Inspector Jee's page

let M(i) represent the XP for a single enemy based on PC's level i
(this comes from the Table in the rules that tell you how much XP an enemy is worth dependent on the level difference between it and the player)

let F(n, i) represent the XP awarded to n Characters all of level i

F(n, i) = (M(i) * 4) / n.

I just realized I had an error here. It should be:

let = p equal the total number of players

let M(i) represent the XP for a single enemy based on PC's level i
(this comes from the Table in the rules that tell you how much XP an enemy is worth dependent on the level difference between it and the player)

let F(p, i) represent the XP awarded to all Characters all of level i, given p Characters in total.

F(p, i) = (M(i) * 4) / p.

Does this forum not you edit posts more than a day old? I wanted to go back and correct old one, but I see no edit button.

- Jee

Inspector Jee wrote:

How: I calculate XP using the formula that's heavily implied by the rules about encounter budgets.

Not sure that it is that heavily implied, but it is probably a reasonably functional houserule. What is explicitly stated in the rules though is that Party members who are behind the party level gain double the XP other characters do until they reach the party’s level.

Yeah that's right. I figured that was predicated on a party-level based implementation, which I am not doing. Everyone gets XP according to their own level relative to the challenge (x4 / total number of players regardless of level).

I suppose that I use the highest level in the party as a benchmark for crafting encounters but I pay almost no attention to the recommended balancing mechanics (for multiple reasons).

- Jee

Simple: lower level PCs gain XP faster from completing the same encounters as higher level PCs do, so its only a matter of time before they catch up.

Why do we even? Because then you can have living campaign settings that contain 10s of PCs from 10s of players from multiple campaigns that might crisscross and run into each other from time to time. Also, a player that has enough PCs at your table to have their own "Character Selection Screen" is far less likely to get pissed off if one of them dies.

How: I calculate XP using the formula that's heavily implied by the rules about encounter budgets.

let M(i) represent the XP for a single enemy based on PC's level i
(this comes from the Table in the rules that tell you how much XP an enemy is worth dependent on the level difference between it and the player)

let F(n, i) represent the XP awarded to n Characters all of level i

F(n, i) = (M(i) * 4) / n.

Yes, this means you have to calculate encounter XP for each group of differently leveled PCs. But it also allows encounters to be pretty flexible. Is an NPC helping the PCs? Great just increase the number of Characters in the fight by 1 and the formula does the rest (the PCs would get less XP cause the NPC is soaking some, but the fight is easier so that tracks). Did another NPC arrive mid-encounter? No problem, just apply his Character +1 to the Enemies/Hazards defeated after he got there.

NOTE: I still award accomplishment-based XP statically (10/30/80) regardless of level.

- Jee

Enchanter Tim wrote:

It's at least possible that this won't apply to Quick Alchemy (and Quick Tincture). Those actions/requirements are distinct from normal Crafting, and as currently written don't benefit from the rule change. While I would love for this to apply across the board, I could see that taking a formula and modifying it to make it more powerful is very doable when you're not under the pressure of someone trying to kill you. When you are, however, then you might need the exact formula for what you're trying to make.

We just won't know until PC2. And in the meantime, as written, Quick Alchemy doesn't benefit from the rule change.

I completely agree that it would be out of their norm for Paizo to give Alch's the ability to quick make any common in the item list without the formula.

-------------

That said, Quick Alchemy has never involved the formula book in any physical way. You don't whip open a book in combat when you make the items. Theoretically, that formula requirement would be the swapped with the daily Advanced Alchemy.
The long lasting prep items needing the formula, the combat temporaries being improved constructs of quintessence.

But, for gameplay conceits, it's more likely to be the opposite, with either Quick needing the formula, or both forms of Alch items needing formulas.

What really kind of sucks is that I don't think there's been a change to formula **price** they all still have that quickly-scaling gp cost.

While the auto-heighten will mean that the core essentials like bombs and mutagens will no longer be taxing one's gp every upgrade tier, it will still be brutal on the Alch's coinpurse to get a variety of the fun items.

Right I wasn't suggesting that Formulas wouldn't be required for Quick/Advanced Alchemy (which I will refer to as "fast-crafting" for brevity) for common items - they almost certainly will be. The question is whether or not I can fast-craft a Major Elixir of Life because I have the Minor Elixir of Life formula.

