It does not need to be defined in the ability, as it is already defined in the rules for Afflictions.
Player Core, Page 430:
When you're first exposed to the affliction, you must attempt a saving throw against it. This first attempt to stave off the affliction is called the initial save. An affliction usually requires a Fortitude save, but the exact save and its DC are listed after the name and type of affliction. Spells that can cause an affliction typically use the caster's spell DC.
On a successful initial saving throw, you are unaffected by that exposure to the affliction. You don't need to attempt further saving throws against it unless you are exposed to the affliction again.
Double Poison says to use the lowest save. Poison is an affliction, and afflictions tell you what save to use. So, in the example the lowest DC is not 26, it's Will 26.
There is no question at all about the save. It uses the lowest DC save. It says that right in the ability. In the example, the lowest DC save is Will at 26.
It specifically targets animals and is a once-per-day ability with a minor bonus. Basically, it lets you, at level 5, give that cat, or dog, or cow, or whatever a combat bonus.
I would also not allow it to be used on an AC/eidolon/awakened animal PC.
Awakened Animal characters are not people. They are not Animals any more either (they have the Beast trait instead), so the effect wouldn't work on them. Beast Eidolon also wouldn't work since they also have the Beast trait instead of the Animal trait.
But there is nothing that prevents the ability from being used on an Animal Companion with the Animal trait. There is technically nothing that prevents it from being used on a Familiar either, but the Familiar still wouldn't be able to use Strike with the improved attack.
So if you wouldn't want it being used on an Animal Companion, then the ability needs errata.
However, is there an actual balance problem with using the ability on an Animal Companion? It effectively gives a 1/day Runic Body effect (including the rules language of making the target's unarmed attacks +1 Striking unarmed attacks) that is only usable on the party's Animal Companion.
Am I missing something? That doesn't seem overpowered to me.
From a mechanical perspective, I do not think there is an issue.
There might be since ACs do get bonuses from progression naturally. But, as Yuri pointed out, the writing of the ability does seem to minimize any balance issues.
However, the reason I would not allow it to be used on ACs is the intent behind the ability. As Yuri also pointed out, and as the ability itself says, it's meant to be used on other animals. It's not *just* a game about numbers, it's also a game about story-telling, so the intent behind an ability is just as important as a +1, and this Ancestry Feat has a very clear intent.
It specifically targets animals and is a once-per-day ability with a minor bonus. Basically, it lets you, at level 5, give that cat, or dog, or cow, or whatever a combat bonus.
I would also not allow it to be used on an AC/eidolon/awakened animal PC.
0. It would be specified by the GM. No type of terrain is always uneven ground. As an example, you walk on a road, and it is even ground. You come to an area of construction where the road is all torn up, and your GM tells you that part of the road is uneven.
1. Yes.
2. I would imagine yes, but that would be up to your GM. For instance, the building-destroying aspect of Earthquake could lead to uneven ground.
3. Yes, there can be.
Uneven ground is, IMO, meant to be an element used to vary up an encounter and add an extra challenge to it. It will typically be placed by the GM deliberately.
A Jump, be it a High or Long Jump, requires the creature to Stride, and then make the jump movement. A creature in the air can only move with Fly, and a creature in the water moves with Swim. Neither uses Stride and Flinging Updraft does not have the 'this may be used with alternate movement types' language.
As a GM, though, I'd probably allow it to be used on creatures in the air because I think that makes sense for an Air Kinesticist to be able to do.
As for three, well, objects can't jump. You can pick up a chair and throw it, sure, but it will never jump on its own. However, a GM could certainly allow you to use it to move something. They would likely put a bulk limit on it, and make it unattended as a requirement, and I know that I would not allow it to be used to make any sort of attack.
However, it is clearly meant to be a mobility too. If I am the Air Kinestist, on my turn I can either try and hinder an enemies mobility, *or* I can use it to move an ally.
