Gwen Smith's page

The first thing we need to define is what is a Quick Start Guide (QSG) meant to do and what will it not do. It is meant to provide new players a basic introduction to Pathfinder Society so they can begin playing PFS sessions in under 30 minutes with either a character they built themselves or with a pregen.

For "new players" do you mean "people who play Pathfinder but not PFS" or "people who have never played Pathfinder"? I think those are two completely separate audiences--not to mention that second group can range from "I was in the original D&D playtest with Gary Gygax" to "I don't know what a 20-sided die is." (And yes, those are both actual, real people that I've done demos for at cons.)

If you're focusing on "Pathfinder players who don't play PFS," your breakdown looks good.

You might consider breaking the QSG into 2 parts: one for Pathfinder 2E rules and one for PFS-specific rules. That way, people who already play Pathfinder can ignore the first guide and focus on the second. And people who don't know anything about Pathfinder can start with the first guide, which will make the second guide make a bit more sense.

Now that we know the people in the colony can scribe scrolls, Arcilde can retrain Scribe Scroll for Craft Magic Arms and Armor.

She can add +1 to armor in about 4 hours, and +1 to weapons in about 8 hours. After that, she can start adding specific properties. If we have weapons or armor that are already +1, she can improve them at a rate of 3K gp per day.

Arcilde would do better with a buckler instead of a shield, so she could still swing weapons with 2 hands when needed.

GM Rinaldo wrote:

Which way would you like to go next?

One vote for the swell well dwelling!

Technically, I think that's your fourth vote for the well. (But the first time you called it "swell" so that's something.) :-)

Well, I guess we can go to the swell little dwelling with the jewel of a well... Is there a wall near the well?

(Happy holidays, everyone!)

Startoss style doesn't work with slings. While they are in the thrown weapon group, they are projectile weapons.

Does anyone know if there's an FAQ or clarification on this? Startoss Style says "Choose one weapon from the thrown fighter weapon group." Slings are in that group, so it seems like they should work.

Derrig had a really high knowledge local role, and he has bonuses against goblinoids and enemies of Dwarves. I'm making his argument assuming he has a pretty thorough knowledge of hobgoblin culture.

Derrig leans down and speaks to the hobgoblin softly in the Goblin tongue.

Þú hefur tvö val.

Ooh ... þú hefur ekki fjölskyldu, ert þú? Ég velti því fyrir mér hversu margar þeirra myndu einnig verða fyrir áhrifum af augljósum svikum þínum ...

He shakes his head sadly and clucks his tongue.

Eða ...

Þú gætir lifað - þú gætir það ekki, en enginn mun alltaf þekkja þig.

He pulls back a little and rests his hand on the hilt of his cutlass.

What do you want to do?

I agree with most of what's already been mentioned. Night March and Overflow Archives are two of my favorites.

Consortium Compact has some potential for shenanigans, depending on your party.

Sewer Dragons of Absalom was a blast for us, but half of our party were circus performers so we hammed the heck out of it (blood bags and all).

There's a teamwork feat that lets you aid another in knowledge checks. I use it with my Inquisitor.

pathfinder society primer wrote:

Collective Recollection

You and your allies can quickly jog each other's memories to remember essential facts.

Benefit: When an ally who also has this feat attempts a trained Knowledge skill check while within 30 feet of you, you may attempt an aid another check as a free action to improve that ally's skill check. You must have at least 1 rank in the Knowledge skill to be aided in order to use this feat. If you succeed at the aid another check, you automatically know any information your ally gains from the Knowledge check as if you had rolled the Knowledge check. Whether or not your aid another check is successful, you cannot attempt a Knowledge check to determine the same information as your ally after using this feat.

While I have seen some GMs infer that this feat means you can't Aid Another on knowledge checks, most of the GMs in our area don't read it that way.

We tend to read it as "everyone can make an Aid Another on knowledge checks, and the feat lets you do it better." In particular, the benefit of the feat is that you can make the aid check as a free action (perhaps even off your turn) and you know the same information your ally does without any communication necessary.

The feat does not say "this feat allows you to aid another on knowledge checks" or "you normally can't do that at all."

Anytime you have a question about whether your build works or a gray area where you get table variation, bring it up to the GM before the game. Outline the issue, explain the arguments on each side, provide references if requested (links to forum arguments, developer posts, related FAQs, etc.).

Ask your GM to make the ruling before the game starts, and adjust your play accordingly. You benefit by knowing what you're getting into and not being surprised by a negative ruling in the middle of combat. Your GM will also appreciate getting a chance to review the issue with less pressure, and your fellow players will thank you for not slowing down the game after it's started.

