Paul Zagieboylo's page

Good summary! I do agree with Chris_Fougere that the number of random encounter checks it suggests is completely nuts. Whoever wrote that didn't understand probability, at all. As written it nearly guarantees at least one random encounter per day every day, usually two, sometimes three in a low-DC area.

I would recommend one check during the day (which is pretty much always at the base DC for the area) and one check for the night (modified by various camping activities; I also adjusted the modifiers a little to make Camouflage Campsite more useful).

I also didn't do the accounting in "hours" because it was annoying. I just told my players that they normally got 1 camping activity each (there's usually not that much reason to want more anyway), and allowed them to trade exploration activities 1-1 for more camping activities if they want, with the assumption that they would normally take their maximum of 2 exploration activities.

Either that was an oversight in editing or this is a crap poison not intended to give long-term frightened. I'm 50/50 on which, but the fact that it lists "confused 1" when confused doesn't have severities leads me to believe it was editing and/or a writer who doesn't know how conditions really work. But unless and until they issue errata we're stuck with how it is now, which as you say is shaken off in an instant compared to the duration of the potion

If you can choose when to start the fight, arsenic is p good. You'd have to do something about the low DC though, but then again belladonna doesn't have much higher. What level are you limited to?

I'm not stuck with anything at all. This isn't a PFS game: I can make different rulings if I want to. I was just looking for guidance on what was intended here, and I agree that given the clear evidence of other editing errors in the same stat block, I think this is likely an editing error as well. Bokken is supposed to be 4th-level, so I would definitely side-eye anything higher than 5th, but Cordell Kintner is right that my intended victim is tough enough to just ignore most low-level poisons. Blue dragonfly poison does seem weirdly low-DC for the level, as well.

I think I will probably end up going with a slightly leveled-up variant of belladonna, instead. But thanks for confirming that this seems weird as heck!

fail? welcome to stage 2. next 10 minutes you're dazzled and frightened 1. both conditions permanent until poison is cured.

10 minutes elapse.

This is where you're going wrong; under RAW, the frightened condition passes off after one round the same way it always does (when inflicted by an instant effect like fear). This is the part that seems super lame to me, especially on a stage with a 10 minute duration, and I just can't imagine this is what's intended.

What exactly does it mean for something like blue dragonfly poison to apply the frightened condition? Normally, frightened wears off after one round, but stages 2 and 3 of this poison might go on for 20 minutes. Does the victim just get frightened 1 for an instant once in a while, but shake it off immediately? This really doesn't make sense to me; it seems like the frightened condition is intended to last for the full duration of the poison (unless the victim makes a save against the poison itself to get down to stage 1). Many poisons have some extra verbiage like "the sickened condition can't be reduced until the poison's effects end", but this one does not.

I found a couple of older threads (link, link) about this question but I managed to give myself the confused condition while reading them, and they mostly focused on the question of conditions lasting longer than the poison, not the other way around.

Backstory: I'm looking for something I can have Bokken sell to my PCs that they can use to poison the Stag Lord in chapter 3 of Kingmaker, which won't kill him but will likely weaken him for a fight about an hour after he drinks it. A longer-lasting variant (which I'm fine with) of either belladonna or blue dragonfly poison would seem to fit the bill, and Bokken should even be able to get blue dragonflies in this area, since boggards live nearby.

I guess potions and oils aren't considered spell trigger items anymore, so anyone with Magical Crafting (and a recipe) can craft them. Although it seems weird for an alchemist to do so? Surely science is enough for anyone, who needs all this mysticism and mumbo jumbo!

On page 55, it says Bokken currently has a handful of assorted potions in inventory to sell to the PCs. This really doesn't make any sense? He's an alchemist, he ought to have elixirs and other alchemical items. It seems like this probably didn't get updated correctly from 1st edition.

I'm planning to change it to a small assortment of minor and lesser elixirs of life, some lesser mutagens (especially cognitive and serene), maybe a couple of bombs or other tools like silversheen. Any particular recommendations?

Harrim is consistently depicted as wielding a flail and shield, which makes perfect sense for him. Except for one problem: Groetus's favored weapon is the war flail, not the common flail. Harrim isn't proficient in flail until 3rd level, and never really gets good with it. But he's really, obviously supposed to hang onto his shield, which he can't do with a war flail.

If I need to make a PC-style build for Harrim (which, I might), would it be unreasonable to just rule that Harrim follows a slightly more dwarfy heresy of Groetus, that favors his flail-and-shield style instead of the larger war flail? I don't have any PCs that might decide to follow Harrim in his faith of despair (or really, any religious PCs at all!), so I don't have to worry much about them asking for other heretical cults with game-mechanical benefits. The other solution would be to downgrade him to mace and shield, which seems kind of lame.

A lot of the early encounters are full of -1-level mooks, who really will just perish if any PC even glares sternly at them. Any PC party is just going to mince their way through these guys. Once they level out of the -1-level mooks (I think the fight with Kressle is their final scripted appearance) things should get a bit less one-sided. Even the 0-level mooks hanging out with the Stag Lord are considerably sturdier, although Amiri can still wipe them out three at a time if she rolls well.

