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I would say though that in many Paizo APs the maps are TEENY TINY. Check w/ your GM if you should play a large PC before committing to the concept. Without my doing an exhaustive review of this Adventure Path's maps, I can generalize by saying that Triumph of the Tusk... Extremely minimal spoiler for TotT map/encounter design regarding Large PCs:
Triumph of the Tusk has relatively few constricted, indoor maps that would make a Large PC miserable. Vague spoiler about one PF 218 map: That last map will get a little claustrophobic. But by then you'll have enjoyed many sessions of ample mobility.
Largely depends on whether your party of awakened squirrels drives the GM batty and they kill off everyone to end the AP early. ;-)
I most often enjoy writing heists, investigations, and urban exploration. PF1—War for the Crown #131: Chapter 2
This first chapter is very much an exploration of Highhelm, designed not only to show off the archetypically dwarven elements and innovative aspects that break fantasy "tradition," but also to give the players time and space to discover which aspects of Highhelm and dwarven culture speak to them. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the adventure overall while still finding the smaller moments that help your character come alive.
She got on the team and then just outlasted the competition, with some help from the rest of the party, allowing the hometown team to win. Zarukt lamented that Basalisk had 'gotten soft' in the past 150 years . . . a lot (He kept failing checks to know about the game and our in-universe explanation was that he was familiar with 'old' Basalisk. "When did they start using PADDING in these helmets?! Dwarves today have gone soft!") Dwarf kids these days don't know how good they have it. Back in the Quest for Sky, we had to walk uphill both ways to fulfill divine commandments! And *every* basilisk player had to wear their visors down! And the ball was a knot of vipers! Pfah! Soft indeed!
A few thoughts: There are a variety of answers. Sky King's Tomb calls a lot of this into question through the PCs' discoveries and dialogues, and the Adventure Path doesn't provide an absolute answer because it's up to each group to decide for themselves. Whether you condemn the priests, condemn the deity, condemn the circumstances, or something else, it was a messy period in history with no clean answer. What will the PCs uncover, what will they share with the world, and how will these discoveries shape dwarven society and the Lost Omens setting going forward. You decide.
Torag's complicated alignment and ethos have been a talking point in Pathfinder circles for most of a decade, as he's always pushed the envelope (or perhaps blurred the line) on what it means to be or redefine "Good"—certainly as it regards fighting the enemies of one's people. When I joined the Adventure Path team and took over the Sky King's Tomb project, I made a conscious effort to have the Adventure Path explore more of Torag's faith, especially the ramifications of his violent edict on the past and present. I made sure the Adventure Path calls attention to these quandaries, presenting the dilemma(s) to the PCs and exploring the ideas while leaving it open to the players to judge what's right and potentially challenge old dogma.
James has it right. Other backgrounds will very likely have a +0 modifier, though your GM might decide that some have a different modifier. For example, the Criminal background could easily have a –1 or –2 modifier. And as both James and the Player's Guide note, events in the adventure will have a much bigger impact on the group's Reputation than their starting score.
I don't believe there's been any decision for or against milestone advancement in future APs. Partly this is an experiment, partly it's a good fit for the campaign, and partly it's the developer (me) preferring the types of adventures it supports. For me, Pathfinder's second edition is a little easier to achieve the necessary XP metrics without too many "filler" encounters—compared to the game's first edition, which was fiddly enough in encounter design that I found myself needing more encounters overall and more story awards to backstop the intended progression. Given I lean toward campaigns of exploration, interaction, urban intrigue, and infiltration, milestone leveling helps ensure I include only those encounters that I know will enhance the story, expand the setting, or create interesting memories, rather than shoehorning five fights into the middle of a social gala.
The more that a campaign involves raids, dungeon crawls, and other combat-heavy premises, the more confident I am in using classic XP tracking; I know I'll have no shortage of interesting scenes that will make efficient use of space as combats so often do. TLDR: XP tracking vs milestone leveling isn't set in stone for future Adventure Paths, but an Adventure Path will be consistent in that choice from start to finish. Which method gets used will often reflect the Adventure Path's needs, and as developers, we're watching for feedback about what's working well and what needs improvement.
One thing I would have skipped is the blocks of the dwarven deities. Because these are already accessible on AoN and a simple reference to the site would have cut on word count that could then be used for even more other PG goodness. Unlike the printed Adventure Paths, Player's Guides are digital products whose word counts aren't restricted by page count and page space. Instead, they have soft limits based on how much the team can reasonably write, edit, and lay out during the project window. Because a Player's Guide aims to make information as accessible as possible—don't want to force folks to jump across many sources—and the adventures reference these deities periodically, adding dwarven pantheon information made sense here.
I don't care about ancestry/background/gender, all PCs in my group if I run this will be required to have a beard. Weirdest mental image I've ever had for a leshy, an elf, an iruxi, and a skeletal dwarf, but more power to you and your group!
Sounds good, and I appreciate your keeping feedback constructive.
Of course, at my table, good luck getting my players to actually follow the guidance. Mark of the Mantis? Sure, let me bring my pixie psychic. <rollseyes> As the author for both these adventures, I both strongly judge your players and heartily congratulate them.
This is a really great players guide, absolutely lovd the little paragraphs of context for the different recommended ancestries <3 It think that's something we can work on in the future. This table was inspired by the one James included in the Kingmaker Player's Guide, and the format is still new enough and sufficiently qualitative that I relied more on intuition and my knowledge of major scenes in the Adventure Path, rather than a particular science. As a peek behind the scenes, I wrote the ancestries, backgrounds, and Highhelm overview about 9 months ago to help the playtesters for 193. The class and skill sections came about 7 months later, which might have introduced a little dissonance. I wonder how they will describe the kind of characters that fit future APs and those that are not appropriate after Remastered gets rid of alignments. Remains to be seen! Certainly I've found myself using alignment shorthand in some outlines just as a way to start discussing a group's or NPC's morality, but that quickly shifts toward exploring the figure's motivations, values, and methods. Likely the next Player's Guide I write will explore not-alignment kinda like I did with classes and skills in Sky King's Tomb: talking about broad objectives and myriad ways the PCs can address them.
