Ngodrup's page

So, the Arboreal Snags in the Dead Wood encounter have the Blood Roots variant ability, giving them regeneration 5 deactivated by positive damage. We’re only half way through the first book but reading ahead to this has me concerned, as (due to following the guidance in the players guide) my party are law abiding citizens of Geb with no access to positive damage, and I don’t see any reason why they’d pick it up by the time this encounter rolls around. Since they can’t be killed until regeneration is turned off, doesn’t that just make this an unbeatable, non-plot-relevant encounter? Has anyone else had this issue? Am I missing something, or am I best to just change that variant ability for a different one and be done with it?

Likewise, this Adventure Path would have worked VERY well as one where all the players were expected to play evil characters—possibly even better than Hell's Vengeance. But again—most folks don't play that way.

Honestly, I love you guys, but this is quite silly. Pathfinder society doesn’t allow evil characters, and most APs strongly advise against evil characters, and so most people don’t play evil characters. This isn’t really evidence that no one wants to play evil characters

I understand the influence sub-system in general as published in the GMG, it’s the new “Contact a Mzali figure” activity I’m confused about.

The book says this influence system has rounds that last a week, which is fine. However, the new activity reads:

You gather information on a notable figure in Mzali, speaking with contacts and putting your name out. You also attempt to arrange a meeting with the figure. Each figure requires a specific skill check or skill checks to properly contact them. The GM notifies you as to which skill or skills you can use and uses the DC listed in the figure’s entry.

This activity normally takes 1 week, but if your allies are also working to contact the same figure, the time is reduced if any of you succeed. The activity takes only 4 days if two heroes are engaged in this activity, 2 days if three heroes are engaged in this activity, and 1 day if four or more heroes are engaged in this activity.

So if two PCs attempt to contact a figure and it only takes 4 days, but the other two do one of the other activities which takes a week, then what? Are the party just out of sync with their activities now, and I need to track who’s doing what by day, rather than just per week-long rounds? Or do the ones who attempted to contact the figure do nothing until the others finish their activities, meaning working together to make it quicker was completely pointless, and they might as well have had one do the contacting and the other do something else? How exactly are you supposed to run this?

Level 20 psychic feat Unlimited Potential refers to prepared spells but psychic is a spontaneous caster

[duplicated from my original post in the wrong area of the forums]

The Oscillating Wave conscious mind for the Psychic class - The Conservation of Energy feature says that for the first granted spell or psi cantrip in an encounter, you must choose if you're adding or removing energy, then implies (though doesn't outright state) that for all further granted spells or psi cantrips you alternate between adding and removing.

Adding Energy: The ability gains the fire trait, any damage it deals is fire damage, and any resistance it grants is to cold damage. It loses any traits matching damage types it no longer deals.

Removing Energy: The ability gains the cold trait, any damage it deals is cold damage, and any resistance it grants is to fire damage. It loses any traits matching damage types it no longer deals. Fiery body grants ray of frost instead of produce flame when cast this way.

All well and good, except most of the unique psi cantrips involve both fire and cold. For example:

THERMAL STASIS CANTRIP 1

Cast [one-action] verbal Range 60 feet; Targets 1 creature Duration until the start of your next turn The same abilities that let you raise or lower thermal energy also let you keep it at a safe medium. The target gains resistance 2 against fire damage and resistance 2 against cold damage.
Heightened (+1) Each resistance increases by 2.

Why does the heightened entry refer to "each resistance" when it's impossible for the cantrip to provide both resistances, since the psychic needs to either be adding or removing energy, meaning it will be providing resistance 2 to either fire or cold damage (and further than that it's providing it twice, which is redundant anyway!)

