NumenorKing's page

It's a complex parable/myth, and you can't simply take it as trying to teach one thing.

I really appreciate that you are writing myth here and not simple fables. I get that there is not a simple moral to the story, and that makes it not only more interesting but also gives it more depth of meaning.

Duality isn't a trait of any alignment. It's the theme of this particular story is all. Alignments are complicated things, and you can't just say "Alignment #1 is always about this topic and thus Alignment #2 can never be about that topic."

People of any alignment can fall in love, or get frustrated, or have revelations, or philosophize on the nature of their role in the universe. There's room for all sorts of views, and limiting one kind of philosophy to only one allowed alignment is unnecessarily restrictive.

I don't mean to suggest these things are at all simple, but there are very good reasons that Duality specifically is a philosophy that people have historically associated with Neutrality in RPGs.

And yes... what IS the point of fighting if good and evil need each other to exist? If they didn't fight, would there even be such a thing as good or evil? Would that be an improvement?

When compared to a philosophy that maintains that if all beings stopped fighting and lived in harmony, not because the evil people were destroyed, but because they stopped being evil, that result would be the most good, and that goodness would still remain a reality.

Or compared to a philosophy that holds that goodness is only an illusion so there is no reason not to take what ever you can get from life.

The position that holds that if evil or good ceased to exist the other would not have any meaning. A philosophy that says that they only have existence relative to each other, seems to me Neutral by definition.

There are of course so many other philosophical positions and nuances out there, so I'm not saying you need to follow one of these three, but just using it as an example that the association of Dualism and the Neutral alignment is not purely arbitrary.

One note is that I do personally see a distinction between Duality and Balance though. Anyone can value Balance, in the sense that all things should be in correct proportions. But Duality (as I defined it above) specifically seems like a Neutral philosophy to me.

Perhaps we are talking past each other, and it's certainly possible I am misrepresenting the Dualist position. (I am often wrong about these things.)

All of which is me saying I'm hoping these parables/myths/stories do two things—give folks some insights into some in-world mythological stories and tales that are fun to read, and get folks to think over and contemplate and consider philosophical elements of faith. They do that to people in Golarion, after all, and having them spark discussions in the real world is pretty rad!

Mission accomplished!

Lots of thoughts sparked, so yeah, good stuff. With simple morality fables your only response can be to accept it or reject it, and move on. But myths and stories like this engage us on a deeper level, and invite us to wrestle with them, which is part of why I wanted to engage with it, and not simply thumb up or thumb down.

Another, different part of me just wants to apologize, because I have found that the only thing more pointless than debating philosophy online, is debating RPG alignments...

As a great philosopher once questioned:

What makes a man turn Neutral?

My first ever (and most played) Pathfinder character was a worshiper of Desna, so when Desna lore appears I eat it up.

So I do also feel a very weird meta irony in basically arguing with the literary god about a god that he invented, as if I were a pretend follower of that god... So I guess I automatically lose this whole thing on ontological grounds.

I hope you don't take this as being combative, I do think these things are important, and one of the great but potentially dangerous things about our hobby is that we can try to approach these real world issues within an alternative context that might have less baggage than the real world.

One final note: I absolutely agree with you that we often find new revelations, or realizations, of goodness and beauty only after going through tragedy and suffering, and simply trying to avoid all suffering in life often just results in worse suffering and is unhealthy. From that perspective I think there is something there to take away, and if someone takes that from the story, then all the more fantastic! It's a very hard topic and I don't have it all sorted myself by any stretch.

Thanks for listening to my weird thoughts.

Voss wrote:

Desna comes across as profoundly true neutral in this snippet. More concerned with opposites and duality existing than creating weal and avoiding woe.

Neutrality being obsessed with balance is more of a D&D thing.

Desna's more trying to say that "Ugly people can be nice, and beautiful people can be awful—don't judge a book by the cover, and you should try to approach any new thing with the assumption that you might be meeting your new best friend rather than assume that the thing you just met needs to be killed or put down or ostracized because it looks different."

