HSalgo's page

I'm surprised this question hasn't gotten answered! I've had similar questions for a while. I'm just going to chime in as a fellow player with a GM who is known to be reasonable.

My policy has been to check in with the GM that I'm playing with before checking a box at the end of a scenario. If nothing else, if there's a problem, you can blame your GM. =)

1a, 1b) I don't know why those would not count, as long as the present scenario makes the 3rd or 6th one in a row that you've gotten both the primary and secondary success conditions. (With that said, I have also double counted scenarios, which to me seems perfectly reasonable: i.e. I counted Scenario 3-5 for the 3 scenarios in a row goal, checking a box at the end of scenario 5, and then counted Scenario 3-8 for the 6 scenarios in a row goal, checking a box at the end of Scenario 8.

1c) I figured that they wouldn't, but given the vague wording, I'm not sure if there's a RAW reason that they wouldn't. "Complete" is horribly vague.

2) I assumed that Expedition Coordinator would have to be activated immediately. I'm not sure why you wouldn't, unless you're trying to get PP back from a scenario that played before you had the boon, in which case I don't think you could use it for that scenario. Again, no proof though, so any other input would be appreciated.

3) This is the question that has been nagging me for ages. My GM and I don't see why you'd have to stay on the same season. Originally that might have been the intention, but that seems to be absurd now that there have been multiple seasons with this same location boon. We've decided that it's OK to cross-check. If other people object, I blame him! ^-^

Hope this helps!

Thanks for tolerating our hijinks!

I don't know what we're talking about because I wasn't at Anonycon, but I think the idea of wizards moving 5 ft at a time in a giant magic laboratory is the funniest thing ever. Will they wear helmets and have special tongs to handle especially radioactive artifacts?

I hope you're feeling better! <3

Huh. So it applies as early as possible when you enter the tier? I feel like I remember there being some confusion about GMs vs. players and when they got the credit for Serpent's Rise. Maybe I'm going crazy?

I've updated our Low Level PFS Tracker list based on the assumption that credit is going to Sand, Riley, Mara, Cedric, and Kierlana.

Sand (134947-6, Grand Lodge)

A few logistical questions:
1) Serpent's Rise: It's listed as Tier 6-8. I've forgotten, but we apply that at L7, right?
2) Through Maelstrom Rift: Is this one also to be applied at L7?
3) If you have more than three credits that are to be applied at L7, I assume you can just apply them into L8 if they fit the subtier?

How tragic. Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

TL;DR: Do warpriest levels count as fighter levels and replace BAB for NON-bonus feats? (See "Warpriest's Bonus Feats" below.)

---

It is clearly stated for both swashbucklers and brawlers that class levels count as fighter levels for the purpose of combat feat prerequisites.

This is NOT the case for warpriests. While class levels count as fighter levels and BAB for "these [bonus] feats," it is not clear whether this applies outside of these bonus feats. (See below--emphasis totally mine)

The more I read it, the more this seems to be the case. Does this mean that a warpriest cannot take both Improved Critical and Critical Focus at L9 using his/her bonus feat and character feat?

Also interested!

I just stumbled upon this thread as well. From previous discussions, I'd thought that a Qinggong monk could not delay taking a ki power, and thus a PFS legal Qinggong monk would be limited to 2x Level 4 powers and 1x Level 6 power as Elbedor said above.

However, I've been looking into character retraining, and with feats, you can retrain an old feat and replace it with a new feat that you qualify for at the time of retraining.

Extrapolating from this FAQ response, I think that retraining is the ONLY way that you could retrain Wholeness of Body for a higher level ki power, such as an 8th level ki power.

However, there are two problems:
1) I'm not sure whether extrapolation is sufficient to allow retraining lower level ki abilities for higher level ones, and
2) as Elbedor pointed out, the retraining of class features for monks only says "See retraining feats," which means that retraining ki powers might not be allowed.

If you were super desperate, I think you could theoretically do archetype retraining twice, and retrain OUT of Qinggong monk and then back INTO it... though that seems sort of excessive.

