both...but none of that increases the item level.)

Where do we find information on the item level for computers?

Varun Creed wrote:

It's very powerful against ranged and spellcasters, as they'll keep provoking. :)

It doesn't matter if they keep provoking, you've already used your reaction to step up.

Step up and Strike gives you the option to hold the attack from SUAS until later...such as to interrupt a spell caster.

Hey Gary! I'd love to fill that slot for 8-25. I'll message ya. :)

I'm aware of at least one character in my area that has triple classed, two of which are spellcasters, both of which the character lacks prerequisite statistics (two different statistics, mind you). It works really well.

On initial look the brew format looks helpful! Thanks! Looking forward to GenCon!

Is there a list of summary of changes from Season 7 anywhere?

Finlanderboy wrote:

Walter Sheppard wrote:

We're even allowed to disagree with Tonya (provided we do so politely and quietly)

This is very depressing to hear. That you have to stress how quietly you are allowed to disagree with someone.

It seems my attempt at humor failed. My bad there. I was trying to use the smaller text to indicate a whimsical, timid tone which is certainly outside my character. And as it might need to be stated: as VOs our opinions are not censored by Paizo.

To clarify: I discuss my opinions loudly, openly, and honestly to anyone who cares listen, PFS staff or otherwise.

Perhaps instead of quietly, a better word would be "respectfully"?

A pin could grant you the ability to build a character of that faction with a 15 point buy. Two pins? 10 point buy. Three pins? 5 point buy, starting level must be a commoner or expert.

Andrew Christian wrote:

Chris Mortika wrote:

Then please don't GM games in Classic mode in Pathfinder Society. It simply isn't fair that the game works one way at your table, and other ways at everybody else's. People make mistakes, sure, but it isn't right for you to decide to ignore errata deliberately.

Not only is it not right. It's against the rules of the campaign.

Sure. But let's put it another way.

It is contradictory to say that players must own sources so that they can provide the written text on demand, because GMs can't be expected to know all the rules, and also say that GMs are expected to know all the rules well enough to know when the written text is wrong.

I have no problem with any of the errata, but there's a lot here that will get missed consistently, due to the written text in the book no longer being reliable.

It's the player's job to make sure additional resources are available for review, not the GM. As a GM it takes all of a couple minutes to know that an errata was printed. It is the player's job to make sure they bring the book and any errata to the book. If the GM is unfamiliar with a source, the GM can ask for the player to present the rules (the latest errata if it exists) for them. If they cannot, it's disallowed. If they can, the GM familiarizes themselves with it right then.

This is the same with all additional resources since additional resources started. It's really nothing new, except there are more options to pick from and (one) more document to check. GMs may just have to ask more often than they did before. There's nothing wrong with that.

These adjustments are all well deserved.

To people who think Paizo doesn't understand what they're doing: you probably have no idea just how much more Pathfinder they play than you. :)

Glav wrote:

Ideas:

We've talked a lot about good and evil...what of chaos and insanity? One of my favorite characters I role play that he has hallucinations. What if a boon gives a benefit, but also some form of insanity, or drawback? Perhaps a chance-based disability? For example Roll a 1, trigger a drawback 1/scenario.

This runs into a very different and very REAL issue with mental health concerns, as well as griefing possibilities.

If there's a chance-based disability to say, 'get confused' under *insert trigger here*, then it could be abused to engage in 'legit PvP'.

I agree that a pure mental illness as an effect would be in bad taste. I'd assume the designers would build the boons in such a a way that it limits the effects, like every other item or boon that had a drawback. It could be a stated spell-like ability, a status condition, with a specific duration (die-roll rounds, next encounter, etc.) or some other stated effect (e.g., temporarily can't consider anyone an ally for the purposes of flanking and teamwork feats.) As with most other effects with downsides, anything that would inflict a status that the player is immune to would nullify the effect of the boon.

Not all insanity is Chaos, and to place that as an equivalency is sort of misguided.

An exceptionally strict Lawful person could be even more deranged than a Chaotic one, with a very taut philosphy that brooks no wavering.

Absolutely, but they can be, and exploring some of that "descent into madness" from lovecraftian style fiction might be an interesting way to introduce some new boons, especially with Horror Adventures right around the corner.