But the story you wrote was about something that looked like it might be beautiful at fist glance, but was in fact a horrible evil? So, isn't this actually an example of the opposite case?

What if Ghlaunder didn't have nice looking wings, would Desna have found him worth killing?

Allowing an evil being to continue in the hopes of redeeming it and making it a friend makes sense to me, but it reads to me that Desna only didn't kill Ghlaunder because he looked kind of nice on the outside.

Not judging based on appearance is a good message, and your prose and use of language is really nice, I enjoy reading it, but from my perspective the story seemed to inadvertently give the opposite message.

One more broad question though: If Duality is a trait of the Good alignment in Pathfinder, what is the Neutral alignment actually about? What is the point of Good and Evil fighting each other if they both need each other to exist, or should good characters only try to keep the two in balance?

When using a staff, the CRB clearly states:

"You can Cast a Spell from a staff only if you have that spell on your spell list, are able to cast spells of the appropriate level, and expend a number of charges from the staff equal to the spell’s level." (page 592)

However, for scrolls, it says:

"To Cast a Spell from a scroll, the spell must appear on your spell list." (page 564)

Nothing about having the appropriate level to cast the spell on the scroll. Was this intentional, or an oversight? If intentional, does that mean that a caster can cast a higher level spell from a scroll just because it appears on their spell list (Arcane, Divine, Occult, Primal)?

I think this is intentional. There was kind of a similar difference in 1e between spell completion items and spell trigger items.

1e Magic Items

To use a spell completion item safely, a character must be of high enough level in the right class to cast the spell already. If he can’t already cast the spell, there’s a chance he’ll make a mistake.

Spell trigger items can be used by anyone whose class can cast the corresponding spell.

If you look at the magic item's text you can see 1e went about it in a much more complicated way, but there is precedence for a difference between items that emulate spells.

NumenorKing wrote:

I don't see how asymmetry is inherently bad, but changing the rule to be DC-11 for a Crit failure doesn't actually accomplish a symmetrical system, and it's a BAD idea, please don't do it.

I'm curious as to what you think is bad about it, why should we favor one result over the other?

NumenorKing wrote:

Outriders charts are very misleading in how they arbitrarily have a bigger section for Crit Fails and Crit Successes, they don't depict a valid representation of the spectrum.

That's slightly disingenuous. Yes, Outrider is choosing to show more crit failure results than crit successes despite both having an infinite number of values to achieve either. The point they're trying to illustrate though is that if we start at the breakpoint between failure and success, and advance in both directions at an equal rate, we reach crit failure range sooner than crit success

I did not mean to say Outrider is intentionally misleading people with his charts, just that they ARE misleading.

I said his charts are misleading because they DON'T show what you are saying they do.

Sorry, my graphing abilities are not great, and I am pressed for time so I can't give a longer response, but please see the following image of Outrider's graph with the number line added.

GraphWithNumberline

You can see that his own graph shows that the exact middle point is 15, not 14.5, it's just not labeled very clearly hence it is misleading.

His reasoning that the exact middle in between Success and Failure is halfway between 14 and 15 is false.

The exact middle point between Success and Failure is still 15 weather we are using dice values or raw numbers it doesn't matter.

Success is slightly more likely because we count the exact middle as Success, but it is erroneous to say that changes the exact middle of the distribution.

Ok, one last ditch try, and then I am done (for the day at least).

I don't see how asymmetry is inherently bad, but changing the rule to be DC-11 for a Crit failure doesn't actually accomplish a symmetrical system, and it's a BAD idea, please don't do it.

To implement it you need to start saying things like rolling a 14 on a DC 15 check is Failing the check by 0, if rolling a 13 is Failing by 1.

I don't want a game where I need to think of +0 and -0 as two different numbers, which is actually what is being proposed.