When dealing bleed damage (e.g. with the Bleeding Critical feat or the Bleeding Attack rogue talent), does the bleed damage get applied on the initiating attack? If so, does the target then take bleed damage again on its turn that round, as per the bleed rules?

It doesn't say whether or not to apply the bleed damage to the attack as well. The campaign I'm in has been applying it both to the initiating hit as well as to the target's turn. In one case, this meant that a ninja's bleeding sneak attack came close to but did not KO a target, who then acted next in the initiative and immediately bled unconscious. Is this double-counting the bleed damage, though?

In retrospect, my only fear is that people will start doing even more crazy stuff in PFS Organized Play now, since PFS Core Campaign will be more limited.

Kind of like how we saw a rush of tieflings and aasimars being played before Season 6 came out, I worry a bit that PFSOP will shift [EDIT: even] more towards base classes and hybrid classes, since PFSCC will be limited to core classes.

With that being said, imagine doing some of the harder scenarios without casting wacky spells or using guns!

Additionally, one of the goals of Core Campaign is to make running games easier for new GMs.

I've felt "the need to know everything ever" to be one of my biggest fears about trying to start GMing, so thank you!

Uwotm8 wrote:

Tell that to the dice progression FAQ thread. It's at around 550 clicks with no response yet. :'(

That is a very complicated question that if they are actually working on it's not unlikely to be that they don't yet have a proper answer to give us.

I think that this question is a similar one that has no fixed answer yet either.

@Uwotm8: I feel your pain! I totally FAQ'ed the damage dice progression thread about a year back. I had a plant companion with a houseruled plant version of Animal Growth, Improved Natural Attack, and Strong Jaw. It was a nightmare then, and I'm sure it's no better now.

@kestral287: Just reread the Inscribe Magical Tattoos feat, and it seems pretty cool. I'm not sure whether you can only inscribe wondrous items into their appropriate slot though, and if so, whether you can inscribe slotless items. That seems like a question for another time (or for my GM separately).

It seems like a pretty tough topic, with everyone saying different things. It seems like, for the time being, that the most responsible thing is to leave it up to you and your GM's discretion, as per kestral287's comment here.

Keep hitting FAQ if you guys want to pester Paizo for a definitive answer!

@NikolaiJuno: Totally agreed!

@kestral287: I was actually thinking about that! I didn't know that Inscribe Magic Tattoos was so versatile though; I only looked into it today. I'm hoping to play a wayang, and the description describes how they frequently go through ritual scarification or tattoing, so it came to mind. I'll look into it some more; thanks for the suggestion.

Also: I was hoping to have some more common spells, including Dispel Magic and Greater Dispel Magic, on Spell Lattices, that's all! I can take them as spells prepared though, as you pointed out.

Well, I had hoped that an arcanist with the counterspell exploit would be able to use any Spell Lattices on his body, rather than needing to hold them in hand, since that makes the versatility of a Spell Lattice that much better.

Needing to hold Spell Lattices or Pages of Spell Knowledge in hand would be a tragedy for counterspellers indeed!

I definitely agree that they did a pretty good job of mixing the wizard and sorcerer classes, and that the arcanist's class abilities make up for a lot of the spellcasting "deficiencies."

I put "deficiencies" in quotes because the ability to still be able to choose what spells to prepare each day and then cast them as many times as are necessary (like that moment when you need a second Dimension Door or additional Haste) is a pretty awesome benefit in return. I can't say that I know from experience (I'm asking these questions in preparation for a home campaign that's going to start in a few weeks), but that's what it seems like, at least.

(I also appreciate the civility that everyone's shared in discussing this topic, given that it seems to be a topic that has no concrete and satisfactory answer.)

Hm, I never noticed that with Spell Lattices. On the plus side, they can also be copied into a spellbook but are then destroyed; it's unclear whether one copy a spell from a Page of Spell Knowledge, and if so, leave it intact.

(Note: The spell Memorize Page is REALLY good for learning spells from scrolls without destroying them. I can imagine that you might be able to do so with a Page of Spell Knowledge, but I'm not convinced that you could do the same with a Spell Lattice.)

