HammerJack's page

Ravingdork wrote:

Even if it wasn't a signature spell, they could still cast it additional times a day with higher rank slots. However, it would not gain any of the heightened benefits and would still be treated as a 3rd-rank fireball.

RD, I think this statement might be untrue.

Quote:

Heightening Spells

When you get spell slots of 2nd rank and higher, you can fill those slots with stronger versions of lower-rank spells. This increases the spell's rank, heightening it to match the spell slot. You must have a spell in your spell repertoire at the rank you want to cast it in order to heighten it to that rank. Many spells have specific improvements when they are heightened to certain ranks. The signature spells class feature lets you heighten certain spells freely.

The way I interpret this is, that in order for a spontaneous caster to cast a spell out of a slot, requires them to have it in their spell repertoire at that rank of spell, unless it's a signature spell.

If you allow them to cast it out of the rank slot without even knowing the higher level version (even with no benefit) it's honestly a bit too good IMO. Maybe my understanding is incorrect, but that's how I've always parsed it. It's like the one real limiting factor to spontaneous spell casting.

I also think a lot of people, so used to PF1 spell casting don't realize this is an issue, that you can't freely heighten spell into a higher rank (at no benefit). Or perhaps (again), I'm really misunderstanding the rules.

In the remaster, it was made explicit that they can do this, in the last paragraph of the Heightened Spontaneous Spells heading.

As a spontaneous caster, you can also choose to cast a lower-rank spell using a higher-rank spell slot without heightening it or knowing it at a higher rank. This casts the spell at the rank you know the spell, not the rank of the higher slot. The spell doesn’t have any heightened effects, so it’s usually not a very efficient use of your magic outside of highly specific circumstances. For instance, if your party was having trouble with an invisible enemy, and you had revealing light in your repertoire but had already spent all of your 2nd-rank spell slots, it might be worth it to use a 3rd-rank spell slot to cast the spell, even though it’d have no heightened benefit.

Just the Ancestry and Ancestry feats from Player Core. Nothing about other PF2 content like classes, deities, archetypes, etc is part of this.

Boons for different things may well exist in some way, at some point, but I can't tell you to expect any specific character option to have one, ahead of actually seeing a boon exist.

I don't think there's actually anything there that needs errata. If there isn't a 13th level Ancestry feat that a specific character qualifies for, they can always take another lower level Ancestry feat.

A Spontaneous spellcaster needs Fireball in their repertoire, but doesnt prepare it for the day.

A Prepared spellcaster needs to prepare Fireball in multiple slots if they want to cast it multiple times.

The Flexible Spellcaster Class Archetype is an edge case that changes how prepared casters work. They prepare a set of the spells for the day, then cast from that set as if they were a spontaneous caster, but all spells were Signature spells. They pay for this benefit by having fewer spellslots of every level, as well as by taking the Class Archetype.

HammerJack wrote:

You have to have the Blood Magic feature first to use feats that give an alternate Blood Magic option.

You've just invented that. Where's this coming from? Why?

And the feat does exactly what it says, as I said, we know what "blood magic" is. It's not the first feat in the game which has not all its mechanics explained in itself. Extremely mildly speaking.

And I don't understand why you are so hell-bent to not allow spending 16th level feat on some very conditional 8-level ability. When the logic here is absolutely clear-cut and straightforward.

It is coming from the rules of Blood Magic. That is why I quoted them.

The feat does do exactly what it says: makes you know a blood magic effect.

The Blood Magic feature explains what knowing a blood magic effect means.

That the question comes up at a pretty high level for this specific blood magic effect isn't actually relevant, so I don't try to change the meaning to make this work just because it's 16th level. I might houserule an ability to make it better at a table I'm running, but I'm not going to do it in answering a rules question for someone else who isn't at my table.

You have to have the Blood Magic feature first to use feats that give an alternate Blood Magic option.

Blood Magic Whenever you cast a bloodline spell using a Focus Point or a sorcerous gift spell using a spell slot, you choose one blood magic effect you know to benefit from. You begin play with the benefit listed in your bloodline and can gain others through sorcerer feats.

If the blood magic effect offers a choice, make it before resolving the spell. The blood magic effect occurs after resolving any checks for the spell's initial effects and, against a foe, applies only if the spell is a successful attack or the foe fails its saving throw. If the spell has an area, you must designate yourself or one target in the area when you cast the spell to be the target of the blood magic effect. All references to spell rank refer to the rank of the spell you cast.