I find Tim (the Enchanter)'s answer reasonable: until further notice follow the RAW, which still says you need each Formula separately to fast-craft.

- Jee

No idea. Alchemist isn't out yet and I don't see any errata about it anywhere.

The only thing that makes me doubt this application is that it would be a massive glaring hole in the errata from the CRB-Compatibility document: "Oh yeah, Alchemists require 80% less Formulas" seems like a pretty big thing to miss.

- Jee

Related: their is a Witch Feat in the PC that reeeealllly looks like it should create items with the "Infused" Trait, but it doesn't say anything about "Infused" - perhaps this is going away?

Inspector Jee wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Ed Reppert wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Scroll formula in Remaster is 1gp.

Based on?

That's the price of the level 1 magic scroll formula. The Remaster rules state you only need purchase the lowest level formula for any item that has higher level versions of itself. For example, if I have the formula for the minor elixir of life, I can apply the benefits of that formula to a major elixir of life.

Where in the remaster rules is this? I cannot find it. I remember Paizo saying this explicitly under some kind of Q&A pretense, but it was only in reference to scrolls.

What you're saying seems to imply that an Alchemist only ever needs a the Minor/Lesser Formulas to be able to craft the Moderates/Greater/Majors using the formula-given 1-day discount. And maybe even to use Advanced Alchemy to get a bunch of free high-lvl Elixirs per day via only having to know the lower ones? That seems TGTBT.

- Jee

Here you go.

GM Core, p. 223, Multiple Types wrote:

Some items with multiple type entries get special

treatment when it comes to formulas and upgrades. The
existing knowledge you have about the item means you
don’t need to start from scratch with these items.
If you have the formula for an item, you don’t need a
different formula to Craft a different type of that item
that’s just a higher-level upgrade. For example, if you
have the formula for a +1 weapon potency rune, you
don’t need to secure a new formula to etch a +2 weapon
potency rune. This works similarly with items such as a
spacious pouch with its multiple types or doubling rings
with a base version and greater version.

Thank you, wow! Does this apply to Infused things as well? In other words does that mean that Alchemists don’t need to get the formulas for higher versions of, say, an Elixir of Life in order to fast-create them with Advanced/Quick Alchemy? Once they know the Minor version they just have to level up to gain Infused-creation access to the higher tiers? That alone is gone buff the crap out of those kinds of Classes/Archtypes.

- Jee

Ed Reppert wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Scroll formula in Remaster is 1gp.

Based on?

That's the price of the level 1 magic scroll formula. The Remaster rules state you only need purchase the lowest level formula for any item that has higher level versions of itself. For example, if I have the formula for the minor elixir of life, I can apply the benefits of that formula to a major elixir of life.

Where in the remaster rules is this? I cannot find it. I remember Paizo saying this explicitly under some kind of Q&A pretense, but it was only in reference to scrolls.

What you're saying seems to imply that an Alchemist only ever needs a the Minor/Lesser Formulas to be able to craft the Moderates/Greater/Majors using the formula-given 1-day discount. And maybe even to use Advanced Alchemy to get a bunch of free high-lvl Elixirs per day via only having to know the lower ones? That seems TGTBT.

- Jee

Inspector Jee wrote:

I can't find the reference in the RAW that says you're allowed to declare your successes as failures. Can someone hit me with a reference?

- Jee

Well, it's not what happens (even if it's written). A player (and character) can just do nothing after initial time, half-cost and a skill check: neither paying the other half, nor continuing crafting. GM can't stop that. What they can stop is considering the result as raw materials of the same cost for the same item. And demanding for example that the only way to continue with that thing is continuing to reduce cost or paying the rest which is RAW. So no new checks for that semi-finished item.

Whether this is a good or a bad strategy I don't know.

Yes it does sound like obeying the rules would fix this exploit quite handily.

If the player wants to salvage half a built thing, post-success roll, that sounds like another X days of deconstructing it for parts (a la the reverse engineering rules, which means quartering the value of the original item since you're disassembling something half-built). Or a sale to a vested interest who if definitely not going to buy it at full (half) price if SHE must then spend X days deconstructing it.

In other words, inherent to the Failure result is the deconstruction of the item. The Success result makes no such promises; you've already glued, welded, sown, and mixed everything you started with.

- Jee

I can't find the reference in the RAW that says you're allowed to declare your successes as failures. Can someone hit me with a reference?