The idea of "chance" or "Freedom" could be explored with a purely chaotic boon, but I'd want to avoid "rod of wonder" like effects.

Do you like these?

Meaningful choices are the core of any game. I'm a fan of options.

Have I taken them? Yes and no, based on the character and the power of the boon. Temptation works. :-) The Warden's boon, in the right case, would be very interesting to the right character. When I ran it, no one took it...but our main martial character was a paladin, and our second was a magus. I felt the warden's boon's long term effect was thematic and cool.

Long term trade offs are important. An atonement is a good first step for weaker evil boons. For stronger boons, there should be more consequences. I think a good trade off would be if you can't (easily) gain similar bonuses from an item, you should pay for it in additional ways. These could be trading a trait slot, a feat slot, a class ability, more atonements, ongoing prestige, money, spellcasting, or...perhaps something you can find on chronicle sheets to power it up for X number of scenarios. Or something corrupting...permanently sacrifice a trait/feat/class feature to temporarily power it up. With some kind of power source, another decision happens: use your powerful but limited ability, or risk death.

Ultimately, I feel that any piece of power earned should be paid for in some way.

Ideas:

We've talked a lot about good and evil...what of chaos and insanity? One of my favorite characters I role play that he has hallucinations. What if a boon gives a benefit, but also some form of insanity, or drawback? Perhaps a chance-based disability? For example Roll a 1, trigger a drawback 1/scenario.

It's completely legal. If your play group gets in knots about it, don't fret; awesome other play groups are out there :-)

I feel that the Paizo employees that publish these changes have probably sat down at enough home, company, public games, playing adventure paths, homebrew, and Pathfinder Society tables to see this feat, in action, and unbalanced. To those affected, sorry, but it happens.

Work on discovering the next extremely strong concept :-)

I've always ruled it to be a free action that lasts until your next turn. Meaning it can only be done on your turn, and that you can't avert your eyes during your turn and act with a chance not to make the save and then close your eyes at the end of your turn to completely avoid the save if the monster wants to target you with their attack.

Side note: it's a common misconception that gaze attacks happen on the creature's turn. From the universal monster rules on gaze attacks:

Each opponent within range of a gaze attack must attempt a saving throw each round at the beginning of his or her turn in the initiative order.

The check happens at the beginning of the player's turn, passively.

The monster, as a standard action, can "gaze" at a person to affect them on the monster's turn as well, but that only affects one target.

The confusion is compounded with a number of low CR monsters having a "gaze attack" that is activated that DOES happen on the creature's turn...but for your standard gaze attack, it happens on the player's turn.

but what action? The universal monster rules for gaze attacks say you can do them, but don't specify an action.

Averting Eyes: The opponent avoids looking at the creature’s face, instead looking at its body, watching its shadow, tracking it in a reflective surface, etc. Each round, the opponent has a 50% chance to avoid having to make a saving throw against the gaze attack. The creature with the gaze attack, however, gains concealment against that opponent.

Wearing a Blindfold: The foe cannot see the creature at all (also possible to achieve by turning one's back on the creature or shutting one's eyes). The creature with the gaze attack gains total concealment against the opponent.

That leads me to believe that they are simply options to declare (not an action).

Another aside: since you can keep your back to the creature, you do NOT have to be blind; your target only needs total concealment.

From a strict reading, it might actually be worse than anyone here stated already: Breath of Life returns you from the brink at the cost of a temporary negative level and the loss of all your spells.

Death and Prepared Spell Retention: If a spellcaster dies, all prepared spells stored in his mind are wiped away. Potent magic (such as raise dead, resurrection, or true resurrection) can recover the lost energy when it recovers the character.

So by default, if a character dies, the character loses all their spells.

Raise dead...

A character who died with spells prepared has a 50% chance of losing any given spell upon being raised. A spellcasting creature that doesn't prepare spells (such as a sorcerer) has a 50% chance of losing any given unused spell slot as if it had been used to cast a spell.

For Resurrection...

This spell functions like raise dead, except that you are able to restore life and complete strength to any deceased creature.

...Upon completion of the spell, the creature is immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health, with no loss of prepared spells.

(Emphasis mine.) Resurrection says you DO get to keep them, and keep all of them.

For True Resurrection...