And, as PFS has ruled it forced movement, it does not trigger Reactive Strike, meaning you can move a friendly squishy away from a dangerous melee attacker, or move the Rogue into a flanking position right before they go.
The analogy I would draw is that the positive integers are infinite, but in some sort of hypothetical "elemental plane of numbers" if someone started taking huge quantities of prime numbers then some math-elemental would get annoyed at that and want to fix the situation.
Like just because there's no shortage of water in the elemental plane of water doesn't mean that somebody liked the water you took and would like to replace it.
But would anyone on the Elemental Plane of Water actually care? I ask because of
Spoiler:
I'm running Shattered Star updated for 2E for my home group. We just finished book two, and a major element of it is that Sorshen liked waterfalls. So, inside a statue of herself that she sometimes visited, she opened a gate to the plane of water, put a grate over it to keep it open, and created a river, waterfall, and lake that was fed directly by water from the Plane of Water. She did that well before Earthfall, and in over 10,000 years that portal has been open, no one on that Elemental Plane side tried to close it. 10,000 years is a lot of time for a math elemental to notice the theft, if it even is theft.
I think when something is actually infinite, no one would care, if they even noticed, that some of it was being siphoned off unless it happened to them directly.
Prolly still a wee bit too early yet to bring out the Player's Guide for this, methinks. ;)
It comes out on April 2nd, so if anything it's late. They seem to drop the PGs two to three weeks before the street date, and we're just under 2 weeks away now. I know that I was hoping for it this past week.
One thing I would like to point out is that Holy does not necessarily mean good, and Unholy does not necessarily mean evil in the Remaster.
Holy means side with the angelic (roughly) side, and Unholy means side with the demonic (roughly) side in their eternal war.
You could have something good like
Spoiler:
Mengkare
do things that fall into the Unholy side, and it is very easy to see someone that we might call 'evil' working with the side of angels to not want to see demons take over the world, for instance.
When you start the Clear the Way actions, you select up to five targets that are adjacent to you at that point. You resolve all up to five shoves and then Stride up to half your speed.
That is pretty simple.
How you move the ones that you Shove is covered in Shove. You do not move after each shove, since the specific in Clear the Way overrides the general in Shove as it says that you Stride up to half your Speed after resolving the Athletics checks.
There are many abilities that say 'Do X. After resolving X, if you are adjacent to a new target, you may do X again, repeating until' either you miss, or a number of targets.
Clear the Way does not have that language. It has 'Make up to 5 Athletics checks to Shove and then Stride up to half your speed.'
We have three things here, the 1 action leap, and the base two action High Jump and Long Jump. The two jumps can be brought down to one action by Quick Jump.
Leap does not require a skill check. It allows you to either jump horizontally 10 or 15 feet, depending on your speed or jump vertically exactly 3 feet up and 5 feet horizontally.
The two jumps require Athletics checks.
High Jump is a vertical leap. You move at least 10 feet (less than that you auto fail) and make a DC 30 check, and that modifies the normal vertical leap. A crit fail leaves you prone, a fail is a normal vertical leap, a success gives you two more vertical feet for 5 vertical and 10 horizontal, and a crit success is 5 vertical and 10 horizontal.
Long Jump is simpler. You move at least 10 feet, make a DC 15 check, and either make a normal horizontal leap and fall prone at the end (crit fail), make a normal horizontal leap (fail), or leap a distance that is equal to your roll, rounded down to the nearest 5 feet, with a cap of your land speed.
As Long Jump is always the same as your normal Leap range, we can compare Leap (which is also Long Jump) to High Jump.
So, with no feats, a tripkee with a base speed of 25 can:
Leap: 15 feet. High Jump 3 or 5 feet.
What do the other feats add?
Powerful Leap gives a 5-foot vertical Leap without a skill roll at all. This is the equivalent of a Success at a long jump, though RAW without the horizontal component. It also adds a blanket 5 feet to the horizontal distance of any High or Long Jump.