- Jee

The spell Traits and the need for speaking/gesturing seem fully decoupled now. All spells by default now require the latter (and require them to be obvious, unless the spell is Subtle). This means Lay on Hands requires speaking now and Shield requires you not to be tied up, which is ... annoying but there it is. The Concentrate and Manipulate Traits themselves have no connection to this mechanically and exist for the purposes of other interactions (Reactive Strike, effects that shut down Concentrate, etc.).

In other words, just because a spell is Subtle doesn't mean it doesn't still require gestures. They're just don't obviously give away that you're casting a spell. It also doesn't remove the Manipulate Trait. This is one of the things I really liked about the remaster. We needed a well-defined and discrete mechanic for this.

And for clarity: I don't think "gestures" means "Free Hand", it just means "can move limbs, probably". I would rule that if your arms and legs are bound, then you cannot gesture (unless you're a psychic - you would need to paralyze them completely).

- Jee

EDIT: Seems like "incantations" cover "all speaking related to spells" so that sidebar seems pretty clear on Subtle = no words. But I reckon you still need to be able to move, even subtly.

The only point of the 4x production rate is to get the stuff in your hands faster when you have to craft and can’t buy it. The system doesn’t care at all about giving you special economic benefits or whether you ever reduce the cost at all.

If that were true, there wouldn't even be rules for getting special economic benefits or reducing the cost. So the system does seem to care - at least enough to mention it in the Core and then take up a half a page expanding upon it the Vault.

I agree that it's normally not worth the hassle, but the issue is that the text is pretty dang straightforward.

...

There's really no way to interpret the tiny bit on batch crafting to claim that you are somehow quadrupling your crafting efficacy by basically juggling 4 simultaneous crafts in parallel. While there's plenty of room for homebrew, it's pretty clearly not the rules.

Hard disagree on the asserted clarity.

For each additional day you spend, reduce the value of the materials you need to expend to complete the item.

Is a Batch an Item? Or is it 4 Items?

"Follow the Crafting Rules for 1 Item, but do it 4 times simultaneously"

seems like just as a reasonable an interpretation as

"A Batch of Items is an Item unto itself".

- Jee

EDIT: It sounds like you're pretty confident that a Batch is intended to be a single "Item" for the purposes of work-related discounts. I remain unconvinced. The "limited labor per day" issue could just as easily be covered by the fact that you can prepare 4 at once, so why can't you labor upon completing 4 at once?

Ravingdork wrote:

I find it most interesting that one camp sees the opposing interpretation as too good to be true, while the other camp sees the opposing interpretation as too bad to be true. I wonder if there is a middle ground in there somewhere.

I'm justifying the Too Good to be True by pointing out that earning 20 gp of value in items with 5 days of work is way outside the boundaries of a level 5 downtime task.

How do you justify not allowing that as being Too Bad to be True?

What is the point of taking advantage of a 4x production rate if it still takes ~80% of time - and the same amount of money - to craft something at full discount as it would to make each item individually (again at full discount)?

To be OK with this, you would have to be comfortable saying that the main use-case of batch-crafting is to make it 20% faster to craft consumables. That is pretty bad. And it's counter-intuitive. No one hears "4x" and thinks "1.2x"

You might argue that I'm undervaluing other use-cases - that you can still make 4 things in same number of days as it takes to make 1 other thing if you're willing to pay full price. This is true, but if I wanted to pay full price I would have just gone to the Magic Store and saved myself a bunch of time and Skill Points. Even if I had to spend an entire day scouring the land for such a Store, it would still be a much better use of character-building resources.

Under the notion that you can't work at 4x the discounted-rate, the only use case where Crafting consumables in batches makes any sense is when those items are not otherwise available, but you still have a) the downtown required to craft and b) access to the materials and workshops required to craft. This only happens in very specific cases - low Alch/Magic worlds, narratives focused on camp-building, and/or when the rarity of the consumable matters. Incentivizing in-general batch-crafting only to these cases seems To Bad To Be True.

- Jee

EDIT: In terms of gameplay effects a permanent Item is worth way, WAY more than 4 Consumables. I don't see a problem letting the latter have some love on the cost ratio here.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Inspector Jee wrote:

Gozreh seems the most likely to me. It's the only god with two obvious pieces to rip apart.

Nethys and Urgathoa are also neatly perforated between halves.