This spell functions like raise dead, except that you can resurrect a creature that has been dead for as long as 10 years per caster level. This spell can even bring back creatures whose bodies have been destroyed, provided that you unambiguously identify the deceased in some fashion (reciting the deceased's time and place of birth or death is the most common method).

Upon completion of the spell, the creature is immediately restored to full hit points, vigor, and health, with no negative levels (or Constitution points) and all of the prepared spells possessed by the creature when it died.

(emphasis mine)

And now on to Breath of Life:

This spell cures 5d8 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +25).

Unlike other spells that heal damage, breath of life can bring recently slain creatures back to life. If cast upon a creature that has died within 1 round, apply the healing from this spell to the creature. If the healed creature's hit point total is at a negative amount less than its Constitution score, it comes back to life and stabilizes at its new hit point total. If the creature's hit point total is at a negative amount equal to or greater than its Constitution score, the creature remains dead. Creatures brought back to life through breath of life gain a temporary negative level that lasts for 1 day.

Creatures slain by death effects cannot be saved by breath of life.

Like cure spells, breath of life deals damage to undead creatures rather than curing them, and cannot bring them back to life.

"...it comes back to life",

"...remains dead..."

Nothing here says the character didn't die. When you die, you lose all your spells. Nothing in Breath of Life says "works like Raise Dead" like Resurrection or True Resurrection, and it says nothing about saving your spells.

Wonderful to see this posted so early this year.

GMing GenCon the last few years has been a blast. My app is in. I hope to see you all again this year!

Animate Dead is a classic of fantasy and Golarion lore. A well prepared player can apply a template easily. The cost plus the loss of the creature at the end of the scenario is a reasonable trade off for a temporary additional companion/hit point sponge.

The templates have their own additional costs and drawbacks. It's reasonable to me that the bestiary 1 templates could be free to be allowed when they specify the specific requirements to make them (such as casting Haste/remove paralysis for a fast zombie or double HD limit requirement on creation for bloody skeletons). Additional templates outside of the Bestiary should probably be explicitly spelled out in additional resources and assumed to be not available. Likely this would mean templates that are there for flavor for the GM and have no rules to make them would not be allowed.

I also would not be in favor of granting Paladins any additional free abilities. Clerics gaining proficiency with their deity's favored weapon is part of the class. Paladins have no such ability and shouldn't have it in PFS as a result. Adding features to classes for flavor sake is entirely different than clarifying existing rules.

Thanks for the update John!

If anyone else comes across this, I found it:

Halfling only, "Shared Ownership" teamwork feat from Inner Sea Races page 209 is what I was looking for!

I seem to recall that a feat or ability came out recently that let you draw an ally's item from your person, as long as it hadn't been established who was carrying it. Was this a real ability? If so, what is it called and what book was it from?

Congratulations! Come down to Pullman some time :-)

Congratulations! We on the nevergreen side have some catching up to do, numbers-wise. Welcome to the ranks!

Welcome! Get ready for a wild ride!

Welcome to the crucible, Tonya! You thought pleasing people at GenCon was hard... :-)

What exactly was the point of destroying Feral Combat Training?

It was a neat feat, to be sure, but was not very abusable, and took quite a bit of effort and counting as a Fighter to get really good.

Now it's just basically a total wash of a Feat.

This is not the right forum for discussion on the rules changes; see the Pathfinder RPG forums.

In general:

This is great! Answering these questions as the errata is released will save a watershed of questions for us GMs. Thank you John!

Thank you all for the kind words! :) Looks like the Paizo.com database isn't quite up to date yet, but I'm sure that'll be taken care of eventually.

The Fox wrote:

Congratulations!

Now come up here and game with us in Spokane from time to time.

We really need some sort of exchange program between Spokane and Pullman. :)

NO! He's ours! Bwahahaha

Gentlemen, Ladies, I think we all know there's enough of me to share. :)

Grats Bobby! Well deserved! Be sure to head on down to San Diego and show us your skillz!!

Next time I'm there, for sure!

I'd like to thank my GM for Siege of Serpents, True Dragons and Serpent's Rise, a wonderful GM named Robert. He didn't kill our first table despite the fact we were downright awful, and he handled the second and third table amazingly despite the sheer powergaming capabilities of those tables (I didn't have the same group for the last two).

That's our boy Robert "Bobby" Pepka--Glav on the boards. He's a Washington treasure, both as a GM and a player. Those specials actually helped him get his 5th star at GenCon this year! So thanks for helping him out!