This Adventure Path's Player's Guide is now available!
It’s not quite what you’re looking for—more a place for monstrous coexistence than benevolent monstrosity—but you might appreciate Pol-Duraxalis in Iblydos, which gets some brief description through a hero-god entry in PF #144 backmatter. In a similar theme, consider Kaer Maga in Varisia as an option. And for slightly less rough-and-tumble destinations, Absalom is a remarkably cosmopolitan place where the occasional bugbear won’t cause a fuss.Is that polis where Iapholi is from? I adored her. That's the one!
It’s not quite what you’re looking for—more a place for monstrous coexistence than benevolent monstrosity—but you might appreciate Pol-Duraxalis in Iblydos, which gets some brief description through a hero-god entry in PF #144 backmatter. In a similar theme, consider Kaer Maga in Varisia as an option. And for slightly less rough-and-tumble destinations, Absalom is a remarkably cosmopolitan place where the occasional bugbear won’t cause a fuss.
I can hypothesize the likely reason. I wrote the apocryphal subdomains for Heroes of the Streets, including the Espionage subdomain, published in 2015. Ulon was introduced in Ruins of Azlant, in 2017 or so. This meant that Ulon wasn't around for me to list as recommended deities for the Espionage subdomain in that article. Adding to that, the soft policy in Adventure Path design was to focus primarily on hardcover RPG resources, drawing on Player Companion content only rarely. Thus, Ulon doesn't list Espionage because 1) the Espionage subdomain might not have beeb on the author's radar while writing his article, and/or 2) referencing a Player Companion for a niche subdomain in an Adventure Path article didn't match the article's needs. I agree that Espionage would be a great fit for Ulon. Certainly for a home game, I'd think it an excellent substitution, GM approval willing.
John: "Vanessa. This outline. It's..it's just butterflies, all the way down." Vanessa: "Keep reading."John: "So...this Desna festival is really run by a cult of Urgathoa, and the butterflies are glamered deaths-head moths?" Vanessa: Nod nod nod John: "..." Vanessa: "..." John: "Seems legit." Vanessa: "Wait, you're not going to say no?" John: "Nah, but I will make suggestions. So maybe the Urgathoans don't realize that they're also part of the upcoming sacrifice, with Urgathoa planning for only the moths to survive. So partway through the adventure, the PCs have the opportunity to team up with the Urgathoans they just exposed, and..."
I loved the forwards as a look behind-the-scenes. I also miss the old Developer's Commentary Youtube Videos y'all did for Pathfinder Fridays. Those were fun. Diving into a lore topic for the better part of an hour didn't just let us share our excitement and a few secrets; it also let us hear fans' questions, concoct not-yet-necessarily-canon answers, and learn what excites the audience.
Based on my own design objectives, early work on the Player's Guide, and some playtesting a while back, I'm feeling good about how much this Adventure Path offers dwarves and non-dwarves alike. Too soon to say much more!
What I thought made the one-shots line unique was they could experiment with any theme, area of the world, subfaction, etc. without requiring you to invest the time into an entire book or books worth of content. They also got better and better with each release. Mark of the Mantis was phenomnenal. I'm super bummed they won't be back. I don't have any official word on one-shots to share; I contributed mostly on the writing side, only minimally on the strategic planning for the line. I'll echo thoughts that short adventures that provide unique pregenerated characters does open up some really interesting narrative possibilities that would be really challenging to manage in a longer adventure format. That said, these adventures also have some unique challenges, from ensuring the pregenerated characters' abilities and the adventure's obstacles align well to providing material that's narratively deep and sufficiently complex without being difficult to pick up and play in one sitting. And I'm glad you enjoyed Mark of the Mantis! It was fun to plan, test, and write. I love creating investigations, social intrigue, and (particularly in this case) heists, and I've been happy to see reviewers observe how readily it captured Assassin's Creed vibes.
