Karys's page

In case Kitsune ever gets remastered:

Kitsune Ancestry Feat "Rampaging Form" has aspecial entry for the Frozen Winds Kitsune.
However the feat is only for Kitsune that have a Fox Alterante Form. Frozen Winds has a Humanoid Alternate form, thus could not take it in the first place.

Any Kitsune can take the Myriad Forms feat to gain the Change Shape option of another heritage, so Frozen Winds can still get a fox form.

I quite like Usharak, he sets a good baseline story for both heroic or villainous Necromancers, the tragedy feels like it could push him either way. And just happy to see some iruxi love, very nice seeing the iconics branch out a bit more in ancestries.

I'm happy for you, or I'm sorry that happened. I really can't tell what you're trying to say.

Anything could be anything if you file all the flavor off of it, so that's not really a great argument for anything. This is what an Exemplar is on Golarion, which is where everything is written from the perspective of. It's rare on Golarion. I'm not really understanding the issue here.

It's rare for the same reasons Gunslinger or Inventor are uncommon. You won't find them everywhere on Golarion, and you'll find someone with a spark of divinity in them even less, so it's rare. Seems pretty simple to me.

Not to mention plot warping lore implications.

Player core 269 "Generally an item that weighs 5 to 10 pounds is one bulk" That sounds like a weight to bulk conversion to me.

Generally =/= Always. That same rule goes on to say that different circumstances can shift bulk up or down regardless of weight.

Bulk is an abstraction of what someone can carry, not a direct conversion tool.

That brings to mind Fantasy Flight's Genesys system they released some years ago that was released as a generic TTRPG system with setting books that grafted on to convert it into fantasy, cyberpunk, sci-fi, etc. Genuinely one of my favorite RPG systems I've played for various reasons, so if there was a set up like having a core setting agnostic book with Starfinder and Pathfinder having books to graft onto that core, could be neat.

What game do you assume I'm comparing it to?

Haven't really seen you compare any games, I'm comparing them from my experience because you're ranting about the companies behind them and how they interact with their communities.

From my experience with other companies mentioned, Paizo puts considerably more love into what they're making which is considerably more important to me than putting up a blog post yammering about why they changed something. I browse these forums and other sites enough to see why they changed most things in errata, it's all of the people complaining about the problems with certain things. Why they made specific decisions? I don't particularly care why because even if they explained it how does that change the end result? It's a waste of their time.

And for clarity, I don't like the new weakness/resistance errata either, but I can hardly come out yelling that it's a bad change, I simply don't like it personally but it won't kill me either. As a whole I've seen Paizo's errata as a boon even if I disagree with some decisions and have no qualms with their errata schedule either, whether in the current form or when they only applied it on reprints.

On the topic of the thread, I think it feels a little silly that a resistance that can resist all forms of damage suddenly only applies to one form at a time, logically speaking. But eh, I can ignore that in games I run and just deal with the handful of times it may ever matter in anyone else's games.

Karys wrote:

Because Paizo is too busy making a better game than them

If that's the case, it must be something they haven't released yet. The current one has a lot of rough edges, a poor errata cycle, and leaves many of the more unique classes waiting years, if they're lucky, between getting any new rule support.

And yet, still a better game

Because Paizo is too busy making a better game than them

The way I see it, the first clarification was how they envisioned it in the first place, as it worked exactly how I read the rules since release. So the wildly different versions feels more because of how bad a reaction everyone had to being told it played differently than they thought, not because the developers don't know their game.

Question : Is there only poeple outside of US encountering this issue. Could it be linked to an Issue with Eu payment in the states ?

As far as I can tell it's happening everywhere, as a US subscriber experiencing the same troubles.

Adding my voice to the choir, same thing happened last month with Hellbreakers. Same payment method I used to manually order Hellbreakers, so I know it worked and nothing has changed since then.

The immunity override rule exists to fix/prevent a bug that would otherwise cause problems, where immunity to one type-trait, like [fire], would sometimes end up nullifying acid damage, because that spell effect has all the traits & damage in the same place, in one big instance. The system lacks the granularity to say "nullify only the child instance with the matching trait."