Outriders charts are very misleading in how they arbitrarily have a bigger section for Crit Fails and Crit Successes, they don't depict a valid representation of the spectrum. If we are going on pure theoretical numbers it should be infinite in both directions, not stop at 4 and 25. He is right in showing a bigger range for Normal Success than Normal Failure, but that does not actually mean anything about the likelyhood of crits.

Nine is less than ten, so in general regular failure is 90% as likely as regular success.

This does not change the ratio of critical failure to critical success.

In the game as it stands (see page pg. 630.) you have a slightly better chance of Regular Success than Regular Failure, and Crits are just as likely in either direction. I am ok with this.

I think this conversation would benefit from moving away from discussions of probability involving specific die rolls, and just look at the ranges for each outcome, which is what Outrider appears to be going for.

When the topic is titled: "CRITICAL FAILURE - TWICE AS LIKELY AS CRITICAL SUCCESS" You can see how I got confused.

As I showed already, the title is not true:
Probabilities

Lets divert things further and instead of talking pure numbers, I propose the flowing thought experiment instead, based only on numbers irreverent to dice:

I propose an alternate rule to insert symmetry into the system.

Meeting the DC will no longer be a success or a failure, it's a re-roll.

We put this on the scale at 0

Going up the scale we hit 10 and call that and anything higher a Critical Success, we have 9 chances for Normal Success and an infinite range of possible critical successes.

Going down the scale we hit -10 can call that and anything lower a Critical Failure, we have 9 chances for a Normal Failure and an infinite range of possible Critical Failures.

We have now achieved perfect symmetry.

Of course we are going to need to re-roll a lot of stuff. That's not fun.

Let's just give the roller an edge and count 0 as a Success, it's not symmetrical, but it only favors the roller, and doesn't hurt them in any way.

Poit wrote:

But "the system is broken if we ignore the rules" is not a compelling argument.

We're talking about the scale, not the method you use against it. This applies no matter what type of dice you use. Too many people are caught up on the d20 rolls.

Considering Crits only apply to d20s I think it matters quite a bit.

You are completely right that Normal Success has one more "point" in the category than Normal Failure. You incorrectly conclude that makes Critical failures more likely because you assume the center point is in between regular failure and regular success, of that the two categories aught to be equal. If meeting the DC was no-result and reroll, things would be also be 100% symmetrical and the chance of crits would not change.

The asymmetry is on purpose, and it's because the Center Line (meeting the DC) is counted as an extra chance from Normal Success.

My previous post shows the actual chances of Crits, and Critical Successes are just at likely as Failures.

Talking about pure scale though, you are inserting a positive and negative 0 into the scale to make your point.

According to your graph:
Failure by 1 is DC-2
Failure by -0 == DC-1 (you just say Failure)
Success by +0 == DC (you just say Success)
Success by 1 is DC+1

You can't Fail by 0, Failing by 0 is Succeeding.

Wait a minute. Page 10 of the PF2 CRB says: "Similarly, failing the check by 10 or more is a

critical failure (sometimes called a fumble)."

It actually does specify that your roll would be failing by 10 or more, not that the number you rolled is equal to 10 less than the DC. There is nothing to see here.

So you would also say rolling DC-1 would count as failing by 0?

I would say:

DC+10 Secceed by 10
...
DC+1: Succeed by 1
DC: meet <-- ties go to roller, but are succeeding by +-0.
DC-1 fail by 1.
...
DC-10 fail by 10.

I agree 100% the wording in the book is pretty bad.

The existing rule (DC+-10) is more balanced with regard to crits than DC+10, DC-11 would be.

We can calculate the exact probabilities for Flat Checks (no modifier).

The probabilities for a DC:X Flat check is the same for any situation in which you need X on the die to meet the DC.

Therefore by calculating all the probabilities of Flat Checks 1-20, we can see all the probabilities for any check except the most extreme edge cases in which even a 1 or a 20 would not be enough to get to the DC.

https://imgur.com/2Lw95no

We can see that there is a higher chance of success over all, but in terms of Crits they are almost identically probable across the distribution, with actually a tiny tiny edge in favor of Critical Success.

