Nelroy's page

Sorry if I missed this elsewhere on the thread...

Is it possible the 1 degree of success better is only applied upon a successful role? Meaning that if over double the incapacitating effects level you would then treat a success as a critical success and not adjust a failure, critical or otherwise.

I don't think this is what the incapacitation trait is saying, but perhaps an interpretation worth considering?

These are great maps, thank you MASAbaddon. Have you or will you continue to adapt maps for Age of Ashes?

HALFLING SLING STAFF - CAN IT BE USED AS A MELEE WEAPON?

Uncommon Martial Ranged Weapons - Rulebook 182

Halfling Sling staff does not appear in any Melee Weapon lists, so is unclear if it can be used as a "staff"… and whether it should be considered a simple weapon when used this way.

Fighters get to use their attack all day. Wizards at first level get only a couple of uses, then gain about a spell use per level. Wizards SHOULD be powerhouses based on limited use per day.

Cantrips, Cantrips, Cantrips, Cantrips.

Not only can the caster use a strike action or concentrate on a spell (say a summon), but they can cast a cantrip as well in one round. These cantrips auto heighten and often have a critical effect as well (even marital characters have a hard time blocking weapon critical effects... wizards get this at lvl 1).

I agree it's sad to see spells get nerfed, but if we are trying to level the playing field and lessen the gap between the old tiers of PF 1 then I feel the changes are pretty balanced considering the action economy. Also, seeing as even on a saved spell there is usually an immediate effect and that means your cast is rarely ever completely wasted.

Auto Heightening all spells is interesting, but I would say probably swings us way out of balance. Effectively eliminating all lower level spell slots and converting them to free higher level slots.

Quick preamble; I don't say anything below to be disparaging or arrogant, just my experience with the play-test so far. I play with a group of experienced players that has been playing since 2nd edition (not together), prefer hard mode, low magic home brew campaigns, and are annoyingly good at breaking games with solid/focussed character builds.

It's funny, I keep hearing about TPK's and how tough monsters are but I feel my players have hardly broken a sweat in the Playtest... We are gearing up to play next weekend and they just camped at the knoll camp, so will be stepping up to the Manticore next. I have run a couple test scenarios myself and, barring some lucky crits, I don't think the Manticore has a chance at wiping the party... maybe if it had more spikes to exhaust the party of their heals.

Only KO we had was in Ch 1 when the overzealous rogue jumped in on the Sewer Ooze alone... couldn't sneak attack it and got knocked down after getting hit then crit'ed on 2nd attack. Every fight, including Draxus, has been a total breeze since. The rogue effectively tanked most of ch 1 since his AC was top tier, no one could hit him!

I think we are all in agreement that Spells got nerfed hard. I like the idea of bringing the old low tier and high tier classes closer together, but I feel like spell-casters may have gotten hit just a little too hard. Sword n' board looks to be too good to pass up.

You can give as much info as you deem appropriate. I believe playtest states they are aware of the general layout of the "dungeon".

I ruled that the Goblin PC was aware of the rooms west of Pharasma's chamber... that he bunked in that area with the lower ranking goblins and didn't venture further East where Draxus and his lieutenants quartered.

That way those more challenging encounters were largely unspoiled.

Good luck running the play-test.

ROGUE CLASS FEAT: BLUDGEONER - MACE WEAPON GROUP

Rule Book 121

"You make brutal bludgeoning attacks that daze your foes. You can deal sneak attack damage with one-handed weapons of the club and mace groups even if they don’t have the agile or finesse trait."

No Mace Group in Weapons Section - Rule Book 180 - 183.

WHAT EXACTLY ARE PHYSICAL ATTACKS & DO/CAN THEY INCLUDE SPELL ATTACKS THAT TARGET AC &/OR TAC?

The term Physical Attacks is never clearly defined. Needs to be defined so Mechanics are clear for the below reactions (or the Trigger language needs to be adjusted):

Shield Block Reaction Trigger - Rulebook 309

“Trigger - While you have your shield raised, you take damage from a physical attack.”

Defensive Roll Reaction Trigger - Rulebook 124 

“Trigger - A physical attack would reduce you to 0 Hit Points.”

CONFUSION: Do spells that deal damage and target AC or TAC trigger these reactions? (spells that could trigger the above reactions: Chill Touch, Acid Splash, Acid Arrow, Telekinetic Projectile).

Noteworthy Items:
“Spell Attacks” can be found in the Spells Chapter (Rulebook 197).

“Physical Damage” can be found in traits section (Rulebook 422).

“Physical Attack” is present in one other place (that i have found anyway) and that is while referencing Barbarian Spirit Totem’s ability to hit Incorporeal Creatures (Rulebook 56).

