Mellack's page

MEATSHED wrote:

I also don't see a lot of utility in moving 500 feet straight down. It's not a very useful direction.

Because the cost is zero to move 500 ft.

The fact that everyone refuses to see that means something.

It does have a cost. It either inflicts a lot of damage or takes your reaction and a successful check to arrest a fall. Those are costs you seem to be ignoring.

With magic, sure. Use your garrote shot and just say it is gold instead of silver.

Without magic, no. Gold leaf is by definition very thin. Having worked with some, it is very easy to tear. I have done so accidentally. I believe it would tear with simply the breath pressure, definitely by opening up the jaw.

"The ability to express and communicate" is already covered by other skills such as diplomacy or performance. Language is just a tool for those skills. I think that is why it is a simple binary. Either you know the language, so can use your other skill, or you do not and can't.

I think languages are basically glossed over in the game to keep the story moving. I don't feel the granularity you are suggesting is needed. I am happy with a language just being known or not.

Mellack wrote:

Not a great example, but if a character has no weapons, but has access to tools (perhaps being used as slave labor), a critical failure on repair checks does 2d6 damage to whatever object they were working on. That might be used as a way to break their chains.

And you could do Battle Medicine to wound enemies.

It's only 1d8, but automatic if you can choose a crit failure and only one action, which at 1st level is kinda useful. :-)
(Of course, just the fact you can target enemies is wonky.)

Oh, and you could treat poison. It is one action and if you can choose to crit fail you give them a -2 on their save. Good for a 3rd action.

The group I play with does not use free archetypes. We just play it by the book. Never really felt that we needed the power boost.

It may not have been expended until a hit, but it has been activated by applying it to the weapon. There are no rules on how to safely deactivate a consumable and recover it.
I would consider it much the same as a Dragon's Breath Potion. You drink the potion and then you can breath fire or cold or such. Even if you then never use that ability, you cannot put the potion back for later. In the case of poison, you have activated it on that weapon, you can't put that back. That is how I would run it.

Yes, you can attempt to hide against a Dazzled opponent, but realize your stealth will only apply to the dazzled member(s)

Feigning to me is just a normal part of combat. I would suggest not going too strict on the code.

You must act with honor, never taking advantage of others, lying, or cheating.

Are they expected to not attack if the opponent is flat-footed, frightened, blinded, clumsy, slowed, etc? That would seem to take tactics totally out of the game.

Lucerious wrote:

I don’t have a stake in this debate, but a pony does remain a pony it’s whole life. Ponies are not baby horses, but small horses. They don’t grow up to be full-sized horses. You may be intending to say foal.

Ever have one of those moments when you are brain dead and say something completely out of context to the discussion? Yeah…this would be where I would insert the popular Homer Simpson backing into the bushes meme.

Don't feel bad at all, you were totally correct. If you didn't say something I probably would have. Ponies are specific breeds of horses that do stay small all their life. It was wrong for the poster to claim they would "grow up". It is like suggesting that if you teach your chihuahua skills and train it hard, it will grow to the size of a great dane. That would never happen.

I see nothing that gives the creature growing any type of superiority in taking space over the creatures or objects already there. In fact, I would think that the things currently in the space should take precedence. If the dragon can squeeze into the space available (probably would give them flat-footed) then they can grow. If there is a big enough size difference, they can share spaces per the rules. But if they are too big for the room or unused sapce, I think they should either not be able to transform, or get shunted to where there is enough space.

I am saying you can't see the ENTIRE creature. If the creature is invisible or obscured in some fashion, you can't react to it because you can't see it. All you can see is it's insides, so it's insides is all you can react to.

Nobody can ever see the ENTIRE creature. At best you see the outside of one side of a creature, yet this doesn't mean you still do not get to react to actions. I would be interested to see some sort of rules citation for your position that creatures can hide behind themselves.