Without that ability letting you choose to use a blood magic effect that you know, when you cast a qualifying spell, knowing other blood magic effects (which is what the feat gives you) is meaningless.

It is technically true that you can TAKE the feat, because there is no prerequisite of having Blood Magic. But it doesn't DO anything without Blood Magic.

Weird, I can find the corrected text on sites like Archives of Nethys, but I can't find where the text is updated. It's not on the Pathfinder FAQ list.

The most likely place would be in your actual book. (I'm not sure if the PDF has been updated for this since I downloaded mine, but if you also have the physical it's probably still there, I don't think there was a new printing).

In my book, both edicts and anathema say "Lead others to the light of good, strive for self-perfection, be a support for others struggling to change their ways"

Cozened wrote:

graystone wrote:

Cozened wrote:

Tumble Through:

Specifies that the player moves through a square occupied by an enemy who is unwilling.

It in fact does not say that. "You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy." They CAN try to move through an enemy, not that they must. You may use the Tumble Through action to simply Stride and never attempt to move through anyone's space.

pg. 422, PC2:

You can move through the space of a willing creature. If you want to move through an unwilling creature’s space, you can Tumble Through it. You can’t end your turn in a square occupied by another creature, though you can end a move action in its square provided that you immediately use another move action to leave that square. If two creatures end up in the same square by accident, the GM determines which one is forced out of the square (or whether one falls prone).

And? Just because it says "If you want to move through an unwilling creature’s space, you can Tumble Through it" in no way REQUIRES there be an unwilling creature to use it. It's a section named "Moving Through a Creature’s Space" so why would you expect it to mention uses that do not involve "Moving Through a Creature’s Space"? The ACTUAL entry for Tumble Through gives the actual requirements for using it. That says "You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy" and not you must try to move through the space of one enemy.

This has been confirmed by Dev posts: they described Tumble Through as a Stride with style and it can 100% be used as just a Stride and qualify for things that require Tumble Through.

If there's no Tumble check, there's no panache generated, making tumbling but not theough any unwilling creature not useful to the original question.

1. Dirge of Doom doesn't cost a focus point.

2. The concentrate trait doesn't mean anything like that. It has nothing to do with keeping spells going. It is just a trait with no direct effects of its own that other rules can trigger off of (like barbarian's Rage preventing Concentrate actions, or inventor's Distracting Explosion being trigger by an enemy using a concentrate action.)

My friend and I are having a discussion on whether or not this is RAW. If a Ruffian Rogue where to take the Mauler dedication, could they then sneak attack with a Glaive?

No, a glaive is a D8 martial weapon. The Ruffian racket ability for martial and advanced weapons only works up to D6.

Mauler doesn't affect this at all. It only lets you treat the glaive as simple for proficiency, not for any other purpose.

"Sustained" needs to be the duration of the spell.

You would be correct that Weapon Infusion isn't relevant to flanking, though. Only melee weapons and unarmed attacks (and their reach) matter to providing a flank for an ally.

A melee kinetic blast would benefit from flanking when you're in that position, though.

No, they do not. Needing to know the spell at different ranks has only ever been a rule of spontaneous casters.

Shortbow is also a Martial weapon. Switching to shortbow would help you to avoid worrying about Volley, but that's all it helps you with. (That one thing is a lot in plenty of games).

I see how this is an issue and I hate it. Thanks for pointing this out. Into the houserule doc it goes, I guess.

Can't imagine they thought that a gunslinger that uses sneak and then does risky reload shouldn't get the off-guard bonus because they reloaded before shooting, but that sure does look like the case by RAW. Also can't imagine they thought a sniper that uses covered reload shouldn't be able to follow it up with Ghost Shot and get off-guard, either. Chalk it up to a case where everybody read what was intended and no one read what was actually written, I guess.

You day "by RAW", there, but the line about GM discretion on other actions is an INCREDIBLY important part of the RAW, and really no one should ever be phrasing things as though it isn't. It makes it seem like there isn't an expectation of GMs using that discretion sensibly, when there absolutely is.

2E just isn't a system that has any interest in treating GM discretion as secondary, and not like something that should be load-bearing. That's why you also have things like "is there cover from my shot?" being primarily GM discretion, with drawing lines on a map as a secondary, backup method. Or "what is the DC to Recall Knowledge on this creature with Skill X? Is skill X even valid?" having huge amounts of "GM decides, here are some starting points and guidance" instead of a number assigned for each skill for each creature.

There is no rules text about it and no PFS campaign ruling, either, so no one is going to be able to gove you a solid answer that aboids table variation, unless there's some developer clarification.