Recycled from a response I gave in the Pathfinder Discord server: The first list are divinities I enjoy because I've worked on them. LG: Tsukiyo is far and away my favorite LG deity, and he’s a major contender for my favorite, period. I really appreciate his showing that there’s no one “right” mindset to doing good, and that being good involves demonstrating patience for those who mainstream society misunderstands or unjustly demonizes. NG: I will happily tell anyone who asks about Chinostes (Pathfinder #144). The Iblydan hero-gods have provided such wonderful flexibility in bucking alignment expectations and divine expectations, and Chinostes’s dual alignment and feuding cults create a narrative I would adore playing out in a module. CG: Eh? What's this chaotic good thing? LN: Give me any of the Primal Inevitables, each of which finds simple pleasure in studying and maintaining the multiverse’s peace in their own way. Valmallos and Otolmens are among my favorites, especially because Valmallos speaks so strongly to my askance glances at sorcerers’ natural magic while asking “Okay, but you can cast spells responsibly, right?” Meanwhile, I see gods (especially chaotic-aligned gods) chortling at how well the multiverse conveniently functions, all while Otolmens does her corrective calculations and stage-whispers “You. Ignorant. Fools.” N: It is such a cruel toss-up between the hero-gods Aerekostes and Drokalion. One’s an intelligent sword that yes, grants spells, and also sometimes loans itself to aspiring heroes. The other is a divine lion with roughly a 3 Intelligence and a zealous cult that thinks it’s glorious when their god chases and potentially eats them. CN: Acavna. She’s a neat take on CN, and I enjoy her Earthfall narrative and place in the Azlanti pantheon. Incorporating her herald into Basrakal was really fun. LE: Asuras as Paizo presents them are my jam. Just the sound of each asura’s self-righteous backhanding of the gods who created them through negligence and mishandling is a beautiful sensation, and asuras are a way for me to explore and celebrate the foibles of Golarion’s divinities. Maeha is likely my favorite. NE: Working with Adam Daigle, Mark Moreland, and Linda Zayas-Palmer on planning the Azlanti deities was among the most fulfilling meetings I’ve had at Paizo, and I quite adore some of those divinities as Adam ultimately fleshed them out in his article in Pathfinder #123. While I love Scal’s fallout with Earthfall, I’m mostly here for Ulon and his cult of conspiracies-within-conspiracies-wait-can-we-trust-each-other-even?!? CE: I find Chaotic Evil distasteful overall. I will, however, uphold the righteous goal of Ongalte to kill every other hero-god in the vain hope of restoring cyclopean glory. ——— Then for deities I enjoy but haven't worked on. LG: I really enjoy Vildeis’s no-pulled-punches take on evil, and her reckless devotion to purification feels like a very honest portrayal of the murder-zeal of so many paladins. Just overall, the presentation of LG as an almost alien “Whoa, calm down there” degree of holiness is intriguing, even I’d be off-put by it in real life. NG: Soralyon intrigues me. I really appreciate his shtick, especially in how it manifests in Magnimar’s monuments and their latent magic. CG: Keltheald gets my vote. I really like his pure dedication to exploration without any pretense or preachiness. LN: Alseta has always intrigued me, especially in her dominion of thresholds. Her very low-key approach nonetheless provides a sense of sacred structure to any transformation or transition, and I like it. N: It’s hard to say no to Nethys. I enjoy his ambiguous origins as a mortal, his dual nature, and his eccentric indifference to what his followers do so long as they do it with magic. That sort of mixed messaging inspires all sorts of rival sects and feuds—none of which are “right” yet all of which make for wonderful narrative. CN: I love what James Case did in presenting Hei Feng. The divine tengu is utterly endearing yet fearsome, all while straddling the line between indomitable strength and sheepish fallibility. LE: Dispater’s a delight. Not only does his home life spin off into delightful narratives, but he rules over one of my favorite cities in the Outer Planes and does so with soft-spoken style. NE: Zyphus has a sinister pureness. Yes, he’s a mistake. Yes, he’s evil. But his followers are so delightfully intent on creatively inflicting misfortune rather than, say, donning the closest skin-mask and whipping a knife around. No, for Zyphus, death is an art form, and I can see him holding up Olympics-style score cards whenever a PC dies to foolish circumstances. CE: Ragadahn is an intriguing angle on Chaotic Evil, in part because he has to play within the society of the First World (which I think is what makes him palatable for me). Ragadahn’s kinda your opinionated, aging uncle who rants unexpectedly at Thanksgiving, and tradition dictates you just let him talk himself hoarse before he eats a slice of pie and passes out to the football game. “I’m the lord of all dragons! I invented dragons! Kids these days don’t got no respect! I’m the god of all the oceans—even the ones I’ve never been in! I’m an uncontrollable force of destruction, you hear? My symbol’s the spiral, and I invented geometry, and I’ll destroy geometry if I damn well please!” // “Shhhh, shhhh, yes Ragadahn, you’re very fearsome,”
Oh hey, same here!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F4jH93Y6KP4 this video is pretty good to give you the idea. Think this came out before the book that expanded on starship combat a bit more, especially for magic users. Thanks for sharing the video—link added In running starship combat, I’ve noticed three recurring themes in what helps make a great experience: Variety: In deep space, two starships quickly fall into the same circling pattern, usually with one consistently outmaneuvering the other and firing at the same quadrant repeatedly. That’s good strategy, but it’s sometimes underwhelming gameplay. Good encounter design often involves adding terrain, complications, multiple foes that have to be prioritized, secondary objectives beyond damaging the foe, and so on. Add layers to the encounter for a memorable time. Description: Adding description helps bring the starship combat alive, as the encounter mechanics involves a lot of die-rolling—much like conventional combats in the 5-foot-square scale. But if you add banter, describe battle damage as the PCs experience it, and help narrate the PCs’ successes and failures, starship combat becomes more than a numbers game. Pacing: Keep it moving. It’s a new subsystem for people to learn, and that can slow down gameplay, and the slower the gameplay, the more likely you are to have folks zoning out. Having cheat sheets for starship roles (or the Starship Combat Reference Cards) helps compile key information for players’ use, meaning less flipping through the book. Helping encourage fast-paced decisions at the table keeps the round moving. Knowing when a gunnery check is so high that it doesn’t need to be calculated—just say it hits—saves some time and gives you more bandwidth for description. And most of all, starship combat doesn’t always need to go to 0 Hull Points; if things risk getting repetitive yet one side has obviously prevailed, consider hand-waving the last few rounds or having the enemy vessel surrender. Wrapping things up while the energy is high means everyone ends on a high note.
It's not just about being an experienced GM. Every group is different, and every GM has a different style. When I need to finish a game within a certain time period (like needing to finish an organized play game within a 5-hour slot), I'm mostly good about running a tight, fun game that wraps up in 4.5 hours. If I have no time pressure, or if I have players full of absurd and daring strategies, you better believe I might run that same adventure for 8 hours! Managing your group's infiltration planning might benefit from a few steps:
Glad you've enjoyed it! I encourage you to leave a review when you get a chance.