We just came from playing team trivia, which is all about aiding each other on the knowledge checks:

"It's one of these three countries, but I don't know which one..."
"Well, number 2 is on the other coast, so that narrows it down to two..."
"I just heard a story on the news that makes me think it isn't number 1..."
"Number 3 it is, then!"

Now this is over the course of 2 minutes, so clearly not an in-combat situation. I figure that any time you would be able to look through a book, you could ask someone else to look through the same book for you.

2. Cross-table buffing

It sounds cool and interactive, but it can seriously unbalance things at the low tiers. When we played 10-11 at GenCon heroes feast was on the low end of the scale when it came to group buffs we were throwing around. I can picture turning to the 3-4 table beside us and saying "OK, so +2 morale to attacks, damage, skills, and saving throws, +3 competence to attack and damage, and we're about to cast prayer so go ahead and factor that in as well. There will probably be more next round.". . ."Oh yeah, forgot to ask. Does anyone over there worship Sarenrae? If so you've got more buffs to calculate."

Deciding where to draw the line is the tough part. There's no way to put every possible situation in the scenario, so some locales would end up having a much easier time than others. I think the aid tokens that high tier tables have given to lower tier tables in past years worked pretty well. But I do think that there was just too much going on in Cosmic Captive to try to work them in as well.

The way they handled this in Grand Convocation was actually pretty simple:

I haven't seen the rules for the Grand Convocation, so I don't know which buffs they designated as "shareable" or how that decision was made. As a player, I just remember it being very, very cool.

Put some spiritual focus on the items. The amulet is from your master, the robed and beads of your temple etc. Don't consider it gold in the bank just consider it your spiritual connection to the items increasing their power.

And your DM was mistaken. You're not a paladin, they have an oath to obey legitimate authority.

100% agree on both points. Just marking it as a favorite wasn't emphatic enough. :-)

geek soduku: Finding which geeks can play at which table at which times. with which characters to balance party numbers, party compositions, who wants to play which character at which level and play the faction relevant scenarios.

Synonyms: Table tetris, geek tetris, mustering (archaic).

Tetori monk makes a great grappler overall, and halflings do a really good job with grapplers.

First, remember that grappling does not any size limitation (unless your GM house rules otherwise).

Second, Cautious Defender doubles the dodge bonus to AC and CMD when you fight defensively.

Third, the favored class bonus for halfling monks is +1 CMD vs. Grapple. That lets you pump your CMD to stupid levels pretty quickly, and no one can make the grapple check to break out.

Tetoris get all the grappling feats free as class features.

I have a 10th level halfling tetori, and unbuffed, she has +27 CMB and +45 CMD. Buffed, fighting defensively, and spending a ki point, she can pump her CMD to 57 with still a +27 CMB. (She has attack bonus buffs that counter the penalty for fighting defensively.)

No matter what you do with your grapple build, consider worshipping Falyna. Her celestial obedience gives you +4 untyped bonus to CMB and CMD.

My major stumbling block is not that a rogue can see a trap, its that sometimes there are just no methods to disable one as those traps are. OR the source of the trap is something a Rogue has no actual experience with.

Why is a Rogue with likely No Knowledge: Arcana, or very little of it, going to have enough knowledge on how to disable a magical trap? Recognize it as dangerous? Yeah I buy that. KNOW what to do about it? Not a chance.

How about a mentioned pit trap? Say its in a dungeon room and it covers the entire floor? Sure the Rogue can set it off prematurely to stop anyone form falling in. But if weight is what sets it off, how does he "Disable" said trap?

Recognition and premature activation are one thing, but disabling doesnt always make any sense. Or even having the skill to recognize the thing's functions enough to disable it.

I highly recommend you just don't allow rogues in your games--probably investigator and slayer, too. It will prevent a lot of conflict and bad feelings in the long run.

The trapfinding ability says A rogue can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps. How do they do it? I don't know, maybe the same way a wizard casts a spell? Or a bard makes everyone hit harder by playing a flute? Or a barbarian converts lethal damage to non-lethal damage?

They can do it because it is a power specifically granted to them by their class. They can do it because they took a class that had trapfinding instead of any other power. If you're not going to consistently rule that the trapfinding ability doesn't work in this case because {reasons}, then just don't allow the ability in your games and let them the players trade it out for something they can actually use.

Anytime HeroLab does something that you don't want it to (whether it's because you have a house rule, you disagree with HL's interpretation, or you found a bug), go to the Adjustments tab. The Pathfinder Basic Pack from Shadow Chemosh has a robust selection of custom adjustments: you can do pretty much anything.

And if you think you've found a bug, be sure to report it.