Another example:

REDISTRIBUTE POTENTIAL CANTRIP 5

Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal Range 60 feet; Area 2 adjacent 5-foot squares Saving Throw basic Fortitude Energy attempts to balance out, but with your magic, you can shunt all the energy in one area to another. Creatures in either area take 4d4 damage with a basic Fortitude save. Choose one of the squares to steal heat, dealing cold damage, and the other to concentrate the stolen heat, dealing fire damage. A creature that fails its save also becomes clumsy 1 from numbness if it’s in the area of stolen heat or enfeebled 1 from heat stroke if it’s in the area of concentrated heat; these conditions last until the start of your next turn. If a creature is large enough to be in both squares, you choose only one of the areas for it to attempt its save against; it’s unaffected by the other area.

Again, why refer to a large creature being in both areas, when the cantrip can't have both fire and cold at the same time due to the requirements of conservation of energy?

This same issue (and more!) has been raised in the Dark Archives Errata thread too. Would love some clarification.

Ah, that makes sense, thank you - I thought there was probably a better place for this than the general message board, but I'm not familiar enough with the forums.

The Oscillating Wave conscious mind for the Psychic class was intriguing to me at first, but on closer inspection looks contradictory. The Conservation of Energy feature says that for the first granted spell or psi cantrip in an encounter, you must choose if you're adding or removing energy, then for all further granted spells or psi cantrips you alternate between adding and removing.

Adding Energy: The ability gains the fire trait, any damage it deals is fire damage, and any resistance it grants is to cold damage. It loses any traits matching damage types it no longer deals.

Removing Energy: The ability gains the cold trait, any damage it deals is cold damage, and any resistance it grants is to fire damage. It loses any traits matching damage types it no longer deals. Fiery body grants ray of frost instead of produce flame when cast this way.

All well and good, except most of the unique psi cantrips involve both fire and cold. For example:

THERMAL STASIS CANTRIP 1

Cast [one-action] verbal Range 60 feet; Targets 1 creature Duration until the start of your next turn The same abilities that let you raise or lower thermal energy also let you keep it at a safe medium. The target gains resistance 2 against fire damage and resistance 2 against cold damage.
Heightened (+1) Each resistance increases by 2.

Why does the heightened entry refer to "each resistance" when it's impossible for the cantrip to provide both resistances, since the psychic needs to either be adding or removing energy, meaning it will be providing resistance 2 to either fire or cold damage (and further than that it's providing it twice, which is redundant anyway!)

Another example:

REDISTRIBUTE POTENTIAL CANTRIP 5

Cast [two-actions] somatic, verbal Range 60 feet; Area 2 adjacent 5-foot squares Saving Throw basic Fortitude Energy attempts to balance out, but with your magic, you can shunt all the energy in one area to another. Creatures in either area take 4d4 damage with a basic Fortitude save. Choose one of the squares to steal heat, dealing cold damage, and the other to concentrate the stolen heat, dealing fire damage. A creature that fails its save also becomes clumsy 1 from numbness if it’s in the area of stolen heat or enfeebled 1 from heat stroke if it’s in the area of concentrated heat; these conditions last until the start of your next turn. If a creature is large enough to be in both squares, you choose only one of the areas for it to attempt its save against; it’s unaffected by the other area.

Again, why refer to a large creature being in both areas, when the cantrip can't have both fire and cold at the same time due to the requirements of conservation of energy?

I've made maps of the whole of Castle Scarwall (based on the Anniversary Edition), from the Barbican to the Caverns. Made with Dungeondraft, with additional assets from 2minutetabletop

imgur
Google drive

Apologies for the double post, I can't seem to edit or delete my previous comment for some reason

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the response. When I tried the suggestion yesterday it didn't help, but I have now tried again and it works now!

Thanks

The downloads function of the site is not working for me.

When attempting to download things I haven't downloaded before (Guns and Gears pdf) I get an apparently successful download, but the compressed folder that downloads is empty. This happened with both the single file and file-per-chapter versions, and across multiple devices.