Mellack wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

**EDIT** Let's take an example with Conceal Spell from Wizards. This is a feat that lets them do some Skill Checks (Deception and Stealth) to make it seem like they aren't casting a spell. If they succeed at these checks, does the Fighter still get an Attack of Opportunity, even though the Wizard's Conceal Spell feat demonstrates to the Fighter that they aren't physically casting a spell? The answer you provide to this question will definitely be telling of any further conversation we have.

Yes, the Fighter absolutely would. Fighters get an AoO for actions with the manipulate trait, which Conceal Spell has, so the fighter definitely still gets an AoO. It is the manipulate action, not the spell itself that is a trigger. Are you suggesting that Conceal Spell wouldn't trigger an AoO even though it has manipulate?

Core Rulebook Pg 473 "This reaction lets you make a melee Strike if a creature within reach uses a manipulate or move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action."

Again, the Fighter has to be aware he is casting spells (AKA performing actions) to use reactions against it. You can't take reactions for things your character isn't aware of. That's metagaming.

That is just completely wrong. Fighters do not get an AoO to casting, they get it to actions that have the manipulate trait. Conceal spell has the manipulate trait, so a fighter gets to react. It doesn't matter if the fighter thinks they are casting a spell or making shadow puppets, they still get an AoO. Are you claiming that Conceal Spell somehow negates the Fighter's reaction to the action of Conceal Spell?

Sounds like a squadron can get a bonus HQ if they want for no cost. The complaint seems to be that the bonus HQ is not good enough. Is there a reason they you are forced to have one? If you do not like it, just skip it? It costs nothing.

Mellack wrote:

Do I have this right by the rules? My party are in a Tier 10 ship. We are being chased by a Tier 18 dreadnought. Our best plan is to run to a radiation hazard because the dreadnought's crew will die much faster than we will?

Another reason why the answer is no:

You are in a tier 10 ship, a radiation hazard will work as a tier 10 hazard against both your ship and the tier 18 dreadnought chasing you.

Besides the fact that you should never be in combat with a tier 18 ship while you're level 10. I mean, unless your party does something stupid.

Doesn't that go explicitly against the rules?

"Radiation is most often adjudicated like a damaging zone (page 135), but instead of dealing damage to the starship, it exposes crew members to radiation as if the ship were hit by a weapon with the irradiate property that lists low (for starship tiers 3 and below), medium (tiers 4–10), high (tiers 11–17), or severe (tiers 18 and up) radiation."

That sounds like the bigger ship should take greater radiation damage.

Do I have this right by the rules? My party are in a Tier 10 ship. We are being chased by a Tier 18 dreadnought. Our best plan is to run to a radiation hazard because the dreadnought's crew will die much faster than we will?

I believe that you have made a fair description of my position on the rules. I think it is the more consistent reading, but I agree that it may not be the clearest one. I myself often still have questions, especially with the way the rules seem scattered about the book. This one is complicated by having the rules for animal companions be different from those for other animals.

By RAW, yes. I personally would allow familiars to be ignored, as most of them are tiny and can probably ride on the character. Animal companions I would definitely count. If you don't count them, what is the purpose of having some of the companions trained in stealth?

The mature animal companion cannot take another move after you have commanded it, even if you take the reading that it is allowed to without an order, because if you have commanded it, it used up the 2 actions minions have. The Mature Companion rule specifies that it would still be an action, and the minion has none left available. It only works if you didn't use both of the actions granted by the Command an Animal maneuver.

Perhaps it is a friendly slap of encouragement. Like when athletes do a butt slap or forearm hit after a good play.

That character sounds very much to me like a monk. Their entire life was focused on learning how to fight. They didn't get to rely on heavy armor or big weapons. They had to learn how to use their body as a weapon. They had to learn from the greatest teacher of all, the arena. Their mind had to learn how to focus. How to spot advantages, and how to move to exploit them. Works as a monk for me.

I think both readings require there to be a contradiction. For me it would be settled by the Ambiguous Rules section which says "Sometimes a rule could be interpreted multiple ways. If one version is too good to be true, it probably is." One reading allows a stun effect to remove a whole turn of actions for a stun 1 effect. That seems to be too good, so I have to think the other option is the correct one.

