Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion's page

GameDesignerDM wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

Aren't all undead unholy? And thus your thralls and their attacks would count as u holy as well.

Nothing in the Necromancer kit is Unholy.

Is there no general rule saying that undead are unholy?

There used to be lore that all created undead are evil (now unholy) but some naturally occurring undead are not. Non vengeful ghosts who go peacefully when their business is done are generally not unholy, for example. And there is an entire town of skeletons in the cairn lands created when a protective ritual collided with the powers released in that land and things got really weird, resulting in them all being turned into (non-evil / non-unholy) skeletons.

Mastery of Life and Death currently only seems to do anything for necromancy grave spells and feats where it lets you ignore immunity to void damage from being undead and immunity vitality damage from being alive. As necromancy grave spells and features don't call out living or undead target specifications.

If you look at the immunity block for undead, they don't actually have immunity to void. Immunity to void would mean they would neither be harmed or healed by it. (For comparison, they do have immunity to healing effects.) Even reading void healing, it doesn't say anything about being immune to void. Just that they are healed by it.

And the example:

Mastery of Life and Death wrote:

For instance, if the creature were immune to void and had no resistance or immunity to vitality damage, it would take vitality damage from the spell or ability.

indicates that a skeleton enemy - which is immune to Void damage and has no resistance or immunity to Vitality damage, would take Vitality damage from Void Warp.

Unless you are arguing that this ability only applies to spells or abilities that would deal both Void damage and Vitality damage in the one casting. At which point the entire purpose of the ability is very, very niche use.

Skeletons are not immune to void. (If they were they would not be healed by it either.)

Immunities death effects, disease, mental, paralyzed, poison, unconscious;

I mean if it is any thrall then there is no reason not to use this to jsut put random thralls on the battlefield. Also thralls have no defenses so having 1 or 100 of them doesn't change anything honestly especially if you can untrained action tumble through them with a DC10 which if the monster has decent DEX mod that will happen so like, they aren't even a road block really.

Give everyone flank while your first thrall pounds it's initial target...

I'm about 95% certain it is suppose to say 1 Thrall you have not 1 creature but what confused me is why it is considered 2 attacks, I don't think we've seen a spell do this but maybe targeting AC is that good?

Most things that attack multiple creatures with attack rolls with no map count as 2 attacks. (Sweep attacks, etc.)

Necromantic lore

Necrotic Lore

It sounds better (IMO)
It covers dead things not raising dead things.

:)

You are talking about the initial class feature Mastery of Life and Death, yes?

That one that says that you can cast spells such as Void Warp to deal either Void damage or Vitality damage.

It doesn't actually say that. It says:

"Whenever you cast a spell or use an ability that
would deal void or vitality damage, use the weaker of the
target’s resistance or immunity to void or to vitality."

It is still Void Damage.

It just ignores "Immunity Void Damage" unless the target also has "Immunity Vitality Damage"

But unless this is intended to rewrite the rules as "all living creatures are immune to vitality damage, and all undead are immune to void damage" it doesn't actually work. Because the rules seem to say that void damage just doesn't even target undead.

(Note that Void Healing, which is what this is probably intended to interact with, is in HP, not Immunities on most creatures. And as mentioned they need to be able to target undead with "target living" and target living with "target undead" spells.)

You have studied the delicate balance of life and death
to such a point that you can dance between them with
ease. Whenever you cast a spell or use an ability that
would deal void or vitality damage, use the weaker of the
target’s resistance or immunity to void or to vitality. For
instance, if the creature were immune to void and had no
resistance or immunity to vitality damage, it would take
vitality damage from the spell or ability. Resistance or
immunity to both (or to all damage) applies as normal.

I am guessing it would let you bypass "Resist Void" (such as the barbarian spiit instinct.)

But how does the immunity bypass work? Void Damage only ever targets living creatures, and Vitality Damage only ever targets the undead. I think the only creature that is immune *only* to void damage that I can thing of is possessed constructs.

Does that mean your void damage spells would harm both living and dead?

Also it doesn't say "from spell slots" so what happens if you somehow get a 3 action heal spell from something. Does it just hit everything?

Does the mystic's vitality pool recover outside of combat (absent refocus?)

Can the mystic transfer vitality out side ov combat?