This gives your tripkee:
Leap 20. High Jump 5 feet auto, 10 on a crit success.
Dancing Leaf from Monk gives a blanket bonus of 5 feet to any successful High or Long Jump.
Assuming a success, the tripkee now has a Leap of 25, and a High Jump of 5 Auto, 10 on a success, and 15 on a crit success.
What about Tripkee Leaping Feats?
The level 5 Fantastic Leaps Ancestry feat, adds a blanket distance of 10 horizontal and 5 vertical.
This brings the Tripkee Monk to a Leap of 35, and a vertical of 5 auto, 15 on a success, and 20 on a crit success.
Ricochetting Leap needs Wall Leap and lets you use creatures as walls, and doesn't matter for this question.
Unbound Leaper is Level 17, and basically makes the question moot, as with it, the things you want to do in the question you can easily do.
So, by level 5, this tripkee monk can:
Leap 35 feet forward without any roll at all meaning that there is never any need to actually roll for Long Jump, unless you roll at least a 40.
High Jump for 5 feet without any sort of roll. If you make the roll, this goes to 15 feet, 20 feet on a critical success.
I would allow 5 feet to clear a Medium creature (and maybe some larges or bigger depending on what they are. A dragon? No. An ooze? Yes.) I would also allow that person a Reactive Strike.
I can't find anything that says how high you get on a Leap/Long Jump, but given the distances that this monk can get to, as a GM I'd allow you to clear M-size creatures with ease (and possible Reactive Strike with it.) And moving 35 feet, for one action, is amazing mobility on its own.
I think this is an interesting idea for a character.
What works best for your campaign? It probably varies from diety to diety to diety what day, if any, is a holy day. I do not think that all of the hundreds of gods and goddesses and others have all chosen the same day for that.
I mean, just look at Earth. The big three regions all have a different 'sabbath' or equivalent: Islam has Friday, Judaism has Saturday, Christianity has Sunday.
It would vary business by business, and I don't think it would be uniform at all.
I also would not change this spell, and not only for the reasons that Errenor and Yuri brought up.
What the Demiplane entry does not tell you is the context of this rare spell. It is from Rival Academies and is a spell created by one of the participants, Veasna, She represents the Divine Conservatory of Magic from Nagajor and is a naga herself. It's very reasonable to assume that she is already Sanctified Holy, so a spell that she designed would not need to make her Holy.
The only for PCs to get it is for her to teach it to them.
IMO, when you are looking at a Rare anything from a Lore book, you need to see the non-mechanical aspects of it, in the actual book, to fully understand intent.
This is an issue with more then just Avenger, it's just especially pronounced with Avenger.
The troubles in playing an Apsu Warcleric. (It's not a fist attack but Jaws, still same unarmed attack woes.)
-No Emblazon Armament line feats (requires weapon or shield)
-No Divine Weapon (requires, again, a weapon)
-No Sanctify Armament (again, weapon)
Or Spiritual Weapon, a spell I previously loved using, being pretty hard to use for an unarmed spellcaster. It changed from a club, a dagger, or deity's favoured weapon to "a weapon you're wielding or wearing"
So really, this issue is one I can commiserate on as well, 'tis certainly frustating to run up against.
I guess, to play Devil's Advocate here myself, the concern might be Fighter? Because of Fighter's many many many weapon feats can apply to unarmed attacks, then monk loses it's niche?
But on the other hand, Dueling Parry using unarmed Fighter sounds baller as hell. (Or would that be Twin Parry instead because 2 fists? Hm. Rules oddities to consider there.)
I think it is very interesting, but with the issues have described above. I was also disappointed that it was not a Hybrid-study that let you conjure weapons made of water, which is what I was hoping it would be.
So I have noticed that in several books there are actual recipes and thus it makes me curious if we could ever get a pathfinder cookbook.
Lost Omens Culinary Guide!