My biggest complaint is that everything needs a minimum of 4 days. Making a new sheath or belt pouch? Takes 4 days. You have a legendary skill in crafting? Still going to take 4 days.

The new errata specifically says you can poison ammunition. So it seem completely legal to poison your arrows whenever he crafted some.

That is probably the way it is meant to work, but a strict RAW reading of slowed will not do anything to a companion. "When you regain your actions at the start of your turn, reduce the number of actions you regain by your slowed value. Because slowed has its effect at the start of your turn, you don’t immediately lose actions if you become slowed during your turn." Note it specifically points out this happens at the start of the turn. "Your animal companion has the minion trait, and it gains 2 actions during your turn if you use the Command an Animal action to command it." The companion doesn't get actions until during the turn. While I would run it as slow affecting those gained actions, there can be a fair argument for saying slow doesn't.
Stunned simply says "Each time you regain actions", so that would definitely effect any actions granted to a companion.

Midnightoker wrote:

N N 959 wrote:

Incorrect. There is nothing that requires this.

I literally quoted exact text that says that.

"On a successful check, you succeed and roll damage"

You roll the check, you roll damage, you roll second attack, you roll second damage.

You've taken my response out of context. This is what you said,

Midnightoker wrote:

So yes you have to resolve damage before the second check and you therefore must decide on the same target at the time of use of the ability.

Emphasis mine, and that part is incorrect.

I don't need to "decide" anything when using Flurry differently from using a normal Strike. Each Strike is fully resolved before I pick the next target for my second Strike. If the second target is the same as the first, and if there are any resistances/weaknesses, then I only apply them to the combined damage.

How do you combine them if the first strike is already resolved? That would seem to make them separate, which goes against the wording of the power.

You, as a GM, can figure out what would work best for the encounter.

Thanks, but that means even more work for me. I can use the rest of the stat block just as written. Since the rest of the skills are separate, I can even very easily determine what level those are at. It seems to me a failing that they couldn't do the same with perception. Especially since that skill is called out as being needed at a certain level to spot things like snares. I think it was an oversight (haha) on the part of the designers.

The designers shouldn't have to hold your hand through every last corner case.

Goblins are trained, gnoll cultists are expert. It's not hard to tell.

Could you tell me how you figured that? The Gnoll Cultist for example has a +8 perception. I figure 3 Wis + 3 level + 2 trained. Not sure how you decided expert.

I think it's probably deliberately abstracted, sort of how in a movie you see the heroes light a torch once and it seems to last the whole dungeon.

I think its good for it to be a GM decision - some groups enjoy keeping track of how many torches they consume in a dungeon, while others just want to be "I light a torch" and be done with it.

There are a few different ways you could run it;

One torch per "room" (a room being defined as a distinct area of the dungeon, so corridors or storage closets don't count as a room on their own, and 3 small rooms linked together count as a room)this way you don't need to keep track of timing as much.

One torch per hour
One torch per half hour
One torch per dungeon
One torch per period in which person holds a torch (if they drop it they need a fresh one, so most encounters will need a fresh one)

You can also mix these with dramatic torch timing - if you want an atmosphere where the dark is impressive, you can have the lack of good air flow causing the torches to choke on the smoke or sputter out quite regularly in the deepest parts of the dungeon.

While I appreciate your opinion, I do not like that it has been totally left open. It came up for the first time last session, and if my players assumed a torch would last the entire dungeon when I assumed it would last only an hour, we would have a problem. I think such a basic thing should be given some guidance in the rules, especially since they did that for how long a lamp can burn. I think it was more likely an oversight.

One hour does sound reasonable. Or perhaps they have no duration. That would explain movies that have torches still lighting up age-old crypts.

If there is initiative that means something has happened that now has those creatures on guard. That ends your automatic avoid notice.

Mellack wrote:

Other games, including PF1, had this because it comes up fairly often. It is especially useful for if you want to try to block doors.