Norgorber has quarters. I believe this qualifies to be ripped apart.

You guys think the theme of the iconics is a red herring eh? I'll give ya Nethys - I could see his two "halves" joining opposite sides of a war. Lotta Pharasma talk in up here too; tempting to get a neutral "judge" god involved in a polarizing conflict.

My money's still on Gozreh tho. Lotta elemental upheaval goin on.

- Jee

Gozreh seems the most likely to me. It's the only god with two obvious pieces to rip apart. Maybe each half joins a different side of the War i.e. the god rips themselves apart over an internal disagreement between their diune aspects.

The new class Iconics seems pretty primal-themed too. This also allows affected Clerics to essentially keep their god or, at least, part of it. Seems a convenient way to balance cataclysmic cosmic change without invoking the wrath of the players.

- Jee

It's getting a lot harder to pretend Pathfinder is just better, freer D&D. I didn't realize how much of my drive to engage with it was based on that feeling, but now that it's threatened I'm looking around feeling a little lost. I like Magic Missile. I like Chromatic Dragons. I like ability scores. These are all touchstones of the last 50 years of my culture, and it pisses me off that Hasbro somehow owns that. I can still use these things in my games of course, but unofficial rules necessarily disconnect you from the shared zeitgeist.

But what are my options here? 5E is something between an slow expensive video game and an excuse for fantasy LARP, and I am just not interested in that spectrum. PF2E is actively trying NOT to be D&D, while still embracing that market. Is DCC any good? Should I go crawling back to AD&D begging for forgiveness?

Ya know, I even like most of the changes Paizo is making here I just ... can't shake the feeling that Pathfinder is also converging - albeit slowly - with 5E's design philosophy (and that of all mainstream gaming): homogenize and prune.

- Jee

Spellcaster ability modifier will be removed from damage of cantrips in remaster.

IMO this is a part of MADness reduction like Clerics that will no more need charisma boost to get their font spells and druids that will now able to use metal armors. The cantrips looses the Spellcaster ability modifier but get an extra dice to allow Magus, Eldritch Archers and MC builds to be less MAD.

What? One of the main reasons I'm playing PF2e instead of 5e is because of the wide-spread utility of ability scores, aside from your main one.

The Druid/Metal thing I knew about (even if I also disagree with that), but where were these other changes announced?

EDIT: I found it; Gen Con stream.

- Jee

Inspector Jee wrote:

I don't know what the devs' mechanical strategy is here but I'm having a hard time imagining how this is gonna be anything but a more limited and harder to maintain version of what we already have.

I mean, it's only more limited if Paizo intentionally chooses to direct the class in a more limited way. I'm not saying that's impossible, but it's also essentially approaching the problem from the assumption that Paizo's primary goal is to hurt its players.

It's approaching the problem from the assumption that Paizo is willing to trade "depth and choices" for "easier to design". Which, ya know, doesn't have to be a bad thing. I just don't understand the tradeoff in this case.

- Jee

fwiw I agree with Temperans. I don't know what the devs' mechanical strategy is here but I'm having a hard time imagining how this is gonna be anything but a more limited and harder to maintain version of what we already have. They're removing the reliance on Trait-based organization but keeping the organization; that's like trying to color-code something without using colors. If the goal is to flavor a wizard based on application-of-knowledge, leaving the current system in place and adding Feats seems like more bang for less buck.

If they HAVE to change this anyway cause of the OGL, why not just rename the existing 8 schools? Or hell if you were planning on going through all the spells anyway to curate new school lists, why not just add some more schools to the existing 8, right now? Here's another option: make spells able to have multiple old-school traits so something can be Conjuration AND Evocation (like we do with Traditions). Or some combo of the above.

It's hard to believe they didn't think of this, so I can only conclude that the devs are aware of these options and must've elected to just ... not do those things. I would love to know why. Some kind of Town Hall or vlog thing regarding this decision, in much more depth, would be nice.

- Jee

I was hyped for every change until this one. It bummed me out so much so much that I had a hard time paying attention to the the rest of the stream. I liked having a universal, objective, trait-based categorization system for every spell in the universe, independent of tradition. And the infrastructure that went with it (Wizard schools). It felt cool. And the words themselves sounded wizardy. "Battle Magic" sounds like it came from a YA novel. "Evocation" sounds educated, even pretentious. It's just more on brand.