Some of those "licenced property theme" cookbooks are surprisingly good. I have the Final Fantasy XIV one and there are some tasty, fun to make recipies in there. But they also did an amazing job of actually making it feel like something from the game, with recipies appropriate to locations and flavor text to tie the book together. (The hardest recipie in it is for crossants, and it actually gets treated as if it was a trial boss encounter from the game.)
Some recipies from across Golarian showcasing the cultures that influence the setting would be really interesting.
The Fallout, and especially the (now first) Elder Scrolls Cookbooks are great. I, too, would love a Pathfinder cookbook.
While Yuri makes good points, I know that if I was a player and the BBEG got away at level 4[ with level 15 abilities, I would be really annoyed, maybe even angry, with the GM.
Especially when there are simpler ways to do this. Such as...
The kobold is confronted in a cave. The PCs and his minions are on the ground. He is on a ledge, about 60 feet above the ground, and there is a tunnel behind him.
He spends a round or two taunting the PCs, maybe tossing a spell, and as his minions fall, he runs away. Kobolds are known to flee battles, and it's not that likely that the PCs could get to him quickly at level 2.
Having him there briefly gives them a chance to RK him for the future, and maybe see a spell or two that he likes to use, giving them potential edges in the next encounter.
I've always wanted to try a summoner as my first PF2e character with a specific build that isn't possible in that other d20 fantasy game in that I'd like to have dual characters that play (whether naturally or artifically) differently using the eidolon mechanic similar to "twinned" characters in pop culture like Wily Kit and Wily Kat in the Thundercats or the Wonder Power Twins in the old Justice League cartoons.
This is such a fun concept that I've gone and homebrewed an eidolon for it! Although it's unlikely that you'd get to use homebrew at your table, let alone for your first character, hopefully this could give an idea of how the Summoner could work as a pair of twins.
I'd allow that homebrew. It is nicely balanced and makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing it.
I'd like to see a book with more character options like Ancestry Feats, Deviant Powers, and Artifact Archetypes. I'd also like for Paizo to include at least four options when creating something like Deviant Powers or Artifact Archetypes so that each player in the four-person assume group can have their own unique option for games that want to use those. High-level Composite Impulses and more Mythic options could also be in a book like that.
Yes, it is at GM's discretion. The section of rules Yuri quoted shows that pretty clearly, IMO.
If I would allow it, or if it makes sense, depends on the situation. Why is the player taking the Pantheon? Does it fit their RP and concept? Yes, I would allow it. Does it make no sense for that character and they are just doing it to gain access to specific spells? In that case, I would say no.
I like character choices to be as much narrative as mechanical. Other GMs might have different feelings and would make different decisions.
Here is how I see the Dazzled/Otherwise concealed sequence working:
Step 1: Declaration of Intent: I want to swing at the enemy.
Step 2: Flat Check.
Is the Flat Check passed: Step 3, Strike. The turn continues normally.
Is the Flat Check failed: No Strike is ever made. The check comes before the Strike. If no Strike is made, then there is no MAP. Losing the action is already a very heavy cost. There is no need to penalize on top of that.
Now, if you make the characters roll for something that no matter what they roll will miss, then, yes, MAP would go up. But, why would you? IMO, every time the player rolls the dice there needs to be a chance of either success or failure. In this case, the failure happens automatically. Why have a roll happen when the result is already known? The only possible outcome is that the situation becomes worse.
I want my players' dice rolls to matter. Making them roll when everyone knows that nothing can come of it, that the roll does not matter 99 percent of the time, is not fun, and to me, penalizing on top of that makes it worse. So, in my games, Concealed Flat Check failure is just loss of the action, or actions if the intended action was something like a Power Attack or targeted spell. I feel that's enough of a cost.
I strongly disagree with the concept that you can't get RP in dungeon crawls, especially in AV.
AV has so many opportunities for RP. Not just in Otari, which is loaded with them, but in the dungeon itself!
