ParasiteHouse's page

Firstly, I'd like to offer some insincere apologies for using this forum solely to air out pedantic interpretations of PF2e's rules. I've been gaming too long and the wrackworms in my brain keep telling me to read into things maliciously.

What does Wolf Stance do and how does it do it?

"You enter the stance of a wolf, low to the ground with your hands held like fanged teeth. You can make wolf jaw unarmed attacks. If you’re flanking a target while in Wolf Stance, your wolf jaw unarmed attacks also gain the trip trait."

Are these jaw attacks made with the jaw because they're jaw attacks, or are they made with the hands as implied in the text? Depending on the answer, being in wolf stance could (or couldn't) allow you to perform trips while armed with two weapons that don't have the trip trait or a two handed weapon without the trip trait.

If they're made with the hands, then you have to have free hands to use them, hence you can already trip, right? Does this trait give any benefit outside of adding an item bonus to the check once you get handwraps? It seems like you could more easily grab a sickle, stick a rune on it, and be able to trip outside a flank too. Come to think of it, that sounds like a fine choice even if you took wolf stance because now you've got all the physical damage types covered with one weapon and a free hand and all the sources have finesse, but I digress.

The trip trait itself stipulates that, if you roll a critical failure to trip, you can bump that up to a regular failure by dropping the weapon. How does that work for unarmed strikes in general? Do you get honorary dentures when you join the wolf clan and you can pop them out when things go pear shaped? Can you detach your hands like you ate the chop chop fruit? Can you simply not benefit from this part of the trait?

Has anybody else run up against these issues? This may be relevant to my game in the near future.

I'm working on a skill feat tier so my players don't have to dig as much when they level up. I've hit a little pothole with magical shorthand, specifically in how it interacts with the activity it modifies.

The learn a spell activity takes 1 hour per spell rank. Magical shorthand modifies the activity in the following way,

"When you succeed at Learning a Spell, it takes 10 minutes regardless of the spell’s rank."

That's pretty narrow language. It doesn't seem like magical shorthand modifies the duration of the activity if you fail the check, so what happens here? Are you forced to commit to the normal duration of the activity if you fail the check? If so, does that not mean you still have to be prepared to spend hours attempting to learn a spell if you fail your check?

"Your familiar is cold to the touch, its breath always visible. When you Cast or Sustain a hex, you can cause ice to form in a 5-foot burst centered on a square of your familiar’s space. Those squares are difficult terrain until the start of your next turn."

Surely this was meant to be a "5 foot burst centered on a corner of your familiar's square" right? Is there something I'm missing here? Is language like this used elsewhere? Does the familiar being tiny create some interaction I don't know about? Was this meant to be an emanation (centered on a square) and they got the term for the area wrong or was it meant to be a burst (centered on a corner) and they got the origin point wrong? Is anything wrong? Am I wrong? What is happening? Where am I?

I haven't been able to find anything explicit saying this in the PC, but the consistent use of the word "manifestations" makes me think that spells with the subtle trait can't be counterspelled RAW.

Counterspell states that you must be able to "see the manifestations" of the triggering spell.

"Manifestations" are loosely defined on page 299 as obvious sensations created by a spell, such as flashing lights or glowing runes or what have you, but it's not a word that's defined in the book's glossary.

Conceal spell, which works for any spell, states that it hides the "manifestations of a spell, but not its effects," and that language seems to distinguish a spell's manifestations from its actual mechanical effects. Conceal spell grants the subtle trait, and if we look at the subtle trait in the glossary, it says a spell with the subtle trait can be cast "without incantations" and "does not have obvious manifestations." By that definition, conceal spell doesn't just hide a spell's manifestations, but eliminates them.

Since you need to be able to precisely sense a spell's manifestations to counter it, it would seem that all spellcasters have access to a level 2 feat that can, for a single action with no daily limit, make their spells uncounterable in addition to the myriad of other benefits conceal spell provides.

Is this interpretation off base?