Is it possible that they are misapplying the charge rules?
Since you can't charge through an ally's square and you can't charge through difficult terrain, they might be incorrectly deducing that an ally's square counts as difficult terrain.

At an rate, the relevant rules are under Moving through a square. I've bolded a couple of points that might help you in your argument:

You can move through an unoccupied square without difficulty in most circumstances. Difficult terrain and a number of spell effects might hamper your movement through open spaces.

Friend: You can move through a square occupied by a friendly character, unless you are charging. When you move through a square occupied by a friendly character, that character doesn't provide you with cover.

Opponent: You can't move through a square occupied by an opponent unless the opponent is helpless. You can move through a square occupied by a helpless opponent without penalty. Some creatures, particularly very large ones, may present an obstacle even when helpless. In such cases, each square you move through counts as 2 squares.

Lots of good information from UnArcaneElection. The only thing I can add it this:

^If you mean Eldritch Archer from Heroes of the Street, that is the better archer archetype of Magus, but last I heard it is banned in PFS. I am not a PFS person, though, and do not have the PFS supplementary materials, so it could have gotten un-banned some time this spring without my knowing about it.

The list of what's allowed in PFS is the additional resources list.

This is a semi-tangent, but a few people are complaining about what happened when they brought characters with no Knowledge skill investment to the game and I have to wonder why anyone has a PFS character with no ranks in any Knowledge. [...] I also have a 7 Int fighter with a number of ranks in K(Dungeoneering) equal to about half his level (and none in Engineering, his other Knowledge class skill), because every character needs a Knowledge skill decently invested in.

And your fighter would have not been able to use that particular knowledge skill in this scenario. There were 4 or 5 specific knowledges useful in this scenario, and if your character happened to invest the wrong ones, then you would have had difficulties in this scenario. (And I know a lot of people who would say they "had no knowledge skills" when they mean they "have the wrong knowledge skills for this situation" or "had no useful knowledge skills.")

Also, the OP mentioned that they were told it was a social scenario, so they brought their social characters. They probably have other character with varying levels of knowledge skills, but they brought the ones they were told would be appropriate. (For example, my primary knowledge character is a Mindchemist alchemist, with +16 in all knowledge checks at 4th level...and -3 in all charisma skills. If I were told it was an investigation scenario, I would absolutely bring her along. If I were told it was a social scenario, I wouldn't let her anywhere near it.)

Also, you're supposed to have access to the actual source to use an odd feat or rule. Calling the archetype "Dervish of Dawn" will either a) confuse the GM since that's not the official name or b) signal to a GM that you don't have the necessary source.

I have had more than one front-line melee character with a 12 Con. I often run front liners with a 13 Con and bump it to 14 at level 4 or 8. I've had exactly one character death, and that character had a 14 con and d10 hit dice.

If you're concerned about your character dying, then play your character as smart as possible. Some suggestions:

1) Track how many hit points you're taking each round, and determine how many more rounds you can continue fighting. When you're at the point where you might not survive the next round, step back and drink a potion.

2) Don't run into crowds of bad guys by yourself. They will all full attack on their round, and if you are the only target, they will all full attack you.

3) Don't be afraid to tell the rest of your party that your character is really, really hurt. Call for help.

4) ALWAYS carry a cure light wounds potion and make sure everyone in your party knows where you keep it. That way, when (not if) you go to negative HP, anyone in your party can save your life even if they don't cast spells, can't use a wand, or don't have any healing potions. Your goal here isn't to get up and get back in the fight: your goal is to get stabilized so you don't bleed out.

5) At higher levels, keep a scroll of Breath of Life on hand. Pass it to someone who has a chance of casting it and ask them to use it on you if you go down. (I usually tell them to use it on anyone in the party who needs it, in line with suggestion #2.)

6) If you find yourself going unconscious a lot, consider getting an Aegis of Recovery, a Shawl of Life Keeping, or a con increasing item. Or some combination of these kind of items. (I'm a big fan of the Aegis of Recovery, myself.)

7) If you're running an old school barbarian (e.g., not unchained), watch out for that break point where you will automatically die when you go unconscious and drop out of rage. Definitely get an Aegis of Recovery, and grab Raging Vitality as soon as possible.

I'm sure other people have their own survival suggestions, too.

I tend to avoid the "all or nothing" approach for knowledge checks, where if you fail you know absolutely nothing at all. (If this were the case, how would characters even recognize that it's hostile and they should run?)

If someone misses the knowledge check by less than 5, I'll tell them something like "it looks like a skeleton, but not like any skeleton you've ever seen" or "your best guess is that might be in the dragon family, but you're not sure". A lot of this information is what the players will be guessing from the description anyway, so it makes sense to put it in character, to me:
"You smell rotting flesh."
"Crap, it's probably undead. My knowledge religion roll is 11." (CR is 15)
"You're pretty sure it's undead, but you have no idea what kind or what it does."