I have no idea how the new system works or if they're going to just change the old traits into new traits or what, so my ire is premature I'm sure. But my initial, involuntary reaction was one of revulsion.

I had a similar reaction to the Dragon change, but at least that's additive - I can still use the old dragons. Maybe it's just that as Pathfinder is forced further and further away from D&D I'm having a harder and harder time pretending that it's not just free, better D&D.

- Jee

I'll let players do whatever they can convince me is reasonable, with the following inescapable truths:
- Anything made of fire will be dangerous to attach to one's person.
- Light attached to your hat or to bandolier or any such place will only be shedding light in the 180 degree arc in front of you due to your body blocking it. If something moves behind you, it will do so invisibly.
- Light attached to the end of a Staff or other weapon risks getting tossed about (and/or broken) if you start swinging it around. You will also not be able to stow that item without spending more than 1 Action.

On the subject of Sunrods, they work underwater. That's pretty cool.

- Jee

It looks like a character cannot be prone and mounted simultaneously. Prone even opens with "You're lying on the ground". Trip (and probably Shove) dismount a mounted target.

We know that Shove does, because if you've moved off the Mount you can't be mounted anymore. But the resolution of Mounted vs. Prone (as the result of Trip) doesn't necessarily require a dismount; it could just as easily be "You cannot Trip a Mounted character".

- Jee

What I really want to know is "can you trip a Mounted Creature" and, if so, what happens?

- Jee

Whatever happened to Deadmanwalking?

This is my new favorite quote.

- Jee

I don't think the player should have to choose which Recall Knowledge skill to draw upon (or gamble as one noted above). It's not like the PCs' minds are partitioned and indexed that way. They're taking a moment to ascertain with their full mind, not review one's specific notebooks.

Yes that's certainly a popular take. That moment you speak of is 2 seconds long tho. Rarely is the full mind brought to bear in that amount of time. IMO it's much more likely that you'll see a certain need in the heat of the moment and your brain will start its search in whatever vein that need represents.

Someone rolling Society against a Fire Elemental might be doing so because they believe if they can get to its social motivation, then they can stop it. And the only kind of person who would do that is one who prefers talk to violence (and therefore who dumped everything in Society/Diplomacy) so that skill would be a plausible choice.

Remember I'm only speaking of the 1-Action Activity here. Rolling Skill Checks for Research or other such abstractions is a whole different ballgame. And if you DO have time to bring your whole mind to bear (such as during Exploration), then you can roll ALL the Skills if you want so yes, at that point you might as well tell them which one is the most useful.

Inspector Jee wrote:

Identify a Spell uses a Recall Knowledge check, which requires the player pick a skill for the GM to roll. They might choose wrong.

What?! No, they can't, because GM should tell which skills are applicable, and then a player decides which skill to use (and maybe mildly suggest some additional alternative skill) and whether to even do RK. Do some GMs really use this stupid guessing game?

I certainly do. A successful check can really take the teeth out of some enemies / hazards. And the RAW seems to support this, from CRB, p.505:

"As noted in the action’s description, a character might attempt to Recall Knowledge using a different skill than the ones listed as the default options. If the skill is highly applicable, like using Medicine to identify a medicinal tonic, you probably don’t need to adjust the DC. If its relevance is a stretch, adjust the DC upward as described in Adjusting Difficulty."

And I wield ^that^ power fairly liberally. If a player tries to use Society on a Fire Elemental, the DC will be very hard and a Success might reveal the language it speaks or its Int modifier or the Smoke Vision ability, because those are the kinds of things that might come into play in everyday Elemental society. It's not a total waste, but it might not have been the wisest choice (or maybe it was! you never know what kinds of knowledge will come in handy).

IMO, it's empowering for the player to make their own logical choices when engaging in proactive focus. If they know which Skills are definitely applicable ahead of time, they will choose the one with the largest bonus every single time with zero thought. Which is fine, if they've previously succeeded at the same check and want more info.

Their REactive focus, however, should be more intuitive. Hence the auto-choice of Recognize Spell.

- Jee

So I have a question for those that say Recognize a spell doesn't work with KCC. Let's suppose you're right because it doesn't explicitly say it's a Recall Knowledge check.

However, identify a spell does. So on your turn you spend an action to Identify a Spell, you can use KCC right? So what's the difference between Identify a Spell and Recognize a spell?