I wouldn't expect anyone to really read new permanent unarmed attacks as a problem, but there is a reasonable enough reading that you don't have those unarmed attacks through the downtime for any of them to be valid. I would strongly recommend not trying to exist in that grey area in a campaign with multiple GMs.

Things like Hands of the Wildling are still applied to a specific unarmed attack not all unarmed attacks. And whether an unarmed attack that you don't permanently have (like one from a form) can be selected is a point of table variation. I've even seen variation on whether a stance-granted attack is legal.

I don't think it's ideal for a character that will need to deal with different GM's understandings of the rules. I would save that for a game where you always have the same GM and can confirm that they share your reading.

No new information. It still doesnt allow targeting one creature with extra attacks.

Player Core page 335. The rule is in the Haste spell itself. It states "It gains the quickened condition and can use the extra action each round for only Strike and Stride actions."

If you are looking for what page states that an Impulse doesn't get counted as Stride or Strike, no such page exists. The rule is the other way around. Stride and Strike are specific actions. An Impulse being usable in place of one would have to be a special rule written into the Impulse. The books won't say that the hypothetical special rule doesn’t exist.

Not an unreasonable houserule, but definitely not an option without houseruling the feat.

There is one minor thing wrong in that statement, of course. It suggests that you can use the start of a turn as a trigger for Ready, which is false.

That detail doesn't stop the problem, but it's a little irritating to see the idea get repeated, even if that quote wasn't recent.

Also, remember "natural weapon" is not a rules category in 2E. It's just unarmed attacks, so they have no special privilege of counting as weapons for any purpose.

I have a question regarding the Kineticist class and the Weapon Infusion ability. Specifically, can I use the Haste spell’s additional action to make an attack with my infused weapon? The elemental Blast?

Additionally, if this is possible, can I also use the Haste action for other Kineticist abilities?

I would greatly appreciate your guidance on these matters.

Thank you for your assistance.

No. Haste specifies Stride or Strike. Impulses are neither of those actions. Weapon Infusion does not actually have anything to do with weapons. It just modifies Elemental Blast.

We can't answer that any more than why they decided not to have any kind of changes to range or AoE sizes when you go up the level range. I know these were all things that at least some of us cited as problems in playtest surveys, but someone apparently disagreed.

Also, an "anyone?" post after only a few hours? Are you really expecting instant forum answers to questions that are about "why?" and not "what?" or "how?"

Here's another edge case for yall, if the exemplar gets Swipe, or another "one swing, multiple hits" attack, how do you rule it?

Do you add the dmg of both targets hit together for the Drink healing?

Is that Swipe style multi-hit substantially different from the exemplar getting a power-attack style ability that increases the damage of a single strike?

They can't use Drink of My Foes in that case. The last action has to be Strike, not Swipe.

The idea that actions with Encounter Mode action costs can't be taken outside of encounters is totally baseless and false. That's never been a real debate, which is probably why you don't see much discussion of it.

If it were true characters not tracking time in rounds wouldn't be able to do things like "climb a ladder" or "open a door" or "pick up an object" or "cast a spell like Water Breathing on the party".

You can't do long timescale activities in shorter timescale. The reverse isn't true.

The other guidance that is in the monster building rules just tells you to put in an unarmed attack in advance if you think this is likely to come up.

I'd take a look at the Study Group boon. The chronicle doesn't tell you what's made available without reading the boons.

It's in the Gear section of Bestiary and Monster Core.

Gear Some creatures rely on gear, like armor and weapons. You might need statistics for such a creature that has lost its gear. For example, a creature could be Disarmed, it might be ambushed while it’s out of its armor, or one of its worn magic items could be disabled with dispel magic. In most cases, you can simply improvise, but if you want to be more exacting, use these guidelines for weapons and armor.

If a creature loses its weapon, it might draw another weapon or use an unarmed attack. If it uses a Strike it doesn’t have listed in its stat block, find a Strike entry for the creature that most closely matches the substitute, reduce the attack modifier by 2, and use the damage dice for the new Strike. If the creature needs to make an unarmed attack and doesn’t have one listed in its stat block, it uses the statistics for a fist (Player Core 277). If the creature loses a weapon with a weapon potency rune, you usually should reduce the attack modifier by 2 plus the bonus granted by the weapon’s potency rune for the new weapon. For example, if the creature is Disarmed of its +1 mace, then you would reduce the attack modifier by 3 instead of 2 for the new Strike.

