Guntermench's page

It also means they can add feats and features to make the action economy easier, like being able to Hide + Reload for Sniper Gunslingers.

I still don't understand how the Rare tag didn't accomplish this already.

Sudden Leap has a provision for Felling Strike.

It seems Battle Harbinger from Divine Mysteries also gets Legendary Class DC at level 19.

But how to take advantage of it? What are some great abilities or combos that rely on class DC?

Kobold/Dragonblood breath? Some crit specs.

Casters, as they usually use their Spell DC instead.

Class DCs all go to Master, none to Legendary. They are aligned with Magus/Summoner spell DCs.

Only for effects that specify you can use either.

For anything else they have the worst Class DC as it never goes beyond Trained.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Gortle wrote:

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Greater weapon spec doesn't work RAW

I think they likely do RAW. Which is why I left the uncertainty in my statement. It is not a modifier or a bonus. Go back a reread the many arguments on it before. It is far from clear.

Yes yes, not responding to you on that matter. Seen your arguments, not what the sentence says and don't feel like doing that again.

It says what can only be adjusted by two modifiers and any penalties, additional damage isn't a modifier. Which is why it is called out as an exception, rage would not need to be mentioned otherwise.
It doesn't and has never said it can only be modified by two modifiers and anything else that isn't a modifier.

Paizo may intend for it to be otherwise, but since they have refused to FAQ it despite it being the topic of some of the longest and most tiresome threads on this forum we have no basis for RAI.

But does entering a Battle Form also mean you lose all your other relevant features, too? Like Juggernaut, Deny Advantage, Instinct benefits, etc.?

How many of those adjust something that the battle form gives you?

The dark archive is full of rare options whose balance is not that careful, not against each other or against the game as a whole.

That's not a good thing either.

It gives a list of what can modify. But additional damage is not one of the modifiers.

This is correct, and why the Dragon Transformation explicitly states that it allows for the Rage to apply.

However if your judgement comes up with a core class feature that is so bad you feel it is useless. Then you have it wrong.

It would be useless if the Rage didn't apply. But it says it does, so it does, so it is therefore not useless.

Universally useful? No. But that's not the same thing as useless.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

Greater weapon spec doesn't work RAW

I think they likely do RAW. Which is why I left the uncertainty in my statement. It is not a modifier or a bonus. Go back a reread the many arguments on it before. It is far from clear.

That would be a reason for it not to apply.

Polymorph gives a whitelist, not a blacklist, and "additional damage" is not on it.

But then again I am antithetical to the whole idea of "strong options pressure players thing."( i think it has more to do with play culture rather than the rules simply existing.)

Players optimizing the fun out of games has always been a thing.

Force Barrage for the win.

You are arguing definitions. Namely what is the "same thing". Is Resist Energy:fire and Resist Energy:electricity the same thing or not?

Personally, I think no, different effects from the same spell aren't the same thing.
Besides, this is very rare and allowing 'stacking' (which is not real here) won't break anything.

They're the same spell, so you'd just extend the duration. It's not "Resist Energy: Fire" and "Resist Energy: Electricity", it's "Resist Energy" and "Resist Energy". This isn't Shadowrun where it's "Resist [energy]" and you have to learn a new spell for every energy type.

Shrug and move on.

Guntermench wrote:

shroudb wrote:

I can understand sometimes a bystander familiar getting caught in an AoE. But, as an example, having the enemy who's fighting for his life against a player party suddenly stop hitting the things that are killing it and focusing his attention on the tiny animal that just sits there and isn't a threat seems kinda... insane (to be polite)?

Sometimes the enemy both isn't actually fighting for their life and is also a prick. If they're pretty clearly winning and being cruel is in character it's 100% on the table.

Maybe within character, but still a dick move by the GM. This sounds too much like the toxic "that's what my character would do" to me.

Playing what characters do is literally the point of the game, and if it's on the grid it's a target. Especially if it's been doing magic b!$&~!~&.

And this is a pretty good signal that the party is getting their ass kicked and maybe they should consider finding an escape route without killing a PC and also giving them another reason to hate this particular enemy.

I can understand sometimes a bystander familiar getting caught in an AoE. But, as an example, having the enemy who's fighting for his life against a player party suddenly stop hitting the things that are killing it and focusing his attention on the tiny animal that just sits there and isn't a threat seems kinda... insane (to be polite)?

Sometimes the enemy both isn't actually fighting for their life and is also a prick. If they're pretty clearly winning and being cruel is in character it's 100% on the table.

