Spiritual Weapon is now on the Occult spell list, which means that it is intended for Bards to use as well as Clerics. However, the spell still says that the weapon is your deity's favored weapon and seems to presume that the caster will be trained in their deity's favored weapon. "Attacks with the weapon use your attack modifier with that type of weapon....".
Is it really the designers' intent to make this a spell that half of Bards can't use effectively without gaining additional weapon training?
Perhaps the spell could be reworded to say that the caster is considered trained in the weapon for the purposes of the spell if they are untrained. Or that the caster may select a default simple weapon (like dagger) if they are untrained in their deity's favored weapon.
Should your deity's preference even matter if you are casting from Occult powers rather than Divine powers?
Phantoms can deliver touch spells, but with a unique limitation: "The Phantom can't hold the charge of the touch spell cast by the spiritualist using this ability. If the spell is delivered to the phantom, it must touch the target or the spell is lost."
But what if the Phantom is given a spell that is designed to have multiple attacks over multiple rounds, like Frostbite (which does not have a specific duration, just "up to one time per level") or Calcific Touch (which does have a specific duration in rounds)?
Is the spell still only deliverable for one immediate action? Does the spell keep functioning until the Phantom misses?
(I know these spells are not on the Spiritualist list, but a Death Druid could have his Phantom deliver Frostbite.)
This is a quest for information. In another thread, I had commented that in my local lodge that it's been getting harder for the veteran players to keep up their enthusiasm for playing as many Tier 1-5 scenarios as are being published. John Compton was nice enough to answer as follows:
John Compton wrote:
That's understandable.
Near the beginning of my time as an organized play developer, there was a very vocal push to have a 1st-level-appropriate adventure released every month. We adjusted our level balance to accommodate this, getting about 10 or 11 Tier 1–2/1–5 scenarios per season (usually breaking from that in June or July). It's a little hard to tell whether our mix is right, for we tend not to get messageboard posts identifying that the tier spread over a multi-year period has been just right; we tend to hear more about when something's not meeting a person's or a region's expectations. Implicitly, it seems the mix is working fairly well.
Is this the right ratio? Has the campaign evolved in some way that might require we revisit these numbers? One way or another, it would be a good topic for a new thread. I'd happily read along.
The Season 8 numbers, as a fairly representative data set:
Tier 1 (Quests): 1
Tier 1–2: 0 (A slight anomaly, given that's when we moved to doing some higher-level evergreen adventures)
Tier 1–5: 10
Tier 3–7: 5
Tier 5–9: 5
Tier 7–11: 4
Tier 12–15: 1
Tier 1–11: 2
Total: 28
As I remember, the push for a-level-1-accessible-adventure-per-month came about in season 5, after season 4 had only 6 Tier 1-5 scenarios. As I recall, the plan for season 5 was modified partway through so that we ended up with 8 Tier 1-5 scenarios that year. Since then we have gotten 10 tier 1-5 scenarios, plus other level-1-accessible-adventures. Of course, that means we are spending less of our time in mid- and high-level play.
So, how is your local lodge responding to the current ratios? Are you still finding this number of low level scenarios necessary? Are you having experienced players drop out and only come back for high level games? What would happen in your lodge if we had another season like season 4 with only 6 Tier 1-5 scenarios but an epic subplot with 6 Tier 7-11 scenarios?
The priestesses in the final battle are supposed to use counterspell, which is an integral aspect of their archetype. BUT, they are completely untrained in spellcraft. Is there something in their build that makes it unnecessary for them to make a spellcraft roll to identify the spell they are readied to counterspell? I'm not seeing anything like that.
When I ran this at Gen Con I assumed they had at least one rank in spellcraft, otherwise their tactics make no sense. Please help me understand what I was doing wrong.
Does the Master Herbalist Boon from Gen Con 2017 stack with the Herbalist Training ability of a Wilderness Medic Ranger?