If a creature doesn’t have its armor, find the armor in its Items entry, and reduce the creature’s AC by that armor’s item bonus (Player Core 273). If the armor has an armor potency rune, increase the reduction as appropriate; for example, if the creature has a suit of +2 chain mail in its statistics, and the characters catch the creature without its armor, you would reduce the creature’s AC by 6 instead of 4. If the armor has a resilient rune, reduce the creature’s saves based on the rune’s type (1 for resilient, 2 for greater resilient, or 3 for major resilient).

In this case, where the caster isn't Unconscious, yes it works. I don't know why people are saying otherwise.

No, nothing in it overrides the range of the subordinate action Taunt. Long-distance Taunt is written in a way that applies to all Taunts, including subordinate actions, and is what you'd need to extend that range.

Yes. Focus spells are spells.

HammerJack wrote:

The rules also tell you that Unique doesn't apply to the DC to recall about the general creature type.

It does say something like that in one of the books [Gamemastery]: it notes it's Unique for "discern specific information about" a Unique NPC but when "encountering" such an NPC, their Ancestry follows the rarity for that Ancestry.

This means that if you're trying to recall if an NPC is an orc, it's a Unique DC, but if you mean them, it's a Common DC.

Let's be honest; if this is something players/DM's are expected to know, it should be spelled out in a Main core book.

It is also in GM Core. That is a core book.

The rules also tell you that Unique doesn't apply to the DC to recall about the general creature type.

glass wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

The weakness in the Archives of Nethys DCs for identifying creatures is that they are based solely on level with no consideration for the creature being familiar, common, uncommon, or never before seen

Wait, really? They don't include the Rarity in the AoN DCs? That's really unhelpful if true. EDIT: It does not appear to be true, or at least not universally so (I have only checked one example): The Tarrasque correctly gives the DC for a Unique level 25 of 60 (it would be 50 without the +10 Rarity modifier).

I was wrong. I performed a survey of the 5th-level creatures in Archives of Nethys and the common creatures had DC 20, the uncommon had DC 22, the rare had DC 25, and the unique had DC 30. Oddly, the unique creatures were often a single individual NPC with a name, so Ban-Niang "Granny" Hu, female human guard captain 5, with DC 30 is a lot harder to identify than Unsanctioned Sheriff with DC 20. Thus, making an NPC a named individual rather than an example of a profession makes them harder to recognize.

I was mostly thinking about the difference between the common creatures that everyone would recognize, such as Moose, versus the common creatures that seen much more obscure, such as Flynkett. On the other hand, maybe little children on Golarion learn about obscure common creatures, such as reading from an ABC book with F for Flynkett.

glass wrote:

Captain Morgan wrote:

AoN is generally great, yes, but it has created this false understanding of how knowledgeable DCs (and even relevant skills) work. As Hammerjack pointed out at the beginning.

I do not understand - in what way?

Take the...

Unique is another case where people desperately need to read all the rules about rarity and RK, and not blindly use those AoN DCs. It is very important that the Unique DC is only used for what is actually Unique about the individual, not for information about any base creature type that they are a special individual of.

Attempting to actually print every lore that can apply to a creature, when there is not a fixed list of valid lores in the first place would be Actually counterproductive. Printing the standard skills that apply based on creature type would be fine (though the ability to allow other related skills at adjusted DC, based on the narrative of the creature is something I value as a GM), but listing all lores doesn't make sense.

Do also remember that Thaumaturge's Exploit Vulnerability does not use RK DC. It just uses standard DC by Level. They use it for Diverse Lore and for regular RK attempts but not for a core class feature.

So, the reason those DCs haven't ever been in any bestiary or adventure is that they aren't real. AoN gives standard difficulty adjustment steps applied to the rarity-adjusted level-based DC. But remember, that is the starting point of setting RK DCs, and they can also be adjusted based on other factors, like fame.

Also, do remember that "Specific lore" and "Unspecific lore" written in AoN have never been real rules categories.

There's specifically a problem for a GM to navigate with rules going from SF to PF or vice versa based on assumptions of the setting. One of them is "everybody in the future has access to really good ranged attacks" so "unlimited flight from level 1" is specifically not a problem, whereas many things you fight in Pathfinder stay firmly rooted on the ground and want to end you with claws and teeth.

So I'm not sure why PFS would give that boon to begin with. A curated list of SF2 options you could use would be a much better choice.