There are some fun resources that might appeal to you. Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Intrigue: This provides some really cool insights into how spells of any level—especially divination spells—might work with an investigation or intrigue campaign. It does a great job in presenting ways that the spells can enable an adventure, not ruin it; it's a common mistake for GMs to balk at divination spells, declare the divinations don't work, or just have divinations circumvent a fun investigation, whereas ideally, divinations should help speed an investigation without providing all the answers. This is a first edition book, so the spells operate a little differently in the second edition. However, it's still a great resource. Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide: This second edition version includes some information about running investigations, as well as subsystems for NPC influence, chases, heists, and research—all of which might play into a fun investigation. Pathfinder Advanced Player's Guide: There's a whole class called the investigator! They have all sorts of great discovery abilities that augment a character's detective work. However, it's important to know that just because an investigator excels at investigations, they're not the only option. Rogues, bards, alchemists, thaumaturges, witches, rangers, and inventors are all fun starting points for investigation PCs, and you can turn almost any class into a memorable detective. I mean, who isn't excited to play Shearlock Holmes (a barbarian mage-hunter with a nose for the truth) or Sherlock Bones (a necromancer whose magic tears secrets from the dead)? ————— Importantly, though, no one character will get all of the facts right every time. Pathfinder's partly a team game, so your companions back you up. The luck of the dice mean there's always room for failure. And even when one misses a clue or misinterprets a fact, there's the joy of failing forward and seeing where the story goes.
Glad you've enjoyed those Tabris-penned pages! I imagine the Pure Legion would provide an interesting (albeit biased) perspective, though the notion of a Knowledge-domain priest would be the better approach in most cases. Ooooh...or a 2-page section where the same concept or myth is examined and retold from four different scholarly traditions. For example, the battle to seal Rovagug as told by a Rahadoumi scholar, a Hellknight paravicar, a Sarenrite priest, and a Sarkorian god-caller.
I just realized this book is 216 pages, a significant bump in content! Thank you so much, Paizo! I'm literally going to buy two copies for that. I don't mind paying more if that's what it takes to get bigger books. I'm unsure where that information's coming from? I just checked the Interstellar Species files to confirm, and it's a 192-page book. Still tons of fantastic content, and larger than most of the 160-page books published over Starfinder's first few years, but not quite 216. Though don't let that discourage you from buying two copies! :-D
As far as I am aware, it was not printed in a book; the text is from the Paizocon 2016 Boon #10 Ley line Access; which is why I'm unsure of how cannon it is. These are ley lines I invented—at least I think I wrote these, as they'd have been my job at the time and match my style—as part of that boon because First Edition ley lines required some information about their location to determine what benefits they provided. I aimed for a flavorful array, and I don't believe any of them have featured in other works. Use them in your campaigns if you like.
Pregen link is now on product pageIs it intentional that two of the PC assassins are only carrying a single Sawtooth Saber? It means the Twin trait on each weapon is useless - it’s a relatively small damage bump to miss out on, but I did want to ask. Yes, that is on purpose. One of the assassins needs that hand for spellcasting, and the other just doesn't rely so heavily on the saber. Only one of the assassins has the magic items necessary to make good, cost-effective use of two weapons. While this is partly a limitation based on the gear the characters could afford, it's primarily because I aimed for each of the assassins to have a particular feel in combat, with just one of them feeling like that "classic" dual-wielder. Try them all for a sense of how varied Red Mantis Assassins can be.
I was also confused and a little frustrated by what the heck occult magic was when Pathfinder's second edition was in its early stages. Unraveling and understanding those differences was a big reason I volunteered to write the occult magic introduction in Secrets of Magic, which other folks have summarized early in the thread. My own bias aside, it's worth a read (and not just a summary), as are the other three magic tradition articles. We packed a lot of flavor into those few pages!
Turns out The Devourer is really just the picture frame itself. A behind-the-scenes insight into the Devourer art: Rather than an objectively omniscient look at the Devourer, as we have for the other deities, this is an in-world person's attempt to depict the Devourer. Just by faithfully approximating the Devourer's likeness, the portrait is literally collapsing under the entropic stress of trying to portray such a deity of nothingness.
Well, this piques my curiosity. Besides Distant Shores, where else has this lore appeared?I mean, the hero-gods are already something wholly unique and not drawn from the real world; Chinostes is especially fresh, as is Iapholi.I think they are Paizo's take on the Greek demigods. They seem to be unique in Golarion, but the concept is completely drawn from the RL Greek legends and feels to me rather shoehorned in Golarion. I wrote two additional pages about Iblydan hero-gods in the back of Pathfinder #144: Midwives to Death, which was an extended article where many developers each got two pages to write about whatever topic they wanted in this final Adventure Path volume for Pathfinder's first edition.
Metagame knowledge is difficult to deal with. Rarely,as a player, can I say with absolute certainty that I would have made the same decision without metagame knowledge, and I don't think anyone can say any different. It's possible to play with no separation of player and character knowledge, but that shouldn't be the default option, and limiting metagame knowledge is never a bad thing. That's why players don't sit with copies of the GM's notes
Ask your GM. If you are the GM, then go for it. Magic item pricing guidelines aren't really rules, they're guidelines. Personally, I think that 500gp is far too inexpensive for a +1 bonus to initiative and a +6 would be even worse, so I would not price such an item this way.
That's usually something like a 20-30% damage increase against most targets (especially tough enemies). If Barbarians had an item that said "Your melee attacks now do 25% more damage" you don't think that would be rather key?Wait what? At what level? This is a 15,000 go magic item, something that would be rare for an 8th level character to possess (investing heavily into one magic item), and it's 25% of their damage? Two more points of damage per hit? Sorry, but... What? The +2 to attack boosts damage much more than you think At 8th level a Fighter should have +8 Bab +6 Str +2 GWF +2 Magic +1 WT -3 PA for a full attck: +16/+11. With a Greatsword they should be dealing 2d6 + 9 Str +2 Magic +2 WS +1 WT +9 PA, so 30 damage per hit. The average AC for a CR8 baddie is 21 according to the Bestiary, so we're looking at: 80% hit with first attack * 30 damage + 10% crit * 80% hit * 30 damage and
With +2 attack/damage 90% hit with first attack * 32 damage + 10% crit * 90% hit * 32 damage and
54.56/44.55 = 22.5% more damage.