Of course, this doesn't work on monsters that specifically mimic other creatures' traits. (There's one critter in Mummy's Mask that looks a lot like a mummy, even though it's not even undead.)

Also, as characters get more information, I'll give them additional checks. "Holy water didn't hurt it, so it's probably not undead..."

On the flip side, I've had GMs who wouldn't even let you make a knowledge check unless you a) specifically asked and b) correctly guessed which knowledge check to make. Even worse, sometimes they would only let you make one or two checks a turn, so it was possible for characters with two knowledge skills to identify creatures faster than scholar characters with 10 ranks in everything.

I understand where the idea comes from: if your goal is to keep the players as much in the dark as possible, even telling them which knowledge check to make gives them too much information. I just hate being on the receiving end of it, so I never do it as a GM.

Just a note: Remember to apply the distance modifiers of +2/10 feet on perception checks.

==Aelryinth

It's +1 to the DC for every 10 feet of distance, not +2.

Overall:
I think the general take-away is to talk to your players and find out what kind of game they want to play, and then come up with some kind of compromise to make that type of game fun for the GM, too.

In my early RPG days, I had several "gotcha" GMs who went out of their way to "beat" the players, to trick them, etc. Some of the "fun" sessions we had:
- A four-hour session that consisted of nothing but climbing out of a 100 ft. canyon, rolling climb checks every 10 feet, falling to our deaths, rolling another character, and starting again. I don't think we actually ever got out of that canyon...
- Spending an hour of real time crossing a 30 foot room, while the rogue rolled Perception for every single 5 foot square, and every single character behind the rogue had to specify which squares they stepping into, just in case the player misremembered which square was safe...This is the primary reason every character I've had since then carries chalk.
- Taking 10-15 minutes to enter every single room, with the chant "I check the square to the right of the door. I check the square in front of the door. I check the square to the left of the door. I check the square above the door. I step up to the door. I check the door for traps. I check the lock and the door handle for traps (because the door and the handle are two different things, you see...). I check to see if the door is locked. I crack the door 2 inches. I check the square just inside the door. I check the ceiling inside the room..."

Personally, I found that type of game to be as tedious as the "busy work" they used to give us in elementary school when we couldn't go outside for recess. If your players enjoy that sort of thing, more power to you.

Paul Jackson wrote:

Andrew Christian wrote:

My opinion is that subsequent products cannot invalidate previous books and rules simply because something new was created. It is my postulation, that even potion sponges don't change the rules. They just add something more you can do with a potion, essentially helping with action economy.

These new feats should be no different.

Both locally and online potion sponges, the flank trick, etc absolutely changed what was allowable at the table. They changed the rules.

Clearly that experience is shared by lots of people.

The flank trick absolutely did not change the rules. People were doing something animals should not have been doing. You can go back to all the arguments about that if you like.

But the creation of the flank trick validated the arguments that animals couldn't choose to go out of thier way to flank.

So lets not conflate the two.

Except animals do flank--all the time. Wolves flank their quarry in nature: it's well documented in photos and on video. (They often surround their quarry, and attack from multiple directions, one distracts the prey while others lunge in from the other side.) Sheep dogs are trained to circle around in different directions based on different whistle commands. And so on.

There was no reason for animals not to flank as part of the attack trick. The flank trick not only made it impossible for those animals who naturally flank in the wild to flank when trained, it also causes most GMs to force the animal to provoke AoOs when they normally wouldn't.

Granted I don't have the book so I'm only gleaning what I can from the commentary in this thread but I am feeling that for the most part common sense will prevail over overly rigid interpretations of these feats, even in PFS. It does seem that it will make the feats rather unattractive character options. Spending multiple feats for niche advantages on things that most reasonable GMs would let you anyway seems like a waste to me.

I'd like to believe that's true...I'd like to, but I can't.

Because I have to buy potion sponges and teach my wolf a separate trick to flank and take a full round to do ranged combat maneuvers at a -2 penalty and...

Players generally have to assume the strictest interpretation of any rule because all it takes is one GM to rule that way to break a character build.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Curaigh wrote:

Hmmm... I don't see the shaitan modifying the eidolon's base form.

I didn't until i looked it up and the stat bonus is written under a big old heading of "base form"

Bingo.

It does say "if", though: "if a shaitan binder’s eidolon has the biped base form, it gains a +2 bonus to one ability score. The shaitan binder must make this choice at 1st level. If at any time the shaitan binder’s eidolon has another base form, it loses this bonus until it returns to biped form."

