Lord Bowser's page

I've just done the same, I'm hoping I get the PDF automatically with no trouble.

On a side note, did I just miss something or did this compilation kind of fly under the radar? I'll admit I don't religiously check new product announcements since I get most of them by subscription anyway, but I didn't hear anything about this product until I got my weekly Paizo newsletter. I'd hate to think you guys are missing out on sales due to lack of marketing.

Just bought the bundle, and yes, as usual you get the digital product here on Paizo, same as if you had bought it directly from the site.

Love these bundles, please keep 'em coming! Looking forward to filling out my 1e collection.

Hello Paizo Staff,

Waaaay back in July, I preordered the initial launch of Spell Cards for Pathfinder so as to get the digital versions of the products when they shipped. However, when they did, only three of the five digital products made their way into my downloads - both the Focus and Primal cards were (and still are) missing. I drew attention to this by following up on a prior Customer Service thread which originally dealt with shipping of those same physical products, as it seemed related, but there's been no response. At this point I'm assuming it had already been marked as resolved on your end and slipped under the radar. Probably should've just started a new thread in the first place, apologies.

Anyway, that request still stands: can I get the Focus and Primal spell cards that (as far as I'm aware) I should have access to added to my account?

Thanks!

Update: I can't speak for mdizzy (who may want to make their own thread if they're still having issues), but I got an email stating Paizo was aware of this problem and had placed the order manually. I can confirm there's a pending CRB order in my account, so I should be good on that front.

At this point my only concern is shipping. The order (#31576007) implies that the CRB will ship the moment new stock comes in. Ideally, I'd like the book to be shipped with my subscriptions to save costs. Is it possible to direct a backorder product to my sidecart when it comes out?

Thanks!

Hello Paizo Staff,

I recently purchased the Second Edition Humble Bundle. While all four codes appear to have been redeemed successfully and I received all my digital assets, no option to place an order for the physical Core Rulebook has appeared. I attempted to follow the instructions provided by Humble, but no checkout menu appears anywhere on the code redemption page, nor has anything appeared in my order history or cart.

Since the CRB is on backorder anyway, there's no rush, but can someone please add a Humble CRB order from the backend? There doesn't seem to be anything I can do from the customer interface.

Thanks!

Apologies in advance if I should have made a separate post rather than continuing this thread, but a related problem just popped up. All five sets of spell cards shipped with my subscriptions today (Order 26931880), but only three of them made their way into my downloads. I appear to be missing the digital versions of the Primal and Focus spell cards. Is there any reason I shouldn't have access to those, and if not, can they be added to my account?

Thanks!

Hi Paizo Staff,

With last week's announcement on digital assets for accessories, I decided to preorder the full suite of spell cards. The order went through fine, but I placed it after this month's sub authorized and it looks like the cards are still sitting in my sidecart. If you could nudge those to ship with my current pending subscription order, I'd appreciate it. That said, if my shipment goes out before you guys get to this post, no worries, I can wait and let them get added to next month's shipment.

Thanks!

This is awesome to see! My only complaint is now I have to decide if I want to splurge on preordering all the spell cards instead of picking them up piecemeal over the next few months like I intended to make it easier on the budget.

Then again, it is a quiet month with only the next AP volume shipping... Who needs impulse control anyway?

To beowulf99:

I could go through your last couple replies and attempt to refute them as I go, but I don't think that's going to get us anywhere. I don't mean that as an attack, I just think we've made our respective cases clear and neither of us is likely to convince the other to change their mind since we're operating under fundamentally different philosophies to how we run our games:

To me everything is really happening in Encounter mode all the time. Exploration mode is just sped up to allow you to cover more ground and deal with less of the minutia of moving your characters around. When a situation becomes dangerous, then we are supposed to "move" to encounter mode, but really we aren't moving to a new time, we are just slowing down to "encounter time". Starting an encounter as though it is a fresh new instance doesn't make any sense in reality.

I believe exactly the opposite. To me everything is really happening in Exploration mode, with people making decisions and doing things in real time, simultaneously. Encounter mode exists solely to provide a clear way for rules to govern what happens when a lot of things are going on in a short span of time, like combat. As has been pointed out, they can lead to situations that don't make sense in the real world because we're forcing people to take turns in a game rather than actually simulating how a real-time fight would play out.

Because of this, I try to stay in Exploration mode until the last possible moment, precisely because Encounter mode is not a good way of describing what "actually happens". This is why I almost never call for initiative except at the exact moment combat starts. At that point, initiative represents every character's ability to collect their bearings, read the room, and jump into the fray. From then on, Pathfinder really becomes a board game where mechanics and balance become most important, as we've already thrown realism out the window by introducing a turn structure.