Thanks guys! :-)

Wahoo! Glad to see this updated!

Thanks for everything you've done for PFS. Take care and good luck!

It was originally posted in the PFS forum. It seems it was moved!

On Wednesday, we took the wrappers off the shiny NDA on PFS5th at our FLGS game night. Response was mostly positive with some mixed on certain systems, but over all we had a good time. I wanted to report in now that our trial is over and I've had some time to think about it. I hope to get some feedback from others on how their games went.

For those of you who didn't invited in to the beta for PFS5th, here's a rundown of the new PFS5th rules.

Overview

PFS5th is completely new system based on Pathfinder rules for Pathfinder Society. It is an abstract system. It is a game of the theater of the mind. The GM has to be good at describing (in addition to drawing on flip mats) the environment around her. There is a lot of imagination involved, and creativity. Fortunately, it also uses playmats, making it completely compatible with existing PFS materials and scenarios. Characters in Pathfinder work just fine in PFS5th edition (no classes have been released yet).

Since there are no PFS5th events released yet, we played a scenario and applied the upgrade rules for our characters and the scenario.

Since not everyone was aware of the new rules, I shared them with people as we played and situations came up.

PFS Events

In PFS5th, scenarios are replaced by events. Events are like scenarios, but in addition to providing a chronicle sheet, you also get event points. Event points are very important for Rollplaying Checks (see below). You get seven event points for every event (aka, scenario) completed. You also get variable event points for every supplement purchased. There's no computer system set up to track this right now, so the PFS5th guide suggested requiring people to show the book. (However you can only use PFS5th edition books for this, old Pathfinder books and PDFs didn't count.) The guide suggested that a 32 or 64 page supplement would be on the order of 30 points, and hardcover might be more. These points are all additive as a bonus on Rollplaying checks.

Rollplaying Checks

This is probably the most interesting new aspect of PFS5th edition. Whenever you need to do an action, you can describe it as usual, and/or you can make a Rollplaying check. Rollplaying checks are usually made with a d100 (but might not in some circumstances). The most important part of a Rollplaying check is how well you roleplay rolling the check. It's important to remember that roleplaying is important in a rollplaying check: if you roleplay well, the GM is required to add a modifier (positive or negative) depending on how well the player roleplayed the rollplaying check. This can be anywhere from +100 to -100 to the check, but excellent roleplaying of the rollplaying roll may warrant more (or lackluster energy and effort my result in a bigger penalty). Higher numbers are usually better. This number impacts roleplaying aspects of each encounter or d20 roll. Really good roleplayers just roleplay their rollplaying check; some even were able to use d6's or d20's. The best at our table made me really believe that they rolled their rollplaying checks without needing to even use dice.

Rollplaying checks are exclusively for players. NPCs can't make rollplaying checks. GMs simply decide how an NPC rolls their rollplaying check.

There are three kinds of rollplaying checks: Basic, Opposed, and Cooperative (also known as a check-off).

• Basic: When you make a d20 roll, you can also make a rollplaying check to see how good your roleplaying was about making the d20 roll. This is mostly important for social encounters, but really good rollplaying checks in a combat situation can help even a rogue strike an enemy.
  
• Opposed: When you have an enemy NPC that makes a rollplaying check, a player can oppose that with their own. Think of this like a debate, or an opposed intimidate.
  
• Cooperative: Cooperative rollplaying checks are the roleplaying equivalent of aiding another. When two players are working together on a single action, they alternate rollplaying checks until they can't roll higher than the previous roll. Both players get to use the final rollplaying check.
  

As mentioned above, in regular play you get a bonus to your score based on a GM discretion. in PFS5th, in order to make it more fair, you add your event points to the roll to represent your character's growing ability to rollplay.

Action Point System

In PFS5th, the traditional action system has been replace by action points. There are several action points kinds in two categories: standard action points and fast action points.

Standard action points can only be done on your turn.

• Standard Standard action point: You get one of these. Lets you do major actions in combat, like fighting, casting spells, and the like. The PFS5th edition handout didn't go into detail on this, but otherwise it works like a standard action.
  
• Standard Move action point: You get one of these. Lets you change location, grab something, flip a switch, stand up, and the like. Think of this like a "move" action.
  