So is it legal to make a Shaitan Binder who doesn't choose the biped as the base form?

Just to be clear, if the temporary bonuses did/do apply equally to permanent bonuses to attributes for the purposes of feat prerequisites, can you use the feat always, or only when you meet the requirements?

You can only use the feat if you meet the requirements at the time you intend to use it. This has never been in question. For example, if you are wearing a belt of strength to qualify for Power Attack, you could not use Power Attack while you were in an anti-magic field (and the belt's power was suppressed).

The only change the brawler discussion made was clarifying that you could take feats even if you only had the prerequisites under specific circumstances (in this case, brawlers only "have" the TWF feat when they are flurrying, but they can still take feats that have the TWF feat as a prerequisite, even if they are not constantly flurrying).

The brawler precedent combined with October 2013 FAQ on temporary bonuses has caused a lot of people to think that you can actually use short term spells to qualify for feats, but you can then only use the feat when you cast those spells again.

The basic "brawler argument" is that flurry is a full round action that lasts only 6 seconds. If the brawler can qualify for a feat based on an effect that lasts only 6 seconds, why is it unreasonable to use a minute-long effect to qualify for the exact same feat? (Your GM has to be the one to answer that question. And remember that "Because I say so" is a valid answer from your GM.)

But no matter what you rule on the prerequisite qualifications, there is no argument that you can only use the feat if you meet the prerequisite right now. If you have a natural strength score of 18, and your strength is somehow lowered below 13 (polymorph effect, drain, curse, whatever), you can't use Power Attack until you get that fixed.

(Finally found the discussion I was looking for.)
During the ACG playtest, there was a dev clarification that you can take feats that you qualify for in specific situations. You simply can't use the feat outside of those situations:

From Brawler's discussion:
"A brawler can use the feats granted by brawler's flurry to qualify for other feats, but can only use those other feats when using brawler's flurry (as that's the only time she actually meets those prerequisites)."

This was in answer to the question about the class ability that says a Brawler has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat only while flurrying:
Question and SKR's answer"2 Does the Brawler's flurry allow the Brawler to take two weapon fighting feats such as two weapon rend?"
SKR: "As written, the brawler is treated as having TWF when using brawler's flurry (this may change in later development). So, she could use it as a prereq... but would only be able to use feats from later in the chain when she was using brawler's flurry, as that's the only time she actually has the feat."

There's nothing in the discussion that says this only applies to brawlers, so most GMs in my area took it as a precedent that you can take feats even if you only meet the prerequisites part of the time. How temporary these can be is up to the individual GM, however.

As far as your angel wings go...
You certainly can't use them when your Con drops below the threshold. But I think it would up to your GM whether the wings actually disappear.

The SKR post is from January 2012. The FAQ on temporary vs. permanent ability scores is from October 2013.

The October FAQ functionally removes the distinction between temporary and permanent ability scores. (Actually, if you're brand new to the game, you might be completely unaware that any distinction ever existed in previous versions.)

I think there's a difference between "an optimized character" and "a character that always takes the mechanically better choice for their specific build." In many of my characters, I purposefully make a choice that is not the best mechanical option for that character's build because I have a character concept in mind. In that sense, I sometimes choose "fun" over "optimization".

I had one martial character who was obsessed with wands and collected them, always trying to Use Magic Device (UMD) to activate them. If someone else at the table could cast the spell, she would still try several times before handing the wand over. If someone pulled out their own wand, she would beg to try and cast it first. When I took a barbarian level, someone suggested that I should take bloodrager instead so that the character could have a spell list and cast some wands without UMD. But the character *wanted* to UMD: the chance of failure was part of the fun for her. She even had a charisma penalty, and I specifically didn't use one of the options to replace charisma with a different stat for UMD. Clearly, these decisions were not optimal for this character build, but it was fun for me.

I was playing with a two-weapon fighter build and considered using a (chained/original) monk wielding dual nine-ring broadswords. A friend asked me why the character would bother dual-wielding the swords when he could get the same number of attacks wielding a single sword in both hands AND do more damage with each attack. The only answer I had was, "Because I want to use two swords with this character."

I was asking about Zen Archer builds and lamenting that the Zen Archer doesn't qualify for Stabbing Shot without paying a feat tax (Rapid Shot), and someone pointed out that the build didn't provoke shooting in melee, so why on earth would I ever want to use Stabbing Shot? My answer--"Because it looked really cool when Legolas did it in the movie"--was met with mild derision, and I was chided for wasting my time with something because it was "cool" instead of "doing my job" for the party and doing as much damage as that build could do.

Note that none of these characters were "useless" and they all contributed both in and out of combat, but each one had at least one aspect where I chose "fun" over "optimized."