I tried to download something I've downloaded before, as a test, and I was unable to even download an empty compressed folder. I got this page instead:

"This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
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<Code>AccessDenied</Code>
<Message>Access Denied</Message>
<RequestId>EPCZ4D9E46CCN7DG</RequestId>
<HostId>ihUA+s2VOZ2j8UejhL7Y8KPE7AsgJsBV+udwellIUs6YZoDkY5h/ggNN8R2fQ as1+YIXPCkpy4w=</HostId>
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Ngodrup wrote:

How long is the book supposed to take, in-game? I had assumed it was fairly flexible and somewhat "at the speed of plot", but the students get 4gp at the start of every month from Xhokan (page 16), and with the rules requirements for wealth by level / appropriate treasure rewards, this makes me feel like it's supposed to be a specific number of months? Or am I overthinking it?

RAW and RAI and whatever else you want to offer all accepted as responses, please help me with this :)

4GP per month is exactly the amount needed for living comfortably, so that monthly stipend zeroes itself out.

I sort of see that, but at the same time, cost of living mostly covers room and board which are both already provided by the school, as well as the 4gp which is specifically called out as being handed to the PCs during their encounter with Xhokan

How long is the book supposed to take, in-game? I had assumed it was fairly flexible and somewhat "at the speed of plot", but the students get 4gp at the start of every month from Xhokan (page 16), and with the rules requirements for wealth by level / appropriate treasure rewards, this makes me feel like it's supposed to be a specific number of months? Or am I overthinking it?

RAW and RAI and whatever else you want to offer all accepted as responses, please help me with this :)

I'm in the UK, my May delivery was fine (yay B2!) but I'm still waiting on my June subscription, which was apparently sent out on June 5th, so nearly 2 months ago... Hopefully it's still on its way! At least I have the pdf :)

(Still waiting for my July subscription to ship though! Eeeee I am very excited for the APG)

Are we likely to get an updated "end shipping estimate"? Since it's already past Friday 24th, and not everyone's subscriptions have shipped.

(I appreciate all the hard work that's going into getting everything out, I'm just excited to get my new books and wondering when I can expect them to be shipped by!)

Ron Lundeen wrote:

Rycke wrote:

Something that seems to be immediately obviously incorrect is the scale on the Circus Camp map. It says that each square is only 5 feet. That would mean that each of the wagons is only about 5 ft. square. The area around the fire is definitely not large enough to contain the reverie described in the faerie fire encounter and Bardolph's wagon isn't even large enough to contain a grizzly bear.

Hooray! A GM thread! Let me chime in here as I can.

Yes, that should by one square is 10 feet. That makes for more reasonable-sized everything in the camp.

Shouldn't that be 20 feet? The tent is the exact same size as the one on the Big Top map and that map has 20 foot squares. If it's the same tent, how can one be 10 feet, and the other 20 feet?

Because there are about twice as many squares on the second map as there are on the first (relative to the size of the tent as shown)

In area A1, the treasure available is referred to as a "staff of marvelous medicines".

Is this supposed to be a set of marvelous medicines, or a staff of healing? I would lean towards the former, but it's described as having "a pair of bronze serpents coiled around it", which makes me think much more of a staff than a set of healers tools.

In addition, I would like to second the inquiry concerning cleaning time. Does cleaning the citadel take 8 days regardless of how many PCs are contributing to the effort? Can the PCs hire people to perform the cleaning for them, and if so, how much does that cost, and how long does it take?

From the core rulebook chapter on GMing:

Cooperation

Multiple characters can cooperate on the same downtime task. If it’s a simple task that requires just one check, such as a party Subsisting as they await rescue on a desert island, one character rolls the necessary check while everyone else Aids that character. If it’s a complex task, assume all of them are working on different parts of it at one time, so all their efforts count toward its completion. For example, a party might collaborate to build a theater, with one character drawing up architectural plans, one doing manual labor, and one talking to local politicians and guilds.

I think all the cleaning and repairing downtime tasks count as complex tasks, so it takes 8 days if one person does it, but only 4 days if two people do it.

I find it helps to think of "one downtime day" as a spendable resource. If only one PC is "paying" for the cleaning (i.e. doing it all themself) then they have to spend all 8 days. If four PCs all work on it together it only "costs" them 2 downtime days each.