I asked my GM about Runestones of Power and Pearls of Power, and he said that they don't need to be held in hand, which I think is RAW.

Do you think that Spell Lattices were meant to be held in hand (RAI)?

@kestral287: Right, I forgot that Runestones are double price. (I've never played a spontaneous caster before, sadly.) You bring up a good point. I also agree that the arcanist has limited spellcasting--though the ability to flexibly prepare spells to cast spontaneously is pretty cool, their spell progression is delayed like a sorcerer's, but their spellcasting (# of spell slots/level per day) is comparable to a universalist wizard's.

@BretI: Spell Lattices are meant to serve the same purpose as Pages of Spell Knowledge by adding to spells known for spontaneous casters or, in the arcanist's case, spells prepared. They don't "restore" spell slots or expended spells like Runestones of Power (which were re-released in the Advanced Class Guide) or Pearls of Power.

Thanks for your input, kestral287. Your sentiment is the one I am leaning towards for simplicity.

However, the only thing I'm sort of worried about (and I think my GM might be too?) is the balance issue--except for the penalty of having an increased casting time when spontaneously using metamagic feats or metamagic rods, the arcanist sort of gets the "best of both worlds."

While I'm all for a case-by-case interpretation of the rules, it'd be easier if we could get a ruling of "both" or "use discretion" or something, given that a lot of items/rules reference "spontaneous casters" or "prepared spells" specifically.

I've always assumed they were prepared casters that simply mimicked spontaneous casting in regards only to the spells prepared?

Spells cast, you mean?

Thanks for your input so far, everyone.

I also just noticed: the Expanded Preparation feat which helps add spell slots for arcanists (compared to the Expanded Arcana feat, which adds to spells known for spontaneous casters with a limited # of spells known) has some interesting text that still suggests prepared casting (emphasis mine):

Benefit: You gain an extra spell slot of the highest level you can cast. This is in addition to the number of spell slots you can normally prepare from your spellbook. You can instead add two spell slots, but both of these spells must be at least 1 level lower than the highest-level spell you can cast as an arcanist. You must choose which benefit you gain when you take this feat.

It looks like this text suggests that these spell slots, though used in a spontaneous style similar to sorcerers, are nonetheless "prepared"? I'm not sure if this choice of wording was a flavor thing (since arcanists are still about "preparation", and "Expanded Arcana" was used already), or if the text was chosen purposefully.

HSalgo wrote:

So yeah, another semi-related question: if arcanists do end up having an increased casting time when using a metamagic rod, does the use of the metamixing arcanist exploit also negate this increased casting time penalty, as the exploit does with the spontaneous application of a metamagic feat?

RAW I think no. It doesn't seem unreasonable to allow you to activate it to use with the rod though. It would in that case receive the increased spell slot and cost a point.

Why the increased spell slot? You mean that you'd apply the metamagic rod's increased spell slot even though you normally wouldn't?

So yeah, another semi-related question: if arcanists do end up having an increased casting time when using a metamagic rod, does the use of the metamixing arcanist exploit also negate this increased casting time penalty, as the exploit does with the spontaneous application of a metamagic feat?

@DinosaursOnIce: Thanks! I appreciate you sharing what you know. (There's no rush at the moment on my end, so don't sweat it too much.)

You bring up some good points though. Preferred Spell and Greater Spell Specialization both call out casting time when allowing you to sacrifice a prepared slot to spontaneously your chosen spell. (Preferred Spell does not increase casting time, while Greater Spell Specialization does.) Given that they both specifically refer to increased casting time, I more strongly would consider the arcanist having an increased casting time when using a metamagic rod too, though again, this falls into the "if the arcanist really IS a spontaneous caster" category.

As for spontaneous casting by Clerics and Druids, you again bring up a good point. The metamagic feats page (under "Spontaneous Casting and Metamagic Feats") specifically states that casting time is increased for spontaneous conversion of prepared spells, except for the Quickened Spell metamagic feat.