Generally I think using rules back and forth works better in a context where you know each other and someone is making a good faith effort to make a character that works outside of their native setting. Like you can absolutely play an Envoy in Pathfinder, but you would want to avoid stuff like "Guns Blazing" and "Infosphere Director" for your subclass (the other four are fine.) Like you should avoid things that involve the computers skill, rather than asking the GM to seed the world with computers for you to use.

That boon (a couple of SF Ancestries usable if you did enough of the SF2 playtedt stuff during the playtest) IS a curated short list. It isn't bringing in any other SF content.

Where are you getting the statement that encounter mode actions can't be used during exploration? Do you realize how much incredible nonsense that houserule would cause? Interact to pick up an object is an Encounter mode action.

Before resolving the spell

No, it's down at the low end of mid-levels. Only level 8.

HammerJack wrote:

I think that's the scale where you really want to use some wargame for the session, instead of trying to tie it to PF2 mechanics at all.

I'm a great believer in listening to the PCs plans on what they are going to do to influence the situation and then frantically waving my hands as I describe what happens, incorporating as much of their plans as I can manage.

Depending on the situation, sometime they'll be able to decide who wins the battle, other times all they'll be doing is rescuing some people from the unstoppable horde.

I'll add the asterisk text here. My previous answer is specifically if you're looking to play out the large scale combat, instead of just some smaller point or event where the PCs are.

I think that's the scale where you really want to use some wargame for the session, instead of trying to tie it to PF2 mechanics at all.

The Balor's ability at least has some counterplay, because of it being fire damage. A Resist Energy spell protects a character's gear, as well as their person, and that resistance on top of the hardness actually can keep up with the comparatively tame damage numbers on that ability.

It's not as bad as something like the Shuln having no real precautions you can take.

Abilities that can directly target weapons or armor exist, but are comparatively rare. They're also often ill-conceived, if they aren't very low level, because there's no scaling of item durability to match up with the scaling in damage numbers. (Only precious materials have scaling at all.)

Having proficiency a level below what your class normally has at that level (what operatives will have at every level and what a different martial will have at most levels, with thing bands like 1-4 and 11-12 exempt) is a big enough downside that it is actually reasonable to say that there's no way to use those weapons properly. It's not actually a reasonable balance tradeoff to the quality of Advanced weapons.

Yes, Unconventional Weaponry, specifically, not being a way to use any Core book weapons is just weird. No Starfinder character except for the casters having any way to use most of the advanced weapons properly is a problem.

It's not a new problem, of course. The way Advanced Weapon proficiency is handled has been one of the big design flaws of Pathfinder 2E all along, but it isn't encouraging to see SF2 make the old mistake worse, instead of better.

HammerJack wrote:

The problem is the same as Stride. "I Ready for a specific stage of resolving an action, where the enemy has spent their action but not had an effect yet" has never been a valid Ready Trigger. Nothing different with Leap instead of Stride.

That is incompatible with how many Reactions presently function. Ruling like that would be to declare a number of feats / Reactions as illegal / invalid.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=446 wrote:

Some reactions and free actions are triggered by a creature using an action with the move trait. The most notable example is Attack of Opportunity. Actions with the move trait can trigger reactions or free actions throughout the course of the distance traveled. Each time you exit a square (or move 5 feet if not using a grid) within a creature’s reach, your movement triggers those reactions and free actions (although no more than once per move action for a given reacting creature). If you use a move action but don’t move out of a square, the trigger instead happens at the end of that action or ability.

Quote:

Each time you exit a square (or move 5 feet if not using a grid) within a creature’s reach, your movement triggers those reactions

This bit here only invokes the default, each 5 ft of movement triggers reactions. Before or after is ambiguous.

If the Reaction happened second, then the most basic Reaction, Attack of Opportunity, would be crippled, only working when a 5ft chunk of Stride, etc, ends still inside one's reach.

Quote:

If you use a move action but don’t move out of a square, the trigger instead happens at the end of that action or ability.

This bit of text reveals that Reactions going first is the default, and that a special exception like this one is needed to override it so that the Reaction happens second.

.

Do you have any text that claims the opposite of the above? Any text that indicates that Reactions happen second?

As far as I know, the Reaction ability...

I didn't say not a valid REACTION trigger. I said not a valid READY trigger. Many printed reactions have triggers based on rules concepts. That doesn't invalidate Ready's restrictions.

The problem is the same as Stride. "I Ready for a specific stage of resolving an action, where the enemy has spent their action but not had an effect yet" has never been a valid Ready Trigger. Nothing different with Leap instead of Stride.