Just in case anyone searches and find this thread, I thought I'd better put an update. The third episode of Knights of Everflame is entirely set in Kassen (the starting town for the Price of Immortality), references the events of the first module Crypt of the Everflame multiple times, and involves interactions with multiple NPCs from Crypt of the Everflame

Over the course of a year of playing I have broken down 1,000gp worth of raw materials from numerous sources. How are you going to rule I can spend that raw material? After all, in your games if some of that was from potions I can't use that gp worth of raw materials to make a rune for my shield.

I would handwave that over the course of the year that you'd been playing, you'd traded the raw materials for the items you broke down for the raw materials for items you want to craft. Easy. Unless you spend a year adventuring without ever going to a settlement of any kind?

I don't think we're actually in disagreement here. I'm talking about things like Rek's example of being imprisoned with your crafting kit and potions, and using Craft to make the potions into a sword. Or my example of being in the middle of nowhere and wanting to use Craft to make your shield into a potion.

What is the difference between boiling a potion and other raw materials down to a magic ink for use in making weapon runes

Aren't weapon runes engraved? But either way, I'd probably allow that, because it makes sense. Far more sense than taking a shield apart and making it into a potion

Again, if generic "Raw Materials" were a thing, an actual thing you can buy and then be able to craft into literally anything you have the formula for, wouldn't they be in the gear chapter as a thing you can buy?

I'm not going to houserule specific craft requirements for every formula in the rulebook, that's quite a drastic extrapolation. I'm just not intending to let my players take apart a shield and make it into a potion. I'm really quite shocked that that's a contentious position, tbh.

If they are in a settlement then yeah, I'd most likely handwave the 'trade the wood and metal for herbs and other potion ingredient type things', and the whole thing would work out essentially the same. But if they're in the middle of nowhere and want to use the craft skill to turn a shield into a potion, I'm probably gonna say no, because that makes no sense. Although tbf I don't think any of my players would ask to do that, because it makes no sense. *shrugs*

It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to dissemble magic items for essentially the same cost as selling them is so that a character the dedicates resources to crafting does not have to spend going to the big city for 5 days selling their "raw materials" items and rebuying "raw materials" items but can instead just get started making what they want.

I find this statement truly fascinating and slightly bizarre, just because of how at-odds with my understanding of the intention of being able to disassemble magic items is.

The only place disassembling magic items is mentioned in the whole book (that I know of) is in the section about formulas. It seems incredibly clear to me that the intention of being able to disassemble items is for the purposes of trying to reverse-engineer the formula.

If you have an item, you can try to reverse-engineer its formula. This uses the Craft activity and takes the same amount of time as creating the item from a formula would. You must first disassemble the item. After the base downtime, you attempt a Crafting check against the same DC it would take to Craft the item. If you succeed, you Craft the formula at its full Price, and you can keep working to reduce the Price as normal. If you fail, you’re left with raw materials and no formula. If you critically fail, you also waste 10% of the raw materials you’d normally be able to salvage.The item’s disassembled parts are worth half its Price in raw materials and can’t be reassembled unless you successfully reverse-engineer the formula or acquire the formula another way. Reassembling the item from the formula works just like Crafting it from scratch; you use the disassembled parts as the necessary raw materials.

If the intention was to disassemble items and use the parts to craft other things, then:

So yeah, I don't see your reading at all. I 100% see the intention being "disassemble item to work out how to craft it, if you succeed at getting the formula then you can put it back together", with the somewhat edge-case concept that greystone brought up of "what if I didn't put the disassembled shield back together as a shield but instead used it to make a potency crystal/insert-other-item-here". Which I personally find highly versimilitude-breaking and don't think is RAI (although I find the semantics discussion of whether the generalisation of "raw materials" as "monetary value" means that it is RAW quite interesting).

Specifically what is missing from your example:

Ngodrup wrote:

PF1:
"I want to sell blah"
"ok sure, that's X gp"...