This has nothing to do with instances of damage and everything to do with how traits work in the game. Larger effects gain the traits of everything inside of it, so technically everything inside it has all of those traits, that would include both separate instances of damage as well as a combined instance.

If the acid damage was split into its own instance without the fire trait, that rule would not exist.

The rule literally has to exist regardless of separate instances of damage, otherwise trait immunity would immediately nullify the whole effect. You're grasping at straws to prove this whole "impact is one instance" idea.

This will finally reveal Aroden faked his own death to take a vacation.

Sounds like the gremlins are already loose if book listings are going up early then vanishing. I for one welcome our new fey overlords!

Also very excited to see a fey versatile heritage!

I would guess the devs did their math on the assumption players were using normal builds and not these outlandish builds people were coming up with to create and exploit weaknesses. When played normally, the original rule worked fine, but everyone panicked so they had to revise it because of a niche build supposedly everyone will abuse.

I'm not sure if this is a new store bug or not, but in the middle of the night last night, my Starfinder Adventurer Subscription somehow canceled itself and I only knew because I received an email about it at 3 AM.

Personally I'll stick to using the previous clarification, as that is how I was already reading the rules. But this new clarification seems pretty simple and will work fine if I need to use it ever (PFS or others tables)

Mangaholic13 wrote:

...Someone mentioned Blue Mage?

I'm now imagining a Tripkee Wandering Chef Slayer who hunts monsters mostly in order to use them as ingredients for experimental dishes. The trophies are more so they can remember the flavor of certain monsters in order to figure out what seasonings and other ingredients work best.

I didn't expect a Quina reference today, though being totally fair, the only other Blue Mage is Kimahri and most people forget he exists lol.

Are we really erasing Quistis and Strago? smh lol

A class built around adrenaline and using what they can around the map to do risky maneuvers? Guess it's time for me to build fantasy Jason Statham, virtually any role he's had, but primarily Crank.

Slayer I think means pulling out my old Bloodborne styled Slayer from PF1..

However, there is one HUGE problem in need of ERRATA:

"On Borrowed Time" does not list its action cost! Please fix that immediately, Paizo!

This was actually addressed in the surprise errata the other day:

Page 189: On Borrowed Time is missing its action symbol. It takes 2 actions.

I recall this being somewhat common with Starfinder 1e PDFs as well, particularly APs. Several ranging between 100-300 MB. Catches me off guard every time I see it happen, and mildly annoying to make space for on some devices sometimes.

Not in particular, no. I haven't noticed any significant change in quality since I started paying attention to Pathfinder 10 years ago, despite many claims to the contrary.

It's part of the standard rulebook subscription, it needed to be skipped if it was unwanted. Presumably something due to the new store.

It's entirely possible they copied the text from other caster archetypes that grant focus spells, like Sorcerer and Oracle in PC2, which uses that same specific line about gaining a focus pool if you don't have one. So it may be something to call for a clarification on whether it qualifies as a known focus spell or not for purposes of adding to your focus pool.

To be honest, I always wonder if the spell attack rolls were made this way on purpose or they just forgot to compensate for removing touch AC and/or the dueling wand after the playtest. They really are just in such an awkward position I find it hard to believe it was intentional.

Karys wrote:

I'm scrolling through this search you've provided and I have yet to see any "broken stuff" being patched with PFS rulings, so could you be more specific in what you're trying to show here?

I already did provide a link to an AoN search for pages with PFS notes so it's easy enough to repost that.

This is literally the search I am referring to scrolling through, so once again, can you be more specific about what you're trying to show me?

I'm scrolling through this search you've provided and I have yet to see any "broken stuff" being patched with PFS rulings, so could you be more specific in what you're trying to show here? Most of what I'm seeing seems to exist just to head off as much table variance as possible, or even just making clear changes because PFS play structure is different from a normal campaign, which seems like exactly what an organized play setup would aim for.