• Standard swift action point: You get one of these. Works like swift actions.
  
• Standard free action point: these you can do at almost any time on your turn.
  

Fast action points can be done whenever you like.

• Fast limited action points: Basically equivalent to an AOO. Feats like combat reflexes and class abilities can give you more than one.
  
• Fast swift action point: Like an immediate action, consumes your standard swift action point on your next turn.
  
• Fast free action point: you can do as many of these as you want as long as it's not your turn.
  

Special action points:

• Standard Complex action point: a complex action point is a standard action point that takes a Standard Standard action point and a Standard Move action point, and lets you do something like charge. These action points are analogous to full round actions or one round actions.
  

It sounds confusing at first, but really, the new action point system was really easy to follow once we started playing.

Movement

PFS5th has a compatible movement system with Pathfinder, so conversion was easy after teaching people how to use it. Instead of simply moving places in combat, you have to make a movement roll. A movement roll is a d20 plus your move speed. If you meet or exceed the DC of movement for an encounter (usually 40, but less for cramped encounters or more for outdoors encounters) you can move. On a grid you still always move your speed, but meeting or exceeding the DC lets you approach or disengage from an opponent when you don't use a grid. You can of course take a standard complex action point to add your speed twice to this roll; small creatures, dwarfs, medium armor wearers, or heavy armor wearers typically need to use standard complex action points to move appropriately.

As an advantage for those who train in it, acrobatics is added to this roll.

Experience Report

We had a group of six that volunteered for this event, and we chose By Way of Bloodcove. This scenario I felt was particularly good due to the many roleplaying, rollplaying, and the open world nature of the scenario. Having run it a few times now it's never run quite the same way.

The players got used to the new rules pretty quickly. It took some of them a while to figure out how to do rollplaying checks, but with quick feedback from me as the GM, they started to get used to it. We had one player who really got into the rollplaying aspect, and even figured out in one encounter that during his rollplaying check-off, he could roll more than just his d100! He ended up rolling 5d6 and using each die as a different value, getting a rollplaying check result of 36,000 ish. It really enhanced the description of his bull rush check.

Combat is as deadly as ever. Most people had played the scenario before, but since we were running it in core mode, everyone could get credit for it again. One had not played before at all, so that person made major decisions. That person decided it was fine to split the party to gather information, but accidentally triggered a combat...and by accidentally, I mean they intentionally triggered it by building a trap igniting it, and setting it off. This trap ended up engulfing most of the enemies, but one of the NPCs survived. This turned out to be the team's undoing: the NPC downed one of the three that split off to this encounter, and a great axe crit brought the other to true dead. Not even the excellent rollplaying could undo that. Fortunately, another player at the table had a free rez boon, and a cleric of Gozreh was handy.

Roleplaying with the new rollplaying system went well. We breezed through several social encounters. A couple of people by this point had really good roleplaying in their rollplaying rolls, and had decided to stop rolling dice altogether and just roleplay the rollplaying roll. Only in one case did I have to apply a negative GM modifier to the rollplaying roll due to poor roleplaying of the player, and that player learned very quickly that it was important to roleplay.

Summary

Overall the trial of PFS5th went just fine.

Everyone got into the new rollplaying system, but this new system added a lot of overhead. While everyone really enjoyed themselves, we went over on time for our five hour timeslot and had to cut the final encounter. The roleplaying opportunities with the rollplaying system is very much appreciated. I'm curious how the event bonus to rollplaying checks will work out in the long run - I'm not sure if I like the "pay to win" roleplaying implications...even if I am already subscribed to all of those book lines. It would be nice if that was incorporated right into the website and my PFS card so I could just show it instead of having to add it all up.

The other question I had was whether or not the event bonus to our rollplaying checks from books applied to only a single character or all characters; the document I had on this system was unclear. It might be a little unfair if they apply to all characters - a new character would automatically get a big bonus to rollplaying checks which wouldn't really be fair for new players. We might want to limit book event bonuses to rollplaying checks to only a single character or a fixed reuse limit, maybe based on GM stars. This might also be a way to curb additional resources: you can only use additional resources from books that you have an event bonus from. (But then that opens up a second question: if you have MULTIPLE physical/pdf copies of the book, can you get multiple boons? Might be a good way to boost sales!) Either way, I would expect to see some kind of standard form for each book, like a chronicle, that says you get that event bonus.