@NikolaiJuno, @Jiggy: Sorry, I misspoke. My question was about using Runestones of Power; I know that arcanists can't use Pearls of Power based on the incompatibility of the text.

@DinosaursonIce: Do you have any helpful links for some of the discussions? The little I was able to find was hard to work through and buried within lots of unrelated questions.

@Jiggy: The text regarding the increased casting time for metamagic is for the spontaneous addition of a metamagic feat to a spell. I can see why one could then infer that this applied to metamagic rods as well, but if the arcanist is considered at least somewhat of a prepared caster (as suggested by the fact that the arcanist can prepare metamagic spells and then cast them at no penalty), then it should be possible for the arcanist to use a metamagic rod at no casting penalty.

I agree that, with the lack of other information, it seems reasonable for the increased casting time penalty to apply. However, it makes the Metamixing exploit (which allows you to spontaneously apply a metamagic feat without increasing casting time) far less useful if the penalty still applies while using a metamagic rod. Does that make sense?

Haha, well it seems like we have votes for all options. How about the subquestions? Regardless of their status, would they be able to use Pearls of Power? Would they be able to cast using a metamagic rod as a standard action or a full-round action?

I'm just wondering if there's a definitive answer anywhere about whether arcanists are spontaneous casters, prepared casters, neither, or both. In particular, I'm worried about two things:

1) Can an arcanist use a Runestone of Power, which is for spontaneous casters? There has been some discussion about using Runestones of Power but not for Consume Spells, and Jason Buhlman agreed, but there is no mention of the arcanist being a spontaneous caster, other than when it comes to metamagic, so my GM at home has ruled against this. However, since the item was re-released in the Advanced Class Guide, I have feel like the Runestone of Power is supposed to work with the arcanist. Does anyone have any text that suggests yes or no?

2) Does an arcanist suffer an increased casting time when using a metamagic rod? Prepared casters don't suffer from this increased casting time, while spontaneous casters do. The arcanist spell casting text states that an arcanist can spontaneously add metamagic feats to their spells with an increased casting time like a sorcerer, but can also prepare spells with metamagic beforehand and cast them at no penalty like a wizard. I couldn't find much text about it--again, does anyone have any text that suggests either argument?

Thanks!

TL;DR: Does the Counter Drain greater exploit work on the Counterspell arcanist exploit? Or is it not allowed because using the Counterspell exploit "does not trigger any feats or other abilities that normally occur when a spellcaster successfully counters a spell?"

The Counter Drain greater exploit allows you to regain arcane reservoir points equal to the countered spell's spell level / 3.

The Counterspell exploit allows you to counter spells as an immediate action at the cost of 1 arcane reservoir point and a higher level spell slot. However, the text also says, "Counterspelling in this way does not trigger any feats or other abilities that normally occur when a spellcaster successfully counters a spell."

Given that the Counter Drain greater exploit is a class ability, does that mean that you cannot gain arcane reservoir points from Counter Drain after successfully using the Counterspell exploit?

This seems to be the Rules As Written (unless I'm missing something?), but I'm also wondering if this is the Rules As Intended. Any thoughts?

Great. Thanks for the examples, everyone! This is sort of what I thought, but I figured I'd bring it up in case it ever came up elsewhere--I couldn't find any mention, but I'm not on the forums too frequently.

Much appreciated, everyone!

The Boots of Friendly Terrain item gives you a favored terrain bonus, but text is extremely specific in referring to rangers and favored terrain class ability specifically. However, the Lay of the Land feat gives you the favored terrain class ability, as long as you have the animal focus and wild empathy class abilities (so, pretty much hunters).

RAW, it seems like the item is specifically for rangers only, but do you think that RAI it could apply to hunters too? I think that the boots are pretty inexpensive, which is one of the reasons it might apply to rangers only.

Anyway, I was just looking for some thoughts! Has anyone else run into this sort of issue, where older items/rules restrict newer class abilities? One of our party members was recently a shaman, and all of the hex abilities almost always specifically refer to witches specifically.