“Physical attack” is not included in the index or traits list and is not included in the Strike Action (Rulebook 308).

CLERIC FEAT: IMPROVED COMMUNAL HEALING

Improved Communal Healing - Rulebook 76

“You can grant the bonus healing from Communal Healing to any creature within the range of your heal spell instead of just yourself. You also get the benefit of Communal Healing when you target only yourself with a heal spell, though you must give the bonus healing to someone other than yourself.”

Confusion: Language is a little broad… “any creature”.

Clarification Required: For the first sentence: Is this just one other creature within range? Or any/all creature that is within range?

Someone in 2nd sentence seems to imply that that target applies to only one other creature.

RELIEVING PERSISTENT DAMAGE - ACTION & DCs

Persistent Damage - Pg. 323

“You or an ally can spend actions to help you recover from persistent damage, such as casting healing spells or using Medicine to Administer First Aid against bleeding, dousing a flame, or washing off acid; successfully doing so reduces the DC of that condition’s flat check to 15 and usually lets you immediately attempt an extra flat check to end that persistent damage. The reduction to the DC lasts until you remove the persistent damage or gain another persistent damage condition with the same damage type.”

Couple issues below (1. Clarification on what actions can be taken to offer flat DC 15 check & 2. Conflicting Information-Sited below):

1)What Actions can be used to to offer flat DC 15 check?

Clarification required:
Is this saying that Administer First Aid can be used to douse flame/acid?
-or-
What action/activity do we take to Douse/Flame Acid?
-and-
What about other damage types like Positive/Negative Energy & Electricity?

2) Conflicting Info:
Administer First Aid - pg. 152
Persistent Damage - Pg. 323

Administer First Aid-
“Success The creature at 0 Hit Points gains 1 Hit Point, or you end the persistent bleed damage (see page 323).”

Persistent Damage Entry-
You or an ally can spend actions to help you recover from persistent damage, such as casting healing spells or using Medicine to Administer First Aid against bleeding, dousing a flame, or washing off acid; successfully doing so reduces the DC of that condition’s flat check to 15

Clarification(s) required:
-Does success at Administer First Aid end the condition or offer an immediate DC 15 flat check.
-if Administer first aid is not required to douse conditions other than bleed, is a check required to be made by the PC attempting to douse the condition? And if so, what is the skill associated with the check and does DC remain 15 per Administer First Aid precedent?

This would be incredibly useful for me as both DM and PC:

Master Table with Actions/Activities.
- I would love to see a table that players and DM can reference with ease and for quick reference of all common actions/activities as well as those available via skills and feat.
- This grid should include a brief description of the activity (similar to the description of feats in the feat table in PF 1), number of associated actions, traits any prerequisites / requirements, and should be organized by type (common actions, skill based actions (broken out by skill), feat based skills, and page number where the full action’s description/mechanics can be found in the rulebook (bonus for digital version - page number a clickable link).

This would be incredibly useful for me as both DM and PC:

Conditions Table
- A table with cliff notes description of each Condition, how it is negated, and page number to the condition.

WEAPON TRAIT - DEADLY

Traits - Rulebook 415
&
Weapon Traits - Rulebook 182

“Deadly On a critical hit, a weapon with this trait adds a weapon
damage die of the listed size. This damage increases to two dice if the weapon is master quality and three dice if the weapon is legendary. For instance, a master-quality rapier deals 2d6 additional piercing damage on a critical hit.“

Conflicting info:
Weapon Table, Rapier entry - Rulebook 180

The table list the deadly damage die as d8.

Clarification required:
Is rapier deadly d6 or deadly d8?

I would love to see a thread that just includes direct feedback to Paizo and doesn't get drowned with spats, complaints and unnecessary reply chains. Perhaps this can be it!

My main constructive criticism here: The guts of the rulebook are solid, but there is an abundance of confusing and contradictory language throughout the rulebook and it needs fixing. I understand we are in playtest, but the rulebook is riddled with confusing language, discrepancies, and conflicting information. We are also given a lot of specific mechanics in great detail, but also areas where specific care really needed and not at all present.

Difficult to playtest if mechanics to be tested are not clear.

Ground rules that i think will help keep this useful:
- Keep it constructive... leave emotions out please.
- Site your sources - Include Page Numbers/Book being referenced
- Be as specific as you can without getting too lost in minutia... cut to the heart of the issue you are presenting.
- Let Paizo editors find misspellings/grammar mistakes, but let's point out confusing verbage that makes a game rule/mechanic unclear or able to be interpreted in multiple ways.
- If you feel the rulebook is missing something; i.e. - a specific mechanic/or mechanic that appear broken, a useful table, etc. feel free to present that.
- Limit replies. And certainly only reply if you have a specific answer you can back up with sited reference (Book, Page Number, Official Errata, etc.)
- No RAI battles. We need specific fixes/answers to specific issues/questions. And the Specific overrides General convention (Rulebook 299) Paizo has supplied us should also apply to them as game developers. Let's challenge Paizo to get both clear and specific with their product and push them to make a great product.