Even with the changes to Restorative Recollection it still cannot actually be used to decrease your Stunned value since even if theoretically you got Stunned on your turn, the effects of the Stunned condition prevent you from acting.

At least it's usable as a free action RK now.

Castilliano wrote:

1. Rolls and stats don't interfere with roleplaying, if one wishes to roleplay. Tables that abide by the numbers (to even the utmost degree) can be as immersive as tables that don't. As default at my tables, players are assumed to be speaking in character.

2. Being able to surpass one's PC's abilities is not RPing "in character". Presenting that as superior RPing is laughable. It means the player's divorced from their actual role (or as others have mentioned, that many of their stats & abilities have little to no purpose).
3. Ask improv performers or drama students how they feel about limitations, heck creators in general, and most will have recognized that limits augment creativity rather than hinder it. So yeah, using the results of a roll as the seed for RPing enhances it, not lessens.

Not caring what you and your table prefer, Derivon, only clearing up the misconceptions about those who play by the numbers, most of whom embrace RPing just as enthusiastically.

I don't agree with this. I think it is provably wrong, but doubt anyone would do the study to test it.

I don't think tables that rely on rolls are as immersive. I think they start to default to rolls and that has been my experience. You reach a point where if the DM is just going by rolls, they just want to get it over with and use the roll as too much thought in the roleplay doesn't impact the outcome.

So I don't consider what I pose as a misconception. It is based on my forty plus years of experience DMing.

If you want role-play to be pursued and an immersive table, then the role-play must be able to impact the game as much or more than the rolls. Or players are naturally inclined to default to rolls and some loose explanation of why because the rolls matter more than the role-play.

I doubt we'll ever see eye to eye on it. I've been DMing for a long time. I've run many players using my methods. I've built numerous memorable experiences for my players over the years. That's far more important than...

It sounds more like you prefer to allow bad roleplay to succeed because you've always played it that way.

Just because you think something was cool doesn't actually mean they did a good job roleplaying the character they made.

It certainly reads like he is.

maybe at Deriven's table since that might give you a free success even if you have zero athletics or spellcasting proficiency with your weapon

Or you could just go outside and climb a tree to show you're a good climber.

Personally I'm a fan of treating out of combat stuff the same as in combat: you say what you want to do, you roll, you roleplay the result.

If you roll d**$~~+ you get to roleplay your character giving the worst speech of all time. If you roll great, you get to roleplay your character giving the best speech of all time. Alternatively to minimize distrupting the flow of a conversation, just roll it then act out the result without the whole "I'm planning to" if you're comfortable.

SuperBidi wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Rolling dice for everything doesn't lead to much roleplay or character development or much thought. A player saying, "I roll my diplomacy check" without having to put any thought or effort into developing a good-roleplay scenario doesn't make for much character development.

I'm obviously not advocating for that. I'm advocating for "good roleplay". And that's where our definitions differ. The 10 Charisma no Diplomacy Fighter making a great speech is bad roleplay to me. It's using the player skills instead of the character skills, for me it's akin to metagaming. After all, if I can forgo the roll if I roleplay well, I should be able to forgo the roll if I know the Bestiary by heart? I'm sure you don't agree with that so why do you allow it for Charisma-based checks?

Deriven Firelion wrote:

That would be like going, "Mr. Player A, your charisma is only 10. You can't possibly come up with a great speech and deliver it well. Sorry you can had to spend your stats to make sure your Str, Dex, Con, and Wis were high enough so you didn't end up getting wasted by every monster with a save ability. You can't participate in the RP because of your 10 charisma."

And that's exactly what I've said to a player. If you want to be the one making great speeches, then increase Charisma. At the very least, grab Diplomacy. And don't tell me it's a problem to be Trained in one skill in this system.

Now, it doesn't prevent you from roleplaying.
Roleplaying is not just about convincing people, there are tons of roleplaying opportunities that are not gated behind a roll. You roll when you want to, mostly, convince people in a timely manner. But if you are just having fun with someone you don't roll, you don't roll to get new friends, you don't roll to find a romantic partner, etc...
There are also some interesting skill substitutions, like using Lores for social interactions with specific social groups, or even I could allow an Arcana check if the

...

Should I be able to just win in combat if I can beat the GM in a sword fight IRL?

At best good roleplay should provide a bonus on a check, not prevent the check from being made.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

I wouldn't mind seeing the actual statistics for this, but I understand that it is a lot of work and a large amount of cross-referencing.

Best tool for this

Nearly 25% of the creatures have low fort. So that's rather high, even if lower than the other saves.

So not quite about 30%. Ah well, close enough.