I don't think the Darkvision spell lets you see in supernatural darkness, like that created by Deeper Darkness. The See in Darkness ability does.

I don't know if there's a spell that lets you, but the Elixir of Darksight does.

Edited to add: The Rod of Shadows also lets you see in supernatural darkness, and it uses True Seeing in its construction. The True Seeing spell doesn't specifically call out supernatural darkness, but I think you can make a strong case that it's intended to work in supernatural darkness.

Basically, it depends on how much the GM wants the game to rely on luck vs. talent or training.

Taking 10 lets you confidently do those things you are trained to do, the things you are good at, the things you do every day. When you drive to work in the morning, you take 10. It's a routine: you do it every day, and most days, you even do it on auto-pilot, without thinking. (Assuming Drive is a class skill for Commoners and is trained only, most people will have a 4 for their Drive skill. If the DC to "drive to work without crashing your car" is 10, and if everyone has to roll every time they get behind the wheel, everyone risks crashing on a 5 or less, or 25% of the time. Eek!)

Personally, I am a huge fan of take 10 because I believe that characters should be rewarded for investing in their skills. There are plenty of times that characters are under stress or distracted and therefore forced to roll, and if I want something to be especially difficult, I just set the DC higher.

Asking someone for directions? DC 10, you can take 10. Most of us can do this on a regular basis.
Asking someone for money? DC 20. You can take 10, but most characters can't make that DC and would have to roll.
Asking someone for directions while people are chasing you? Yeah, still a DC 10, but you're going to have to roll that one.

Hey, I've only interrupted monologues with a thrown shield to the face three times! Okay, four if you count that orc, but he wasn't so much monologing as mumbling to himself.

-c

BBEG, on a throne, across a large room: "You are not worthy of approaching me! You must prove yourself before coming closer."

I've developed a very simple definition for my characters.

If you can talk to it, it counts as a person (so killing could be murder). If you can breed with it, it counts as a member of your race (so eating would be cannibalism).

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Orfamay Quest wrote:

But, of course, antiheroes are trendy, because good and evil are so dated.....

an antihero by definition changes with societies idea of conventional heroic qualities.

The only problem with this is that the concept of an antihero is itself largely a modern creation. The immediate precursors (for example, A.J. Raffles' and the "gentleman thief," or Sam Spade and the "hard-boiled detective" tropes) are clearly heroic characters. Similarly, Batman wasn't initially an antihero; he was a hero in a different tradition than Superman (Batman was basically a detective knockoff, hence his close relation with the Gotham PD; Supes followed the older mythological hero tropes).

The modern definition of "anti-hero" is really just "hero who happens to be a jerk." The original definition was "admirable protagonist who is working on the wrong side"--the guy that everyone loves but you just can't let him win because he's actually the villain and has terrible plans for the world. In my Lit studies (cough cough) years ago, the first "recognized" anti-hero was Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost: he's the protagonist, he's compelling and sympathetic, but c'mon--he's frickin' Satan! He's literally the definition of the "bad guy" in Milton's time, and if he "wins" everyone winds up in hell.

Magneto is a great example of this kind of anti-hero, as is Darth Vader, Frankenstein's monster, heck even the Terminator and Godzilla probably qualify. (Often, in a sequel, an anti-hero is redeemed and brought over to the "light side" because he's just too popular to continue as the villain.)

In the original concept of anti-hero, rogue or outlaw heroes were never considered anti-heroes, and the dark, brooding hero was just a dark, brooding hero. Then the "have to be bad to be successful" hero became popular, and the definition became muddled. Now it's unrecognizable, and these darn kids should get off my literary lawn! :-)

noisig wrote:

Oh, I don't figure I am "typical" - LOL! I'm far from it. It appears that my play style is very different from other people's.

Let me try to explain how that sort of statement is coming across

It sounds like you're saying -I can get away with having less than a 12 con because I'm a better player than people telling you you need a 14-

To which i call bull. The vast majority of time your character is taking damage they're just standing there, out of turn, unable to do anything. Due to the stop motion nature of the game its not like you can dart in and out of combat. Unless you can explain what the allegedly better play-style is I'm going to insist its some combination of luck, different dming styles (you avoid killer DMs), bowing out of the all wizard party, and most importantly always having a character in subtier as well as tier.

I don't see it that way. I see it more as "Everyone says this is the case--and more to the point, vehemently insists that new players build characters by these rules--but it doesn't match my experience. That's so weird."

More than once, I've had people drop their jaw at my 12 Con frontline melee characters, completely disbelieving that I could be so stupid as to build them that way. And these exact same people talk about the various deaths their frontline characters have faced, but none of mine have actually died...If I'm doing it "all wrong" like they say, how come my characters don't die as often as the "correctly built" characters do?