PF2:
"I want to sell blah"
"Ok, that takes 5 of your downtime days and you get X gp"

is figuring out why it takes 5 days to sell all that, and not say 4, or 6, or more reasonably 1, taking something that is already using a spreadsheet at my table and making it require even more minutae.

It's hardly complicated or needless minutae.

It usually takes 1 day of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, or items that aren’t in high demand.

It takes a day to sell a few goods. A few items is somewhere between 2-5 items. You look at how many things they want to sell and then tell them how many days it takes.

I definitely don't see how it would be more reasonable for it to take just 1 day to sell everything regardless of how many things you have to sell. Not every merchant wants to take every adventurers unwanted stuff off them.

I see no evidence that it works like you say. Raw materials are raw materials: just like you don't have to spell out what exactly is in your spell component pouch, the game doesn't CARE what's in your raw material pile as long as the GP price is paid.

I don't think that follows logically. The pricing structure generalises "cost of raw materials" as half the cost of just buying it pre-made, but nowhere does it include "raw materials" as a specific thing you can buy. There isn't a "raw materials" entry in the equipment table. The generalisation is just to avoid having to write a list for every item like, "one 12 inch length of oak, 3 small rubies, one large ruby...", by saying you need raw materials equal to half the cost of the item and leaving the details up to the PC and their GM, not by saying all the raw materials for every item are homogenous.

In other words, I really don't see any rules support for the idea that you can "disassemble" a bunch of potions and then use the pieces to make a wand

If the DM is telling you that you can't sell or buy anything were you're at, it's not commitment but your only option to get rid of items you aren't going to use and get ones you'll actually want to have. IMO it's better to do that at the tiny village instead of taking those days to travel to a larger city to sell and buy instead as the other party members can do downtime actions too.

Fair enough, although I think it's fairly situational and also that since iirc disassembling items takes as much time as crafting them, you'd have to be pretty far from the nearest city for it to be objectively the better option. And as you can see from the above, I don't agree with the concept that you can make any magic item from the constituent parts of any other. *shrugs*

Gosh, there's a lot here. I've skimmed the thread and I find the rules detail discussion very interesting, but a lot of it is far more complicated than I ever thought it needed to be.

Mine goes something like:

Assassin tries to ambush party:
=> rolls stealth above all party's perception DCs: remains unnoticed, fires crossbow at a PC, is no longer unnoticed (now hidden). Roll initiative.
=> rolls stealth, lower than someone's perception DC: that PC notices them on the rooftop pointing a crossbow. Roll initiative.

The Rogue uses Avoid Notice (p. 479) which calls for a (secret) Stealth check:

=> If he rolls below the guard's Perception DC...

Avoid Notice doesn't have the secret trait, so I don't think it's a secret roll, even though all other uses of stealth are. I accept I may be wrong here.

Ngodrup wrote:

I agree with most of your breakdown here but this bit stood out to me - I would seriously question any GM getting any NPC or creature to use a Seek action in the direction of an Unnoticed PC. They'd have no reason to do that in basically any situation. They have absolutely no idea the PC is there, so they should not be seeking that area for them specifically - that's for if they're undetected but noticed and they're trying to find them

Always remember: Just because you don't see it doesn't mean they aren't after you! :P

:'D

Only players should be that paranoid! Us GMs must pretend like we don't constantly have our little guys viciously murdered! :P

NemoNoName wrote:

How prevalent is nonlethal vulnerabilities?

You choose if you want to do nonlethal for each attack, and it only works if it's a knockout blow.

"Unarmed deals only nonlethal" without a Feat was a P1 rule that got left behind.

You have to take a -2 penalty on the attack roll if you want to go lethal with it though (unless you're a monk)

But like Rysky said, it only actually matters on the last hit before you go down

* Unnoticed using stealth beating perception DC => seek action might bring status to hidden or observed (same as for undeteced), else you stay unnoticed

I agree with most of your breakdown here but this bit stood out to me - I would seriously question any GM getting any NPC or creature to use a Seek action in the direction of an Unnoticed PC. They'd have no reason to do that in basically any situation. They have absolutely no idea the PC is there, so they should not be seeking that area for them specifically - that's for if they're undetected but noticed and they're trying to find them

The ShadowShackleton 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)."