This is why I don't like the idea of allowing the first person to make a move to be the first to get a whole turn. It doesn't make sense in a real-world scenario, since making one attack shouldn't entitle you to two more before anyone else gets a chance to do anything; people would be jumping in all at once. It also is not a balanced gameplay mechanic, as it allows a party to manipulate the initiative order before turns begin.

I can see why viewing turns as the default structure of Pathfinder would lead you to your conclusions. That's just not the baseline view of the game I assume, and I don't think there's anything more I can really add here unless there's another specific example people want to discuss. Otherwise, I'm probably out. Hopefully this discussion helped anyone else trying to figure out how they want to run their games.

beowulf99 wrote:

Sweet. So how about the original Barbarian example? If the Rogue gets to make a sneak attack on his turn in initiative, then why shouldn't the Barbarian be able to make a sudden attack on his own initiative spot?

You could make the argument that the Rogue has several elements in his favor, being unobserved for example. But that isn't the point I was trying to make. If that resolution of events makes sense in that specific situation, why...

Well yes, but the difference IS that the barbarian isn't unnoticed. Other people can read the room and decide how on edge they are. They shouldn't be run as "oh barbarian is aggressive we attack now" but they should 100% be run as "take one step and we will kill you" and then delay or draw weapons and ready actions.

Or particularly hostile people could attack in response to the barbarian making hostile actions.

Exactly. The moment the barbarian goes for his weapon, combat is fair game and initiative is called for to see who reacts first. I'd probably let the barbarian finish drawing his weapon before rolling, maybe even let him step in, but after that everyone else gets a chance to intervene.

Particularly nice guards might note that they haven't been directly attacked (yet), and merely ready an action to Strike if the barbarian does and order him to step down. Less morally upstanding adversaries are more than welcome to make attacks of their own. Allies should get the chance to try to pull the barbarian back (if they want to try to restore negotiations) or blast enemies out of the barbarian's way (if the conversation really has broken down). And if the barbarian does win initiative, then heads can start to fly. But he needs to earn it by getting the highest roll, not by simply declaring he wants to start swinging.

CRB PG. 479 "Avoid Notice" wrote:

If you’re Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you usually roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check both to determine your initiative and to see if the enemies notice you (based on their Perception DCs, as normal for Sneak, regardless of their initiative check results).

So the stealth Archer example. How do you now run that encounter? Assume the Stealth Archer loses initiative to at least one opponent. Does that opponent realize that combat has started and begin hostilities? Or do they go about their business unaware as I have been advocating?

That depends. If the stealth archer is alone, have they been spotted? If not, combat hasn't started and therefore we likely aren't in an initiative order yet. That wouldn't happen until one guard does spot the archer, or the archer chooses to break cover and attack. In the former, simply roll initiative normally. If the guard wins, he can warn his allies and attack, and if not, the archer gets a chance to take out the guard before he can point the archer out to his companions. If the archer isn't spotted at all, I'd allow them a free Strike action, then call for initiative with the firing of that first arrow as the event that triggers the start of combat.

If the archer is part of a party that is also moving in, then the guards already have a threat to respond to. Call for initiative, and that way even if none of the guards have spotted the archer they at least have other targets they can spend their turns attacking until the archer reveals themselves by shooting. No one loses a turn for "rolling too high" or needs to be given "spidey senses" about a hidden threat.

Alright, clearly the conversation moved on without me here. I'm gonna try to jump back in, and separate my thoughts into a few posts to avoid walls of text. Hopefully I don't get ninja'd too bad in between.

First of all I want to get this out of the way:

I won't tell you that you are wrong for running combats the way you do, only that I disagree with it.

Same goes to you. I think we're in agreement that both options are valid under the rules, they just come from different philosophies.

The "spirit" of initiative is an odd thing to argue for, since initiative is only there to establish turn order.

Here I disagree somewhat. Initiative the roll is a method of determining turn order. Initiative the "skill" represents a character's training and ability to quickly assess a situation and respond to it. That's why it's usually tied to Perception in this edition. Having good initiative is supposed to benefit a player, and is something to work towards improving in its own right.

If initiative is rolled only at the beginning of combat, then a high initiative is always rewarded. If initiative is established ahead of time and combat begins with the first Strike action, then those with better initiative modifiers than the attacker are effectively punished. This seems directly contradictory to its intended purpose.