It's definitely higher than it's made out to be.

Reasonably certain the actual percentage is about 30%, as one would expect it to be.

Unconscious isn't a prerequisite to suffocate, it is a simultaneous result of running out of air. You also aren't required to run out of air to suffocate, only lose access to air.

Trip you are correct that suffocating is defined, but you're highlighting the wrong parts. The effects of suffocation are thus:

You can't recover from being unconscious and must attempt a DC 20 Fortitude save at the end of each of your turns. On a failure, you take 1d10 damage, and on a critical failure, you die. On each check after the first, the DC increases by 5 and the damage by 1d10; these increases are cumulative.

So for these bracers, and the old necklace: you can't recover from being unconscious (irrelevant) and must make a DC 20 Fort save at the end of your turn. On a failure you take damage, on a critical failure you die.

Of course, killing a PC at the first chance by hitting them while down is exceedingly unfun for healer PCs, as you are actively negating their character's ability by not giving them a chance to use it.

They should probably try healing before the other PC goes down.

Guntermench wrote:

Quote:

becomes easier

Can become easier. The only consistently available option is Breath of Life which doesn't work on death effects.

That's between you and your buddies.

Everything else is Uncommon. By definition they're going to be inconsistent in availability, as determined by the GM.

You don't necessarily need Dex to survive, Con can also work.

But the secondary of it being the attack stat pushes it up significantly though.

becomes easier

Can become easier. The only consistently available option is Breath of Life which doesn't work on death effects.

Deriven seems to be operating under the assumption that the character is a Fighter and is the only one participating in the fight.

Bottom line is how good and how necessary crafting is is dependent on the GM and the campaign that they're running.

If they make a magic Walmart with everything in every town it's kinda s~+#. If they don't have magic shops it's required.

If you carry multiple persistent damage types, you can be killed nearly instantly thanks to each type of persistent damage being a separate effect, effectively triple-tapping you with 0 chance for a non-Reaction method of intervention.

This is wrong.

The damage you take from persistent damage occurs all at once, so if something triggers when you take damage, it triggers only once; for example, if you're dying with several types of persistent damage, the persistent damage increases your dying condition only once.

Grumpus wrote:

So you could get hit twice in a row by the poison if you got poisoned by a monster as a reactive strike on your turn, then again when your turn ends?

By the interpretation of many people, it seems that way.

It's not really open to interpretation. Poisons are afflictions, therefore they use the affliction rules. There's a subsection about multiple exposures that says poisons take effect on each exposure, even if it's within the onset period.

Yeah it's basically just so Operative doesn't end up the best with them at this point.

Redrazors disagrees with Spell DC and CLass DC being different so he sets them the same because that's how he plays.

Source: there was a bug report put in for it and that was his response.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

magnuskn wrote:

How many completely naked characters do run around, anyway and won't they get arrested for being serial flashers?

You don't need to be completely nude to benefit from full dexterity. Simply wearing ordinary clothing or fine clothing counts.

That seems counterintuitive to Explorers Clothing imposing the +5 DEX cap. IMO, of course.

Wear ordinary clothing, or fancy clothing, or winter clothing.

Just don't wear explorer's clothing.

As it stands Operative is about PF2e Dual Class strong offensively, which seems a bit egregious.

They're technically correct, while both are referred to as potency, the bonus from ABP is very specifically not a rune.

The number of property runes a weapon or armor can have is equal to the value of its potency rune.

Therefore you technically can't etch property runes on weapons or armour in ABP games.

ABP also f#%&s around with AC making naked better than heavy armour (especially without runes).

But property runes being missing is probably fine, I'm pretty sure damage runes aren't actually included in the expected damage math.

There's already a provision that some walls might be too well made to just hack through and you'd need the specific tools to mine through them.

Generally MAP applies unless it says it doesn't.

It should probably have the line that it doesn't qualify as meeting prerequisites though like every other temporary feat feature.

Guntermench wrote:

I dunno, that's what I did in OG Dark Souls after I found my first mimic. As long as they only start doing that after they run into one seems fine to me.

I might be wrong, but it sounds like the tactic is not, "I shoot the chest and if it flinches then it's a mimic," but rather, "I ask the GM if I am, by RAW, even allowed to target the chest at all, and if the answer is 'no', then I know that I'm not dealing with a mimic."

Which honestly seems to me ridiculously wrong-headed on the part of both parties.

Okay, that's kind of stupid.

Guntermench wrote:

I dunno, that's what I did in OG Dark Souls after I found my first mimic. As long as they only start doing that after they run into one seems fine to me.