Lady Aldori's reward for saving the manor is huge, more than enough for everyone to buy their own horses before they leave. I strongly recommended to my players that they do so, although I changed the date of the party so that if they decided not to, they would still get to Oleg's just in time if they force-marched on the last day.

My bard got a lucky critical success early during the party, and Linzi aided him for another (somewhat lucky) success later, so they only needed one more after that. (I ruled that any NPC made "helpful" would be willing to Aid Influence attempts on other NPCs, and Linzi's "helpful" threshold is super-low.) I also had 5 PCs for that scene, so they had slightly more chances than expected. The bard's dice were just amazingly hot for most of that scene though.

The investigator, meanwhile, got a lucky critical success observing Jaethal, which completely gave away the game as far as her backstory goes.... and then decided not to denounce her or otherwise give her away, although she made it quite clear to Jaethal that she knew what was up. My PCs aren't evil, but they're certainly willing to embrace some amount of pragmatism!

I've been using MapTool. It... has some issues. The biggest one I complain about constantly is that text labels are barely a vestigial feature, making it near-impossible for my players to know what any given icon means. But placing the icons themselves works pretty well, once I found some free icons to work with, and importing the art from the PDFs was straightforward enough (use the chapter PDFs, not the whole book).

Yeah... these are pretty much the same changes I ended up making. It really seems like whoever was writing the camping system cared more about campfire cuisine than, like, math. Because the math doesn't work, at all. It virtually guarantees an encounter every single night, often two, sometimes three. That's just not playable.

My changes were slightly less sweeping than yours, but I definitely ended up with a lot of the same things you did, particularly "everyone has time for one activity before dinner and bedtime." I kept the increased chance of encounters for doing camping activities (although I reduced it a little), but I improved the Camouflage Campsite activity a lot, and I changed the roll to only once per night (unless you critically fail at Preparing a Campsite, which is still an immediate bonus encounter check).

I haven't had the companions show up yet, so I haven't yet had to make any decisions there, but your changes seem reasonable. I'm not going to let my PCs adventure with more than two companions at a time, so I won't have to worry about too many of them doing things at once.

I also granted an extra 2 influence points for saving each of the NPCs during the next scene. My players did a GREAT job at the feast though, so this was enough to max them out with a few of the NPCs, and I had them ride with Maegar Varn on the way to Nivakta's Crossing so they could get the last point they needed with him. For the others, they'll show up here and there. Having them meet up at Oleg's or out among the Stolen Lands is the best idea. Having an adventuring party with all five of the feast companions strains belief a little (I just can't see any way that Linzi and Jaethal will get along), but I'm going to have Amiri, Harrim, and Linzi show up at Oleg's the next time my players get back there, while Valerie and Jaethal will show up at some point later.

I figured that you needed to spend an action on the second round mostly to avoid the spectacle of a non-action that increases the multiple attack penalty (which horizon thunder sphere does). Thanks for reassuring me!

The Secrets of Magic spells horizon thunder sphere and inner radiance torrent let you charge up your blast Mega Man X-style for up to two rounds for a bigger effect. This is pretty cool and the druid in my current game is really enjoying it.

My question is: what happens if, after the first round of charging up, you just don't need that bigger effect anymore? Particularly for horizon thunder sphere, if none of your remaining enemies are in range of each other (perhaps because your fighter just minced three of them in one round), so you have no use for the emanation. Can you still just zap the lesser version? What kind of action does it take?

My initial ruling would be to allow my druid to fire the 3-action version as his first action in round 2 (spending 4 total actions on it) and do something else with his other two actions. Is this reasonable? Too generous? Too punishing?

I noticed a couple of stray sentences on p. 536 under Freeholds: "When a new settlement joins a kingdom... the kingdom gains no XP for any improvements already built there. Any future improvements built there grant normal XP awards."

Does building improvements normally grant XP awards at all? Should it? Does this apply only to Structures, or also things like Farms or Work Sites? I can't find it anywhere, but it seems like it really ought to. Honestly it seems like most Kingdom activities are supposed to grant a small amount of XP, similar to unused Creative Solutions and Supernatural Solutions. But basically nothing does except Claiming Hexes.

Unrelated: what does Irrigation accomplish, really? It doesn't seem to improve Farmlands at all. I guess it allows you to fish? In your... irrigation canals?

Just wrote this for one of my PCs, who was trying to gather rumors in Nivakta's Crossing early in Chapter 3.

Although most of what you hear is just more burbling about the Varnlings' passage, an old fisherman tells a spine-chilling tale. "A bridge old Davik once had made, down south on the Shrike below the cascade. He charged the toll for shepherd or knave, but the bandits said they wouldn't pay. They burned his house and killed his hounds, they cut the bridge and left Davik to drown. But no thief could build the bridge once more: for in the dark of night, old Davik crawls back on the shore. From the bandits that him they slew, old Davik now demands his due. Of old Davik's bridge, just one rope yet stands. But the toll is no coin struck by mortal hands. Heed my tale and listen well, or Davik's spear shall be your knell." As the fisherman finishes his story, the shadows that have gathered around him fall back, and the torches seem to light him properly once more.