If the pool recovers outside of combat that is 400 hp every 10 minutes, so of course it refills when you refocus.

Many people don't even read the whole Guide before GMing (sorry, Guide folks, but it's true).

I am pretty sure most people don't read it at all,

It is pretty depressing, honestly.

thistledown wrote:

Reskinning enemies to avoid phobias I get. I've had to deal with a giant spider issue at a table I ran. But reskin for personal preference? I don't want to hear a conversation where one table fought tigers and another fought wolves.

As long as the mechanics don't change, does it matter if you fought wolves or tigers? I agree that GMs should not change the Deadly Robot of Death into the Ooze of Cuddles, even if the Ooze of Cuddles still has a laser weapon. Tigers vs wolves in what is likely a random encounter seems like an unimportant difference to me.

I reskinned the entire Lions of Katapesh scenario to turn all the antagonists into characters from the Lion King, including replacing the sphinx on the map with pride rock...

I’m similarly unsure what would be an obvious error to fix vs a change that increases difficulty, which is prohibited.

There is a creature in a scenario with +132 to it's attack. (Pretty clearly it was changed from +13 to +12 or vice versa and someone forgot to hit delete / backspace. I guess it is lucky it wasn't on the damage line...)

I would also like to see a provision explicitly allowing GM discretion for enemies to retreat or surrender when it makes sense for them to do so. It's written into some scenarios but not others.

This is already explicitly allowed, though it could be clearer. Morale is a part of the tactics section, and tactics are one of the things GMs are already specifically allowed to change if the existing tactics no longer apply due to player actions.

I deeply resent the idea that errata to scenarios is posted in a forum *completely* divorced from PFS play, one I would never even known existed if not for this thread.

Valid or not, Errata to Scenarios needs to be mirrored in the PFS GM sub forum (Or better yet, posted there and mirrored to the foundry sub forum.)

I'm just popping in to second the message of 'why be stingy?'

If someone joined in January and really wanted to play a barbarian, played 3 times, now they don't have an option for rebuild for PC2 without AcP, what's going to encourage them to buy the book?

Does it cost the program something to change the previous ruling to include these classes played in the last 9 months?

minor pedantic correction: 4 times, you have to have played it at level 2 to be locked out of rebuild.

But otherwise agreed.

Finally got around to reading the license:

But those Pathfinder Society faction dice bags you have been making because you love them? You can totally start selling those now instead of just giving them away for free.

While digital items may reuse official Paizo art or logos, merch should not. Do not use the “Paizo,” "Pathfinder," or "Starfinder," trademarks and logos on your physical merch or in marketing materials when selling it. Do not use official art or assets from our games in merch.

So faction dice bags (faction name and color scheme maybe?) would be fine, but faction dicebags with a faction symbol copied from the blog would not, is that correct?

(It might be a good idea to make that more clear)

I also would like to know where this leaves VTTs such as foundry and Fantasy Grounds?

I do want to be super clear (since I wasn't earlier) that I am massively in favor of the shift to being more open to fan made art and letting fan artists sell their work!

I am just also worried that this seems like it will break some some of the existing tools I know and love.

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

So. As far as I am reading this, a third party character sheet could not use the Pathfinder logo, the class icons, or possibly even the action symbols without a separately negotiated license?

A custom character sheet layout falls under the "some exceptions" in the Fan Content Policy. Since it's primarily art (the custom layout), it's not an RPG product in the sense that it'd need to reference the OGL or ORC. If it's an automated character sheet that's actively crunching numbers and referencing rules, then that would need to be released under the OGL/ORC and Compatibility License.

What about a "semi automated" character sheet that lets you select Ancestry (Heritage), Background, Class (Subclass, archtypes) and then builds a sheet for you with spaces for all the options those give you?

Would that now no longer be able to include Firebrands (Golarion content), and Gunslingers (OGL content?)

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

So. As far as I am reading this, a third party character sheet could not use the Pathfinder logo, the class icons, or possibly even the action symbols without a separately negotiated license?

The Compatibility License would allow more or less 2/3rds of these things. But if it had any options you could select, it wouldn't be able to include stuff that involved Golarion IP. It would have to be edited or removed.

Tldr; Pathbuilder.