The assertion that Crit Fails are more likely is just not true.

Note: I don't want anything I have said to be taken as an insult, the confusion is very understandable, but I hope the visual helps.

the statement that DC+-10 makes critical failures more likely than critical success across the entire spectrum of possible DCs is objectively true.

No, it's not at all true, that is what I am saying.

It was the intended structure of the game to make critical failure more likely than critical success?

It was both not the intended structure, and not a true statement.

Critical Failures are not more likely than Critical Successes as a rule (it's situational).

Regular Successes are more likely than Regular Failures as a rule, because of ties.

The assertion that DC+-10 makes Critical Failures twice as likely as Critical Success is flatly wrong.

A Critical Failure can in some cases be twice as likely,
Rolling at +3 on a DC 15:
A Crit Fail happens on a 1 or a 2 with a result of 4 or 5, and a Crit Success on a 20 with a max possible result being 23 upgraded

A Critical Success could be twice as likely as a Critical Failure,
Rolling at +6 on a DC 15:
A Crit Success on a 19 or 20 resulting in 25 or 26, and a Crit Fail on a 1 with the minimum possible result being 7 downgraded)

Rolling a +4 or +5 on a DC 15 give an equal chance of Critting in either direction but not the same chance of regular success/failure.

It all depends on the DC and the modifier, there is no flat probability for crits in either direction.

The only "imbalance" presented by DC+-10 is that ties go to the roller, giving a %5 greater chance of regular success than a regular failure.

With DC+-10 (the actual RAW) there is a slight advantage due to ties given to the roller. But making the DC+10 to DC-11 would not change how ties are decided, but would actually swing things even more in the favor of the roller.

I played "The Commencment"scenario with two different characters, and noticed that the reputation listed online is missing for scenarios with a note:

Player has already played scenario at session # X of event # XXX PFS on [Date].

The really confusing once is that I am missing reputation for both games, one from 2017 with a note saying I have already played the game in 2018. So I guess I had already played the scenario in the future so it doesn't count?

On a separate note I have a total of 13 reputation on one of my character who should still have 14 (ignoring the missing Commencement Reputation points). If I add up the points listed in my session list I come to 12 played game points and 2 GM points for this character, but the total reputation only shows 13.

Page 271 "Touch Effects and Holding the Charge"

Awesome, thanks. It does still work the same as PF, I have been doing it wrong for months.

Can you point me to the page in the book that rule is taken from? I remember reading the spell section of the book looking for it, and assuming you couldn't hold the charge in Starfinder anymore since I could not find that text.

In Pathfinder it was in the chapter on casting spells, but I have not been able to find that rule in the SF book.

I'm really hoping I just missed it.

In our game made it simple replace + 2(3)x Tier with just DC + tier. It makes it harder as you go up in level of ship and takes care of the multiply problem with the DCs going up way too high at higher levels.

After looking at the new FAQ, I think your method is still better.

The old DCs went from challenging to nearly impossible.
The new DCs go from trivial to hard.
I can't call that "fixed".

In my home game I'll be using the original pre-FAQ baseDC + Tier.

I would much rather my PCs go from challenging to trivial with full skill investment, than trivial to challenging with that same investment.

This is indeed a problem, and obviously one is a miss-print.

While we wait for an errata/reprint, my understanding is that the Spell Description is the authoritative text on all spells and the spell list summary is only intended to be a quick reference.

I don't think this needs any clarification, the GM should be able to react to the situation at hand and make a judgement call. Not every "identify creature" situation will be the same, that's why we need GMs in the first place.

I would say observing an unknown creature to identify traits would certainly fall under more than simply "Recalling Knowledge".

I would hesitate to make it a standard action in most situations, but depending on how strange the creature is that might actually be the right call.

The situation you described is 100% a GM call, and it sounds like yours was very reasonable.

No, it does not require an action.