I’ll post a few below to get it started.

Please post and (to the best of your ability) be specific, clear and concise (admittedly not one of my strengths).

Paizo friends - feel free to post replies / answers if you have them. I have really enjoyed your past products and would like to see PF2.0 be a success.

The shield is taking the damage only up to shield block, the rest goes to the PC so I don't see how a shield can take more than a dent with the current RAW

The situation where the shield takes 2 dents is more a RAI than RAW

I +1 this.

So sorry for reopening this can of worms and a stupidly long post:

Shield Block, Page 309 says:
"You snap your shield into place to deflect a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to its Hardness— the shield takes this damage instead, possibly becoming dented or broken. See page 175 for rules on dented and broken items."

Trouble language: "the shield take THIS damage instead"

Presumably, "THIS damage" is referring to what was just written before... "an amount of damage up to its Hardness".

SO, according to the Shield Block Reaction, only 1 dents worth of damage, and thus 1 dent, can be dealt to the shield per use of the Shield Block Reaction. Any remaining damage is passed to the player... since, "Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage UP TO its Hardness"

It then cals usl to page 175. Which only muddies the water on how the SPECIFIC (remember specific overrides general guideline - pg 299) Shield Block Reaction actually works... the call to page 175 only seems to be there to get you in the right part of the book to figure out how much damage each shield can absorb and how many dents they can take before breaking.... The problem is, it goes on to detail the amount of dents a shield can take from one source of damage. This doesn't seem possible RAW because we have no way to target shield, armor etc. Strike only targets creatures.

MY GUESS/THEORY:
Paizo removed sundering action/activity not because it was unpopular, but because it is unbalancing, OP, and probably not that fun for anyone at the table. They also accidentally left in echoes of sunder rules (broken condition, the confusing bits from pg 175, AC for traps with no way to target them, & the demolishing structures rules in bestiary).

2 reason why sunder was probably OP and removed:
1) Multiple Damage dice make denting and destroying objects arbitrary... even at 1st level... cleric casts magic weapon on fighter with great sword... 2d12 plus strength could dent or even break a shield outright.
2) Crit fishing - We now also crit on 10 over target AC and have multiple attacks/round from lvl 1...any way to debuff AC and make it easier not only to hit, but also to crit would quickly become the most optimal way to play and deal obscene amounts of damage (Player and DM alike).

Paizo, love ya, please fix. And if we can have sunder work in this edition, without breaking the game, that would be amazing. Please, thanks.

The way I interpret perception is that if you are not actively trying to be stealthy and there is no physical barrier blocking vision even the most un-wise of beasts will immediately see you from miles and miles away. So yeah, if not travelling stealthy no perception check required.

Pretty much what the subject says: up to now, I've only found the Parry feature of some weapons; what am I missing?

Many thanks, Happy Life and Happy Gaming!

No Fight Defensively Action or General Feat that gives you AC Bonus. Grab a shield and use raise shield action. If One handed fighter take Dueling Parry at Lvl 2. There is a 1st lvl Rogue feat that gives you a reaction 1/round to buff your ac. And the weapon parry trait : ) Maybe other class feats that I haven't digested yet (probably in Monk crane style).

It'll be good for a GM to know how the victim of a paladin's smite can rid themselves of persistent good damage. Douse themselves in unholy water?

Exactly! How exactly should that work? Just feels like designers were rushed here... doesn't feel sharp/clean. I get it is playtest, but there are a number of places that are devoid of important design elements (How to combat train animals, mounts fatiguing riders in exploration mode, undefined scent distances, etc etc).

Anxious to see how these are errata'd.

In the case of Persistent Damage: If there is a mechanic to apply some effect in the game, there needs to be the mechanic to relieve it as well (or at least be clear about it).

Thanks Draco18s, will have to take your word on the %'s... math not my friend. I would think the percentage chance would not change going to infinity... isn't that the whole gamblers fallacy thingy? Won't each flat DC 15 check net a 30% chance of success?

As for what action you need to take to take the DC down to 15...as far as I'm concerned right now the rules are "spend an action and you do <<<something>>> and you get the benefits." <<<something>>> doesn't need to be defined at all, just that you spend an action dealing with the problem.