To your worst case scenario, I have no problem with that. Pf2 so far hasn't felt nearly as swingy as pf1, my party has had more fights go to the 5th or 6th round in this edition than in virtually any other game. Nothing is stopping the party from grouping their turns on any other round, so why not prior to combat?

Here's the difference: when players choose to delay during combat, there's an opportunity cost to allowing an opponent to take their turn ahead of you. It might be useful to do so to allow an ally to get into position or set up a combo of some kind, but there is a risk required to get that reward. If players can instead set up such a combo before the fight actually begins, they get all the reward without any risk since there was never any danger of being attacked during the opponent's "turn". Your group may have no issue with that and that's fine, but to me that presents a serious game balance issue.

If your initiative means you know hostilities are going to start this second, then why can't the top of initiative player ask the Gm what each creature going after them is going to do? Follows the same logic, but is far more exploitative than going first.

...Because no sane GM would ever give out that information? You kinda lost me here. All an initiative roll tells you is "(chuckles) I'm in danger!" You know the people in front of you intend to do you harm and probably should respond in kind. It gives you nothing about the actual tactics your opponents are about to use, and I don't think anyone here has argued it should. At the most, you get "The barbarian is drawing his weapon" or "The sorcerer is casting a spell." Neither of these is much to go off of in terms of giving you a tactical advantage, but at least it lets you do something other than wait around till you actually take damage before you're allowed to jump into the action.

I'm probably an outlier here, but I've just ignored hero points in my games so far. Partly because I want to avoid the possible appearance of GM favoritism, partly because they feel like a narrative RPG mechanic that feels a little out of place in my group's more tactical approach to Pathfinder, and mostly because they're just one less thing for me to keep track of as GM.

Same goes for Inspiration in 5e. I've never cared for it, and only had one GM ever make frequent use of it.

Lord Bowser wrote:

Alright, I know I rolled low initiative on getting into this thread, but here's my two coppers:

"Surprise" in a PF mechanics sense to me means one side is unaware of the other. This is distinct from the adjective of "surprising" in the sense that suddenly deciding to draw a weapon or cast a spell might catch people off guard. The latter case might help that player on their initiative roll, either in the form of a direct bonus or the choice of a more favorable ability modifier. It should not, however, let them completely get the jump on whoever they're attacking.

The purpose of initiative is to determine how quickly people can react to a situation going south, and it is entirely possible for the "reactive" party to realize they're in imminent danger and act accordingly. If you were to throw a punch at me in real life, I would see your fist clench and your arm wind up. I would hope I wouldn't have to let your fist make contact with my face before I get the chance to try to dodge, block, or run away. Initiative exists to capture this idea.

In the case of actual surprise due to failing to detect someone using Stealth, I'd probably allow the sneaking player or side to get one action off before rolling initiative, as the unaware side has no chance to respond until that hostile action is taken. I guess that amounts to the sort of surprise round PF2 was trying to get rid of, but I'm willing to reward players for making the extra effort to catch their opponents completely unaware. I would not do that for simply being the player with the shortest patience for negotiation.

If you are willing to give someone a surprise round when that is simply not a thing in pf2, what then is wrong in assuming that "initiative order" was happening all along and resolving everyone's actions as you would in any other round?

And having been punched in the face before, and being no slouch when fisticuffs are in order if I do say so myself, the idea that you will be able to react in time to do anything about a sudden punch is hilarious. At best you can reflexively dodge or try to block. What in pf2 would be a reaction in fact. You definitely would not have time to take a "turn" worth of actions, no matter who you are.

To your first point: mechanically, nothing. It is the GM's right to call for initiative any time they think it would be of value, and keep the same initiative as long as maintaining encounter mode is still warranted. However, it seems somewhat against the spirit of initiative to allow a roll for a social encounter to dictate the order for a combat one when things turn ugly. Especially because that gives the side who wants to initiate hostilities a tremendous amount of control over when to begin.

Let me propose a worst-case scenario: say a party goes into a social encounter with the full intent to launch an all-out attack when the moment presents itself. They plan beforehand who will strike the first blow. During the discussion, every other player strategically takes the delay action to ensure that every player goes in order after the agreed-upon combat initiator. Once this is done, that player opens hostilities, and the entire party gets all of their turns before any opponent is able to react. Technically legal by mechanics? Yes. But I refuse to believe this is a scenario the rules are intended to allow, let alone encourage.