While I feel Paizo has no great reason to concern themselves with something that can sometimes be read differently at different tables for home games unless it blatantly falls apart, because no matter what they've written, people still seem to find multiple interpretations. The things that are exceptionally ambiguous would be nice to be clarified, but most of these are not that.

Right, my bad. That's what I get writing stuff too early in the morning.

All good, making sure I wasn't going crazy myself lol

And although Magus it's the worst offender, it's not the only class where Psychic Dedication itself is one of the strongest level 2 feats in the entire game. It's not quite as bas as Exemplar and basically any martial, but it's up there. If you compare Imaginary Weapon to Fire Ray for a Magus to get, Imaginary Weapon is stronger and cheaper. It really shouldn't be both of those.

If the ability to Amp was a second feat, it's...

How is Imaginary Weapon cheaper than Fire Ray? It is indeed better, but they both need two feats to learn. Psychic Dedication only grants you a standard psi cantrip, so you still need Psi Development at 6th level to learn Imaginary Weapon. Same as Oracle Dedication needing to take Domain Acumen at 4th level for Fire Ray.

Favorite thing is I'm really happy to see draconic kobold options to have a bit of the old kobold flavor if anyone wants it

I've just received my email but it appears the store transition changed my default address back to somewhere I no longer live, so here's hoping my email gets through to fix that..

Edit: my order's shipping address has been corrected, record time there, customer service. Thank you

The end times are nearly upon us. Praise be to Groetus for bringing the old store's existence to an end.

You are wildly underestimating what can slip by even good QA teams. Not to say the errors aren't bad or shouldn't be fixed, within the context of how much had to change in such a short time under the duress of the remaster, it's crazy to expect perfection even if the error seems obvious.

Spambot Necromancers. The spam gets removed, but the thread remains revived and others reply to it.

Normally that's true, but this was a genuine post complaining about PF2. I assume they woke up from a 6 year sleeping curse of some kind and had the page open before it was inflicted on them.

If the system says "this stat is the key attribute for your class and many of your abilities will use it" and you don't get it at least close to max, that's not a system problem, that's just learning an extremely basic function. Even making your stat slightly sub-optimal is still easily playable compared to old systems completely falling apart if you don't have the right stats and choices.

All games in any form, video game or TTRPG need you to learn how it works which may involve making suboptimal choices the first time around. That is not ivory tower design, that's just how learning to do something works. So comparing all of these games to this situation means nothing.

The point is the game is still playable with sub-optimal choices rather than essentially unplayable with them.

At the current age of the game I feel the only likely official solution we could get before PF3 ever comes around, would be the idea of having rules and a table for upgrading items at regular intervals. That said, personally after reading this thread I'd consider extending the option of having a small number of investment slots for any favorite items my players have that would function with the autoscaling relics use (or just use relics as a whole if they're so inclined). Try and find a balance of the current norm and letting them keep a few favorites around if they get attached.

I'm fond of edicts and anathemas in general as they're just good ways to note down parts of your character's personality and what motivates their decisions and actions. As far as class based ones, as long as they make reasonable sense like a Cleric offending the god that they worship or a Druid destroying nature makes sense to have negative repercussions if, for some reason, they decide to outright violate the anathema without some good reason. Realistically I'm not picking a class or god if their edicts and anathemas didn't already align with my concept in the first place so the likelihood of violating them isn't very high unless the story somehow forced it.

As far as the discussion about fantasy religion forced on Cleric being in conflict with real world problems with religion, that's simply the point where you pick another class or work with your GM to make a solution to choosing a god to worship. Assuming you're using Golarion or a similar setting where the gods are real and tangibly affect the world, it's difficult to avoid dealing with religion in some way in the game. I'm an atheist with strong opinions on real religion, but have no issues with a fantasy world with gods that exist and have real power and will gladly play a Cleric if it suits my concept.

If you've gotten to the point where somehow, some way, your PC is able to carry another PC without severely impeding yours and the carried PC's movement and are trying to use it to an advantage, you would just use the Riding PCs rules because that's what the riding PCs rule is meant to do.