That's how I interpret it too, but no such action or activity exists in the rulebook (it is eluded to, but not specifically defined). Also, fuel to the fire, check out this sentence from Rulebook pg 323... can be interpreted in another way than how we both think it works... that Administer First Aid Action is to be used to put out fire/acid (and it also contradicts Administer First Aid's stop Bleed Mechanics as described in the skills chapter pg 152):

"You or an ally can spend actions to help you recover from persistent damage, such as casting healing spells or using Medicine to Administer First Aid against bleeding, dousing a flame, or washing off acid;" - Rulebook Pg 323

Grammer... ugh... I highlighted the trouble word that seems to suggest we need to use medicine for bleeding, dousing or washing...

This could be errata'd quite simply:

1) Interact Action - include language about dousing a burning buddy, washing off acid, finding a way to ground your electrified bud,

2) Add a new action / activity that fits this niche.

Persistent damage happening immediately when inflicted can be inferred from several places.

• On page 323, "If an effect deals damage immediately and also deals persistent damage, you don't take the persistent damage if you negate the other damage. For example, an attack that deals slashing damage and persistent bleed damage wouldn't deal the persistent bleed damage if you blocked all of the slashing damage." This is basically just a reminder of the Damage and Enhancements section on page 294, which also applies to stuff like poison.
  
• There are various items and effects which would otherwise deal no damage when you attack with them. The acid flask deals 1d4 persistent acid damage and 1 (non-persistent) acid splash damage. If persistent didn't happen immediately, would mean the direct target of an acid flask somehow takes no damage while the people around them do immediately take damage!

The clear intent is that it happens right away. It could definitely be worded better.

For the override, that's in the condition on page 323: "If you would gain more than one persistent damage condition with the same damage type, the higher amount of damage overrides the lower amount."

Pg 323, Persistent Damage states when it affects you...

My beef with persistent damage:
-It is easy to apply (typically spell vs. TAC no save)
-It lasts potentially indefinitely (Which i like in theory, but not with current flat check DC scheme)
-the Flat check of 20 at end of turn is brutal!!!
-only bleed has specific mechanics to be fixed (with First Aid Action, DC 15)... but is contradicted on Page 323, persistent damage section.
- It is unclear what action can be taken to allow player to immediately roll a DC 15 flat check against Fire, Acid, Electricity etc.

Here is how I might fix it for Persistent Fire, Acid, Electricity Damage...

Player can interact/manipulate 1 action to pour water on self/burning victim, Wash off Acid, or somehow disperse the electric charge (not sure flavor-wise... and there could be other methods DM fiat based on player creativity). No Check Required, and the plater affected by Persistent Damage can attempt a DC 15 Flat Check.

Say the check is failed. Player can spend another 1 action attempt, this time lowering the Flat DC to 12 (makes sense... more continuous patting, pouring, dousing, errr grounding of charge).

Say the 2nd check is failed... and the player still has a remaining action... they can attempt it a 3rd time, lowering Flat DC to 10...

Any further attempts that round to douse the persistent damage will remain at Flat DC 10... and IF the victim of persistent damage gets all the way to the end of his/her turn STILL "burning/melting/electric sliding" and fails the free flat check (now lowered to 10 from 20)... they take the persistent damage and the DC is again set to 20. (unlucky b$$trd).

My 2 cents. As currently written we don't have enough to go on.

Maybe add a Mount Trait that includes ruling to make it not a fatiguing action to ride. That seems simplest. Basically make Handle Animal checks necessary only when in combat or attempting to command it to do something other than overland travel. Like my car, I expect my fantasy mount to just work... i don't need to be fred flinstone-ing all over golarion....

I do like the concept of animal sticks to its last command... but that action economy is just too good. Borderline OP... will make summon swarms a thing again.

Maybe that could be a feat to add to the APG... Pack Handler... allowing your command an animal check apply to a certain number of animals of same type. etc.

Sorry Golden Fox, I totally just read your post after posting this... sounds like we are in agreement.

Crits Page 306 - “Add double any circumstance and conditional bonuses and penalties to damage.”

Wanted to see how folks are reading this? Or if there has been clarification from Paizo.

It reads to me that we should double penalty as well as the bonuses. Doubling a negative number would net in a larger negative... which doesn't feel very crit like... why should a debuff double in power in this situation?

If anything, it seems like we should zero out the penalty on a crit or apply the penalty as normal.

Seems to me the current design of character creation is supposed to net generally the same stat array (from an optimal standpoint). This is probably great for 2 things:

1) Play testing

2) Pathfinder society play

and I +1 Kerobelis... you can always roll characters for a more varying ability array. Personally I prefer this... everyone getting roughly the same stats feels a bit like everyone getting participation awards... some of my favorite / memorable RP moments/characters are attributed to characters with a terrible stat and having to build and strategize around/despite that.