Historically, sheets that were not charging money didn't have to change golarion names (For example AoN for most of it's life, Dyslexic Character Sheets, or Wayfinder FanZine)

So. As far as I am reading this, a third party character sheet could not use the Pathfinder logo, the class icons, or possibly even the action symbols without a separately negotiated license?

The Fortune Eater in encounter 1B high tier is listed as a tiny undead, but is actually a large, incorporeal undead. The rest of the stat block is correct, so the absence of the incorporeal trait doesn’t change much, but the size difference is impactful.

The fortune eater is a really weird creature to include on this due to it's Rejuvenation ability.

It seems like a knowledgeable and persuasive group (who are in the middle of a heroic deed after all) should be able to convince it to switch sides...

How deep is the water under the Old Fang bar? It could determine whether a PC survives in the low tier.

I would like it to be more clear how much information Tidepool and Ocean Dream know about what is going on.

Also, for the NPC stat blocks. The dagger attacks don't have the agile, finesse, or versatile S traits. Hand crossbow doesn't have range increment or reload 1. Shortbow doesn't have range increment, reload 0, or deadly d8. Am I to run these stat blocks without these printed traits (again, abiding by "run as written") or assume this information was omitted by accident?

The sorcerer is also apparently a prepared caster...

Is it intentional that Automatons (who are in Guns and Gears) didn't get their flight errataed to match the level changes to the other ancestries with flight?

So excited for this!

Don't forget to leave reviews people!

How many entries can we submit?

PaxVeritas wrote:

Is there a LINK to a pregen for gunslinger? I have a Guns & Gear tomorrow. Please & thanks. -Pax

I hope it's not too late, but, there are 4 gunslinger pre-gens of 3rd level you can download >here<. They're at the end of the product description.

Those are not society pregens, they are not legal for pathfinder society games outside of Head Shot the Rot.

There is no pathfinder society legal gunslinger pregen.

Trigger
The Sea’s Revenge (curse, divine, necromancy): A creature that slays a <redacted> is subjected to a mariner’s curse spell with a save DC of 17. The curse ends if the <redacted> is buried in a calm sea or after 1 week passes.

Mariner's Curse Spell
Failure: The target becomes sickened 1 and can't reduce its sickened condition below 1 while the curse remains. The curse can be lifted by remove curse or similar magic.

Sickened: You feel ill. Sickened always includes a value. You take a status penalty equal to this value on all your checks and DCs. You can't willingly ingest anything—including elixirs and potions—while sickened.

I mean, the solution seems fairly obvious if the PCs can make the requisite knowledge check or ask around? Just bury the redacted in the sea?

Otherwise, yes, just force feed the cursed person for a week.

But I was pretty sure the scenario in question has them arriving at a town? Why wouldn't there be a caster at the town who could take care of it?

3. Short of Joseph coming in here to say otherwise, run it as only having the bite back in the tier it says it does. Maybe thats why its a variant.

It is the one *with* the bite back that is the variant. AKA, the one that matches the monster in the source book.

3. The Taunting skull is missing it's bite back ability, which is present in the elite mocking skull on the next page. Is this an error or intentional omission. (Also the mocking skull specifies "uncommon, variant" but seems to just be elite?)

Prepping this for tomorrow, and I have a few questions. (Spoilers, obviously)

1. How often should Barnaby have to roll deception? Once per text block? Once per Area (so once in the meeting with the mayor, once at the boat, and once at the crypt?) Or only when it explicitly says he lies?

2. How large is the hole in A3? Medium creature sized?

With the update to the downtime rules, is it possible to still learn a spell during downtime? Or has that been completely removed from the downtime rules?

Learn a spell is (and always has been) an exploration activity, not a downtime one. It was never in the downtime rules. (Unless you use magical shorthand, in which case the rules are unchanged.)

Would it make sense to also add Material Component Pouch to the Withdrawn Items table?

I think it would.

Interesting. Are you sure they're using AI art? I do a lot of Play by Post and use google slides to show the artwork of creatures, items, etc...

The artwork I use is usually from sources around the web that definitely is not AI art. A lot of it are the actual images from rulebooks, sourcebooks, and modules. Both D&D and PF.