The carrying rule wouldn't need an errata because it's very much assuming you're likely using most of your carrying ability for carrying a whole person, thinking something like a knight carrying a princess to safety, someone who can't walk for some reason or another and needs to be carried away from something. It's not meant to be used for mechanical advantage and if someone is trying to argue that, it's a simple "no."

It would perhaps help to list the variant, so that people can know what is actually being talked about. Incidentally, actually listing the variant I think tells a different story:

I shared what I knew about it as was told to me, so thank you for pulling the full rule. I mostly wanted to share here that it existed so anyone who might not see the Starfinder side might see and look into it if they wanted once the book is fully released and circulating.

Anyway, yeah, tailoring it as appropriate for your campaigns or limitations on what skills you can take seems like the way to go. I don't quite see the same issues as everyone else, but I probably just have a different kinda play group so don't really look at it that way. So tweak it, build off it, have fun with it, seems like a decent baseline to make a milder or more specific variant.

The Starfinder GM Core looks to have introduced this rule. Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but I don't think this rule has appeared in any Pathfinder book so far.

Essentially it grants a free skill increase at 1st, 3rd, 7th and 15th levels for a chosen skill as well as automatically gaining any general skill feats with the chosen skill as their specific prerequisite as soon as they qualify for them.

Just wanted to bring attention to it here because it seems like a fantastic addition to use in PF games as well.

This thread has been a lot of words and borderline personal attacks to say "use or make hazards that suit your table or adventure"

I envision this being akin to standing on a world map in an old JRPG. You can see there are forests, mountains, hilly terrain, maybe a village all near you. But you're not seeing anything more detailed than that, and once a day have a radar ping for large groups of things moving together.

To know anything more detailed than that you'd still need to scout to find useful info about the finer points of the area. Using the hexcrawl example and the base assumption from GM core that a hex is 12 miles across, I doubt you'd really know much from the map besides what type of terrain the hex has and *maybe* a landmark or buildings being there if they're large enough or form a town, you'd still need to explore the hex to find out what might be there. Useful but not game breaking imo.

I can't say I have strong feelings on this one way or another, less classes/more class options likely wouldn't sway me to buy a book more or less than I would in the first place due to things like the books themes interesting me or not. In a way I prefer class bloat over option bloat within classes because having more mechanically interesting classes catches my eye more than having piles of feat options.

Not to say I don't like new options, new subclasses and class archetypes for existing classes interest me the most, ways to nudge the baseline mechanics or role of a class are great to see. Feats themselves interest me distinctly less, but if they're around to accentuate subclasses or archetypes then I can be swayed.

Karys wrote:

I'm just following the RAW for what the climb action and the climb speed rules say, just like you are for trip and other actions. You can't say it's not true then omit the rest of the rules of climb speed. Sounds like someone arguing in bad faith imo.

As has already been pointed out, the follow-up to that line does not contradict it. Failing to acknowledge this and trying to argue that monsters can't use their own Speeds without hands is an obvious bad-faith argument.

You pointed nothing out, you only pointed out the descriptive text of climb speed saying you can climb on a surface while ignoring the actual mechanical text of the rule because that benefits your argument. Please point to me where in the climb speed rules it says you don't need hands to use the climb action, which you would still need to make to succeed at it with a climb speed. But I'm sure I'm the one arguing in bad faith again.

Karys wrote:

I don't think it's particularly reasonable to apply the necessity of hands to whether a monster form can do athletics actions in combat the same way it applies to the humanoid PCs it's typically intended to apply to. If we started applying those restrictions, even the forms that have climb speeds couldn't climb, as the action requires two free hands and a climb speed only makes you automatically succeed at the athletics check but says nothing about altering the requirements.

No part of this is true:

Climb Speed wrote:

A climb Speed allows you to move up or down inclines and vertical surfaces.

A climb Speed says you can move up and down inclines and vertical surfaces, so you do. Similarly, here's what the Grab monster ability says:

Grab wrote:

If used after a Strike, the monster attempts to Grapple the creature using the body part it attacked with.