Checks to "Recall Knowledge" don't take an action unless you are actively looking something up or conducting research, then it takes time.

You can use certain skills to recall knowledge about specific topics. The topics a given skill relates to are detailed in the individual skill descriptions. A successful skill check allows you to answer questions about the topic in question. You can attempt untrained skill checks to recall knowledge if the DC is 10 or less. You can take 20 on this check, but only if you have a means of researching, such as access to an information network or downloaded data set; this typically takes 2 minutes.

A single check is to recall something a character already knows.

If someone would like to argue that it takes an action to remember things, then we would likely have very interesting interactions.

Remembering what a creature is in the middle of combat is harder than remembering your own name, hence the need for a skill check, it's not necessarily any slower.

Except it does.

P. 270, Duration wrote:

An effect's duration tells you how long the effect lasts. If a spell, ability, or item has a specific duration and creates one or more effects, those effects last for the duration unless the specific effect notes otherwise.

Yep, point taken, you are correct.

I would still argue that the duration is Instantaneous since that an Instant duration very often involves a permanent change in the world, but a permanent duration would not likely use the word instant.

It would have been better if they had used the same wording as The Serum of Sex change, which is very clear an unambiguous:

The elixir’s magic functions instantaneously and cannot be dispelled.

Unfortunately the wording we have to go on for the Serum of Appearance Change is much more ambiguous. My interpretation is that they both effectively have the same duration, that seems to me to be the most logical conclusion, but I'll certainly admit it's not nearly as clear as it could be.

Sometimes you attempt a skill check not to accomplish a task, but to thwart someone else’s task or action. This is called an opposed skill check. With an opposed skill check, one creature attempts a skill check to try accomplish some action or task, while another creature attempts its own skill check to determine the DC the first creature must meet or exceed to accomplish its goal. Typically, attempting an opposed skill check to determine the DC requires no action, but it often requires you to be conscious or have the ability to take certain types of actions when you do so."

An opposed skill check does indeed set the DC of the other skill check in question. In other words: The DC of your Disguise check is the result of the opposing Perception check, and the DC of the Perception check is the result of your Disguise check.

In addition to Deadmanwalking's points:

Starship weapons and regular PC-level weapons work on different scales and aren’t meant to interact with each other. If characters choose to shoot at a starships with their laser rifles (or cast a Spell on it) while it is on the ground, the GM should treat the starships as an object (a particularly massive one, at that). At the GM’s discretion, if starships weapons are ever brought to bear against buildings or people, they deal Hit Point damage equal to 10 × their listed amount of damage. However, starships weapons are never precise enough to target a single individual (or even small group) and can, if the GM decides, be simulated as deadly hazards instead of weapon attacks.

Basically: no.

Even if it did work, 1d6 of damage on the player scale is still pretty negligible when firing against a Starship because it does not equate to 1d6 of Starship damage.

To elaborate on how I think Dispel Magic would interact with the Serum let's look at how Dispel Magic interacts with Magic Items.

If the object that you target is a magic item, you attempt a dispel check against the item level (DC = 11 + the item level). If you succeed, all the item’s magical properties are suppressed for 1d4 rounds, after which the item recovers its magical properties. A suppressed item becomes nonmagical for the duration of the effect. A magic item’s nonmagical physical properties are unchanged: a suppressed holy laser pistol is still a laser pistol. Artifacts and deities are unaffected by mortal magic such as this.

If "Dispel Magic" was cast on the Serum prior to being consumed it would make the serum a nonmagical inert liquid for 1d4 rounds.

If a creature were to drink the serum in within that time frame they would receive no effect since the Magic Item was dispelled. Otherwise the item works when it is activated (imbibed), and since it is not a spell effect with a duration, there is nothing to dispel after the single use item as been consumed.

The Serum of Appearance Change is not a spell effect, so technically speaking it does not have a "duration" in the same sense a spell does.

So to answer the question if it has an "Instantaneous" or a "Permanent" duration, the technical answer is "neither one."