There's not a penalty for failure, but there is a penalty for not beating the DC by 5 or more: You don't get the bonus. You should be able to take 20, but you wouldn't get to add your Int bonus to the amount healed. It is assumed you fail to beat the DC by 5 or more several times, and as soon as you successfully use the skill you cannot use it again on the same subject for 24 hours.
Any PC that wasn't spotted would get to act in the surprise round. If all PCs are spotted, there is no surprise round. This is the case if the target is expecting a trap or not.
Or it flies. Like with a griffon via monstrous mount. Except in dungeons with 5' hallways Also, AC 39 at level 20? I guess things will miss the mount on their last attack. Natural attacks will be an issue, though. CR 20 beasties like dragons will hit on a 4+.
Rather than being a limit to human forms (of the same sex?) it may well mean you can't turn into an individual unless you are already in your human form. In other words, you can't go from kitsune to individual. You must got from kitsune, to human, to individual humanoid. The devs didn't think anyone would consider taking a human form that isn't human. Call it an oversight on their part. Edit: Also,why the limit to only humanoids? Are dragons not "individuals"?
Where? Cause it's not in the Combat Section. Attacks of Opportunity:
Sometimes a combatant in a melee lets her guard down or takes a reckless action. In this case, combatants near her can take advantage of her lapse in defense to attack her for free. These free attacks are called attacks of opportunity. See the Attacks of Opportunity diagram for an example of how they work. Threatened Squares: You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you're unarmed, you don't normally threaten any squares and thus can't make attacks of opportunity. Reach Weapons: Most creatures of Medium or smaller size have a reach of only 5 feet. This means that they can make melee attacks only against creatures up to 5 feet (1 square) away. However, Small and Medium creatures wielding reach weapons threaten more squares than a typical creature. In addition, most creatures larger than Medium have a natural reach of 10 feet or more. Provoking an Attack of Opportunity: Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing certain actions within a threatened square. Moving: Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents. There are two common methods of avoiding such an attack—the 5-foot step and the withdraw action. [i/]Performing a Distracting Act[/i]: Some actions, when performed in a threatened square, provoke attacks of opportunity as you divert your attention from the battle. Table: Actions in Combat notes many of the actions that provoke attacks of opportunity. Remember that even actions that normally provoke attacks of opportunity may have exceptions to this rule. Making an Attack of Opportunity: An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, and most characters can only make one per round. You don't have to make an attack of opportunity if you don't want to. You make your attack of opportunity at your normal attack bonus, even if you've already attacked in the round. An attack of opportunity "interrupts" the normal flow of actions in the round. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then continue with the next character's turn (or complete the current turn, if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the midst of a character's turn). Combat Reflexes and Additional Attacks of Opportunity: If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity bonus to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus. Nothing about "happening before the trigger" in there. Readied Actions happen before the trigger, but AoOs "interrupt" the flow of actions, resolving immediately after being provoked. In other words, they interrupt the action, happening in the middle of the action, not before.
Pretty much. Once you start an action it's gone. If you can't complete the action, for whatever reason, you're SOL. It's a lot like a Wizard failing a concentration check. The spell and the action are wasted.
If "protected" is undefined and a +5 bonus is certainly a measure of protection against the cold, why can't protected mean that? If heavy "heavy clothing" is undefined and a cold weather outfit comes with heavy cloaks and furs, why can't heavy clothing mean that? If a term doesn't have a game definition it's actual definition is used it numerous other instances, why is this the only instance when the actual definition will not suffice?
And if you lost your feat due to ability drain, temporary bonuses like cat's grace wouldn't help for the same reason. Temporary bonus don't actually raise your ability score, it's just a matching bonus on rolls and statistics.
Pretty sure that's only referring to the penalty from RoE, and most if not all GMs will rule likewise. I doesn't matter how Ray of Enfeeble works. Ability damage doesn't lower your ability score, so it can never cause your strength score to "drop below 1". As soon as you take damage equal to your score, you fall unconscious; you're score never changes. For that matter, penalties don't lower your ability score either. So that passage is either just a redundant reminder of how all penalties work, or has some strange interaction with ability drain (the only way an ability score can truly drop below 1). In either case, there's no interaction with damage or penalties
Step Up and Strike has nothing to do with AoOs other than using one up. It's not an AoO, it's just an attack. Nothing that affects AoOs will affect the attack from Step Up and Strike. Regardless, Step Up (and by extension, Step Up and Strike) only triggers when the opponent takes a 5-foot step. Other types of movement will not trigger Step Up.
Oracle's Curse (Ex): Each oracle is cursed, but this curse comes with a benefit as well as a hindrance. This choice is made at 1st level, and once made, it cannot be changed. [b]The oracle's curse cannot be removed or dispelled without the aid of a deity.[b] An oracle's curse is based on her oracle level plus one for every two levels or Hit Dice other than oracle. Each oracle must choose one of the following curses. Basically, the Oracle's Curse is not intended to be circumvented by conventional means. In this case, the Oracle would be immune to all light-blindness except that caused by their curse.
I think that it will not supersede RAI for most abilities that require a free hand (like spell combat), with the exception of those specifically cited (duelist’s or swashbuckler’s precise strike) but it is really uncler. Neither duelist’s nor swashbuckler’s precise strike require a free hand to use, though. They only require that the other hand not be used to attack or use a shield. You can carry a bag of bowling balls in the other hand and still use precise strike. You can even carry (not use) a shield in the other hand. The feat doesn't state, imply, or suggest that the hand is counted as free, only that it counts as not making attacks. I feel like we have to go by that unless we can get more insight on RAI. RAW, it still counts as actually holding a glaive for all abilities for which such a thing would matter.