As to your second point, I would counter with this: does it make any more sense that you would get three punches (a "turn" worth of actions) before I can so much as raise my fists just because you attacked first? At a certain point realism has to cede to gameplay. Someone has to go first, and I'm a lot more comfortable having that be somewhat up in the air but favoring those with training to react quickly (an initiative roll) than having it be determined simply by whoever "decides" they want to go first, especially when that's generally a huge advantage. As a player, I would not want to encourage my GM to start "deciding" to put all their monsters ahead of my party.

Scenario A is happening in encounter mode throughout. It starts in encounter mode and doesn't leave it. How is that the incorrect way to run it? It has obviously entered encounter mode some time before, likely at the start of combat, but that's not the relevant phase for the action we're talking about.

Scenario A is there to contrast scenario B which starts in exploration mode and switches to encounter mode in a similar setting.

That switch is where the root cause of the problem lies. In scenario A, the surprising action happens in one of several rounds in initiative order, while in scenario B the surprising action happens at the start of the initiative order. You asked for an example of such a case, I've provided one.

With circumstances being otherwise extremely similar, I don't see why in one case we should assume the possibility of some form of precognition, while in the other we don't.

I would argue that a correct adjudication wouldn't involve precognition in either scenario.

Scenario A: combat has already been going on for one or more turns with an established initiative up to this point. The fighter/sorcerer casts Dimension Door on his turn to close the distance and (presumably) attack. Sucks to be the Arena Master since his turn was just beforehand and he now has to wait a full round to respond, but he had every opportunity to target the fighter during his previous action if he wanted. No precognition.

Scenario B: combat has yet to start when the fighter/sorcerer begins casting a spell. Dimension door costs two actions and requires both verbal and somatic components. A round is six seconds, so assuming each action is a third of that he's spending four seconds doing nothing but waving his arms around and chanting an incantation. Arena Master has every right to presume hostile intent and an opportunity to respond in kind, but should his attack or manipulation of the arena resolve before or after the Dimension Door finishes? Roll initiative to find out. Arena Master wins and can respond to a spell beginning to be cast. However, the spell hasn't finished, the fighter is still down below, and the Arena Master has no idea what the spell in question will actually do since he hasn't heard enough of it yet to be able to identify it. All he knows is the fighter is up to something and he has a chance to try to interfere with it. Again, no precognition necessary.

Alright, I know I rolled low initiative on getting into this thread, but here's my two coppers:

"Surprise" in a PF mechanics sense to me means one side is unaware of the other. This is distinct from the adjective of "surprising" in the sense that suddenly deciding to draw a weapon or cast a spell might catch people off guard. The latter case might help that player on their initiative roll, either in the form of a direct bonus or the choice of a more favorable ability modifier. It should not, however, let them completely get the jump on whoever they're attacking.

The purpose of initiative is to determine how quickly people can react to a situation going south, and it is entirely possible for the "reactive" party to realize they're in imminent danger and act accordingly. If you were to throw a punch at me in real life, I would see your fist clench and your arm wind up. I would hope I wouldn't have to let your fist make contact with my face before I get the chance to try to dodge, block, or run away. Initiative exists to capture this idea.

In the case of actual surprise due to failing to detect someone using Stealth, I'd probably allow the sneaking player or side to get one action off before rolling initiative, as the unaware side has no chance to respond until that hostile action is taken. I guess that amounts to the sort of surprise round PF2 was trying to get rid of, but I'm willing to reward players for making the extra effort to catch their opponents completely unaware. I would not do that for simply being the player with the shortest patience for negotiation.

As long as each Stride is made in succession without being interrupted by another action (say, a Strike), I see no reason not to simply combine the movement from both Strides into a single pool and calculate movement costs in one go. The division of separate "actions" is an artificial one for gameplay purposes, and adhering to them too closely clearly generates nonsensical results like this:

a dwarf in difficult terrain and a human in difficult terrain move at the exact same speed.

It may not be exactly rules as written, but I am firmly of the opinion that anytime a literal reading of the rules leads to illogical conclusions, said reading needs to be relaxed.

Just popping in to say I love that you guys continue to offer your back catalog at such great deals through Humble. It was actually a bundle a couple years ago that first got me into Pathfinder 1e. The chance to check out a large amount of content from a new (to me) system was too good to pass up, and I quickly fell in love with both the mechanical options of the game and the setting of Golarion. Fast forward to the present and I'm now a regular subscriber, due in no small part to the massive sampler of great material I got back then.

Here's hoping you guys continue to offer these bundles in the future, for fans both new and old.

The Blood Ooze can be a TPK if your players are the kind of charging as first action.