Master Herbalist Boon:
:You may use your Downtime between adventures to collect herbs, using either Knowledge (nature) or Profession (herbalist). When you do so, instead of gaining gp as you would for a Day Job check, you gain herbs with a total value equal to 1.5 times the amount you would have earned from a Day Job check with the same result. Select the herbs from the lists on Pathfinder Player Companion: Heroes of the Wild page 10 and Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Wilderness 152-155, choosing from among herbs whose listed DC to collect is not greater than your skill check result. If the herb requires a second check to process, such as Craft (alchemy) check, roll this check for each herb you collect as well-on a failed check, the herb is destroyed. If you have unspent value left over, record it on your Chronicle sheet; you can save up over the course of multiple adventures.
Herbalist Training:
:At 1st level, a wilderness medic can attempt Profession (herbalism) checks untrained and the wilderness medic gains a bonus equal to 1/2 his ranger level (minimum +1) on Heal checks and Profession (herbalism) checks. When he successfully forages for herbs (Pathfinder Player Companion: Heroes of the Wild 10), he finds twice as many doses of any herb he would normally.
A reasonable interpretation would then be Day-Job X 1.5 X 2 = 3(Day-Job) worth of herbs. Is that correct?
The herbs in "Heroes of the Wild" are nothing to get too excited over, but maybe better ones will be coming in Ultimate Wilderness.
(I was honestly considering the archetype for my grippli before I received the boon, so please forgive me for asking a cheesy question.)
As of today, there are no Paizo seminars listed in the Gen Con events list. Ticket sales go live in 4 days. Can Paizo please get their seminars into the system before sales go live? If not into the system, can someone please post the intended schedule on this site so that people can plan?
(I intend to volunteer to help the KD team record seminars for the podcast, so any info would be appreciated.)
I'm glad we have such a variety of characters showing up around our tables. It's part of what makes PFS fun. If everyone wanted to play the same thing, we would never form functional teams.
With the plans for Gen Con in full swing, I thought it might be fun to talk about what kinds of GM boons and regular boons we might like to see in the coming year. A couple ideas I’ve had are the following:
1. Small outsiders (GM). Boons that makes small sized Tieflings or small sized Aasimars legal to play. People may be concerned with the heritage options making these too powerful, but I think the boons could be written with some restrictions. For example, a boon could be called “Imp Blooded” and allow for a small Tiefling of standard stats that may not select another heritage.
2. Updated Mounted Tradition Boon. The old version opened up mounts for the CORE races, but we have added many races to our cast of characters. In particular, I would like to see Riding Rats added to the choices for Wayangs, because of their worship of La Shu Po, The Old Rat Woman. (Why worship a rat goddess if she gives you nothing flavorful?)
Can feats be turned off if they do not have "may" or similar conditional language in the text? Or are there feats that are always on, even if there are circumstances when you may want to have them deactivated?
Example: Moonlight Summons
spoiler:
Creatures you summon shed light as a light spell. They are immune to confusion and sleep effects, and their natural weapons are treated as silver for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.
If you don't want your animal to glow, can you turn off the feat?
Example: Shield Slam
spoiler:
Benefit: Any opponents hit by your shield bash are also hit with a free bull rush attack, substituting your attack roll for the combat maneuver check (see Combat). This bull rush does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Opponents who cannot move back due to a wall or other surface are knocked prone after moving the maximum possible distance. You may choose to move with your target if you are able to take a 5-foot step or to spend an action to move this turn.
If you hit an opponent with your shield, can you choose not to make the Bull Rush?
This is a question for organizes that live in parts of the country where there are a good number of Cons for your players to attend. Have you found any tricks or strategies for maintaining a healthy bi-weekly group with any sense of linear narrative? Or have you just given up and resigned yourself to picking up the random scraps the Cons leave behind?