If there was no hand requirement involved, why then would these abilities need to specify that you're grabbing with a certain body part? I get the impression there's a general misunderstanding in this discussion of how Athletics maneuvers work on monsters and battle forms, such that people have been house ruling their Druids to let them use Athletics maneuvers freely regardless of their form. This is such a massive buff that I'm surprised nobody would have noticed an excess in performance at early levels.

I'm just following the RAW for what the climb action and the climb speed rules say, just like you are for trip and other actions. You can't say it's not true then omit the rest of the rules of climb speed. Sounds like someone arguing in bad faith imo.

A climb Speed allows you to move up or down inclines and vertical surfaces. Most creatures need to succeed at Athletics checks to Climb, but if you have a climb Speed, you automatically succeed and move up to your climb Speed instead of the listed distance.

And again, Grab gives you a MAP-less grapple after a strike instead of needing to eat MAP doing both on the same turn, that's the advantage. As far as saying "using the body part it attacked with" just comes across as explaining in what grab does because that's how you explain things, not making an exception because it doesn't have hands. Lets take a look at Knockdown, the creature ability that gets a MAP-less Trip attempt after a strike:

Requirements The monster's last action was a successful Strike that lists Knockdown in its damage entry;

Effect The monster attempts to Trip the creature. This attempt neither applies nor counts toward the monster's multiple attack penalty.

It mentions nothing about using the body part to make the Trip attempt like the Grab entry, so if we follow the logic that Grab is explicitly making an exception, then Knockdown is not making an exception and doesn't work.

Other funny little things, you can go into Ape form using Animal Form, which does not say you have hands, but attacks with a fist and we all know apes have hands. Can you trip in ape form? Every depiction of an Arboreal I can find depicts them as humanoid shaped trees who have hands, can they not grapple something?

My entire point here is these battle form spells are very ambiguous, not perfect, and don't follow any common sense if you assume they (and the creatures the forms represent) play by the same exact rules listed for the usual medium human shaped PC.

yellowpete wrote:

That changed a bit in the remaster – the monsters actually need to perform subordinate athletics maneuvers now rather than just applying conditions with Grab, Knockdown etc. directly. If they can't, they're in trouble.

That doesn't actually change it -- you still had to perform the ability before anyway, now you just roll a check for it. The monsters could always perform that ability, as it was special-cased for them.

yellowpete wrote:

But also, from a practical standpoint, I don't think it's very common for GMs to deny their players the ability to grapple or knock over enemies while shapeshifted. At least I haven't seen it. Would in fact raise some eyebrows to do that, especially if the form was something that's inherently known to grapple things like a cave worm

If your GM is ruling that your battle form effectively has hands regardless, then for sure, you're massively buffing all battle forms, while trivializing the battle forms specifically built to let you use Athletics maneuvers like the flytrap form for plant form. For all the ambiguity in battle forms, this is one of the more clear-cut cases: Athletics maneuvers specifically state you need a free hand, and battle forms explicitly state when you have hands. When you don't, they also explicitly state when you can use Athletics maneuvers. This is less arguing on the ambiguity of those rules, and more wishful thinking.

I don't think it's particularly reasonable to apply the necessity of hands to whether a monster form can do athletics actions in combat the same way it applies to the humanoid PCs it's typically intended to apply to. If we started applying those restrictions, even the forms that have climb speeds couldn't climb, as the action requires two free hands and a climb speed only makes you automatically succeed at the athletics check but says nothing about altering the requirements. And allowing athletics actions wouldn't diminish anything about the Flytraps abilities as its Grab ability allows it to make a MAP-less grapple as a follow up to a strike which is a benefit in itself over just making a grapple.

I saw mention of how 4e splits descriptive text and mechanics, and it made me realize I've never looked at 4e in my life, so I went and looked at a few examples. All I'm going to say, is that I want literally anything other than that for Pathfinder, it took me a few seconds to even realize the descriptive text was there in the first place.