The frequency of this kind of thing coming up has nothing to do with it.

The majority of games out there on the market have solutions just like can be used with PF2 where the point of the rule can be put into place (read: "how difficult is it to move this object?" being answered) without bringing a specific weight value into the mix.

In fact, whenever you aren't just saying "if you have at least X strength you succeed, otherwise you fail" having a weight measurement doesn't actually help; a die result that determines success will still have to be devised.

So why not just skip to that step?

That is great if you only use premade adventures. Some of us make our own so would like some sort of guidance on how much a character of certain strength should be expected to lift.

Nah, lifting a heavy object is definitely an athletics check.

You really think weightlifting doesn't use athletics? c'mon.

As to it being an athletics check, since level adds more than stats or training, that produces the odd effect that a high level weak character with even just basic athletics training can lift much more than a max strength expert 1st level. (Extreme example, level 20 with trained athletics and str 8 = +21. Level 1 with expert athletics and a 20 str = +9)

You could resort to using the PF1 rules for lifting, as those are written in terms of "maximum load" not specific weights.

FIRST EDITION PF wrote:

Lifting and Dragging: A character can lift as much as his maximum load over his head. A character's maximum load is the highest amount of weight listed for a character's Strength in the heavy load column of Table: Carrying Capacity.

A character can lift as much as double his maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it. While overloaded in this way, the character loses any Dexterity bonus to AC and can move only 5 feet per round (as a full-round action).

So you could lift (10 + Str mod) Bulk over your head, or lift double that off the ground and stagger around. Change 10 to 12 if you have Hefty Hauler.

Why PF2 omitted a simple lifting rule I don't know, esp. when they did include a dragging rule.

This is probably what I will go with. Thanks for the advice.

I am of the opinion that the only reason you're even looking for a weight suggestion is because that's how other d20 games handled "can you move this object?" challenges.

Setting a DC to the challenge is a way to set the odds to something that will feel worth a die roll - you can scale the DC to the party level if you want to minimize the impact of proficiency level on the roll. PF2 doesn't seem to do many non-skill-related ability checks though, so a strength-only check might be trickier to pick a DC for.

As for level 10 10 strength character vs. 20 strength character... the rules are not the laws of physics, and are not a simulation of the in-game world. As such they are only meant to be applied when their application actually makes sense - in this case, the lifting "contest" being resolved by saying "The 20 strength character clearly wins" instead of trying to roll athletics is a viable option. As is whichever one is a PC rolling against a DC to try and best their opponent, if you want there to be a chance that the opponent could actually win the contest at least.

Why PF2 "omitted" a lifting rule likely comes down to A) bulk including the awkwardness of a thing's size and shape doesn't mesh well with lifting because a large object often only needs to be tipped rather than completely lifted off the ground and B) coming up with a rule for just picking something up would likely end up being a waste of space for most groups because published adventures are going to list DCs to lift important to lift heavy objects (like portcullis or debris), not calculate how much force you need to apply to produce the appropriate height of lifting for a particular thing.

Even if they said something like how much a statue weighs or how much bulk the statue counts as, if said statue falls over and pins a character it doesn't have to be 100% of that measure counteracted in order for the character to get unpinned.

Other games, including PF1, had this because it comes up fairly often. It is especially useful for if you want to try to block doors.

Comparing Battle Medicine to, say, Dual Handed Assault, there is a very clear difference in language. That one states that a hand is added to a weapon and then made free.

Its a bit of a stretch that this feat would allow you to toss your weapon in the air, perform first aid and then catch your weapon and keep on trucking. Nothing in the feat suggests that. None of the text suggests that.

So, actually, there is PLENTY of basis for discarding the notion that the action for Battle Medicine *includes* making a hand free.

What evidence is there that a free hand is required? The only thing that it says is it has the manipulate trait, which explicitly says that can be done while holding something else.

Captain Morgan wrote:

No, there's no reason to think the lack of cost is an error. It was even stronger in the playtest.