Comparing a single player video game to a TTRPG lies the way of madness, IMO.

And I'm honestly surprised that OG Dark Souls worked that way (I played it but can't remember). Knowing the difficulty of those games, I would have assumed a mimic wouldn't have been targetable until they revealed themselves to be a mimic, presumably after attacking you.

The mimics actually had 2 tells: they breathed and the chain was different. But until I figured that out it was smack away.

Also you can say it's madness, but this is a game that has its origins in a game where it wasn't uncommon to poke every 5ft square of floor, wall and if in reach ceiling with a 10ft pole. I dunno, it's a little paranoid but I can kinda get it.

Guntermench wrote:

The game engine is designed around hands and action economy more than most anything else.

If the engine can't handle ancestries with more than two hands, why include them at all? The current meta of "you have 4-6 arms but you can only use 2" just shines a spotlight on how badly the engine handles extra hands, and makes multi-armed a waste of word-count in a given ancestry.

Fix the engine instead of crippling ancestries that were just fine in 1e.

Because you can add feats that situationally take advantage of them just fine, and the way they are now is still useful without being busted.

It's having them be always usable or freely swappable that causes problems.

Guntermench wrote:

Na, I have a rebuttal since people seem to be leaning hard on Unwieldy.

The Unwieldy trait doesn't stop you from using a second weapon. It doesn't even stop you from using a second of the exact same weapon. You can also bring yourself another not Unwieldy gun to use with reactions while having an Unwieldy main weapon.

Multiple arms effectively eliminate the downsides of wielding an Unwieldy weapon. They're basically unaffected by the trait.

It's somewhat likely that this kind of gameplay is the intention behind the 9th level feats to let you use all of your arms for a single turn.

Also, I've seen the idea of being able to swap your hands as a free action at the start of your turn thrown around. Such a thing would remove the option, or at least limit the usefulness of, of them making feats that benefit from having multiple arms. There's at least one Soldier feat that I saw that is basically better if you have multiple arms and are carrying around two guns. Limiting them by default, while still making them useful as they have, is more healthy for the game and gives them more design space to work with.

That entirely depends on how you phrase Unwieldy in 2e. If it's phrased something like "Attacking with an Unwieldy weapon is a Flourish action." then the problem of multiple unwieldy weapons is solved, since you get only one Flourish action per turn.

Alright, that's a partial solution. It doesn't stop you from having a second gun that's not Unwieldy and using that to make another attack or a reaction Strike.

It doesn't stop the other things like having a 2h weapon and a shield and a free hand, or 6 Wands of Shardstorm/some SF equivalent. It doesn't stop you from dual wielding other 2h weapons that aren't Unwieldy, unless you make everything 2h Unwieldy which seems fairly unlikely.

The game engine is designed around hands and action economy more than most anything else.

Na, I have a rebuttal since people seem to be leaning hard on Unwieldy.

The Unwieldy trait doesn't stop you from using a second weapon. It doesn't even stop you from using a second of the exact same weapon. You can also bring yourself another not Unwieldy gun to use with reactions while having an Unwieldy main weapon.

Multiple arms effectively eliminate the downsides of wielding an Unwieldy weapon. They're basically unaffected by the trait.

It's somewhat likely that this kind of gameplay is the intention behind the 9th level feats to let you use all of your arms for a single turn.

Also, I've seen the idea of being able to swap your hands as a free action at the start of your turn thrown around. Such a thing would remove the option, or at least limit the usefulness of, of them making feats that benefit from having multiple arms. There's at least one Soldier feat that I saw that is basically better if you have multiple arms and are carrying around two guns. Limiting them by default, while still making them useful as they have, is more healthy for the game and gives them more design space to work with.

Hmm but are sure it needs to be balanced ? IS is that bad ? The systems are vastly different in terms of what they can acheive and at what lvl.

That the class is better than gunslinger with guns is no doubt imo (due to aim damage bonus and some better feat compression). Its role is damage dealing and few classes have such clear purposes.

Honestly they're a lot less different than I thought they'd be. Flight isn't that much earlier, for example.

I dunno, that's what I did in OG Dark Souls after I found my first mimic. As long as they only start doing that after they run into one seems fine to me.

Yeah I don't think I've ever seen a Rogue struggle to keep someone flat footed. Though to be fair I also haven't seen many ranged Rogues. They do get a similar action at level 14...but I think just having Operative a step lower in proficiency would be close enough.

I don't think that mentions a limit so if you use Ancestry Paragon I think you can hit 22 or 24.