Neville Jaldeepair's page

I'll be attending my first DragonCon, next week, on Friday and Saturday only, and at the moment it looks like there are very few PFS scenarios on the schedule. I'm particularly confused by there being all of one scenario scheduled in the Friday evening and Saturday morning slots, respectively. Maybe I'm just used to pre-pandemic gaming con schedules, but the (much smaller) cons I've attended in the past would never have had such a small PFS presence!

I know the schedule as posted in the Dragoncon app is incorrect and incomplete in some ways, but with what I'm seeing now and with there seeming to be no way to know what tables will have seats available ahead of time, I'm concerned I won't be able to play any PFS at all.

So, kind of surprised there's not more discussion of these PFS scenarios in the GM threads, but The Broken Scales ties directly into the events of the AoE AP, and Balancing the Scales indirectly, as they both describe the havoc and aftermath caused by the mysterious activation and disappearance of a Graveraker prototype, an immense clockwork drill. Canonically, these events occurred in the year prior to the festival, but it's easy enough to move them (or some version of them) back to being approximately concurrent with the disappearance of Graveraker and tie them into the overall plot.

As written, the cause of the activation of the prototype and its ultimate destination are both left completely unidentified, but I am looking to run a modified version of The Broken Scales for my party in between books 1 and 2 of the AP. My thought for setup is that the senior detectives investigating Graveraker's disappearance had learned of the prototype and requested Wakeiwa meet them at its storage location, but the Rumormonger sent a minion to collect the powerful clockwork artifact and said minion made an error in attempting to transport it, activating it and then losing it for a time as it charged through the tunnels and caverns below Westgate where the Sewer Dragons' lair is located. Eventually they caught up with it, deactivated it, and transported it to the Clockwork Dungeon, leaving nothing but further mystery about Graveraker and the prototype for the Agents to find.

My only issue with this plan is what reason do I have for the senior detectives to stay behind and send the junior agents down into the mysterious hole after the powerful artifact? Any thoughts?

This was obviously something you could do in first edition, but the only support I can find for it in the RAW text of 2E is in the rules for Drugs under Afflictions, which doesn't specify whether one can voluntarily critical fail.

This came up in a recent discussion about the Blister spell, which, if cast on an acid resistant summons or ally with the ability to critically fail, becomes a potentially devastating AOE spell for its level.

I ran a group of 5 friends through Little Trouble in Big Absalom and they had a fantastic time and wanted to keep playing. I told them what adventures I had available, and they wanted to play AoE, which I am totally down for. Only one of them wanted to play something other than a slight variation on their LTiBA Kobold characters, so...we gonna Keystone this thang all the way! They roped in another friend, who wants to play an Ysoki Monk. The undecided fellow wants to play an Investigator, but hasn't announced race yet. I'm kind of hoping for a stodgy older human for maximum comedic impact.

If the unannounced player winds up playing a race with Darkvision or even Low-light I may try retooling the adventure so that they're officially the Night Shift, but I'm not sure how to square that with the Parade plot in Book Two (or if there'd be similar conflicts in later books; Book Two is as far as I've read in detail beyond the synopses. Any tips on that or ideas on wrangling a bunch of zany-as-hell Kobolds through this AP?

As soon as I saw the Marshal archetype, I knew immediately that I wanted to get back into hitting baddies with barbarians instead of axes again, and the Battle Mystery Oracle seemed like the perfect chassis to hang that on...but there's a language ambiguity in my way.

The Marshal prerequisites are:

trained in martial weapons and either Diplomacy or Intimidation

and while the skills are no issue, Battle Mystery Oracles have...an unusual weapon training:

Choose one weapon group that embodies your mystery. You are trained in all martial weapons of that group.

So...BMOs are "trained in martial weapons," but they are not trained in all martial weapons. Does this meet the prerequisite for Marshal, or not?

This weapon consists of a wooden log with a shoulder strap to carry some of the weight.