I can second that, I just ran the Blood Ooze fight earlier today and that thing is nasty. Lots of health, high attack and damage, a solid AoE, and healing abilities... If I hadn't allowed the party to make a couple of retcons (most of them are new to RPGs, so I try to be lenient), it almost certainly would've been over. Depending on your party you may want to ignore the crit immunity; only one of my players was really built for DPS and with the Ooze's low AC, having reliable crits helped balance its high hp.

I also ended up having the Sculptor flee when the Blood Ooze died. It thematically made sense when he lost his minion, and it gave the players a much-needed break. Plus, having him be able to escape and sound off a warning to Vilree before the party gets to Spite's Cradle is a more interesting consequence for "failure" in the fight than just killing off players.

Depends on what you're after. If this is solely to reach the fourth subscription for Paizo Advantage, the Adventures line is probably the cheapest option. (Uh, not that I'm recommending that approach...) If you're asking about actual value, eh, depends. Going for Pawns would maximize the benefit of your Adventure Path sub, since most APs get an associated pawn set. Adventures gives you a nice middle ground option between the one-shots of scenarios and the months-to-years campaigns of APs.

Personally, I only just started subscribing with the 2e launch. I've already got a group I'm having a blast running Fall of Plaguestone with, so I'm definitely getting good value there. My pawns have mostly been collecting dust, though that's just because the last two sets have had little to no overlap with this adventure. I expect that to change when the Bestiary Box launches.

As for Maps, I considered it, but the frequency (and price) of the releases coupled with how situational many of them seemed to be made me pass. I opted for Accessories to get all the launch essentials (GM screen, character sheets, etc.), but looking ahead that's looking like it's gonna be more hit (Bestiary battle cards) or miss (chase deck). Hope that helps.

Oh, and if you're interested in Starfinder you could always try one of those subs, but since you're posting here I'm guessing that's not your top option.

Long story short a group of well educated (we all have PHDs) fantasy nerds want to try this RPG thing and these are our expectations:

1. Interesting decisions, high decision density and the decisions have to matter. (This is a necessity for all our games)
2. No artificial boundaries due to game mechanics. (This is The selling point for RPGs for us and for us the main difference to board games)
3. Robust fantasy framework and world building. (The world has to make sense, given the new fantasy elements. It should feel organic and should have a closed intrinsic logic.)

So, if I'm reading this right, it sounds like you want your tabletop RPG to

1. be structured like a board game so that every decision made has a chance to make or break whether you "win" (whatever that means for a game of Pathfinder),
2. not be structured like a board game so that you can create whatever character and make whatever decisions you want, and
3. in addition to the above, also have a narratively rich and consistent setting in the world.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure any product could live up to those expectations. Your three criteria are, if not directly contradictory, at least making competing demands that will require compromises to achieve. Game mechanics by their very definition are going to place limits on what characters can do, and without limits it's hard to create a situation where interesting decisions can be made.

As for a "robust fantasy framework" with internal logic, well, as has been pointed out that's highly subjective. But going with your dragon example, if you want a realistic depiction of how many Level 15+ apex predators a world can support, there aren't going to be enough to actually build an adventure for a high-level party. Both the quality of the gameplay and the narrative are going to suffer if that level of internal consistency is demanded.

It sounds to me like you and your friends were pitched the idea that Pathfinder is a perfect fusion of deep strategy board game, extended fantasy series, and freeform narrative creation. It certainly draws elements from all those, but it can't possibly beat all of them at once. Tabletop RPGs don't replace board games or novels; they're an entirely different medium that offers their own experience and a unique set of strengths and limitations. As long as you keep that in mind I don't see why you and your friends can't find a way to have some fun with it.

And now for some numbers!

I made a spreadsheet to calculate every possible outcome for rolling a DC 20 check with modifiers ranging from +0 to +19. 20 rolls each with 20 potential outcomes - 400 combined outcomes. Here's the results:

64 critical fail (16%)
127 non-critical fail (31.75%)
144 non-critical success (36%)
65 critical success (16.25%)

So, this idea that if we interpret "fails by 10 or more" as "DC-10 or worse", we will make critical failures more likely than critical successes? I completely reject that.

If anyone would like to check the spreadsheet for errors or to make a copy to play with, here's a link. You can adjust the DC by changing cell A1. Red 1's are crit failures, yellow 2's are failures, etc.