Interesting. I never really looked very closely at those rules. However, it does say, "Druids, oracles, and rangers are the exception to this rule." Would you not expect hunters, which are hybrids of druids and rangers, to also be exempt from this rule, despite the "divine spellcasters of any future classes" clause?

Thanks for the Inner Sea Gods notes by the way. I've never had/read it, so I didn't know about that cool stuff!

As a note, this differs from the Blessed Striker feat, whose prerequisites include "ability to cast divine spells, alignment must be within one step of your deity's."

As such, I assume that, unlike the Weapon of the Chosen feat, the Blessed Striker feat WOULD apply to druids, rangers, oracles, hunters, and shamans (who are NOT required to have a deity) as well as clerics, paladins, inquisitors, and warpriests (who ARE required to have a deity).

I'm thinking about playing an archer with a dash of hunter levels. I'd like to try to take the Weapon of the Chosen feat, but I don't know whether I qualify for the prerequisite that requires that I "must worship and receive spells from a deity."

At first, I thought this meant any divine caster who worshiped a deity, but on talking with my GM, I think he's right in saying that it only applies to casters for whom the deity component is mentioned directly in the text.

This would means that the divine casters would be split into two groups:
DO QUALIFY: clerics, paladins, inquisitors, warpriests
DO NOT QUALIFY: druids, rangers, oracles, hunters, shamans

Does this sound correct, or do all divine casters with a chosen deity qualify?

My GM and I agreed that because shields were mentioned in the text above, that the halving applies to shield bonuses as well. I think the "armor" and "armor bonus" references in the table + footnote's case means armor in the global sense (i.e. armor and shields). I could see the argument for it not being RAW though.

Anyway, it makes becoming reduced annoyingly less viable. Even if the shield bonus isn't halved, losing 2 to your armor bonus negates any size and dex AC bonus you might gain from being tiny, it seems.

If forum disputes interest you, the 4 discussions I saw on this tiny armor penalty topic included:

1) the armor bonus is always halved for Tiny and smaller armors,
2) the armor bonus is always halved for Tiny and smaller armors, but the enhancement bonus can be houseruled an exception,
3) the armor bonus being halved for Tiny armor is dumb (a quote taken from James Jacobs himself), and
4) the armor bonus is always halved for Tiny and smaller armors, but not with Mage Armor.

I feel obligated to add a caveat that I found while exploring this option. Apparently, armor and shield bonuses for tiny and smaller creatures are halved.

Though my GM has been generous in saying that only the base armor and shield bonuses are halved, but not their magical enchantments, this still means that, while becoming tiny,

• you suffer -2 to your armor bonus (if mithral shirt (+4 to armor) or studded leather (+3 to armor)) and
  
• you suffer -1 to your shield bonus (if buckler (+1 to shield) or light shield (+1 to shield)).

This pretty much undoes the +1 size bonus and +1 Dex bonus to AC that you get for being tiny.

Anyway, I figured I'd bring this up! Thanks again for your input so far.

Yeah, I guess this is sort of a RAW vs. RAI issue, and I'm wondering if people have more opinions on the matter.

Two quick questions:

1) Swordmaster's Flair:

2) Buckler:

Thanks!

Hey, everyone! I ran into a strange situation in my first PFS scenario in which I used the Blue Scarf Swordmaster's Flair on a Halfling Swashbuckler.

During the scenario, I was unwillingly made Tiny via Reduce Person, which means that I had 0 ft reach and had to be in the same square as an enemy to attack it, based on both Reduce Person and typical size templates. However, the Blue Scarf Swordmaster's Flair allows someone to "increase her melee reach with light or one-handed piercing weapons by 5 feet for 1 minute." Does that mean that I could then use a light or one-handed piercing weapon with 5 ft reach to attack an adjacent my square despite being Tiny?

Doing so seems to be a bit cheesy, but it seems to be allowable using the rules as written. If so, it seems like a Wand of Reduce Person might be something worth buying, especially since being Tiny makes the Risky Striker Halfling racial feat apply to damage when fighting Medium sized creatures (who are now two sizes larger).