Maybe, just maybe, their bad experiences are based on luck, dming style, playing out of tier, party composition, etc., as much as my good experiences are?

Maybe the conventional wisdom that "Anything below 14 Con is unplayable" is based on anecdata exactly as much as my "Eh, 12 Con is fine for melee characters" approach?

Y.
M.
M.
V.

Which is why I try very hard to never say, "Oh, god! How can you possibly play a character like??!!!??!" I try to say, "I probably wouldn't play it that way, and here's why, but it's completely your choice."

In general, the rules consider something you have for 24 hours as permanent and something for less time temporary.

You can't use a temporary feature as a pre-req.

For example, the stat items mention the 24 hours requirement.

Another example, is how Paragon Surge allows a choice of a new feat to be made. But once chosen, that choice is used for the whole day. You could argue this is a "permanent" choice. But you wouldn't have it all day unless you could cast a lot of Paragon Surges in a day.

The discussion of the Brawler indicates that this is not true. The Brawler is considered to have the Two Weapon Fighting feat when flurrying with an appropriate weapon. The Brawler can take other feats that require TWF as prerequisite, but he loses the ability to use those other feats when he is not flurrying with an appropriate weapon.

(I'm trying to find the "conditional feats" discussion--I thought it was an FAQ, but it might have just been a developer post during the ACG playtest. If I can find the source, I'll post a link.)

From a real-world perspective (if you care):

You can play any end-blown flute one handed, but you can't usually get the full range of notes on it.

You can actually play smaller transverse or side-blown flutes with one hand (say, around piccolo size) without too much trouble, but you can only get about 4 notes. Larger ones like modern concert flutes can also be played with one hand, but it's a bit unwieldy.

It's much easier to play any of the fipple woodwinds) with one hand, because you can actually hold them with your mouth if you need to adjust your grip to reach more notes. You can also do this trick with smaller vessel flutes or ocarinas, but larger ones will be a bit heavy. Downside to these kinds of instruments is that you can't talk at all while playing a fipple woodwind (because you hold them in your mouth...)

You can talk over any "non-fipple" flute without losing your embouchure, so you can easily switch between playing and talking.

(Why, yes, I did sell--and have to demonstrate--folk instruments at a Renaissance Faire! However did you guess?) :-)

I suppose you could be a spiritualist--then your phantom could have sold its soul and you could sell yours...

Regardless of power level, running three competent minions at a full table is a bit of a jerk move: you've increased the time it takes each turn in combat by 30-40%, and you've guaranteed that the focus is on you for most of the game. It's even worse if you have no personal regard for your minions and don't worry about them getting hurt, needing gear, etc.

Why have the rogue look for traps? Just have the undead minion walk in front and trigger everything.

We don't need a scout: I'll just have my minions walk around, since no one will recognize them as "out of town" monsters anyway.

I know you built a front line tank, but why don't we have my minions hold the front line instead? If they get killed, you can back them up.

And so on. A single player with 3 competent minions is a party all by himself.

Dave Justus wrote:

I tend to try to give what I think would be most important to the party. I have never even considered letting the Players ask questions, and don't think I would, primarily because there are thousands of good valid questions, but most only apply to a subset of monsters. I think it would be a huge disadvantage to require the players to ask questions to get the important information.

I disagree. I think this is how it should work as knowledge isn't always useful. I may know 10 facts about a particular monster but if no one told me that it was vulnerable to fire then I wouldn't know that. I think it also gets the players to think critically about how they handle various encounters (in particular when they only get 1 or 2 questions). Alas, I think this can be chalked up to table/local variation on terms of how its handled.

The knowledge skill description specifically says you remember useful information. That's in the rules.

If you want to dole out "useless" information for flavor, go ahead, but making the check means you get "useful" information.

Poog!

Saldiven wrote:

If your GM doesn't know your character well enough to know what aspects of the enemy impact your character the most, then your GM isn't doing a very good job.

Though this isn't a PFS forum, the rules here are relevant to all game styles.

You sit down at a convention with 6 people you've never met and have to run a scenario in 5 hours. Yeah, even if I review every character sheet, I'm not going to know exactly what strategy or tactics they're going to try for this particular encounter.

Not just aimed at you, but everyone: Please refrain from blanket 'your GM isn't very good', 'your gm sounds inexperienced', 'experienced GMs do it this way' type comments, they're rude and disrespectful.

Most of the experienced PFS GMs I know will give the players the option of asking questions or having the GM choose the useful information. If the players ask questions, the GM is the final arbiter of what questions are too broad and would count as more than one question.