Note the words "as normal for Sneak"

I read that as using the Perception DC like you would for Sneak, not that the results are those from Sneak. I.e., you roll against Perception DC like you would while sneaking, and success means they don’t notice you.

Yeah, you roll one Stealth check which is used as your initiative, and also compared to other combatants Perception DCs to see if they've perceived you or not

Ngodrup wrote:

If they haven't noticed you and you roll above their perception DC on your stealth-initiative check, you are unnoticed and undetected.

If you roll below their perception DC on your stealth-initiative check, you're not unnoticed or undetected.

What is confusing about it, specifically?

Though I truely think it works that way please point out the paragraph in the CRB that states it does. It's not in the stealth rules, so much is for sure...

Okay...

Unnoticed

If you have no idea a creature is even present, that creature is unnoticed by you.

Combined with

Avoid Notice

EXPLORATION
You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice while traveling at half speed. If you have the Swift Sneak feat, you can move at full Speed rather than half, but you still can’t use another exploration activity while you do so. If you have the Legendary Sneak feat, you can move at full Speed and use a second exploration activity. 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... If they have no idea you're present, you're Unnoticed. If you successfully Avoid Notice, they don't detect you. Therefore, if they don't know you're there and you successfully Avoid Notice, you're Unnoticed, as well as undetected.

I feel like we largely agree on the implementation, but I don't see why you don't think it's explained in the book. It's right there.

Undetected: they know you're around but not exactly where

Unnoticed: they don't even know you're around

I feel like it's explained pretty well on page 466-467

How do you enter this state? How do you lose this state? How do you handle this state?

1) you're automatically in this state if no one has noticed you

2) if you are seen/heard/otherwise sensed, i.e., you are not avoiding notice OR you are avoiding notice but your stealth check is below their perception DC

3) as undetected, but without the NPCs/creatures/whoever even having the faintest idea you're there

If you haven't been noticed, you're unnoticed and undetected. If you become noticed, and then succeed at a stealth, you can become undetected again, but you can't become unnoticed again.

If they haven't noticed you and you roll above their perception DC on your stealth-initiative check, you are unnoticed and undetected.

If you roll below their perception DC on your stealth-initiative check, you're not unnoticed or undetected.

What is confusing about it, specifically?

One action to get some emergency healing that's more cost efficient, action economy efficient, and will be there with me forever, sounds much better in the long run that spending all those actions and gold in a single combat.

But you do you, a niche occasion that may arise once doesn't justify a whole category of items being relegated to piles of gold.

If you're only ever going to play a character that is able to cast either divine or primal spells and then always make sure to buy a wand of heal, than that's an entirely valid choice and you're welcome to make it.

But that doesn't mean everyone wants to do that. And it does mean that in this scenario, you're the one relegating healing potions to "piles of gold", because you've made decisions that mean you're not going to use them. That's not a problem with the game.

Ngodrup wrote:

Secondly, even if you don't have a table of players who want to RP bartering every transaction, how is the new system going to take longer and lead to more eye-rolling players than the old one?

The magic item system of PF1 is drove my table away from pathfinder, because it became and easy power creep mini-game. I'd rather not see it back in PF2.

That's fine, but I don't really see how it's relevant to my post? I was replying to vagabond saying that it will be like a shopping simulator and that players will get bored, by pointing out that it's not different from 1st edition in that respect. Nothing to do with power creep/the concept of a magic item economy more broadly

So you are free to casually disassemble a "massive bag of consumable magic items whenever you want."

I mean, sure, if anyone thinks it's a fun and worthwhile activity to spend multiple days of downtime making craft checks to disassemble all the consumables they get, and then multiple more days of downtime selling the disassembled parts a few at a time, then I'd say go for it. Speaks to some commitment to concept on their part.