IIRC, one of the foundry importers uses AI art for art that was not provided in scenarios, with an option to turn it off.

I assume that is what this is referring to.

The pregens seem to be missing their class DCs.

I do like that they moved their HP/AC/Defenses to the mid top of the sheet.

It would help in future if the space between the check box and the spell following it were removed, and if there was more space to the left of the check boxes. Kyra, for example, kind of looks like she has 4 castings of bless.

(askii aproximation, doesn't really do the best job.)
[] Bless,[][][][] Heal,[] Sanctuary

would be easier to read as:
[]Bless, [][][][]Heal, []Sanctuary

It is interesting to go back to old posts with a lens of time.

No vanities for 2e.

There are a few. Some got retired with fame.

Storied Talent and Crafters Workshop. Depending how you define it, Curse Breaker and Naturalist. And the now retired Preserve (You own a nature preserve.)

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

Alex Speidel wrote:

"Class chassis" is the term I'm broadly using to define everything all members of a class get. Basically everything that gets published before the list of class feats. So if you want to use the new rules for the cleric's divine font, that's part of the chassis, you gotta rebuild for that. But if you previously had the ranger's Crossbow Ace feat, you'd update the text to be in line with the Player Core.

The good news is that means Warrior Bards are only half broken.

(They still get weapon proficiency from their muse.)

Their feat tree is still broken. (The feats have been updated to trigger off Courageous Song, but they don't get courageous song, they get inspire courage.)

Nope. Because their muse gives a feat (Martial Performance) and the feat gives the martial proficiency. The muse gives nothing RAW except the feat and a spell.

Ah. Missed that. Yup. Back to broken

"Class chassis" is the term I'm broadly using to define everything all members of a class get. Basically everything that gets published before the list of class feats. So if you want to use the new rules for the cleric's divine font, that's part of the chassis, you gotta rebuild for that. But if you previously had the ranger's Crossbow Ace feat, you'd update the text to be in line with the Player Core.

The good news is that means Warrior Bards are only half broken.

(They still get weapon proficiency from their muse.)

Their feat tree is still broken. (The feats have been updated to trigger off Courageous Song, but they don't get courageous song, they get inspire courage.)

Can new character be built with the Old Ancestries / Heritages from the Core Rulebook?

Specifically, are the old human heritages "Half Elf" and "Half Orc" legal for new characters?

(I don't think there is any reason you would want to use the old versions of the ancestries, but still.)

Alex Speidel wrote:

Sebastian's correct, yes.

What does this mean for Warrior Bard? I don't want to lose my Pathfinder training benefit, but viewing the Martial Performance feat as errata means that my class chassis loses the core function of being able to use martial weapon, because I don't get that from the remastered core class - essentially forcing a rebuild and losing features I have today due to the rebuild rules as written, or losing the ability for the character to function.

May be a specific thing that needs to be clarified.

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

DrakeRoberts wrote:

Talon Stormwarden wrote:

DrakeRoberts wrote:

It is my understanding that come Wednesday, only the healing potions in the enclosed chart are available for taking as freebie consumables (no more scrolls or other choices). Is that correct?

https://lorespire.paizo.com/tiki-index.php?page=pfs2guide._.Pathfinder%20Pr ovisions

Oh that's much better than what I thought I saw before (I was on mobile). Thank you.

Just so people know:

"The list is not showing up nicely on mobile" (especially with device / browser information) is helpful feedback in the Guide thread.

Fair, though in this case I think I was seeing the list in the one-page OrgPlay guide book, rather than a separate page too. I’ll need to see if there are two lists, because the one I was looking at first also didn’t have the unlife potions. Also usedul feedback, no doubt, but will require more delving (likely off-mobile) to nail down. Thanks for pointing out the thread though!

Currently there are two* lists. The old starting consumable lists. And the Pathfinder Provisions list that doesn't go into effect until tomorrow but which is up on the site so people can get a preview. It sounds like you got the starting consumables list. When we update the guide on Nov 15, there will only be 1 list.

*3 lists if you count the schools lists.

Can you confirm that Tengu and Ratfolk are still freely available as options for Society play?