Seems odd when the bonus and initial cost are identical to the earlier version, after the differences between editions are applied. I'll try the book version first and keep the use limitation in mind as an optional house rule, if I think its needed after that.

In my group, tactical intelligence is directly linked to available healing. The more healing is available, the more likely they are to charge in headlong and keep hitting until the enemy is dead as their only tactic, because they know they'll be always be back to full HP after each fight. Take away that option and they start playing smarter and with more caution, because the consequences are now much scarier.

Other groups may differ. :)

The Healer's Tools no longer gives a bonus to making checks. Instead it is now required to attempt several actions such as Treat Wounds. And it costs 5 GP.

Mellack wrote:

That would seem counter-intuitive. A fully armed and armored small creature has a total bulk of just 3? Even if that gnome is wearing plate (bulk 4) has a longsword (bulk 1), artisan's tools (bulk 2) and an adventurers pack (bulk 1 or 2)? So why is it harder for that gnome to carry all his stuff than it is for a halfling to come along and pick up the gnome, equipment and all? That just doesn't follow for me.

It's a lot harder to carry a bunch of loose sticks than the same sticks tied together in a bundle. Think of a kitted-out character as big bundle of gear.

Except on the gnome all those things are actually strapped on. It should be actually easier for them. The backpack is designed for carrying things in a certain way, not for another person. The armor is much easier to carry when it is distributed on the body. When would a bag of armor be easier to carry than having it spread across your body in a form-fit manner? I have never met any hikers who trek carrying their bag instead of wearing the backpack. It is much more efficient to wear things in the designed manner.

Fromper wrote:

Exactly. Plus, some of us play PFS, which is RAW only. If the rules say something doesn't work, we can't just hand wave it away in PFS. And as far as I can tell, the rules say that small creatures riding medium mounts don't work in 2e.

The Gleeful Grognard already answered your original question about small creatures riding medium mounts-- as he said, the "Bulk of Creatures" table on pg 272 of the CRB gives the typical bulk for various size creatures, and the table is clearly referring to fully armed and armored creatures, since it's introduced with a line about being especially useful "if you need to carry someone off the battlefield".

A Young Wolf has a STR of +2, so it can carry 7 bulk. Per the Bulk of Creatures table, a typical Small creature has a bulk of 3. So a typical Small character can easily ride a Medium mount, with plenty of room left over for barding or saddlebags.

Bulk is not an additive quantity like weight. It's an abstraction-- just like HP or Spell Slots are abstractions. That's why Armor has different Bulk depending on whether you're wearing it or carrying it around. The Bulk of a creature is not the same as the sum of the Bulk of everything it's wearing or carrying. That's simply not how Bulk works.

There's no handwaving required-- the RAW tells you to use Bulk this way, not the way you seem to want to.

That would seem counter-intuitive. A fully armed and armored small creature has a total bulk of just 3? Even if that gnome is wearing plate (bulk 4) has a longsword (bulk 1), artisan's tools (bulk 2) and an adventurers pack (bulk 1 or 2)? So why is it harder for that gnome to carry all his stuff than it is for a halfling to come along and pick up the gnome, equipment and all? That just doesn't follow for me.

I don't believe throw items have a reload. You are not holding anything to load into, unlike a sling or bow. You would need an action to draw a new one.

With the devs saying people trying to over-read or find an explanation for everything...sometimes the simplest solution is actually what's going on.

Only magic items make stuff easier to carry. A bag of holding is basically what you need if you want to carry stuffs with less weight as an example.

The backpack is just what it reads:

It's a container that can hold 4 bulk worth of items, if you put the backpack on your back its weight becomes negligible instead of light.

I think people are over-reading because it is about the only way the bulk system makes sense. Take a ranger. If he has Leather Armor, a longbow, a rapier, adventurer's pack, and a snare kit, they are full even with a 16 strength. And they are not carrying any arrows. Just what I listed is already 8 bulk. That is a fairly basic load and it is too much. Seems something is off with the encumbrance system.