You mean why would the designers restrict you from using KCC with one but not the other? Perhaps KCC in intended to be used only when a faced with a possible incorrect skill choice. Identify a Spell uses a Recall Knowledge check, which requires the player pick a skill for the GM to roll. They might choose wrong. KCC can save them from this (regardless of which interpretation you're going with).

In Recognize Spell, however, the correct skill is auto-chosen for you. You cannot choose wrong. You may not make the check, but it won't be because you picked the wrong Skill to test your knowledge on. KCC could save you from this well, but given that it's not specifically called out as a Recall Knowledge check perhaps the designers decided that not having to risk choosing the wrong skill was already good enough, and that it shouldn't combo with the other 50+ effects that beef up a player's Recall Knowledge skillz. Maybe the fact that it's a Reaction (or an auto-success in some cases) factored into that calculus as well.

I can't say for sure what the reason is but since ID and RS are mechanically different, its entirely logical that the designers would intended one to combo with KCC and the other to not. All I do know is that the RAW currently supports that intention. I am more than happy to change my mind on this, but that will likely require errata or an example so egregious that it convinces me the RAW is in error.

- Jee

For me, I'm trying to understand what the difference between Identifying a Spell and Recognize a spell is. Because Identifying a spell is explicitly a Recall Knowledge check.

Yes, but the references to "identify" you quoted aren't capitalized. That's a dead give away that the word is being used in disambiguation from mechanical interaction.

In other words, I am asserting that while Recognize Spell identifies a spell it doesn't Identify a Spell.

- Jee

Inspector Jee wrote:

Oh I see. KCC isn't about "I chose wrong, choose again". It's "I'm going to make this Religion Check using Basket Weaving Lore, but its going to pretend like it's still a Religion Check." That is way better.

But even so, the simplest resolution here is that Recognize Spell does not mechanically include a Recall Knowledge check. The RAW doesn't say it is, and the choice of skill is made for you. There is no reason to assume it does other than personal projection.

- Jee

Yeah this is on point. The main reason I made this post was because I was finding it hard to reconcile that Identifying a spell on your turn is a single action to Recall Knowledge but Recognize Spell isn't when the basic premise behind both is that you are identifying a spell that you see/saw.

They could be thematically different on the basis of lack-of-choice. The processing of "Recalling Knowledge" is pro-active and so includes a choice. The process of instantly recognizing something is reactive - you don't consciously think about it; you just know. And the Model for that is the GM auto-rolling your skill.

In other words, "Recalling" and "Recognizing" could thought of as mutually exclusive subsets of "knowing". And therefore the mechanics modeling each are discrete from each other.

- Jee

Oh I see. KCC isn't about "I chose wrong, choose again". It's "I'm going to make this Religion Check using Basket Weaving Lore, but its going to pretend like it's still a Religion Check." That is way better.

But even so, the simplest resolution here is that Recognize Spell does not mechanically include a Recall Knowledge check. The RAW doesn't say it is, and the choice of skill is made for you. There is no reason to assume it does other than personal projection.

- Jee

Help me out here; in what situations would both of these meaningfully apply to the same check, even if it was legal? If a spell is cast using the Arcane Tradition, then Recognize Spell demands that the secret check be made with the Arcana skill and no alternative, right? Pivoting to a different skill doesn't help here, because no other skill would apply.

Recall Knowledge, on the other hand, requires that the player pick a Skill for the GM to roll on. This means you might pick wrongly, in which case Crossover helps you out. This is IMO why it references Recall Knowledge specifically: to mitigate the repercussions of choosing incorrectly.

- Jee

breithauptclan wrote:

Continual Recovery does not remove the rule from Treat Wounds that the time spent treating wounds overlaps with the immunity time.

So yes, with Continual Recovery you can immediately use Treat Wounds again after the 10 minutes of using Treat Wounds on the same character.

The balance point of that is to make it match up with focus point HP recovery like Lay on Hands, Goodberry, or Hymn of Healing, etc. Characters with those spells can cast the spell, then refocus for 10 minutes, then cast the spell again.

I agree but my GM does not, he wants "proof"

Is there any way to get in touch with, someone from Paizo?

thnx
Joakim

Ask him what he thinks the word "Continual" means.

- Jee

That is some mighty fine mathemancy right there. My system isn't nearly that complex. When I have PCs of vary levels, I don't start from the notion that the fight is worth a fixed amount of XP and work backward. Instead, I decide what every "level-group" gets by doing the math (according to tables in the CRB) as if EVERYONE in the Party was that same level.