(Note that the reason I used a DC 20 check with a scaling modifier, instead of a flat check with a scaling DC, was to prevent the rules regarding flat checks with DCs <= 1 and >= 21 from skewing the results)

Alright, first of all: that's actually a nice tool! Thanks for putting that together. I might hang on to a copy of that in the future if you don't mind...

However, we need some edits for this particular application. As it stands now, you're using a biased selection pool. If we were to use only the bottom half of your table we would erroneously conclude that it was nearly impossible to crit fail, but that's clearly not the case. Notice how in the bottom row it's impossible to crit fail? You need one more at the top where it's impossible to crit succeed.

To accomplish this, I've made a version where I've added an extra row with a +20 modifier and upped the DC to 21 to compensate. Now, ignoring crits, this scenario runs the full range from impossible to reach the DC (20+0) to impossible to miss (1+20). If we total up results now, we have 210 each of general successes and failures, but ten more crit failures than failures!

I've also made a second sheet in the same workbook that repeats the calculations but using DC-11 and below as crit fails. In this case, we again have 210 each of general successes and failures, but the crits are also equal at 65 apiece. This is what I mean when I say that crit fails are more likely under the current rules.

I'll concede that it would take a little more effort in play to remember, and since this rule applies to all parties it's "balanced" in the sense that it hurts everyone equally. It isn't something that necessarily needs to be changed (though I'll certainly be house ruling it). But it is a mathematical fact that these rules favor crit fails over crit successes on an even distribution over various DCs.

The centre for success/failure and the centre for crits cannot be the same. So they mirror each other differently.

Well, right there you've hit upon the underlying issue of this thread: why shouldn't they be the same? That would seem like the most natural design choice. But for that to be accomplished, we need to have DC-10 still be a failure, and DC-11 be the first crit fail. Then, starting from the dividing line between success and failure, there are ten numbers in either direction before we hit either crit range. Having one side be ten numbers to crit and the other only nine just doesn't make as much sense.

Temperans wrote:

the basic premise of "crit failures are more likely" is definitely true

It's not. 11 is not the middle of a d20. 10.5 is.

If you do your math based on 11 being the middle, yeah, it'll seem like crit failures are more likely. And if you do your math based on 10 being the middle, it'll seem like crit successes are more likely.

You are right that 10.5 is the exact middle of a d20 roll. But this is exactly why a DC 11 flat check results in a 50/50 chance. Half of the d20 is greater than 10.5 (11-20), and half is less (1-10). Since meeting a DC constitutes a success, DC 10.5 and DC 11 are equivalent for the discrete cases of a d20 roll. DC 10 is not the same as DC 11, as this would result in 11/20 rolls passing and 9/20 failing. Its counterpart is a DC 12 check, which has 11/20 rolls failing and 9/20 passing.

At DC 15 (DC11+4) you get: 5 points of success (15-19), 9 points of failure (6-14), 1 point of crit success (20), and 5 points of crit failure (1-5).

At DC 6 (DC10-4) you get: 10 points of success (6-15), 4 points of failure (2-5), 5 points of crit success (16-20), 1 point of crit failure (1).

The critical success and failure mirror each other here perfectly. However you are more likely to succeed then fail because of ties going to the roller.

This situation is accurate, but you're drawing a very different (and I believe incorrect) conclusion from it. You're claiming that rolls are mirrored when crit ranges are equal. DC 6 and 15 would then be mirrored, as they each produce 5 of one kind of crit and 1 of the other. Each scenario then has an extra success relative to the number of failures of its mirror (10 and 5 success vs 9 and 4 failures) because "ties go to the roller", and successes are therefore more likely than failures.

I would instead argue that what defines "mirrored rolls" is when the total number of good (combined success and crit success) and bad (failure and crit failure) results mirror one another. DC 6 and 15 are then no longer mirrors, as the former has 15 good results and 5 bad, while the latter had 6 good and 14 bad. DC 7 and 15 (which again, center on DC 11) are mirrored, with a 14/6 split either way. However, of those fourteen good results for a DC 7 check, only four are crit successes (17-20) while five of the fourteen failures for a DC15 check are (1-5). Since one extra of the failures is being "upgraded" to a crit relative to the mirrored number of successes, a crit failure is thus easier to achieve than a crit success.

In general, I think people are attaching way too much weight to the case of matching the exact DC. The idea that "tying the DC goes to the roller" is an artifact of how we define DCs, not a separate rule in itself. "DC 15" is just a shorthand way of saying "15 and above succeeds, 14 and below fails". We could produce the same situation by defining DC as a number that has to be beaten rather than just met and set to DC 14 instead. In this case "ties" would go against the roller, but we haven't really changed the underlying mechanics of the game, just how they're expressed.