On nearly every, and maybe every, level you have chances to open dialog with the residents. You have lots of opportunities to shape the way that the group approaches the story of AV.
Can the GM fail to present the story well? Sure. I've had that happen to me in the past, where I have failed to present the story of an adventure well.
Can the players fail to engage the story, or become overall aggressive and try to clear it like a commando team? Sure, and maybe they want that. Maybe they do not want a deep story and just want to kill monsters. There's nothing wrong with that.
But to make the claim that 'There are no chances to RP in AV' is just incorrect. There are so many hooks, and so many chances to make more, that every group could find its own RP niches and focus points without that much work.
The only thing that scales with striking runes is your damage bonus. So if you have a base longsword, it becomes 1d8+1+str, but a +3 longsword is 4d8+4+str.
Frightened is pretty powerful, since it debuffs enemy attack, defense, and saves. So sources to upscale to frightened 2 tends to be a bit more restrained.
This ability tends to be nicer on builds with many small attacks. That would give them more chances to crit, and the damage bonus would come up more often.
A +3 longsword is still 1d8+Str.
The + is from the Potency rune. That just impacts the to hit, and not damage in any way, and the Potency Rune also tells you how many max Property runes you can have.
The damage bonus is from the Striking Rune. So, a +3 Major Striking Longsword is doing 4d8+Str+Class Bonuses if they apply+property runes. It also looks like in your example above, you are adding the Potency Rune to damage, and it does not add to damage.
Krohan is probably starting his Rivethun training, though I think he would check up on the party whenever they came back to Highhelm. I don't think he should play an adventuring part in Book 2 or 3.
If I were to run it again, I would make major changes to Book 1, Chapter 3's last segment (the Jirelga bit), and make her a more active part of the story until after the Court of Ether.
I would agree with the OP that there should be more encounter options, even if optional, in the Darklands, to give that danger feel. It's supposed to be dangerous there after all.
Runic Body and Weapon are very solid, even at higher levels, as they can be used on your, or a party member's, back-up weapon. Blazing Armory, as mentioned above, is also a very good option.
It's really hard to make a broken PC in PF2. Also, Tecno DM is using PFS rules, so all the characters should be pretty well-balanced I think.
I'll also start working on a fleshed-out character. With what others have said what they want to play, I'm leaning more towards cleric, to ensure we have healing, but still not 100 percent sure.
It sounds like a very heavily ranged group. You might want to encourage them to try and kite people - ranged attack or spell and then stride sort of action economy. If they hit the ooze in the cavern, I think that would have been brutal for them, but that's just a bad matchup. If they try and go in close on things, that could lead to difficulties as none of them can really 'tank'
The PFS CC rules just seem to be, if I read them right, 'common things, and PC 1 and 2 things only.' If I am reading it correctly, I'd be up for a game like this.
It's very hard to evaluate if a fight is hard as groups are different, what they do is different, and the characters and players are different.
Spoiler:
In my case, the group decided to not go down the ramp. The cleric showed off one of his spells, and made a ramp of his own, bypassing the slime fight. When heading for the mushroom house, one of them rolled a nat 1 on stealth and walked into a shrieker, alerting Skibrelon and his allies. As a result, the enemy spent most of their time getting to the party. It was a challenging fight, but given the scattered arrivals of the enemies, it was not super hard.
If a group snuck up on the tower and were fighting all of them at close range, yes, that would be harder. Note, too, that if your group was beat up massively by the slime and sheep heads, they can just retreat a half mile or so and rest overnight, then tackle the house at full strength.
Did anyone else wonder how the spitty things in the mushroom worked? It seems like from the text that they only shoot on the inside, but shouldn't they be a defense from the outside as well [or instead?]
I used them as cannon, though my party started the engagement, due to bad luck for the bad guys, from well outside effective range. In my case, they added tension, However, on page 48, right above the spitter pods stat block, it says they can reach the windows. So, the text itself does say that they can defend outside.