Let me explain my perspective. I got my start in PFS in the Rocky Mountain Lodge where there was a real emphasis on the regular group and only a couple Cons a year, and the events at those Cons were coordinated with what was being scheduled in the regular groups. I LOVED playing PFS in a system like that, progressing through the seasons with my friends in a mostly linear manner. Now I live in central Illinois, have taken the part of the local coordinator, and my players have access to at least half-a-dozen Cons within easy driving distance, including Gen Con itself. Many of my regular players end up playing completely random things at different Cons. They are pretty good about entering what they have played on a spreadsheet so that I have some information to plan from, but it is a significant amount of work to figure out the combinations of tables to offer to give as many people as possible something to play and maintain any level of continuity. And is rapidly approaching impossible, to my despair.
I’ve tried encouraging my players to always play the oldest scenario available to them in any slot, but I’m not sure of the success of that. Obviously, this problem is reduced the more tables I can offer simultaneous on a game day, but we are hovering around just 2 or 3 tables at a time.
I have taken surveys about interest in playing CORE, but only a few of the old-timers who have played almost everything are excited about it. And based on what I read here, I am leery of trying to offer it simultaneously with NORM games.
I’m sure many will not understand my perspective at all. But I am writing this in the hope that someone has something helpful to say.
Can the Remove Sickness spell suppress the sickness effect that results from an Oracle with the Legalistic cure breaking his word? Or does the constant nature of the curse trump the spell's usual suppression?
A Shaman's Spirit Animal is considered a native outsider, unlike a normal familiar. The Celestial Servant feat says that the animal companion/familiar/mount is now considered a magical beast. In this case, does the feat still change the Spirit Animal into a magical beast, even though flavor-wise it is much more logical for the creature to be considered an outsider with the feat applied?
Several of the Shaman's abilities (including Fire Nimbus, Stardust, and Sparking Aura) indicate that the target gives off some amount of light "preventing it from gaining any benefit from concealment or invisibility". Does that mean that if the target is in the area of effect of Deeper Darkness that other creatures can still see it normally and attack it normally?
I've tried clicking on the weekly blog link on the PFS main page using two different computers, two browsers, and my iPod touch, and in every case the page starts to load and then goes blank and/or I get an error message.
I’m not trying to elicit spoilers, but I would like some advice as I try to get my characters ready for Gen Con. I am signed up to play 5-03 “The Hellknight’s Feast” at the con, and as I read the blurb, it sounds to me like at least some of the characters that appeared in “The Blakros Matrimony” will be making a return appearance. My question is, “Is there a strong presumption that the character we took to the wedding will also be the character we take to the feast?”
Unfortunately for me, my character who attended the wedding is still 4th level. If I am very deliberate about which of my characters I play in which games, I may be able to get him up to 5th in time. Is it worth the effort? Would I really regret using a different character for the feast after my 4th level character did so well making friends at the wedding?
[Disclaimer] As I have searched the message boards on this issue, I have found several debates, but not an official ruling. I’m not looking to start a new redundant debate, I just want an official ruling I can build my PFS character on, one way or the other.
Question: If a Duelist has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, and is using Precise Strike, and is making a full attack, may he still use his off-hand weapon to Parry?
The answer depends on whether the off-hand parry counts as making “an attack”. If it does, then using Precise Strike prevents it. But if the off-hand parry is an attack roll that is not “an attack”, then it could be considered allowable. It sounds like people have ruled both ways in their home games.
I won’t be heartbroken whichever way the cookie crumbles, I just want to be sure my character is being the best Duelist he can be for the PFS.
Do the spirits surrounding a barbarian with "Spirit Totem, Lesser" get to make an attack of opportunity if they have not made a slam attack earlier in the round?
(If yes, do they get an AOO even if they HAVE slammed earlier in the round?)
Relevant Text: "While raging, the barbarian is surrounded by spirit wisps that harass her foes. These spirits make one slam attack each round against a living foe that is adjacent to the barbarian."
I have just recently started GMing for PFS and I am trying to take advantage of the recent Reaper Kickstarter to obtain a collection of minis for play. My question is, has anyone ever needed a HUGE dragon mini for PFS play, or have LARGE dragon minis always been sufficient for the scenarios thus far for characters through 12th level?
I don't mean to prompt any spoilers, I'm just trying to figure out what to buy.