Also a shoutout to ZanThrax who is trying to sort out the details of Risky Striker here.

Thanks!

Thank you for sharing your creation. Your character is quite amazing. I myself have tones of information when it comes to characters because I enjoy being thorough. I don't know how most people can just have 1-2 pages.

The only question i have is what was the house rule for your character creation. If I had to explain it to the DM. He may enjoy looking at the character but how did you get to the actual creation of the character. Because i noticed that you have two druid archetypes and was wodnering if that was how you did it?

Sorry--I have to run for a bit. I'd like to try to answer your question later, but I'm not quite sure that I follow. The character was made using a standard 20 point buy. Everything other than what is marked with the "MEIER" tag is legal and standard. We started at Level 7. The original page for our character creation rules has been altered for an upcoming campaign, but the Level 5 version can be seen at https://meier.obsidianportal.com/wikis/character-creation-rules.

Anelf and Knotbark are my creation. Anelf is a Treesinger druid who turns into plants; Knotbark is a giant treant tank.

If you have any questions about the character pages, feel free to ask. Sorry about the formatting (I couldn't help that) and for the massive amount of information--I'm a little obsessive.

If you ever need an Excel sheet that contains all the plants you can turn into, I have that lying around somewhere too.

Thanks for putting us in touch, RumpinRufus!

Ah, sorry, I didn't mean to add to the problems. I couldn't find anything a few months ago (perhaps before your most recent posts?), and a quick search yesterday didn't pull anything up when I was looking for natural attacks specifically. I guess we'll just wait for a more definitive response, I guess?

If I'm not mistaken, there seem to be two conflicting views on how natural attack damage dice progress by size.

The Improved Natural Attack feat follows the progression for manufactured weapons on the weapons page:
A) 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 6d6, 8d6, 12d6, etc.
and
B) 1d10, 2d8, 3d8, 4d8, 6d8, 8d8, 12d8, etc.

However, the Strong Jaw spell follows the progression for natural attacks in the Universal Monster Rules:
A) 1, 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 2d6, 2d8, 4d6, 4d8, 6d6, 6d8, etc.

Which of these is correct, and how do they interact? Am I going crazy, or is there a rule out there that I'm not aware about?

Hm. Okay. I'd just honestly never noticed the "with all the same modifiers" clause before, so it never occurred to me. My group never considered it until someone joined us in PFS recently and mentioned it.

If this is the general consensus and other people agree with this interpretation, I'll roll with it.

1) When making a reroll, do you use all the bonuses and modifiers from the parent roll (the first roll)? For example, if I use the Adaptive Luck Halfling race trait to add +2 to a save, fail the save, and then choose to reroll the save using the Lessons of Chaldira religion trait, does the +2 from Adaptive Luck still apply to the reroll? (I have played that this is in fact the case, and that one would not need to expend another use of Adaptive Luck to boost the reroll again.)

2) When making a critical hit confirmation roll, do you use all the bonuses and modifiers from the original attack roll? The rules as written (taken from the Critical Hits section of the Gamemastering rules) could be theoretically taken either way:

To find out if it's a critical hit, you immediately make an attempt to "confirm" the critical hit—another attack roll with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made.

On one hand, it says "[make] another attack roll," so I assume that bonuses like Adaptive Luck above would not apply to the confirmation roll. On the other hand, it also says, "with all the same modifiers as the attack roll you just made," so perhaps such bonuses would still apply. However, I hesitate to assume that such bonuses persist, since crit confirmation rolls can benefit from things like the Critical Focus feat and the Low Blow Halfling race trait, which do NOT apply to the original attack roll. Any thoughts? (I have played with the bonuses for the two rolls being separate, since the crit confirmation roll is "another [separate] attack roll.")

Thank you in advance for any input!

You can't crit against something you are not attacking.

As for combat maneuvers if it also does damage then it can crit, but no damage means no crit since that is the purpose of the crit rules.

It sounds to me like you're arguing for point #1--crits only happen when you're attacking and doing damage. I don't know if I agree with that entirely (because I still think that it isn't unreasonable to have spectacular actions of any sort reward you by trigger crit-activated abilities), but I certainly could see that point. Again, I'd also be willing to take this interpretation with additional agreement.