Often, if the players ask questions, they will ask one question and then throw to "GM's choice".

I have seen players ask for some stuff the GM would never think they wanted:
-- "Give me the fluff text" (creature description)
-- "Can we reason with it/negotiate with it?"
-- (Related to above) "Are these generally lawful/known to keep their word?"
-- "What languages does it speak?"
-- "Can I ride it?" (beast rider cavalier archetype)
-- "Can I pet it?"

All of those are completely driven by the character. The last one is pure role playing and not "useful" by anyone else's definition, but it's what that particular character always wanted to know. (If the GM chose to give information, that character would turn to someone else at the table and ask, "Does that mean I shouldn't pet it?")

This might be a good question for an FAQ:

Does the Liberation power of the Liberation domain function exactly like the Freedom of Movement spell, or is it a limited version of the spell?

There is another "roll twice and take the better" ability that says it essentially cancels out any "roll twice and take the worst" effect, so that you only roll once, as normal.

I'll try to see if I can hunt down exactly which one it was, but it seemed like a reasonable precedent.

Basically if you want to do something you need to find the rule that allows you to do it. That is just the way the rules set is made/set up. And it is why the argument of " the rules don't tell me I can't " is so obnoxious, because once someone gets to that point you have to realize that the person saying that doesn't really understand the core fundamentals of the game mechanics/rules.

[...]
It absolutely isn't that the rules are "unclear" it is that people want something from the rules for whatever reason, and the rules don't allow it. And because there are no rules regarding it, they try to work in the action they want either with "it doesn't say I can't" or "they obviously meant to allow it and didn't say anything", when it is plain as day that the rules don't have any way to allow the action/event.

Do you actually mean to say that anyone who has ever asked this question is either completely ignorant or trying to exploit the game? If that is what you meant, that's kind of offensive.

A lot of people who have asked this question are just trying to make the rule make sense. Right now, if I'm nauseated:
-- I can't drop something that I'm holding
-- I can't fall to the ground
-- I can't speak (or communicate in any way, really)
-- I can't end a rage
and so on. That doesn't seem to make any sense, so people are wondering if that's really what the rules say.

And most of the people that I see asking this question are experienced GMs who really stop to consider what the full implications of the rule interpretation are, and often it's because they have spotted an odd interaction or a corner case that many people wouldn't be aware of.

As it stands now, being nauseated is a more restrictive condition than being staggered, which seems odd: most people would think "I'm only one hit point away from falling unconscious and dying" would be a more serious condition than "I'm going to throw up."

(Also note that I didn't dispute the original statement regarding how the rules work: I just asked if there was an explicit statement somewhere that we could reference, because that kind of thing causes a lot of confusion.)

The reason to move a rules question that digresses into house rule questions is very simple: We don't want to confuse new players who come to the forums.

In the future, people looking for a rules clarification will run a search on the rules forum. They might not read the whole thread; they might only see a few lines from a post in the search results and think they have the answer they were looking for. If they don't read the whole thread closely, they won't realize that this thread wandered into home ruling territory or exactly where in the thread that happened.

Moving the thread to the home rule forum prevents that confusion.

It's not intended to stifle digressive discussions or "punish" someone for wanting to make a house rule: it's just to make sure that someone who reads this thread 3-4 years from now will understand what's going on.

That's all.

Fromper wrote:

But I'm thinking of gods like Lamashtu and Rovagug. Why would anyone non-evil worship them? And why would those worshipers join the Pathfinder Society? And the same for many other evil deities.

Thoughts?

Religion in real life is often about your parents/family. Did being faithful to a god earn you respect from friends/family? Did you join a faith to spite your family/friends?

In another sense, people often begin to revere things that seem beyond human control. Mountains, the Sun, Death, and sometimes living things. If a person is later told that the object of their devotion is within the power of a specific deity, they may transfer their faith to the deity.

And lastly, a person's reason for faith may have nothing to do with the deity, but instead a desire to be with/like another member of the faith. Or perhaps they just enjoy the sense of community that their religion offers.

"I'm only a paladin because it pisses off my chaotic evil father!"

Personally, I find HL gets me to buy books. I see some interesting option when tinkering with a character, and note what book it's in. Then at some point I end up going "gee, I wish I had that" during a PFS session. Then when I get home, I end up buying that book.

Then again, I ended up buying some books after someone in my lodge pulled out an option or mentioned an option in passing. I go "What book's that in?" Then end up buying the book. And probably the herolab data package too.

Heck, today I wound up buying the Pathfinder Society Primer early on in our session after someone mentioned cracked ioun stones. Specifically, one that would negate the risk of being Dominated or Charmed.

Off topic: