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Hey guys,

Unarmed Strikes are normally basic weapons, so Weapon Specialization scales with level. Vesk get a special rule using 1.5 level instead, and their unarmed attacks are not archaic. Does that apply to attacks made while wearing powered armor?

Say the Vesk is a level 5 Soldier. He's wearing a battle harness, giving him 18 strength and 1D10 unarmed strikes. He punches an akata.

What is his melee damage?
Is his attack considered archaic?

My group has been playing for about a month now, we're having a great time. We're really enjoying Starfinder! That said, tracking batteries have proven to be... Well, a bit of a hassle. I'd love to know if we're alone in this or if other people have run into the same problem, and if so, how you've resolved it.

How are you guys handling batteries? Are you keeping meticulous track of each battery's charge level and pay for recharges on your flashlights and comm units as well as your guns? Have you gone for the "all ships have generators" approach that Starfinder Society did and let PCs start most of their engagements with fresh batteries?

We just had our first play test of Starfinder, and overall we had a great time! Since our party is primarily ranged we made heavy use of cover, at times it felt like the XCOM tabletop game. Along the way we ran into a few different situations where we needed to figure out the rules, exactly the reason why we play test stuff before we really get into a campaign. Most of it was pretty clear-cut, but we ran into a strange situation I wanted to get the RQ's take on.

A Soldier is exploring a 5ft wide corridor, essentially a ventilation shaft. The corridor is spacious enough that there are no squeezing penalties. He turns a corner and spots an enemy guard searching the ventilation shaft for the cause of a triggered proximity alarm. The guard pulls his gun and takes a shot at the soldier. The battle grid looks like this. Does the soldier have partial cover from the attack? Initially I thought the answer was no, it's a clean shot. But one of my players pointed out there'd been a change in the cover rules from Pathfinder.

Choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover.

Furthermore, example #2 in the cover illustration seems to cover this.

(...)lines from every corner of her square to all the corners of the ksarik’s square pass through or run along the border of a wall. The ksarik has cover(...)[

I don't see how you could draw a line from any corner without having it run along the border of a wall here, but... Logically it's a clear shot, there shouldn't be any cover penalties in play. Am I misinterpreting this, or is it just a quirk of the system and we should houserule it?

The potion rules stipulate that the drinker is both the caster and the target for the potion, and that spells with a range of Personal are not valid options for making a potion. How does this work with spells that are centered on the caster but have a non-personal range?

Examples include Bless (The caster and all allies within a 50-ft. burst, centered on the caster), Line in the Sand (Range: 5-ft. burst centered on you) and Obscuring Mist (cloud spreads in 20-ft. radius from you, 20 ft. high).

I'm wondering how the Aboleth Slime Special Ability interacts with multiple tentacle attacks. Is the effect a "one-and-done" type thing, or can it stack?

The text reads as follows:

A creature hit by an aboleth's tentacle must succeed on a DC 20 Fortitude save or his skin and flesh transform into a clear, slimy membrane over the course of 1d4 rounds. The creature's new “flesh” is soft and tender, reducing its Constitution score by 4 as long as it persists. If the creature's flesh isn't kept moist, it dries quickly and the victim takes 1d12 points of damage every 10 minutes. Remove disease and similar effects can restore an afflicted creature to normal, but immunity to disease offers no protection from this attack. The save DC is Constitution-based.

IE a creature is hit by two tentacles and fails both fortitude saves. Does he reduce his constitution by 4 or 8?

I had a situation come up in a recent session that left me puzzled. It went like this:

Two PCs, a rogue and an inquisitor, are exploring a cult's hideout when they hear voices - a cultist is shouting at a bearded devil to "seek out and kill the intruders" while the devil is (rather smugly) explaining in Infernal why that task is not covered under the legal liability of his current contract, but he'd be more than willing to renegotiate... For a price.

They quickly decide to sneak closer and ambush the couple, hoping to get a surprise round and end the fight as quickly as possible. The rogue rolls well on his stealth check and is unobserved as he sneaks down the hallway, but the inquisitor rolls poorly and despite being distracted, both the cultist and the devil succeed on their opposed perception checks to notice him approaching. At this point I call for initiative rolls.

Here's where the question comes up - should the rogue get a surprise round?

I can state with confidence that Team Devil are aware of the presence of "opponents", but not the full number of opponents. I believe this means that while they're unaware of the rogue's location they are not surprised by the party's approach, and so there's no surprise round. However I'm less than confident in that ruling. What do you think?

For convenience, I included the D20PFSRD rules text on surprise rounds below.

I have a character who is looking to use the Benevolent Armor enhancement in combination with the Bodyguard feat to improve the AC of his allies. I'll add the relevant text in the spoilers below.

Unfortunately I've run into a bit of a wrinkle. My GM is arguing that the AC bonus provided by the Benevolent armor is typed as enhancement rather than untyped. Because the bonus is typed, it would not stack with any magical armor the Bodyguard target is already wearing.

I believe that the reference to an enhancement bonus is simply to note down the bonus the Benevolent armor grants, and the total Aid Another bonus to AC would still be untyped.

Does anyone have any input? :)

Edit: Just noticed the Benevolent weapon enchantment uses similar language. I'll include the relevant text in a spoiler below.

In an upcoming encounter the party will run into a Huge creature (we'll call him Ben) that's using the Veil spell to appear as a medium creature. Veil, a 6th level wizard/Bard spell, states:

The subjects look, feel, and smell just like the creatures the spell makes them resemble.

Veil has the Glamer tag. Glamer states:

A glamer spell changes a subject's sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear.

How do these rules elements interact with Ben's original size?

For example, can Ben fit through a doorway sized for medium creatures? What happens if another creature walks through the space huge-size Ben would occupy while Veiled? Is Ben treated as a medium or huge creature when using spells like Dimension Door or Teleport?

As the title reads, I was wondering if there is a way to make Channel Energy simultaneously heal living characters and harm undead creatures, or simultaneously harm living creatures and heal undead creatures?

Edit: Quick update to clarify what I'm looking for. I'm not talking about Channeling positive and negative energy at the same time, but rather to have a positive energy channel affect both living and undead creatures at the same time. :)

A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead creatures or to heal living creatures.

I'm wondering if there's any way to change the bolded 'or' into an 'and'?

Feats, magical items and class features are all of interest. :)

I thought I knew how negative levels worked until I wanted to explain it to a player, but the more I searched for a conclusive answer the more confused I got. I've spent the past 20 minutes searching the Rules Questions forum for a clear reply and I'm stomped.

Negative Levels read as follows:

(...)The creature is also treated as one level lower for the purpose of level-dependent variables (such as spellcasting) for each negative level possessed. Spellcasters do not lose any prepared spells or slots as a result of negative levels.

You can cast a spell at a lower caster level than normal, but the caster level you choose must be high enough for you to cast the spell in question, and all level-dependent features must be based on the same caster level.

How do these two rules interact? Since you treat your level as lower for the purpose of level-dependent variables, does this mean you're limited to what spells your reduced caster level can cast? On a broader scale, do all your class features that scale based on level change as well? What is a 'level-dependent variable', when you get down to it?

Not sure if I explained that very well, let's try some examples:

Sam the level 10 Elemental Bloodline (Cold) sorcerer fails a save v a bodak's gaze attack and gains 4 temporary negative levels, reducing his caster level to 6. Can he cast Cone of Cold? Is the Elemental Resistance gained from his Bloodline now 10 or 20? Can he still use Elemental Blast, his 9th level sorcerer ability?

Randy the level 4 ranger (CL 1) is level drained 1 level by a wight. Can he cast Entangle? Can he use a scroll of Cure Light Wounds without needing to make a UMD check?

Kenny the level 4 magus Kensai has 18 INT. He takes two negative levels. What's his dodge bonus from Canny Defense?

Benny the 3rd level barbarian has 18 constitution, netting him 12 rage rounds each day. How many rage rounds does he have if he suffers two negative levels?

The text in question reads as follows:

Alternatively, if you succeed, you can become the grappler, grappling the other creature (meaning that the other creature cannot freely release the grapple without making a combat maneuver check, while you can). Instead of attempting to break or reverse the grapple, you can take any action that doesn’t require two hands to perform, such as cast a spell or make an attack or full attack with a light or one-handed weapon against any creature within your reach, including the creature that is grappling you.

One of my players is arguing that the singular use of "a weapon" means that a creature being grappled is limited to making attacks with only one natural attack irregardless of how many natural attacks he has available. IE if you were grappling a dire badger, it could either try to bite you or hit you with one claw, but not attack with both claws and the bite attack in the same round. That seems very odd to me.

Is he correct?

Our group has recently picked up a flying carpet for the very first time, and the wording is a little confusing. A carpet of flying has a 40 foot movement speed, and is activated with a command word (a standard action). Once it's been activated, it's then "controlled by spoken directions".

Full writeup can be found here.

Assuming it's been activated, what kind of action is it to control the carpet?

Can the carpet hustle, take double moves or make 5-foot-steps?

How does the action economy work when there are multiple people riding on it? Can one character pilot the carpet into position and another take a full round attack when they arrive?

Is it treated as a mount, an attended item, or something else entirely?

A friend of mine has been working on some house rules that try to solve the "rush mentality" sometimes shown by characters that rely on short-duration buff spells. Since he rarely uses the Paizo boards, he asked me to post it here so you could all praise his brilliance and/or tear it to pieces.

This is what he came up with.

What do you think? Any ideas to tweak it/make it better?

I've been playing a warlord for three levels now and I'm loving the heck out of it. It's hands down the most fun martial class I've ever played! However, we've run into a few questions along the way and I'd love any input on them:

Q1. Hunting Party states that a successful strike grants one adjacent ally an attack of opportunity. Does the ally have to be adjacent to the target creature, or adjacent to the initiator?

Q2. Panthera on the Hunt grants a +2 circumstance bonus to attack and damage while charging. Does this bonus stack with the +2 attack bonus from charging?

Q3. Scything Strike states that you make a melee attack on two adjacent enemies as a single attack. Do the enemies have to be adjacent to the initiator, or adjacent to one another?

Q4. Tactical Strike allows the initiator to grant an immediate 10-foot movement to any ally within 10 feet. Can the initiator grant himself the movement?

Q5. The Unbreakable Gambit references the warlord's ability to "resist his opponent's attack" in the reward, but the gambit only works on effects that are harmless on a failed saving throw. This seems contradictory?

Q5B. The Unbreakable Gambit allows you to add your charisma bonus to your saves. Force of Personality already lets you add your charisma to will saves, and states that you cannot gain your charisma bonus more than once. Does this mean that a warlord with Force of Personality gains no bonus by using the Unbreakable Gambit on a will save?

Q6. Is one Tactical Presence assumed to always be active, or must the warlord use a move action to activate it at the beginning of each combat?

Q7. How do the retraining rules found in Ultimate Campaign work with the initiator classes? Can you retrain a gambit or a maneuver?

Before I start, I wasn't quite sure what section of the board this should go in, so I went with General. Feel free to flag/move it if there's a board better suited! With that out of the way...

The other day I was helping a friend pick art for his tiefling character, and I ran across the image of a tiefling cleric of Sarenrae which can be found on p. 172 in the Advanced Race Guide. This picture always struck a chord with me. I can absolutely picture her walking while embracing a new dawn, a new day. She seems content, at peace, and open to the world. Apart from being absolutely gorgeous art, I also love it because I feel like there's the promise of an amazing character background! Just looking at it, I get half a dozen different tiefling character ideas. What series of events would lead a (possibly demon-spawn?) tiefling to join the church of Sarenrae?

Does anyone know who made this piece, and/or if the cleric is a real character?

While I welcome anyone and everyone to share their favorite Pathfinder art pieces and characters, I'd also remind you to quickly check the Community Use Policy before posting. While I'm not a lawyer, I believe that posts that link to Paizo artwork that's not hosted on the Paizo website could be removed...?

I've been dissatisfied with the magic item crafting rules for a while now. While I think that removing XP as a cost was a great change from 3.5, I worry that time and money being the sole requirement causes more trouble than it's worth...

I've got two arguments - one is based on math, one is based on personal experience. I'll outline both arguments down below and I'd welcome any and all feedback or commentary. :)

Math
I find that unless a campaign follows a specific schedule, the feats will range from being wildly overpowered to woefully underpowered.

I put together a small spreadsheet accounting for WBL, the increase gained for each new level, and the bonus wealth from crafting feats. I took the guideline from Ultimate Campaign that a single crafting feat should give the user a ~25% WBL bonus. I then calculated how much downtime would be required to gain the intended bonus. I assumed that the crafter spent the first five levels NOT using accelerated crafting, but subsequently always crafted at double speed by adding +5 to the spellcraft DC.

Basically it looks like this. If a crafter wants to gain the 25% WBL bonus suggested in Ultimate campaign, he would need:

4 days of downtime to cover the WBL gains in levels 2-5.
8 days of downtime to cover the WBL gains in levels 6-10.
24 days of downtime to cover the WBL gains in levels 11-15.
82 days of downtime to cover the WBL gains in levels 16-20.

If a crafter has multiple feats, Ultimate Campaign suggests that the WBL bonus can be increased up to 50%. So if the crafter has more than one crafting feat, take the downtime days above and double them.

If you want crafting and WBL to stay somewhat on the same page, crafting speeds should scale in the same way WBL does. The few options available to speed up crafting (valet familiar, cooperative crafting) is either available at level 1, or requires more feats and a helper. The easiest solution might be to let the crafter take the +5 spellcraft DC option multiple times at staggered points as he levels. So at level 5 you can make 2000 a day, at level 10 3000 a day, and at level 15 4000 a day?

Personal experience
I feel like crafting kind of puts a gun to my head when considering APs or writing my own campaigns. If the storyline doesn't more or less follow the suggested number of downtime days, crafting feats will spiral out of control. A campaign with very limited downtime (like the RotRL game mentioned above) will make crafting feats poor choices. Conversely a campaign with lots of downtime make Crafting feats incredibly powerful options and will (unless the GM takes steps to counter it) result in fantastically wealthy and overgeared characters - we had this happen in our Skull & Shackles game when the Arcanist installed a magical laboratory in his ship cabin and spent the travel time putting together gear for the entire ship. We'd easily doubled our WBL by level 7. This is a frequent complaint about Kingmaker, which also features a great deal of downtime.

This is problematic since I absolutely love the downtime, kingdom and retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign. Great systems that add a ton of fun options to the game, but you can’t really use them without putting in some heavy restrictions on crafting.

Moreover, I find that low level characters, who need minimal time to reach their intended crafting bonus, tend to have tons of time available for crafting. They will spend days if not weeks weeks travelling from place to place. They frequently stop to rest for multiple days in order to regain HP, shake off a disease, visit the library to do research, or heal ability damage. Their adventure hooks and plot lines tend to be less urgent and far more lenient on scheduling since low level parties tend to move slowly.

Conversely high level characters travel across planes in the blink of an eye. They can reverse Death itself with a single spell and 10 minutes of casting. They have the spell slots and resources to blow through numerous encounters without resting. They tend to go on monumental adventures with nations if not worlds hanging in the balance. In short, there usually isn't set aside time for them to stop and spend three months of crafting along the way. As an example of the latter, while fighting our way to the main villain in Rise of the Runelords our party leveled from 15 to 18 in about four days. The AP instills a sense of urgency which we took seriously, and we did everything in our might to stop the bad guy as fast as possible. Needless to say our crafter didn't have the time to catch up, and wound up being shortchanged about 80K WBL. Not a monumental loss, but noticeable and a little irritating.

Basically I find that low level characters have the time but not the money, and high level characters have the money but not the time.

All that said, I don’t want to bring back XP costs and I certainly don't want to eliminate crafting from my games - I think it’s a fun concept and it shouldn't be removed. I've been playing around with some different house rule ideas (no crafting feats needed to craft, but everything is crafted at full price for example) but I haven’t found anything I’m really happy with.

So… That’s how far I've gotten so far.

How do you guys handle crafting in your games?
Do you recognize any of the problems I've mentioned?
Am I just worrying too much over minor quibbles?
Do you have an awesome subsystem/houserule/homebrew/3rd party material that’ll solve all my problems?

Looking forward to hearing what you think!

Specifically we're wondering about two things.

1. Spellbane works as an antimagic field, except it only affects the selected spells. Disjunction has a % = CL chance of destroying an antimagic field. Does this mean that a Mage's Disjunction has a chance of destroying a Spellbane effect?

2. Mage's Disjunction reads as follows: "If the antimagic field survives the disjunction, no items within it are disjoined". Let's assume that there are both active magic items and active spells within the Spellbane area, and Disjunction is cast into it. Since the spell description only explains how items would work, Would active spells be disjoined even if the Spellbane survived the disjunction?

Links to the relevant spells:
Aroden's Spellbane
Mage's Disjunction
Antimagic Field

I'm trying to find a way to make four characters immune to confusion for a short period - doesn't have to be more than one minute. Does anyone have any good ideas for this?

I can use any spell from any spell list except summoning spells, or any non-artifact magic item. Planar binding and Planar Ally are on the table. Feats, traits and summoned monsters are however unfortunately not an option.

The only thing I've found so far is Calm Emotions. This is an option, but duration: Concentration is a bit of a problem.

A player in my campaign came to me with a question today on Exploit Weakness.

Exploit Weakness (Ex): At 5th level, as a swift action a steel-breaker can observe a creature or object to find its weak point by succeeding at a Wisdom check, adding her brawler level against a DC of 10 + the object’s hardness or the target’s CR. If it succeeds, the steel-breaker gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls until the end of her turn, and any attacks she makes until the end of her turn ignore the creature or object’s DR or hardness.

A steel-breaker can instead use this ability as a swift action to analyze the movements and expressions of one creature within 30 feet, granting a bonus on Sense Motive checks and Reflex saving throws, as well as a dodge bonus to AC against that opponent equal to 1/2 her brawler level until the start of her next turn. This ability replaces brawler’s strike.

The first half explicitly states that you need to make a roll and explains how the roll breaks down, but the second half simply states that the brawler analyzes the creature, uses a swift action to activate - and then gains various bonuses. If a steel breaker wants to use the second half of this ability, does she still need to make a wisdom check?

A friend of mine is playing a Fighter, but is having rotten luck finding a weapon to match his feats. Since we're playing an AP that's on a deadline, three weeks of downtime to retrain Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Improved Weapon Focus and Improved Critical to benefit from his newest upgrade isn't really a viable option.

I seem to vaguely recall a magic item (possibly a book?) that allowed a character to retrain weapon-specific feats such as Weapon Focus to a different weapon once per day. Unfortunately I can't remember where I read the item! Does anyone have any idea what the item is, or have any other ideas for how to change these feats without using the retraining rules?

I'm open to Paizo-official, 3rd party material, or even 3.5 books.

I find that when I browse the upcoming products I run across books I think will be useful, handy or that I'm excited about, then two or three months down the line when they are released and I can purchase the PDF, I've forgotten all about them. A prime example would be the upcoming book on Belkzen - very interested in it right now, really doubt I'll remember the release date when I'm running around trying desperately to get on top of the Christmas rush.

The obvious answer would be to subscribe or pre-order the books. Unfortunately while I love many of the Paizo series, the shipping costs to Norway make buying the paper products too expensive for me to justify unless they are exceptionally attractive products that I know I will reference frequently (such as the core rulebooks), since shipping will generally add at least 30%% of the cover price.

The Inner Sea Gods is priced at $39.99, with shipping it comes to $60.30.
The Blood of the Elements Player Companion is priced at $12.99, with shipping it comes to $17.51.

Now I'm not complaining about the shipping costs - When you consider shipping for many other products I think Paizo have done a very good job keeping the costs as low as they are.

That said, is there any chance Paizo could consider adding a pre-order function for PDFs or even better, offer PDF-only subscriptions for the customers who find the current subscription/pre-order options inconvenient or too expensive?

Some creatures have an intelligence score of -. What does that entail exactly? I did a little digging but I couldn't really find a good answer.

For instance most types of ooze have an int of - but frequently use combat maneuvers. The majority of vermin have an int of - but still use fairly complex strategies, such as spinning webs, laying traps, grappling and so on.

Say you have a pack of zombies and skeletons fighting a group of adventurers. The undead are uncontrolled. Would the undead:

1. Avoid natural hazards like a gulch or a moat?
2. Avoid artificial hazards like caltrops, a Create Pit spell or a Delayed Blast Fireball?
3. Seek out higher ground or benefit from cover?
4. Use Combat Maneuver options like Grapple, Bull rush and/or Disarm?
5. Consciously try to set up and take advantage of flanking options?
6. Prioritize targets (ie get the caster first!) based on threat posed?

Do the answers to the above change if the party is instead fighting black puddings? How about a pack of giant scorpions or a Flesh Golem?

Basically what the thread says, are there any reasonably priced items that improve the Perform skill? I'd love an item that buffed any perform skill, but I'll happily settle for one that provides a bonus to a specific perform variant.

Anything published by Paizo is fair game - barring that I'm open to 3rd party content, but I try to use it sparingly.

My Arcanist just picked up Craft Wondrous Items and I was looking to make some pearls of power, but I'm not quite sure if and/or how they would interact with the Arcanist. Can Arcanists use pearls of power to regain spent spells?

An arcanist casts arcane spells drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list, presented in Chapter 10 of the Core Rulebook. An arcanist must prepare her spells ahead of time, but unlike a wizard, her spells are not expended when they’re cast. Instead, she can cast any spell that she has prepared, assuming she hasn’t yet used up her spells per day for that level.

(...)

An arcanist may know any number of spells, but the number she can prepare each day is limited.

(...)

Unlike the number of spells she can cast per day, the number of spells an arcanist can prepare each day is not affected by her Intelligence score. Feats and other effects that modify the number of spells known by a spellcaster affect the number of spells the arcanist can prepare.

An arcanist must choose and prepare her spells ahead of time by getting 8 hours of sleep and spending 1 hour studying her spellbook. While studying, the arcanist decides what spells to prepare.

This seemingly normal pearl of average size and luster is a potent aid to all spellcasters who prepare spells. Once per day on command, a pearl of power enables the possessor to recall any one spell that she had prepared and then cast that day. The spell is then prepared again, just as if it had not been cast.

Total Defense means you cannot make Attacks of Opportunity.

Flanking requires that an ally "threatens" the target: "You get a flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by another enemy character or creature on its opposite border or opposite corner."

The definition of threatening (for the purposes of AoOs) is: "You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn."

Q: Do you qualify as "threatening" for the purposes of Flanking etc when using Total Defense?

IE can a character using Total Defense still function as a flanking buddy?

A few links for convenience:
Total Defense
Attacks of Opportunity and Threatened Squares
Flanking

I'm looking for ways to cast an Orison, Create Water, on an arcane spellcaster - preferably at will.

I've found numerous traits that allow you to cast arcane cantrips at will, but a similar option for Orisons seem to be eluding me.

I'd be happy to spend a trait or a feat for the Orison, but the spell should be available as soon as possible - ideally at level 1.

The character in question is a level 1 arcanist: 10 Strength, 10 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 17 intelligence, 8 Wisdom, 16 charisma.

I was recently invited to join a S&S game starting at level 1. I've recently played melee classes (currently playing a DD Bard in CotCT, recently played a battle oracle) that heavily focus on self-buffing and a general know-it-all support build (buffer cleric/loremaster), so I'm looking to try out something a little different.

I have read the player's guide, but I figured I'd check in with Pathfinder's awesome fan base before rolling up my character :).

My first thought was some kind of arcane caster. Perhaps Witch with the Sea Witch archetype or a controller-focused Wizard... Any thoughts? Are these character concepts that will fit well with S&S's campaign? Anything in particular I should avoid or give extra focus?

All classes in official paizo books, including the Advanced Class Guide revised play test classes, are available except Paladin.

In a different thread the following claim was made, but the thread was subsequently locked before I could ask some follow-up questions. Since that is no longer an option, I figured I'd ask the rules question message board. I've also sent a PM to Aelryinth with a link to this thread.

I declare an AoO attack roll against the air.(One casual flourish later, I settle into defensive fighting to protect against the arrows heading my way). I declared my attack action, I'm in defensive fighting, and I'm going to stay that way until otherwise noted.

Condition satisfied.[...]

The full post can be found here.

That said, I'm trying to keep an open mind and I'd be interested in your arguments: Is this RAW/RAI legal?

Benefit: You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). On a successful hit, the attack deals damage normally and you can choose to push your target 5 feet or attempt to knock them prone. If you decide to push the target, it is moved 5 feet directly away from you. This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity, and the target must end this move in a safe space it can stand in. If you decide to attempt to knock the target prone, the target receives a Fortitude saving throw with a DC of 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wisdom modifier to avoid the effect. You may attempt a punishing kick attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (but see Special), and no more than once per round.

Despite the suggestive name of the feat, nothing actually states that your attack roll needs to be an Unarmed Strike attack, or even a melee attack. That leaves us with the following options:

1. The feat can only be used with unarmed strikes.
2. The feat can be used with any melee attack, including weapons.
3. The feat can be used with any attack, including ranged attacks.

Near as I can tell the feat can be read, and played, in at least three different ways. Therefore I'm hoping for a FAQ reply for clarification - please click the FAQ button if you agree.

Upon further inspection both the Touch of Serenity and the Elemental Fist feats have similar language - they never actually state any limitations on what kind of attack you can use the feat with.

This topic has been brought up before, but as far as I know the response was never actually posted anywhere. Let's see if we can get it cleared up this time!

Lately there's been a little bit of hostility over the recent erratas in some threads. I think it's easy to forget that ultimately this is a game and your main goal is to have fun! This thread exists entirely to make you smile and remind optimists that ultimately, it's not all that bad and remind pessimists that it could always be worse.

Jason Bulmahn stated recently that Paizo actually have a very solid track record on Erratas, which is entirely true - only a few things (monk flurry etc) out of hundreds if not thousands of changes have slipped past the net. This is the place where we visualize what would happen if the Paizo errata/FAQ team weren't quite up to the task. I've typed up some erratas to get us started, feel free to rate, rant, comment, favorite, or add your own!

Feats

Dervish Dance
There's been some concern that the Dervish Dance feat stifles variety since its effect limits weapon selection to scimitars. We agree.
In the sentence "When wielding a scimitar with one hand," replace "scimitar" with Hook Hand.
We've also decided to rename the feat Pirate.
Ninjas can never learn Pirate.

Snake Style
Under requirements, change the sentence to read as follows:
Prerequisite: Improved Unarmed Strike, Acrobatics 1 rank, Sense Motive 3 ranks, must be able to turn into a snake.

Magical Crafting
We have noted that very few Pathfinder Society players take magical crafting feats such as Craft Magical Weapon and Armor or Craft Wondrous Items. In an effort to make these feats more desirable, we have decided to change the basic crafting price of an item to 25% of its normal value, and bump the expected WBL of players with a crafting feat to 150% normal. This change is not PFS-specific.

Spells

Mirror Image
It has been drawn to our attention that Mirror Image can be sidestepped by having your character close his eyes and therefore simply have a 50% miss chance instead of the varying miss chance offered by Mirror Image.
Stop it. You look ridiculous.

Paragon Surge
In the first printing of the Advanced Race Guide we accidentally printed Paragon Surge at the wrong level. In the spell description blurb, replace 'Level: alchemist 3, cleric 3, magus 4, paladin 4, sorcerer/wizard 3, witch 3' with 'Level: alchemist 1, cleric 1, magus 1, paladin 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, witch 1'.
We apologize for the delay on this clarification, we just thought it was obvious. Humans get bonus feats at level 1, after all.

Regeneration
We have been notified that Regeneration seems less than useful since there are no mechanics to represent dismemberment or amputations in this game. We agree, and have therefore have decided to introduce fumble mechanics to Pathfinder. Whenever you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll you must make a DC (10+your total attack bonus) reflex save. If you fail that save, roll a 1D4 where each number represents a limb, going clockwise from left to right (left arm, left leg, right leg, right arm). Whichever limb is selected is accidentally severed, crushed, mangled or otherwise made useless.

We believe this change will make people more appreciative of classes with terrible attack bonuses and good reflex saves, like the monk.

Weapons

Slings
One of our fans has mailed us a sling as well as an emphatic plea to look over the sling mechanics in-game. After playing around with the sling in our parking lot for fifteen minutes, we now feel much more qualified to revisit this classic weapon:
Slings now have a natural misfire mechanic akin to firearms. However, whenever a sling misfires, you hit yourself in the face, doing full damage. The sling misfire chance is 1-5.
All slings are treated as Bane weapons when targeting Sean K Reynold's car. (LOL J/K)
Otherwise, the sling is unchanged.

Armor Spikes
I told you to can the spike jokes, and you just wouldn't listen. Armor Spikes have been removed from Pathfinder.

Magical Items

Agile
Some concern have been stated over the Agile enhancement. Therefore, change the second sentence to read as follows: A wielder with the Weapon Finesse feat can choose to apply half her Dexterity modifier to damage rolls in place of her Strength Modifier. Note that this is still reduced as normal if the weapon is used while Two-Weapon fighting.

Guided
The guided enhancement can now be applied to ranged weapons as well as melee weapons. We originally planned to include this enhancement in the Ultimate Equipment guide but we plum forgot. Sorry.
(And you say we never do anything nice for Monks!)

Courageous
This enhancement will only work when the player plays a sufficiently brave character, as decided by the GM. Any show of cowardice while the weapon is carried will make the weapon disintegrate. Typical examples of cowardice include fleeing, being affected by any spell with the Fear descriptor, using the Withdraw action, or choosing not to use the Charge action whenever a chance to use Charge is available in the first round of combat.

Scrolls
Scrolls will no longer be consumed when used to cast a spell. It just didn't make any sense.

Pathfinder Society
An issue of Peter Anspach's The Evil Overlord List has been sent to all PFS adventure writers. Hopefully this should result in villains that will not be foiled by bees.

Classes

Paladins
We've noted a number of threads debating the paladin code recently. In an effort to clarify the paladin code, we will be printing an actual Code that all paladins are required to follow, effective immediately. This 8 000 page tome should clear things up nicely and will be available in your FLGS next week. Unfortunately, it's taking us a while to upload this on to the PRD due to the length, expect it sometime in 2015.

Note that since the paladin code is merely being errataed, not changed, any paladin who has broken the code in the past will fall immediately and should seek out an Atonement spell at the earliest convenience. Hope you've never eaten bacon!

Rogues
A number of complaints have been heard recently that rogues are kind of useless. After extensively revising the class, we agree. Therefore, the rogue has been banned from PFS play and will not supported by later Pathfinder books. See your venture captain for your replacement character sheet, which offers a choice between a bard, a ninja, and a crypt breaker/vivisectionist alchemist.

Lore Warden
There was an accidental omission in the Lore warden archetype. In the scholastic class feature, replace the final sentence with the following:
This ability replaces the lore warden’s proficiency with medium armor, heavy armor, shields, as well as the 1st level, 2nd level, 4th level, 6th level, 8th level, 10th level, 12th level, 14th level, 16th level, 18th level and 20th fighter bonus feats.

Sorcerer
Efreeti Bloodline
Replace the first level bloodline power (Fire Ray) with the following: Starting at 1st level, you can grant up to three wishes (like the efreet racial ability). This acts like the spell Wish, except you can only use it to grant wishes to non-genies.
We believe this change matches the flavour and concept of a efreet sorcerer much better than the previous bloodline power.

If a character has levels in Bard (granting Bardic Inspiration) and Sensei (granting Advice, which is 'identical to bardic performance'), how do the bardic inspirations work out?

A: They stack, advancing the Bardic Inspiration progression as if the Sensei levels were bard levels or vice versa.

B: They don't stack, instead you have two separate pools of Bardic Inspiration working at different caster levels.

C: ?

Link to the Bard and the Sensei provided for convenience.

I'll be playtesting this on Thursday with a group of 4th level characters currently making their way through the second book of Curse of the Crimson Throne.

The GM generously allowed me to temporarily replace my original character with a Warpriest but asked that the general feel of the character remain the same to avoid too big a break with reality for the other players. The previous character was a musetouched aasimar Dawnflower Dervish bard who used her spells primarily for backup, support and healing and tended to wreck people in melee combat. I decided to make a Warpriest of Sarenrae that focused on scimitars. The character is using average WBL and a PB of 20:

Vezra (Warpriest 4)
Female Aasimar (musetouched) Warpriest of Sarenrae 4
NG Medium outsider (native)
Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +3

DEFENSES
AC 20, touch 13, flat-footed 17 (+7 armor, +3 dexterity)
hp 35 (4d8+10)
Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +7 (+1 Resistance)

OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft.
Melee +1 scimitar +9 (1d6+4/18–20)
Ranged Longbow +8 (1d8)
Special Attacks Fervor 5/day (1d6), Channel Positive Energy, Imbue Weapon (4 rounds/day, +1 bonus)
Blessing Abilities 5/day
Good Blessing
Healing Blessing

Warpriest Spells Prepared (CL 4th; concentration +7
2nd—Aid, Weapon of Awe
1st—bless, Divine Favor (2), Shield of Faith
0th (at will)—detect magic, guidance, light, stabilize

Str 10, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 16
Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 16
Feats Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Scimitar, Longbow), Dervish Dance
Skills Diplomacy +10, Knowledge (religion) +7, Perform (Dance) +7
Languages Common, Celestial
SQ aura
Combat Gear wand of cure light wounds, scroll of resist energy, scroll of darkness, scroll of air bubble, scroll of diagnose disease, scroll of know the enemy, scroll of remove fear.
Gear +1 Breastplate, +1 scimitar, holy symbol of Sarenrae, longbow with 20 arrows, Pathfinder's kit, spell component pouch, 247 gp.

I have a player who is playing a neutral good character, and wants to take monk levels (master of many styles-archetype). The alignment restriction on Monks (lawful only) prohibits this.

The player is providing good fluff reasoning as to why her character is interested in the archetype, and points out that there's precedence - the Martial Artist archetype ignores the alignment requirement.

There's no real time press since the game is in hiatus for the summer. That said, at the moment I'm inclined to agree with the player and handwave the requirement away.

However, I'd be interested to hear what the Paizo community has to say on the topic - is there any particular reasons why the monk is, or should remain, Lawful-only?

The downtime rules for spell research state the following:

Pay 100 gp × the spell's level for research costs and rare ingredients. You may spend Goods or Magic toward this cost.

Determine the total days of progress required to complete the research, which is 7 × the spell level.
Determine the spell research DC, which is 10 + twice the spell's level.
Attempt a Spellcraft check and a Knowledge check (arcana for an arcane spell, religion for a divine spell) against the spell research DC. You can't take 10 on these checks. You may spend Magic to modify a check result, with 1 point of Magic adding 2 to your total (maximum +10). If both checks succeed, you make 1 day's progress toward completing the spell. When your days of progress equal the total number of days needed, the spell is completed and added to your spellbook or list of spells known.

I bolded two sections since those are the most relevant to my questions:

When a spontaneous caster with a limited spell list (like a bard, oracle, or a sorcerer) completes research on a new spell and adds that spell to his list of spells known, does that spell come in addition to his normal spell list limitations, or is the spell counted as part of his total amount of "spells known"?

Ie a third level sorcerer knows three 1st level spells (we are going to ignore bloodlines for simplicity). He spends a week and 700 gold successfully researching a new 1st level spell. Does he now have four 1st level spells known, or does the new spell "take up the slot" of one of his old ones?

If it's the latter, how do we go about reshuffling the spell list of the caster? Can he swap out an old spell of the same level for the newly researched spell immediately? Does he have to wait until he goes up a level and takes the newly researched spell as his new spell known?

I was looking over the new story feats and this one stood out a bit... The feat description is available here.

The examples as listed are a new temple for your god on the site where an old temple was destroyed, or an academy for students to unlock the secrets of the universe.

Now, conveniently pathfinder has added suggested buildings put together with their own Capital rules on page 107 in the Ultimate Campaign.

An already finished temple costs approximately 1400 gp, and that's paying double for all capital going into the structure.

A cathedral, described as "a center of religious and spiritual leadership", is priced at 4960 GP.

An academy is a little bit pricier, it comes to about 5360 gp.

Going further down the list, the most expensive building on the list, the Palace (described as: A grand edifice and grounds demonstrating wealth, power, and authority to the world), comes to 19 640 gp. And again, that's double the cost of building one.

So the temple or academy you need to build in order to qualify for the Goal on this feat is approximately the same size as five palaces stacked on top of each other.

I guess my question is as follows: Is it possible that the gold piece cap on this feat was set before the building price rules was fully ironed out?

Last night my party started using the Ultimate Campaign and enthusiastically got to work designing and building an inn. After an extensive perusing of the list of rooms, teams etc, we wound up with a blueprint of a inn with a total of 10 rooms that would be fairly expensive to build.

The total cost came to 85 goods, 4 influence, 81 labor, and... 222 days of construction time.

Now, this is where I struggle a bit. The party is in Korvosa and we'll easily be able to gather the capital (goods, labor, influence etc) to build the inn in less than a week. The rules for constructing buildings stipulate that you add together the capital cost of each room, which includes construction time. This is made clear by the construction examples on page 91.

However, if the party are paying the total labor cost up front, wouldn't it make sense that we be able to start the work on multiple rooms at once?

Another problem I ran into was this: Furnishings is a room augmentation that is described as "wooden paneling, marble floors, fine ceramic teacups "etc. It provides benefits for the room's function. The build time on furnishings is 20 days. So if the group wants to refurnish five rooms, again... Add up the cost, add up the time, so it takes 100 days to install wooden paneling, lifelike paintings, bed canopies and teacups. Is there really only one interior designer in Korvosa?

Now, in all fairness there are rules for rushing building time by paying double, triple, or quadruple the cost of the labor of a room in order to get it finished faster. However I personally see that more as what you do when you suddenly you need a Observation Dome or whatever, stat!

And so I come to the safe old Rules Questions forum - am I reading this right?

Do you always add together the building time of all rooms in order to finish a building? Is there a way to start construction on multiple rooms at once in order to speed up building time?

Can I build it one room at a time and use that room while the other ones are building?

Finally, how does the Lyre of Building interact with the construction times as outlined in Ultimate Campaign?

Figured I'd ask straight away since I'm bringing Ultimate Campaign into play on my next session and I know for sure my players will be asking me:

Can you use the feat retraining rules to pick up a feat you did not qualify for when you took the old feat?

Example: A first level human rogue that specializes in throwing daggers wants quick-draw, but he doesn't meet the requirements (BAB +1). Instead he takes Two-Weapon Fighting and Dodge at level 1.

The rogue goes on an adventure and levels up, becoming level 2.

At level 2 the rogue wants to use the retraining rules to drop Dodge and pick up Quickdraw. At level 2, he now has all the requirements needed. Can he?

The only rulings I found on the topic was:

When you use retraining to replace some aspect of your character, you must meet all prerequisites, requirements, and considerations for whatever you’re trying to acquire. For example, a 6th-level rogue can’t use retraining to learn the Weapon Specialization feat because only fighters can choose that feat.

and

The old feat can’t be one you used as a prerequisite for a feat, class feature, archetype, prestige class, or other ability. If the old feat is a bonus feat granted by a class feature, you must replace it with a feat that you could choose using that class feature.

Which seems to imply that he can. If so... Wow. A lot of high level builds are going to change. A lot.

I'm currently playing a 4th level Dervish of Dawn bard, and I'm not quite sure where to take the character...

Muse touched Aasimar Dervish of Dawn Bard 4
Str 9
Dex 20
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 08
Cha 16

4 Favored Class points put in the Aasimar favored class option to increase Inspire Courage.

Versatile Performance in Sing, looking to add Dance at the next threshold.

Feats:
1. Dervish Dance
1. Arcane Strike
3. Weapon Focus (Scimitar)

So... Where should I take this character? I'm especially interested in feat suggestions, since I'm struggling to find something that really shines for a dex-based melee build.

In short, my party needs to send a message approximately twelve miles as fast as humanly possible. We have access to a 4th level cleric, a 4th level bard, and have a good chance of finding any magical item priced 1200 gp or less.

Our problem is that though we know who the recipient is, we don't know where he is inside the twelve mile radius. Animal Messenger, Whispering Wind etc doesn't work because they all require you to specify a location.

In short, I am looking for either a spell or a magical item that would allow us to send a one-way message to another character, but we are not sure exactly what his location is. Any ideas?

I'm playing with a group of players that really enjoy utilizing different themes and tools to describe what's happening, especially audio elements. Playing some subtle background music when they stepped from level 1 to level 2 of Thistletop really made them sit up and notice how the "feel" of the dungeon suddenly got a whole lot older.

Therefore I want to brew up something special for Misgivings! I already have some spooky music ready, but I want something special for the Dance of Ruin-haunt. I'm looking for some rapid-tempo piano music, preferably something that sounds "wild" or out of control. It would also be excellent if it's not too famous and/or easily recognized.

I have a player in my party who has played the piano for about 20 years, so I really want to nail this haunt!

Any suggestions or ideas you have would be greatly appreciated :).

I find that when my players encounter traps, they don't use the disable device skill to counter them. Instead, they'll use the environment or equipment to neutralize them: Boarding up the holes on a arrow trap, for instance.

I'm somewhat at a loss at how to manage this as the DM. While I try to encourage them to think outside the box and it leads to entertaining solutions at times, I can't help but feel that it makes the disable device skill lackluster and the trap-focused rogue somewhat useless at times. Any thoughts?

This came up in a session I had a few days ago. We winged it at the time to keep the game flowing, but the questions have been bothering me... So:

Question 1: An otyugh hits a foe with a tentacle attack. Using the Grab ability, it gets a free grapple attempt and makes a successful combat maneuver bonus check to grapple the target. It then uses the "continue fighting without the 'grappled' condition" rule. Can it continue doing tentacle attacks with the tentacle it uses to grapple its target?

Link to the PF d20 srd rules on grab here.

Question 2: The previously mentioned Otyugh hits another target with its second tentacle attack. Does the -20 penalty for continuing to fight with a target already grappled count towards this combat maneuver check to successfully start a grapple?