It is a magic item, when drunk, your appearance changes "instantly and permanently."

While those words mean something specific, and different from each other in the context of a spell's duration, I believe the proper reading here is simply the plain English of the words taken together.

The starships’s frame is also built with a transponder that is essentially the ship’s “address” for standard system-wide and unlimited-range communications; this transponder can be turned off, during which time the starships can’t send or receive messages, but neither can it be tracked down by conventional means.

This does not exactly answer your question, but is the closest I know of to actual rules on the subject.

A ship that had communications open can be tracked at a distance if the tracker knows the communications ID of the ship, this can be avoided by cutting communications.

Extrapolating this a little, in close quarters a ship that scans another can read information about each powered system. It's reasonable to house rule something making a ship running on low power harder to detect, but completely cutting the power would also involve turning off basic life support functions, so it would be pretty rare that completely powering off a ship in space would be practical.

RAW: You can prevent your ship from being tracked in space by cutting off communications. Given the size and sheer "biggness" of space, this should allow you to avoid a known adversary. However hiding from close enemies that are in scanning range is not really possible.

Where do you see that The Serum of Appearance Change can be dispelled?

Also note:

The Serum of Appearance Change does nothing to help you disguise. It doesn't even give you a bonus to Disguise checks, it simply changes your appearance, but not to the point that you look like a different person.

You are still recognizable as yourself unless you attempt a Disguise check to alter your features enough to conceal your identity (comparing the result of this Disguise check to any effort to determine if you are the same person as your original appearance). In no case can you take on the exact appearance of another creature (even with a Disguise check; the level of control is not that fine).

The magic happens "instantly" the effects on your physiology are permanent. It's not the sort of effect that "stacks" or can be dispelled.

If you have blue eyes and want to make them green, after using the Serum you now have green eyes. You character doesn't have blues eyes with a magic effect on them, they now have green eyes.

Thanks, looking forward to it!

I was asked to help create some promotional flyers for a couple of local lodges to spread the word about local Starfinder Society organisation something with local meetup and contact information. It appears however that The Starfinder and Starfinder Society logo have not been added to the community use package. Because they are logos that means they are exempt from the normal rules about artwork from the blog being usable by the community.

Has there been any indication if these logos will ever be released in the package or not?

The Pallid Plague is the first one that came to mind, but it's a morbid twisty fit.

Immortal Conundrum does have a fantastic dinner scene.

I am very interested in testing this out, are you giving out codes still?

I used it much more when I first started playing. I still use it to double check things some times, but now that I generally pull from more additional resource books Hero Lab is no longer worth the money.
I think it's a good tool if used as a tool and not a crutch. Since I had not done much role playing prior to Pathfinder it was great for learning the rules. Often I would calculate out my stats and Hero Lab would be different, it was almost always right so it was a chance to learn what I was missing.

I know that you can set up a massage business and use massage oil of charm person.

I thought I had you until I read rule 3... Well plaid sir.

Not rules, but I do have three steps to playing Aasimaars in PFS:

Step 1: Optimize using the Blood of Angels.

Step 2: The rest of the table has complaints that your race is OP

Step 3: These complaints go unvoiced as the rest of the table goes and buys The Blood of Angels. Repeat step 1.

Thursday, August 14
Slot 1 (0800-1300): #6-01: Trial by Machine (1-5)
Slot 2 (1300-1800): #6-01: Trial by Machine (1-5)
Slot 3 (1900-2400): Gen Con Season 6 Special: The Paths We Choose (3-7)
Friday, August 15
Slot 4 (0800-1300): #6-01: Trial by Machine (1-5)
Slot 5 (1300-1800): #6-01: Trial by Machine (1-5)
Slot 6 (1900-2400): OFF
Saturday, August 16
Slot 7 (0800-1300): OFF
Slot 8 (1300-1800): OFF
Slot 9 (1900-2400): OFF
Sunday, August 17
Slot 10 (0900-1400): OFF