It's only really only a problem if you play up the Technic League more than the AP indicates. As far as LoR is concerned, the Technic League really doesn't have anything to do with anything. Other than being a general boogyman of Numeria, the TL isn't directly responsible for anything that happens in the AP. The only real pitfall is if you have Hellion mention or make reference to Starfall, the TL, or Unity. If the players are already under the assumption that the TL are behind it all because of course they are (even though they aren't), having the BBEG mention them might cement the preconception. If anything, you should try to have Hellion make reference to Casandalee. Additionally, the thread is easy to lose because it hinges on the PCs finding one or both of the two diaries. So its really important that the PCs find them. You may even want to add a note from Meyanda in one of the rooms just to give the PCs an extra chance.
If they do seem set on visiting Starwall, have every NPC they talk to (Jorum Kyte, Konner, Dinyvaya) remind them what a colossally bad idea it would be to take on the TL without some serious back-up. If they mention the diaries or casandalle to any of these, feel free to have the NPCs beat the PCs with a clue bat till they get it.
In previous editions, rope trick lasted only 20 min/lv. It was a safe pace to rest in the middle of the day to heal, prepare spells, and get ready for the rest of the day; it wasn't intended for overnight camping. In 3rdEd it was changed to 1 hour/lv, but that had the problem of an extended rope trick being able to last for many hours. Effectively, this gave a 2nd level spell much of the utility of a 7th level spell, so Pathfinder changed it to make it harder to camp with immunity. Personally, I think the "cannot be hidden" is vague and nonsensical, I just balance the spell in my home game by reducing it's duration and allowing the rope to be pulled up.
If a character fails, say, a climb check to aid another climber by 5 or more, that character falls. I don't think there's any room for interpretation on this, the character made a climb check and failed it by 5 or more.
That said, if a group check like the OPs is overall successful, a check can't both succeed and fail at once; either the NPC's attitude is improved or is worsened.
The Animal Ally feat gives a character a Companion with a Druid level of -3. You could just let him retrain to take Nature Bond.
As Thunderstar stated, the template for the 15-ft cone originates from a side rather than an intersection, as the general rule states. It's a special case among cones. The 15-ft cone counts from edge to edge rather than from intersection to intersection, otherwise it would be congruent with the 30-ft cone save only in length, as should be all quarter circles. Bitter Lily's cone follows the same rule as the 30-ft cones, hence it is congruent.
No, my player's regularly win because they're either fighting 4 on 1 or they're fighting 4 on 4 enemies 2-4 levels behind them (or some variation thereof), the way the game is supposed to be played. If each individual player has a 50% success chance, the party as a whole has a 95% chance that at least one of them will succeed, resulting in a WIN for the party. Monsters from the bestiaries are not balanced for hyper-optimized parties, and are pretty worthless for a GM in those situations; as others have pointed out: it's just as easy to resolve roflstomp encounters without dice or even stats.
You can't be good at something if you fail half the time? That's just patently false. Do you ever watch baseball? A batter who only fails to get on base half the time, isn't just good, he's playing in his kid's middle school league instead of the majors where he belongs.In Pathfinder, if a 'highly optimized' character is confronted by an equally 'highly optimized' character of the same level, which should happen on a regular basis, should win just as often as he loses, the two being of the same skill. A player who wants to succeed on rolls 80% of the times would be better off seeking out challenges no higher than his level -4.
No, it's the opposite of what you think: a restrictive system is one that puts restrictions on participants, i.e. tells you what you can't do, or are "restricted" from doing. Pathfinder is a permissive system.
A, B, C, D all roll a 10 on initiative, after tiebreakers and whatnot, the final order is: A B C D A can delay to go after B, after C, after D, or even lower in the count. If A takes his turn after B, his initiative lowers from before B to after B.
They can all keep delaying an acting on the same initiative for the same reason they could all keep delaying an acting in the same round: there's no finite number of initiative counts. Achilles never catches the tortoise.
Strong and tough are relevant. A DM could run a party of "Big Tough Heroes" with 60 point buys and brutally TPK them, he could also run a party using the commoner array and have the party stomp all over everything. It's all a matter of how the game is balanced. The only difference between a score of 20 and a score of 10 is numbers, and those numbers only matter in comparison to everyone elses numbers. I think that some players have gotten used to certain numbers and are convinced that anything less than an 18 in their prime stat and 16 in all their secondary stats are "weak" and "not good enough at anything." I also think that other players have gotten used to different numbers and think that a starting 18 is "overpowered" and "unbalanced" I think there is a lack of balance between SAD classes and MAD classes. The only way to compensate for these imbalances is to cap ability scores. The higher the cap, the higher the point buy needs to be to make sure characters can hit that cap, and the higher all the other numbers in the game need to be to maintain balance
I'm more curious how a Medium creature somehow uses a Tiny rifle with two hands when it's a quarter of the size he's used to. Considering he has to use some kind of improvised tool to reach under the dime-sized trigger guard... very carefully.
Manifestations are not something I will ever like, and I will fight tooth and nail to see the ruling reversed. So you absolutely hate that componentless spells and Psychic Magic can be identified using spellcraft and otherwise noticed for things like taking AoOs, readied actions and counterspells? Because that's literally all the FAQ does. Well, since the devs are pretty adamant about keeping Psychic Magic the same as all other magic, I doubt you'll ever get that. Fortunately, that's what House Rules are for.