Still a long way away from the old "can buy anything you want at cost and sell anything you have at half cost" system.

Except you can just take a few days in a decent sized town to play shopping simulator 2019 while your players roll their eyes and ask if you can just get on with the game.

Firstly, my players love to roleplay interactions with every damn shopkeep to try and get more money for what they're selling or barter for cheaper prices on what they're buying, to the extent that I've summarily banned "shopping roleplay" from my table in PF1 games because I found it incredibly tedious and repetitive. I'm very happy that this system has been rolled into downtime activity for PF2, which backs up my original desire that extended conversations with Mr-Magorium-the-elderly-stall-owner, using diplomacy and/or intimidate checks to shave pennies off the cost of items, are not really intended to be part of the game, as standard (obviously exceptions for particularly important/rare items and story-relevant items and NPCs). So, you're definitely off the mark with the idea of me making my players waste time simulating all the shopping.

Secondly, even if you don't have a table of players who want to RP bartering every transaction, how is the new system going to take longer and lead to more eye-rolling players than the old one?

PF1:
"You're in the city"
"I want to sell a +1 dagger, 4 longswords, 2 hand crossbows, 3 potions, 7 rubies, this weird AP-specific item, and this valuable painting"
"ok sure, that's X gp"

PF2:
"You have some days of downtime to spend. You're in the city."
"I want to sell a +1 dagger, 4 longswords, 2 hand crossbows, 3 potions, 7 rubies, this weird AP-specific item, and this valuable painting"
"Ok, that takes 5 of your downtime days and you get X gp"

The difference isn't how long or boring it is at the table, it's that downtime days are an actual resource you have available to manage in PF2. So you can probably sell the stuff if you're in an appropriate location, but you could spend that time earning an income, or crafting something new, or retraining one of your character choices, or doing an AP-specific special downtime activity, as there is available in Age of Ashes. And also, there might well not be enough days to sell all your stuff before plot rears its head/gets in the way.

Edit: just to be clear, I banned "shopping roleplay", not the ability to buy and sell things when in an appropriate settlement

This has been an interesting thread. I honestly feel very sorry for GMs whose players invariably just sell every consumable they get in order to buy specific things they want.

However, I don't really think this is even a viable approach in PF2. I feel like the magic-mart conceit has basically been written out of the game.

Buying and Selling

After an adventure yields a windfall, the characters might have a number of items they want to sell. Likewise, when they’re flush with currency, they might want to stock up on gear. It usually takes 1 day of downtime to sell off a few goods or shop around to buy a couple items. It can take longer to sell off a large number of goods, expensive items, or items that aren’t in high demand.This assumes the characters are at a settlement of decent size during their downtime. In some cases, they might spend time traveling for days to reach bigger cities. As always, you have final say over what sort of shops and items are available.

So you can't just casually sell a massive bag of consumable magic items whenever you want.

For ease of running (and also because I think it's likely to be the intention), I get my players to roll the initial roll at the time of affliction, and subsequent rolls during their turn. I think they've been doing this at the start of their turn in our games, but I will change to having them do it at the end now that I've seen the reference from page 469 (thanks Blave)

Price of Immortality isn't about Karzoug, it's

Edit: ok thanks :)

I'm running the Price of Immortality trilogy for my home group (we're on City of Golden Death, the last module in the trilogy). My partner doesn't want to watch Knights of the Everflame incase it contains any spoilers.

If there's anyone who's played/read the Price of Immortality trilogy and also watched Knights of the Everflame, would it be ok to watch it or should we wait until we finish the module?

Thanks :)

My order number is 8082344
Thanks :)

CRB, Equipment chapter: the table on page 288 lists cookware (alphabetically between compass and crowbar), but on page 290 where the items are described, there is no description for cookware between the descriptions for compass and crowbar

These are great! Thanks for sharing! :)

Core rulebook p. 214: "An animal companion is a loyal comrade who follows your orders without you needing to use Handle an Animal on it"

Unless it's somewhere other than the Nature skill and I just missed it, Handle an Animal is no longer a thing

P.s. in terms of the 'bag of marbles' I told my player to buy sling bullets for this purpose. He also plans to use Unseen Servant to go and collect any reusable ones for him after combat is over.