You have no bonus and the dc is 15. You roll there are only 6 steps between failure and critical success here. According to OPs logic crit success should be more likely but it obviously isn't.

This is only true after accounting for the nat 1/20 rules, which shift degrees of success rather than defining success/failure ranges. That really doesn't say anything one way or the other about the relative likelihood of critical successes and failures.

I think part of the problem is the OP and I aren't quite getting across what we mean when we say it's "easier" to crit fail than crit succeed. As long as we're doing examples, here's the simplest one I can think of to illustrate my point: a DC 11 flat check, ignoring nat 1/20 rules (for now). At the most basic level, this check is "balanced" in the sense that there is an equal probability of achieving a good or bad result (11-20 passes, 1-10 does not). However, rules as written, a 1 is a critical failure, while a 20 is not a critical success. In a situation where good and bad outcomes should be equally likely, it is possible to critically fail but not critically succeed. This is what the OP and I mean when we say it's "easier" to critically fail than critically succeed.

Now, for those who would like to argue that adding in the nat 1/20 rules resolves this problem... well, not quite. Yes, for this particular roll we would now have balanced outcomes (1 crit fails and 20 crit succeeds). However, if we shift the DC up or down, the mismatch returns. Increasing the DC to 12 causes a result of 2 to now be a critical failure, while lowering the DC to 10 does not cause 19 to become a critical success. Put another way, starting from the balanced DC 11 check, a +1 bonus to your roll does not improve your odds of achieving a critical success, while a -1 penalty does increase the chances of a critical failure. The critical failure is thus "easier" to achieve through negative modifiers than a crit success is through positive ones.

As for those who have pointed out this is an awful lot of effort put into a very minor "problem"... alright, you've got me there. At the end of the day it's easy enough for anyone who feels strongly about it to house rule one way or the other, regardless of any official ruling. Whether this should even be viewed as a problem at all is certainly debatable. But the fundamental point is that a strict interpretation of the rules really does result in critical failures being easier to achieve than critical successes in the sense described above.

I think the best way to have the proper (equitable) math and have the easy DC +/-10 calculations is to do as Unicore suggests and treat the DC-10 value as a 'failure DC' where if you meet that DC, you have a standard failure (instead of a critical failure as is described in the current rules).

I also agree with this. The way I think of it is each DC actually comes in triplets. The base DC is the typical DC for success, with a "crit DC" equal to base+10 and a "failure DC" at base-10. Then, with the example DC 15 task, you have a clear ladder of "I need a 5 to avoid a crit failure, 15 to actually succeed, and 25 to get a crit success." A 6-15-25 progression just doesn't make sense to me. I'll concede that a strict reading of the rules leads to the latter interpretation, but the point being argued for is that the former is a more logical approach that balances success and failure ranges.

I don't see how asymmetry is inherently bad, but changing the rule to be DC-11 for a Crit failure doesn't actually accomplish a symmetrical system, and it's a BAD idea, please don't do it.

I'm curious as to what you think is bad about it, why should we favor one result over the other?

To implement it you need to start saying things like rolling a 14 on a DC 15 check is Failing the check by 0, if rolling a 13 is Failing by 1.

I don't think that's true. Multiple alternative wordings have been proposed that would result in equal failure/success ranges. Speaking in terms of a "failure DC" at DC-10, as well as "If adding 10 to your total would still result in a failure, you instead achieve a critical failure" both accomplish this without redefining what "fail by 1" means.

Outriders charts are very misleading in how they arbitrarily have a bigger section for Crit Fails and Crit Successes, they don't depict a valid representation of the spectrum. If we are going on pure theoretical numbers it should be infinite in both directions, not stop at 4 and 25. He is right in showing a bigger range for Normal Success than Normal Failure, but that does not actually mean anything about the likelyhood of crits.

That's slightly disingenuous. Yes, Outrider is choosing to show more crit failure results than crit successes despite both having an infinite number of values to achieve either. The point they're trying to illustrate though is that if we start at the breakpoint between failure and success, and advance in both directions at an equal rate, we reach crit failure range sooner than crit success (after only nine numbers rather than ten). Thus, if we compare the first eleven "bad" results to the left of the breakpoint, we end up with two critical fails to nine regular, while the first eleven "good" results contain one crit success to ten regular. Such an imbalance makes it (admittedly only slightly) easier to reach the critical failure range with penalties and higher DCs than to reach crit success with bonuses and lower DCs. Now, it's possible that this was the intent, but it could also be an oversight that at least deserves consideration for correction.