You just quoted Jason saying that spells in PF have always had some kind of "noticeable element." Even in 3.X, while you couldn't identify a componentless spell, you could still counter it. Logically there must have been some element of the spell that was still noticeable so you could tell a spell was being cast and counter it. In the FAQ, "Manifestations" are basically described as noticeable elements. The exact nature of these elements are up to the group, but these elements have always been there. At best the FAQ gives GMs more license than they already had to apply game mechanics to these elements by the examples it gives, but GMs have always had the license to attach game mechanics to fluff, it's called House Rules. Noted that he then goes to list examples after "such as", and none of those refer to visual manifestations such as glyphs appearing in the air. The FAQ doesn't refer to floating glyphs either. Some of Paizo's art depicts glyphs, but those are just examples. Wiggling your finger is "an act that clearly shows something" i.e. the act of casting. Wiggling your finger is, by definition, a manifestation. I do think that in 3.5 you knew when someone was normally casting a spell because casting a spell was common in the typical fantasy setting, but nothing in the rules hinted about giving the location away with all of the components removed Nothing in the FAQ says anything about giving locations away, either. All the FAQ explains is that you know when someone was normally casting a spell. Things like pinpointing the square a spell was cast in is not discussed in the FAQ This FAQ isn't a rule change. If the devs go ahead and attach mechanics to the fluff of manifestations, that would be a rule change, but the devs haven't done this yet. All the FAQ does is make clear that you can identify, interrupt with a readied action, counter, take an AoO, and otherwise notice when someone is casting.
"Manifestations" (however you fluff them, or don't fluff them) ARE clearly visible, and always have been. Swords are clearly visible, too. But no on has ever argued that a Rogue couldn't Stealth with a sword drawn. Long ago my group decided that the visible cue that someone was casting that seemed to be implied by the rules, must be some identifiable look of intense concentration. We called it "Caster Constipation" and rarely thought of it again.
As far as I care, that fits the current FAQ. It's clearly visible. It's an obvious indicator that someone is casting. It prevents casters from running amok in a non-combat situation. It checks all the boxes presented in the FAQ. If another GM thinks the FAQ means "light show and only light show" that's his problem
1) It's "corner case," closet case is something different. GMs set most DCs in Pathfinder too, the only difference is that new GMs have fewer examples to go by to set their arbitrary DCs. So it's harder on the GMs and exactly the same for the Players. 2)The only difference between passive checks and taking a 10 is the GM knows the player's modifier, a fix for which is so trivial I shouldn't even have to mention it. 3)Group Checks in PF don't exist. It's a mechanic added in 5E and by their very nature, added mechanics increase complexity, not decrease. If you like Group Checks, you should add them, but it's a poor excuse for adopting an entirely new system. Both systems are exactly as narrative or as gamist as the groups is. Both systems can "Use Diplomacy" or "Tell the Guard". Both systems come down to Roll vs. DC set by the GM and the rest is up to the group. Obviously, I don't care for 5E's skill system, but both systems handle what you're describing in exactly the same manner. The main difference between 5E and Pathfinder is in the book keeping. The other difference is much lower modifiers in general, while the DCs remain unchanged. So high level DnD characters can't really attempt the same impossible checks (30'+ long jump) a high level PF character can.
In that case you should probably also exclude them from initiating a grapple. You should also work out how exactly they make slam attacks if they are nothing but gas and consider excluding that, too.
Q1. There are several way in which an ability score might be reduced. The most common, Ability Damage, doesn't actually reduce the score, rather the character suffers suffers a -1 penalty to relevant statistics for every 2 points of damage. Penalties to ability scores work similarly, -1 to relevant stats for every 2 points of Penalty. The third type Ability Drain actually reduces the ability score.
Q2. Is the wand a reliable method of flight? Can the Wizard/Rogue reliably use the wand to fly (within reason) whenever he wants? Can he reliably replace the wand (within reason) when it runs out? If the character has reliable enough access to flight to be able to fly pretty much whenever he needs to, then he should be able to take ranks in the Fly skill. Q3. No. You need to have DD as a spell or SLA (or abundant step). Merely "reliable access", in this case, is not enough.
Only magical healing stops bleed. Fast healing is extraordinary (as are feats).Not magical healing, spells. SU or SLA healing doesn't stop bleeding. They do if the bleeding was caused by any creature listed in the Besiary: Bleed (Ex) A creature with this ability causes wounds that continue to bleed, inflicting additional damage each round at the start of the affected creature's turn. This bleeding can be stopped by a successful DC 15 Heal skill check or through the application of any magical healing. The amount of damage each round is determined in the creature's entry. Also a NPC Rogue with Bleeding Attack: Bleeding Attack* (Ex): A rogue with this ability can cause living opponents to bleed by hitting them with a sneak attack. This attack causes the target to take 1 additional point of damage each round for each die of the rogue's sneak attack (e.g., 4d6 equals 4 points of bleed). Bleeding creatures take that amount of damage every round at the start of each of their turns. The bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or the application of any effect that heals hit point damage. Bleeding damage from this ability does not stack with itself. Bleeding damage bypasses any damage reduction the creature might possess. Ex Fast Healing will stop this Bleeding, too.
Does anyone actually have a source that says involuntary movement doesn't provoke, or do some just considered it implied because some involuntary movement specifically doesn't provoke? So, your answer is: "No, you don't have a literal source, just inferences." Also, AoOs are not actions and can provoke, so your premise that only actions can provoke is flawed.
Mage's Disjunction can either target an area "suppressing" (not destroying) items for the duration of the spell. In this case, items within a Bag of Holding would simply become inaccessible until the magic was restored. MD can also "destroy" a single item. What happens to the items in a Bag if it is destroyed is up to you, but the entry for Bag of Holding lists several other ways it might be destroyed, and in all of them the contents are lost forever.
A miserable pile of components?
I was going to post something, but this this better. I'll just post this.
The issue lies in the wording of the other feats, which when you combine their "no feat" way that overrun works, that's not how overrun works. (It's like several different writers wrote the feat chain without consulting anyone else.) What are you even talking about? What feats? I didn't mention any feats aside from a tangential reference to Improved Overrun that in no way has any bearing on my post. Feel free to ignore it.
There.
It's not a Frequently Asked Question. It's an Almost Never Asked Question, only asked in thought experiments on how to misinterpret the rules. Which are fun, don't get me wrong, but hardly worth the PDT's time.