Combat, skills, and other unchanged game related components work well with the new systems. It was a transparent transition, which I really appreciate as a GM, and our players appreciated since they didn't have to rebuild or do any mechanical changes of any kind to their characters.

The out of combat movement system we didn't use much. I like the idea of adding acrobatics to movement, could make for some interesting rollplaying opportunities (like a skill focus/acrobatic dwarf getting +5 and +10 on movement checks in addition to skill ranks). If the PFS5th leadership wants to do this, you may want to consider just making acrobatics a bonus to move speed in addition to other abilities it provides.

The terminology updates were a mixed bag. The action point system description of each action point I felt was a little clearer about when you can and can't do something (standard vs fast). I like the inclusion of "complex" instead of "full round" action (makes it distinct from one round actions.) I was uncomfortable with how the action point names for each action are so long (much harder to explain to people how you get a standard standard action point and standard move action point than "move and standard" action).

I'm not sure about some of the balance changes. I like making "Advanced Class Guide", "Pathfinder Unchained", and the upcoming "Occult Adventures" the new core rulebooks - this will really spice up the society's character range. Potion and scroll crafting is much appreciated as a new character option to compete with alchemists. However, going to "firearms everywhere" is going to make a lot of people mad, even if it does "even the playing field" as the guide said. I forsee a lot of one level dips for the firearm training 1 at level 1 for gunslinger. Introduction of LE as a playable alignment is going to cause all sorts of headaches, but NE as well is just going to make people mad, even if they have to "explore, report, cooperate" to remain in the society. (Atonement are going to be flying like hotcakes.) Thank you for keeping away from CE. Both of these might need to be rethought to keep Pathfinder Society as an all-inclusive game.

In conclusion

I think PFS5th has a ways to go, but it's shaping up nice. I'm sorry to say we only got one day to test this (last Wednesday to last Wednesday was a very short beta period) but I'm glad we got the opportunity to try it out. I appreciated the opportunity to participate in this beta test, and I'd be happy to do it again. As always, I'm looking forward to whatever comes next! :)

As a head's up, dirty trick master is not allowed in PFS. See the Additional Resources:

Pathfinder Player Companion: Bastards of Golarion

Archetypes: the archetype on page 9 is legal for play; Equipment: kin's face tattoo and ring of culturemeld are legal for play; Feats: all feats on pages 16-17 and pages 23-25 are legal, except the gillmen feat and dirty trick master; Misc.: the bard masterpiece on page 27 is legal; Traits: The traits on pages 4-13 and 28-29 are only legal if your character is of the same ethnicity as the section with the trait. All traits on pages 4-29 are legal, except azlanti inheritor, curse in the blood, evader, marked by unknown forces, mordant envoy, signature moves, and thinblood resilience.

(Emphasis mine.)

The Additional Resources page says:

Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of the Moon

To create a skinwalker (which includes all were-kin), you must have a Chronicle sheet that opens the race as a legal option at character creation.

Note: Racial feats, racial traits, and racial spells are only available for characters of the skinwalker race. Racial equipment and magic items can be purchased and used by any race as long as the specific item permits it.

The becoming a lycanthrope section of this book is not legal for Pathfinder Society play unless noted on a future Chronicle sheet.

Equipment: all equipment on page 30 are legal; Magic Items: all magic items on pages 30-31 are legal; Mystery: the lunar mystery is legal for play.

Unless you're a skinwalker, no feats are available. The only items generally available are listed above: equipment on page 30, magic items on page 30-31, and the lunar mystery.

From the SRD on earth elementals:

When an earth elemental lumbers into action, its actual appearance can vary, although its statistics remain identical to other elementals of its size. Most earth elementals look like terrestrial animals made out of rock, earth, or even crystal, with glowing gemstones for eyes. Larger earth elementals often have a stony humanoid appearance. Bits of vegetation frequently grow in the soil that makes up parts of an earth elemental's body.

Since. "Most look like terrestrial animals" your safest bet is to pay the barding cost for a non -humanoid. At the very least you protect yourself from Table variation in an audit, and unless you're buying stone plate or full plate, won't pay much more.

By any chance does this mean we will be able to report the different parts of Wardens of the Reborn Forge as separate pieces?