In August the Blog announced this was the case. However the updated Lorespire guide to Society play says:

Select an Ancestry

Ancestry follows the normal rules in the Core Rulebook, with minor modifications to adapt to the languages of Golarion. The Pathfinder Society does not permit Half-elves or Half-orcs of ancestries other than Human. In addition to the common ancestries in the Core Rulebook, characters also have access to the following ancestries provide the player owns the corresponding book:

Leshy (from the Lost Omens Character Guide)
Kobold (from the Advanced Player's Guide )
Orc (from the Advanced Player's Guide )

Uncommon Ancestries

Because your ancestry is one of the first things you pick about your character, and it is not possible to retrain your ancestry as you might retrain other options, the only way to select uncommon or rarer ancestries is with a boon that allows you to create a new character of this ancestry.

... so no Uncommon without a boon... but there is no boon for Tengu or Ratfolk.

That is correct, Tengu and Ratfolk are still always available, that page is being updated, but the update is caught up in the other updates needed for tomorrow.

Talon Stormwarden wrote:

DrakeRoberts wrote:

It is my understanding that come Wednesday, only the healing potions in the enclosed chart are available for taking as freebie consumables (no more scrolls or other choices). Is that correct?

https://lorespire.paizo.com/tiki-index.php?page=pfs2guide._.Pathfinder%20Pr ovisions

Oh that's much better than what I thought I saw before (I was on mobile). Thank you.

Just so people know:

"The list is not showing up nicely on mobile" (especially with device / browser information) is helpful feedback in the Guide thread.

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

LeftHandShake wrote:

...

The new monster abilities (Grab, Knockdown, Push, etc) are available on Archive of Nethys.

Now I'm extra confused. I did miss that the monster ability rules were actually published in RoE (in the Abilities Glossary, not mentioned in the Updated Rules sidebar), not merely previewed in the web pdf, but the monster abilities page on AoN still links to the original Bestiary version of Grab (etc). I've been using legacy Grab even after RoE was published; have I been running it wrong for three months?

Currently AoN has 2 separate listings for each.

Until Wednesday, monsters published in RoE use the RoE ones. Starting Wendesday, all monsters use the RoE ones.

Presumably when Monster Core comes out, the old ones will be updated to match the RoE ones.

Various issues in the current language of the PFS Remaster Rules linked above:

1) Game Rules 1.3 says (as an "example") that monster abilities such as Grab are no longer automatic, instead allowing a free skill check. There is no such rule in Player Core nor GM Core. The rules were published in the (unsanctioned) Core Preview, and it will apparently appear in Monster Core, but does not exist yet.

The new monster abilities (Grab, Knockdown, Push, etc) are available on Archive of Nethys.

The recent scenario is a MASSIVE retcon to 1st ed. From Inner Sea Bestiary:

From lofty monastery-cities entrenched in soaring cliff sides and high mountain valleys, the syrinx seek to bring peace to all lands that fall within sight of their marbled spires. Erudite and aloof, the owl-like scholars embrace art, philosophy, and nebulous faiths, seeking to distance themselves from a history of barbarism and ruin. To this end, they seek to enslave all lesser races, especially those without wings. Their elitist culture rests upon thousands of backs in an elaborate hierarchy of slaves. Directly below the syrinx are the strix, a race they magically modified in the distant past to serve as warriors and slave masters.

This description makes me wonder if their name is a Rush 2112 reference. I am definitely picking up a "Temples of Syrinx" vibe.

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

Tomppa wrote:

Dennis Muldoon wrote:

I will miss the free lore skill that came with school training. More Lore skills at the table is fun. Any chance we could replace training with something like “all PFS characters are automatically trained in PFS lore”? It’s honestly never really made sense to me that you’re average Pathfinder wouldn’t know the basic history of the Society.

HMM wrote:

Can we just add PFS Lore as a bonus lore to all characters?

This actually already exists :D The lore you get from the PFS training replaces the default PFS lore that all Pathfinders get as part of the character creation. If you don't choose a school, you get PFS lore automatically :D

This is not correct. The PFS lore you get comes from Pathfinder Training (step 11 in character creation).

The replacement lore comes from the school you join.

If Pathfinder Training goes away, so does bonus pathfinder lore.

Perhaps Pathfinder Society law will be declared an automatic bonus lore. Remember, there is more information coming.

That is what I am currently advocating for.