Nothing in the bolded text states that arrows do not use the general rules presented in the entry for DR. Nothing in the bolded text contradicts the rules presented in the entry for DR. (A +5 weapon is still treated as a magic weapon for overcoming DR) Both rules apply.
Ranged Weapons and Ammunition: The enhancement bonus from a ranged weapon does not stack with the enhancement bonus from ammunition. Only the higher of the two enhancement bonuses applies. Ammunition fired from a projectile weapon with an enhancement bonus of +1 or higher is treated as a magic weapon for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. These are special rules for Ranged Weapons and ammunition. They don't override the general magic weapon rules. A magic weapon is enhanced to strike more truly and deliver more damage. Magic weapons have enhancement bonuses ranging from +1 to +5. They apply these bonuses to both attack and damage rolls when used in combat. All magic weapons are also masterwork weapons, but their masterwork bonuses on attack rolls do not stack with their enhancement bonuses on attack rolls. Also all other magic weapon rules apply unless the specifically exclude ranged weapons. As for DR,
Weapons with an enhancement bonus of +3 or greater can ignore some types of damage reduction, regardless of their actual material or alignment. The following table shows what type of enhancement bonus is needed to overcome some common types of damage reduction. No exceptions listed here; all weapons with a +3 bonus overcomes DR. All general rules apply barring specific exceptions. These special ranged rules just clarify and restate rules listed elsewhere. They don't exclude ranged weapons from any of the general rules.
You're right. Channel feats have the Channel Energy ability listed in the requirements. What requirement would you add so that Slashing Gracing can only be taken by Swashbuckler AND Cavalier AND Duelist AND any other class that has a similar class ability which only works with one-handed piercing weapons? Oh, and you only get four words to do it. (That's how many Channel Smite uses).Like Channel Smite, Slashing Grace is a class-ability-dependent feat. There's just no way to simply limit the feat to the appropriate classes (especially since any future class with a relevant ability can take it.)
Then go make the house rule you so obviously long for and have fun.
But just because you can rebuild at 2nd doesn't mean you can take use your first level feats you didn't qualify and use them at 2nd level. Source? I'm looking over the retraining rules in UCmpn and don't see it. Is this a rule specific to PFS? Edit: Ninja'd
Magical lineage and wayang spellhunter are about summoner level of OPness and should just be banned. The rest are good, true but no serious problem. And as Rhorik said, tusked not better than a feat because there is a feat that does the same. And equal is not better. It's better because it costs half as much. Why spend a feat on Razortusk when you can spend the same feat on Tusked and something else. Tusked is strictly better because you get more.
I think the OP has a point. It doesn't make much sense that a Monk with a 60' move speed could climb across a slope of sufficient gradient at 15' (30' with a -10 to his check), but 1º less steep and he can only crawl 5'.I don't get what you're saying. In retrospect, my comment has less to do with the OP's post than the title. A character climbing across the ground would, functionally, appear similar to a character crawling across the ground. It seems odd that one could "crawl" up a slope, up a wall, or even across the ceiling, much faster than one could crawl across level ground.
Why is it that some GMs, when a PC uses Diplomacy, will expect a player to have a good argument, but when a PC uses archery he will not expect the player to have good aim?
I think the biggest hang-up here is people continue to use the misnomer "Babies" to describe these Goblins. A better term would be "Immature Goblins", "Goblin Juveniles", "Goblin Young", or perhaps, "Goblin Spawn". It's important to bear in mind that Goblins are Monsters, not People. Could a Goblin Spawn be redeemed? Sure, *possibly*, but the full grown Goblin who's attempting to filet you with a Dogslicer could also be redeemed, *possibly*. Doesn't make it wrong to kill it. Remember, from the viewpoint of the Goblins, the PCs are invading their home and murdering their friends and families. Nobody thinks twice about that. Why? Because Goblins are Monsters. It's okay to kill monsters, it's why fantasy RPGs have monstrous races: for PCs to kill. Edit: Also, kudos on the necromancy, Well done. There's just not enough alignment threads anymore.
Concealment is not equivalent to Miss-Chance. Ignoring one does not allow you to ignore the other. The target would still get all the other benefits of concealment, such as immunity to sneak attacks.
Then again, most people would be caught flat-footed when attacked by a bluejay, not to mention butterflys. No one suspects the Butterfly, mwah,ha,ha! In all seriousness, though, tiny animals wouldn't any gain advantages like this. If combat hadn't yet started, disguising himself as an animal might afford a Rogue a surprise round, but that's it.
A spell cast from a Spell Storing weapon is really no different from any other spell (except for being a free action.) Naturally, it can crit just like any other spell provided it has an attack roll and you threaten and confirm on the attack roll. EDIT: I also agree; the Spell Storing is an additional effect that happens after the roll. It essentially requires no attack roll itself, so it cannot crit. I see what's going on. OK, this is wrong. Spell Storing: A spell storing weapon allows a spellcaster to store a single targeted spell of up to 3rd level in the weapon. (The spell must have a casting time of 1 standard action.) Anytime the weapon strikes a creature and the creature takes damage from it, the weapon can immediately cast the spell on that creature as a free action if the wielder desires. (This special ability is an exception to the general rule that casting a spell from an item takes at least as long as casting that spell normally.) Once the spell has been cast from the weapon, a spellcaster can cast any other targeted spell of up to 3rd level into it. The weapon magically imparts to the wielder the name of the spell currently stored within it. A randomly rolled spell storing weapon has a 50% chance to have a spell stored in it already. Basically, you roll to hit with the weapon. Hit, Crit, whatever, the weapon deals damage as normal. If you're Spellstriking, you Spellstrike as normal. If the weapon hits and does damage, then you cast the spell from the weapon as a free action. This works exactly like casting a spell from any other item. (CL of the item, min DC, etc.) If the spell needs an attack roll, you still have to make it just like any other item. Nothing in the ability description suggests otherwise. If that attack roll crits, then the spell does double damage as usual.
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