So if I have:
- one lvl 2
- two lvl 3s
- one lvl 4

all VS a lvl 4 Enemy

then using the equation I posted above (which in this simple case amounts the same info that Table 10-2 describes):
- the lvl 2 guy gets 80
- each lvl 3 gets 60
- the lvl 4 gets 40.

From the lvl 2's perspective, that fact that his allies are higher level is "soaking up" some of the XP that would have been awarded if the whole party was level 2 (the party would have received 320 XP all together, instead of only 240). Which is fine, cause the higher level peeps are making this fight much easier. So it SHOULD be worth less XP total.

From the lvl 4's perspective, that fact that his allies are lower level is boosting the XP higher than would have been awarded in total if the whole party was level 4 (the party would have received 160 XP all together, instead of 240). This is also fine, cause this fight is gonna be much harder than it would have been with four level 4s. So it SHOULD be worth more XP total.

This system has its pitfalls but they don't become egregious until the level deltas get much bigger. So far it's keeping everything on track and "feels" right. It's a little friendlier to the underleveled but that is by design - get them caught up, so to speak.

And, most importantly, it is simple, consistent, and works for any number of players and/or friendly NPCS.

- Jee

Yes mounts is only affect by their own armor (Barding) penalties. The rider is just "a carried thing" apart what it is wearing and count only to the mount's bulk.

Yep.

Side Note: It's worth remembering that calculating the bulk-carried of a Large Mount (like a Horse) is funky. For a Large Creature, a single medium/small item of 1 Bulk becomes L Bulk. Two medium/small Items of 1 Bulk therefore become LL Bulk. So far, so good.

But a single medium/small Item of 2 Bulk? That's still 2 Bulk. The Item itself has to have exactly a bulk of 1 (or L for converting to N) for that Large+ conversion to apply. If not, no conversion - it weighs what it says it does.

I understand there is some disagreement on this interpretation but IMO it's the only one that both follows the RAW and also doesn't result in Horses being able to carry 45 suits of plate (see example in the PS).

- Jee

P.S. So using the above interpretation and given that a Riding Horse can carry 18 Bulk before becoming encumbered: The rider is usually 6 and the things that rider is carrying that weigh more than 1 Bulk by themselves are usually Armor, big weapons, some Tools and kits, ladders, etc. So a Fighter wearing full plate with a big 2-Hander and a snare kit is gonna put your Horse at 14/18 Bulk, before the "1 -> L" Bulk conversions come into play (and those are unlikely to get you over 10L bulk unless this guy is crazy-strong, so you can usually ignore all items that are <=1 Bulk that this guy is carrying, in this calculus). That leaves the horse with enough Bulk for carrying an unused tower shield or a suit of heavy armor or ... I dunno, 2 ladders. But not enough for a Alchemy Lab or a Grand Piano (tho, interestingly, if the Horse was carrying nothing else it could - in fact - barely carry said Grand Piano without being encumbered). So all of this seems sound to me.

Contrastingly, if you go with with the straight 1 Bulk -> L Bulk conversion regardless of "weight-item relationship discreteness" (in other words just add them up and divide by 10), a Riding Horse can carry no less than eleven Grand Pianos. You see the problem.

I too use the "multiply by 4, then divide by [Num-Dudes-in-Party]" method. This is for 2 reasons:

1) My encounters tend to field a lot of characters - some of which might join the encounter mid-way through depending on what goes down. For example a fight on the docks of a major city might include 4 guards, 2 drunks, a dockhand, and a barkeep all joining 6 PCs against 12 Giant Crabs, a Merfolk witch, 3 gillmen trying to steal a box from a warehouse, and 1 burglar trying to break into a house to steal something else. If the fight spills into the sewers you better believe there's gonna be nasty stuff down there.

2) My PCs are often of varying levels (but not usually more than 1-2 levels apart). This means I need a way to make the same Enemies worth more/less XP to different characters.

To handle all this I wanted a more precise, more reactive way to handle XP accounting according to those nuances. If everyone is getting exactly the same amount of predicable XP for that^ mess up there as they do when only 4 of them fight a single +3 Cave Monster people are gonna start wondering why we even have XP.

Not that there aren't already lots of people wondering that.

- Jee