I think this conversation would benefit from moving away from discussions of probability involving specific die rolls, and just look at the ranges for each outcome, which is what Outrider appears to be going for.

If we assume a task with DC 15, I think we're all in agreement that results of 15-24 are a success (ten possible), and 25+ is a critical success (infinite possible). Similarly, anything less than 5 is certainly a critical failure (infinite possible). The question at hand then boils down to which of two options is intended:

a) A check crit fails if you fail by ten or more, meaning 5 is a critical failure as well, and only 6-14 result in a simple failure (nine possible). The CRB phrasing would seem support this view, but it results in an asymmetry between the size of the failure and success ranges (nine and ten, respectively).

b) A check crit fails if adding ten to your result would still result in a failure. A 5 would then be merely a failure (5+10=15 -> pass DC 15), resulting in a range of failure values of 5-14. Standard failure and success would then have an equal number of possible results (ten each), suggesting this might be the intended design despite the wording of the rules.

Note that I'm disregarding the nat 1/20 rules, as these shift the degree of success after determining which outcome range the roll falls in.

Lord Bowser -- I think I am going to link to your post in the errata thread.

Thanks David! Forgot there was a dedicated errata thread, I'm glad someone knows their way around this site better than I do.

Definitely a good candidate for errata. Something like "You immediately move your initiative position to directly before the creature or effect that reduced you turn in which you are reduced to 0 HP" would bring the wording of the rule more in line with its intent. Clarification may need to be added that reactions are considered part of the turns they interrupt, and maybe even spell out that going down on your own turn due to reactions or environmental damage or the like simply causes your turn to end without affecting the initiative order.

Anyway, there's a lot of non-temperature goodies in the blog too, and thanks to everyone for reading and responding. Every week, Logan wonders which thing in the blog will become the big side discussion, and I sometimes guess right, but this time I thought it would be the Pathfinder baseline, not temperature. :D

Man, I just wanted to ask a quick question about RPG units around the world. I come back a day later and find I've helped derail the conversation faster than a natural 1 on a Diplomacy check. Oops...

For the actual subject matter, I think my favorite thing is the simplest: monster descriptions come before the stat blocks. As someone who likes to read Bestiaries cover-to-cover, going straight from the name to the text flows so much smoother than skipping down or to the side past the stats. Helps make it feel more like an actual book without detracting from its use as an in-game reference.

Lord Bowser wrote:

Ok, now that you mention it I'm honestly curious... what does the rest of the world do about creature speeds and the expected 5-foot square battle mats? Do people convert to meters or is that just a fight you've given up on?

I think 2-meter squares (with diagonals costing 3 meters) could be cool.

I can get behind this. Think you can overhaul the entire CRB and Bestiary in a week? :P

Ok, now that you mention it I'm honestly curious... what does the rest of the world do about creature speeds and the expected 5-foot square battle mats? Do people convert to meters or is that just a fight you've given up on?

Hello swamped Paizo staff,

Man, you guys have a persistent bug on your hands. It seems as though the last Tyrant's Grasp AP (#144) managed to sneak its way into my subscription order. Please remove it, I only want #145 Hellknight Hill from the AP line.

Thanks!

Update: after mulling it over, I went ahead and added the accessories subscription anyway. I also picked up pawns because I wanted both Society Scenarios and I have no self control.

With these, ideally the discount should kick in of its own accord. If not, you'll hear from me when orders spawn on the 3rd.

Thanks again!

Thanks Sam, everything looks good! No worries on the delay, I know you guys are busy.

Quick question regarding the new Paizo Advantage rules: will my 15% discount kick in right away for the first month's shipment, or not until the Lost Omens World Guide ships the following month as my fourth subscription? With both the Core Rulebook and Bestiary going out right away, I'd hate to miss out on the cheaper price that first month.

If it's the latter, I've also been eyeballing the accessories subscription; if I added that, would that then give me the discount month 1?

Hi,

I'm also trying to get around the starting product bug for some Pathfinder subscriptions. As instructed by Sam Phelan in this post, I've placed the subscriptions in my cart and updated my info. Now I just need to have each one start with the 2e product before finalizing the order:

• Pathfinder Adventure Path #145: Hellknight Hill (Age of Ashes 1 of 6)
  
• Pathfinder Lost Omens World Guide
  
• Pathfinder Adventure: The Fall of Plaguestone
  
• Pathfinder Core Rulebook

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!