There does not have to be for the expedition, since that was already stated that he pays half up front, and half after. Repeating that at the end of chapter 2 would be a waste of page space.
However, that said, on Page 61, Krohan will pay the party more if they get him re-accepted into the clan at the Family Festival. So, there is another mention of him paying the group.
What kind of eidolon is it? What does it look like?
Is it a snake? No opening doors or using healers' kits is allowed. It has no arms.
Is it a demon with arms. Sure, I'd allow that eidolon to use normal items. I think the restriction on magical items is to prevent the summoner from being able to Invest 20 items, 10 for the summoner and 10 for the eidolon.
But, as Finoan said, ask your GM. It will be their decision in the end no matter what we say here :)
What I would do is have the player roll a d20 for the RK and add the modifier for the roll that would be the most advantageous for the player. Given that RK is a secret roll, the GM could even roll it themselves, but I prefer to let my players do that. If your GM insists on you picking the skill before the roll, then the GM needs to let you know what options you have.
As for the second point that you bring up, RAW the spell does not allow that usage. However, again, ask your GM. I would allow it, but it might not be the best use of the ability in combat.
With things like the Baomal example, of course it knows it can swim, the same way you know what locomotion and senses you have. If that is what the oracle wanted to ask, just say "Yes, the two-headed creature that is attacking your boat can swim."
The caveat here is that I have never played an Oracle, but wouldn't the simple solution here be to give Battle Oracle Martial Weapons proficiency as a sub-class feature that scaled whenever Oracles increased Simple Weapon Proficiency, and then rework Weapon Trance into some type of short-term personal buff?
It seems to me that all Weapon Trance does is give Martial Weapons, and while this is useful, it's also a little boring, so giving that as a baseline and making Weapon Trance do something fun seems to be the best solution to me, but I may very well be missing something due to my lack of experience with the Oracle class.
My playgroup has been theorizing a multiple Necromancer playtest group.
As a result of this, I have gone over the abilities that need a thrall to be consumed to trigger.
Some of those abilities say your thrall and some of them say a thrall. This can lead to confusion, and I hope that in the final version of Necromancer that it has all of the abilities using the same language. I'd prefer the a thrall since that would give more combo abilities to groups with multiple necromancers and not harm groups with just one in any way.
I disagree that if you have 10 minutes to refocus then you have 30.
The 10-minute between-fight thing makes sense. In previous editions of, well basically any RPG, post-fight you did first aid, reloaded weapons, gathered loot, searched for secret doors, and what have you depending on the game.
The thing is that those games never defined how long that too.. It was handwaved as normal. PF2 did define how long that took - 10 minutes.
99 percent of the time, the party should have that time period to do the normal expected things.
To assume, however, that you will always have 30 minutes is just not accurate in a well-run game. You might sometimes, but not every time.
But, more importantly, even if you do in your game, you can't analyze something from the perspective that every game will have that much dead time between rooms because the odds say that they won't.
I would agree that you still need to make the flat check. While I can see the other perspective when you cast Force Barrage at something you are still targeting it.
I think something that is being missed with tying the saves of the spell part of Spellstrike is that this change would impact *players* as well.
Would you, as a *player* be happy with the DM saying something like this:
"Ok, the enemy magus makes a Spellstrike with his halberd. He rolled a 20, so you're crit. It's greater striking, with no other runes for 3d10+whatever damage, doubled, and he was using Distintegrate. He crit you, so you have auto-crit fail (or down two on whatever you roll, one from the proposed changes, and one from the spell), so take 24d10 more untyped damage."
As Deriven has said more than once in this thread, Magus might be the best-balanced class in the game. It's great the way it is; it does not need changes.
Tracking each ones Dying level adds a ton of extra non-PC facing rolls, and bookkeeping for the GM for no appreciable gain.
For a given encounter, it might be useful. For every fight in a campaign, it's just a massive amount of extra work for the GM, as anyone who GMed in older editions of PF/D&D will know.