If my character is wielding an Orc Skull Ram and drops it, does it simply fall to her side on its strap, or is it somehow required that she remove it from her shoulder to no longer be wielding it?

It seems a bit odd, but I can't see any reason why Dodging Panache can't be used while the Swashbuckler is prone.

At 1st level, when an opponent attempts a melee attack against the swashbuckler, the swashbuckler can as an immediate action spend 1 panache point to move 5 feet; doing so grants the swashbuckler a dodge bonus to AC equal to her Charisma modif ier (minimum 0) against the triggering attack. This movement doesn’t negate the attack, which is still resolved as if the swashbuckler had not moved from the original square. This movement is not a 5-foot step; it provokes attacks of opportunity from creatures other than the one who triggered this deed. The swashbuckler can only perform this deed while wearing light or no armor, and while carrying no heavier than a light load.

The only movement options when prone are crawling 5 feet and standing up, but it seems like you could do the former with this Deed, to me?

The signature ability of the Eldritch Poisoner Alchemist archetype is a special poison they can create called an Arcanotoxin...but Alchemists don't get the ability to safely handle poisons until 2nd level. Does a 1st level Eldritch Poisoner risk poisoning themself every time they use their signature ability? 'Cause that's kind of a bummer!

So, do Bestial Rags work for the minor and major forms of Elementalist Shifters?

These tattered and ragged garments extend the duration of a shifter’s bestial transformations, allowing her to shift into her aspects’ minor forms for 5 additional minutes per day. Each set of bestial rags is also tied to a specific aspect, typically being made of the hide of that creature and embossed with crude pictograms of it, allowing a shifter to assume that aspect’s minor and major form, as appropriate for her level. If the shifter already has the ability to shift into that form, that aspect’s major form functions as if she were 2 levels higher.

And here's a link to Elementalist Shifter

I think it should work because the Rags don't specify Animal Aspect, just Aspect, so the Elemental Aspects should still apply. Thoughts?

Bonus question: none of the online resources seem to actually specify what the Elemental Strike added damage types for the Elemental Aspects are, and I don't have my hardcover handy. Fire is obvious, and my assumptions for Air, Earth, and Water would be Electric, Acid, and Cold, respectively. Is that correct?

So let's say I have a Half-Orc Menhir Guardian Monk who also has IUS and the Toothy alternate racial trait giving her a bite attack. My attack options at first level would seem to be:

• Claw, Claw, Bite as 3 Primary Natural Attacks at full BAB (+0 at 1st, of course)
  
• IUS at full BAB and Claw, Claw, Bite each at -5
  
• Flurry of Blows for two attacks with either my claws or a weapon for an effective -1 (+1 monk level, -2 per Flurry) on both attacks, no bite
  

Is all that correct? It seems to me like Flurry is flatly worse than the first option, and possibly worse than the second as well. At 5th maybe it catches up to the first option as my relative BAB drops compared to an UnMonk or a full martial character, but for the first 4 levels it seems like I wouldn't have much reason to use the Monk's signature ability with this character. Am I missing something or is all that pretty much correct?

From reviewing old messages on the boards, here, it seems the language regarding perks may have changed? For reference:

http://paizo.com/organizedplay/perks

Right under the "Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild" header is the following text:

A player may display any of the products listed on this page and receive the following bonus: once per scenario, after you roll the dice, you can reroll 1d20 die; you must take the new result.

(emphasis mine)

Two paragraphs below that on that page is the listing detailing the faction pins and their benefits vis-a-vis skill rolls.

It seems to me that a reasonable argument could be made that faction pins, per the virtue of being listed on that page, confer a reroll as well as the skill benefit. That the PFS RPG Guild Guide refers to a "reroll list" as being on that page when there is not anything actually labelled as such further muddies things.

To be clear, this is the first place I've made this proposal, and I may never try it at a table, but I thought I'd run it past the forum. Thoughts?