It's just a little frustrating because everyone seems to have a different viewpoint--for example, in my previous threads, at least one person was of the view that WCM and AA crits shouldn't matter, but that GMs should allow rolls if there are crit-triggered abilities since nothing explicitly bars them (source: James Risner, here).

(Sorry for the delay/change in the quoted text--I was editing a few things into my statement to make it sound a little less aggressive.)

You can threaten on any attack roll, but you can only confirm if you hit the target's AC. Note, that's the target/s AC, not AC 10.

So, you can score a critical threat with just about anything, but you can only confirm against AC. Or if you had some way to auto confirm.

This is a bit of a weird and literal interpretation, but I guess it fits the RAW description. It feels... odd, though. Crit threats anywhere, but only confirming against enemy AC? I guess that has the same effect as dragonhunterq's comment below.

That quote is from the attack action section, not the attack roll section earlier in the book. I'd say that limits it to the attack action, not just any old attack roll. If it was meant to apply to any attack roll they'd put it in the attack roll section.

This is precisely why I have point #2--it looks like the description of threats is specifically for the attack action section. However, it does say "When you make an attack roll and get a natural 20" and not "When you take the attack action and get a natural 20," and WCMs and AA are both specifically described as attack rolls.

With that being said, Combat Maneuvers have a separate clause describing auto successes on natural 20s and auto fails on natural 1s, which is the other reason why I'd be willing to take this interpretation with additional agreement.

Auto hit with a natural 20? Sure. Critical hit? What, are you going to make the guy prone-er than he already is? Or disarmed-er even more than the normal disarm would do?

I agree that a WCM or AA crit should not have any additional effect on its own. However, this fact should not necessarily prevent crit-activated abilities from happening. A particularly fancy parry could regain panache points, or a particularly spectacular trip could regain rage. (As I said previously, additional reasons for and against, including this one, are listed in this post.)

With aid another you are not really attacking anyone. You are making an attack roll to help someone else get a bonus.

I agree with your statement, but I don't see how that helps answer the question. I will, however, agree that confirming an AA crit becomes almost trivial against an AC of 10, which is one of the other arguments that I listed in this post.

I'm hoping for an answer to whether or not crit-activated abilities can be triggered via weapon combat maneuvers (i.e. disarm/sunder/trip) (WCMs) or Aid Another (AA). I think the question is best boiled down to: "Are crit threats possible with WCMs and AA?" (Also in this category are opposed attack rolls that don't do damage, such as the Swashbuckler's Parry or the Duelist's Parry--see below.)

The main argument FOR:
1) WCMs and AA involve attack rolls and use your weapon's bonuses.

The main arguments AGAINST:
1) Some argue that crits are not allowed on attack rolls that don't do HP/ability damage.
2) Crit threats might be limited to the "attack" action.
3) Crit threats might only be activated when attacking AC (but Aid Another does attack AC 10).

For more arguments for and against, as well as references for each point, you can go to this post here.

Examples of abilities that would benefit from this:
1) Halfling Swashbuckler with the Helpful trait using the Bodyguard feat to regain a panache point with a critical Aid Another (credit: HSalgo)
2) Swashbuckler using the Parry Deed (which does no damage) to a regain panache point with a critical parry (credit: HSalgo)
3) Half-orc/Orc barbarian using the Gore Fiend feat to use a trip+reach weapon (e.g. the guisarme) to regain a round of rage when critically tripping opponents who move through the threatened area (credit: HSalgo)
4) Aldori Swordlord Fighter archetype whose disarms do damage via Disarming Strike (damage that could feasibly be doubled on a crit) (credit: Flynn Walker, here)
5) Tripper using the Greater Trip and Butterfly's Sting feats to grant a critical hit to an ally taking an Attack of Opportunity against a critically tripped target (credit: kinevon, here)

Any input would be appreciated. Someone previously flagged the question for the FAQ; if you guys think that it's worth it, please do so.