1) I don't see why not. One of my players had the exact same idea and I'm going to allow it, since I haven't seen anything indicating otherwise

2) It is a Dex mod attack. I hadn't actually considered your point about proficiency scaling and would like to know the developers answer if you get one. I will be ruling it as being with Trained proficiency + Dex, unless I hear otherwise in an FAQ or find something explicit in the book, since even Wizards are trained in at least one ranged weapon (heavy crossbow) and Sorcerers and Bards are trained in all simple weapons

Just wanted to say I actually appreciate all the TEML boxes everywhere. Especially with the blank boxes next to them in the weapon proficiency bit for when you're trained in some martial weapons but not all, or in a specific weapon.

@Zapp - Because that's how the monster levels are balanced in the new edition. A Level 1 creature is a 'standard creature or low-threat boss' to a party of four 1st level PCs. They would be less threatening than that for a bigger party of level 1 PCs.

And as myself and others have already pointed out, there are lots of benefits to the new system. For me, the main one is the simplicity of 1000 XP per level.

Personally, I find the new system a lot simpler than the whole "APL (+ or - 1 depending on party size) (-1 to +3 depending on challenge), two creatures = CR + 2, six creatures = CR + 5, 16 creatures = CR + 8, no racial hit die means CR = CL - 1, decide if you're using exact or abstract XP values, and always have to cross-reference PCs current XP with the levelling table to know when they're likely to level up" thing that we had in PF1.

Obviously some of that is personal preference, but I honestly think that a part of your resistance is that the old way is familiar and this way is new. I really don't think it's objectively more complex at all, it's just unfamiliar (if you didn't build encounters with the playtest rules). I certainly find "mindblowingly incomprehensible mind-gymnastics" a significant overstatement.

If you find the 'divide by 4' step in the PF1 system to be trivial, then I would hope that the 'multiply by 4 and divide by your number of players' approach that I suggested in my second comment upthread as an alternative way to work out XP in the new system would be useful to you. That's the exact reason I bothered to type it out, in the hopes someone would find it helpful.

As you yourself said, hopefully everything will be resolved when you can read the rules yourself (and perhaps more importantly, when you've had a chance to play around with encounter building with the new system and see how it works in practice)

You can still increase weapon damage die using runes, but it isn't the potency runes, it's a new type of rune called Striking. Also the total amount of damage die you can increase with runes is reduced (it went up to 5 extra dice in the playtest but I think it's 3 now).

Outside of that, I believe there are more ways to increase your damage via class abilities than there were in the playtest. So it's a bit of both, really.

And probably won't even arrive faster if you don't live in the US so.

It very much depends - I live in the UK and got my books last Friday

I realize now you get the PDF only with a subscription. Still, why get it from here? Why not get the pdf here and get the book cheaper?

If you can find a way that the cost of the PDF from Paizo + the book from elsewhere is cheaper than just subscribing, then go for it. I subscribed because it would be expensive to get the book and pay for the PDF seperately, and also to support Paizo (since I'm paying ridiculous shipping to the UK anyway).

I'm pretty sure, business-decision-wise, that producers (e.g. Paizo) sell at a big discount to resellers (e.g. Amazon) because the resellers buy a massive amount of the product in one go, which is confirmed sales for the producer. They aren't really being undercut by someone who they've already sold their product to, eh? It's not like Amazon are buying them full price and then selling them at a loss. Amazon probably bought thousands of each product in bulk, at discount from Paizo, then sells them on and passes some of the discount to their customers. Paizo gets sales and products out the door, Amazon gets sales, Amazon customers get discounts and free shipping from Amazon, everyone wins. It's just how business works.