All the other GMs out there, any fun experiences to share?

Yes of course, I meant that for Inspire Courage only. That just because the trip damage is a roll, it's not a damage roll, but it's still melee damage. And potentially melee weapon damage, but I'm not sure of that one.

I definitely do see the justice behind this decision. You would then rule that Forceful doesn't apply to the Trip damage either, even for a theoretical Forceful Trip weapon? Because Forceful based on the number "weapon damage dice", which is 0 in this case because it's a die, but not a weapon damage die.

It doesn't seem like we have a clear consensus here? The conversation got derailed into a discussion of attack rolls vs. skill checks, but the original question was specifically about the damage and things that modify damage, which seems to be a different question entirely.

I've asked this elsewhere but it seems relevant: would the damage bonus from inspire courage apply to these non-Strike sources of damage?

I personally would rule that inspire courage does apply to Certain Strike and to critical Trips (or normal Trips with The Harder They Fall), but not to Brutal Bully or Crushing Grab as these don't involve rolls (nor even a deleted roll like Critical Strike). Forceful would be the same, adding +1 to a critical Trip or The Harder They Fall if there were any Forceful Trip weapons (but there are not), but not to Brutal Bully or Crushing Grab if there were any Forceful weapons with any of the maneuver traits (but there are not). Meanwhile, I would apply the bonus from enlarge to all of these non-Strike sources of damage, except for critical or THTF Trips using a Ranged Trip weapon like a bolas. But I really have no textual support for these positions.

(As a largely unrelated question: does a critical THTF trip deal THTF's effect in addition to or instead of the normal damage from a critical Trip? I.e. does it deal 1d6 + sneak attack, or 2d6 + sneak attack? It isn't clear to me. I don't have any rogues in my current game, so it shouldn't matter; I'm just curious what people think!)

So here's a related question. Even though inspire courage does not benefit the Athletics skill check to Trip someone, does it improve the damage dealt on a critical success? I would argue that it does but I'm curious what other posters think.

Ok, thanks. I'm not 100% comfortable with this system quite yet and I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something!

NPCs don't follow PC building rules, as a 11th level "Barbarian" NPC 31 is accurate.

Rules link

These companions are called out as being specifically built using the PC rules, because it's expected that the actual PCs may want to adventure with them from time to time.

I was just doing some quick auditing of the companions in the Companion Guide, more to confirm my own understanding than anything else. I can't figure out how the 11th-level version of Amiri has AC 31, unless she's benefitting from her full +4 Dex bonus instead of only the +2 allowed by her hide armor: 10 + 13 (Trained) + 4 (Item) + 2 (Dex) = 29. Am I missing something here? Barbarians don't get Armor Expertise until 13th, so that's not it.

Valerie at 9th-level seems to be correct at AC 28, having been denied her +1 Dex by her plate armor. Only Amiri seems off.

So I have a player who wants to play a barbarian with a pet. Bonus points if he can get away with having sub-par Wisdom (and therefore a lousy Nature modifier to Command the Animal). I could start out all right by having him take the Beastmaster archetype from APG (so he doesn't have to make Nature rolls), but even with that, Commanding the pet is still a Concentrate action that he can't do while raging. Would this proposed feat be grossly under/overpowered for a reason I'm not seeing?

Fury of the Pack (Feat 4)
Uncommon, Barbarian
Prerequisites: animal instinct
You may treat the Command an Animal action as though it had the rage trait. If you do, the Commanded animal may only use the Stride (or other movement forms if it has them), Strike, and Support actions. Until the beginning of your next turn, it receives the effects of the Rage action, as well as your instinct's specialization ability if you have Weapon Specialization.

The intent is that this should work seamlessly with the extra actions granted for Commanding an animal companion, as well as any additional effects granted by e.g. Companion's Cry.

Honestly I'm not sure there's any way to redesign the Test of the Axe so Villamor doesn't win it automatically, without changing the event beyond recognition. He's 2 levels higher than the PCs, he's an axe specialist, barbarians have pretty good single-target DPR anyway, and this event is a test of who can wield a greataxe to do the most DPR to a small number of relatively tough targets. If he didn't have Giant's Lunge he would probably have Whirlwind Strike instead and could murder all the logs in a single round (especially if he found a way to Rage beforehand!).

Any ideas about Villamor's Jousting strategy? It just doesn't make any sense as written. I would definitely allow a cavalier with Unseat to use that action in place of the jousting described in the AP (the main difference is that it doesn't allow a defensive Reflex save on a successful hit, which seems like a good advantage to give someone who actually knows what they're doing).

I suspect this event didn't copy over from the 1E book very well - you're absolutely right that basically everyone else is competing for second place. Since his tactics call for him to rage first, it should take until the first action of round 3 to finish off all the logs. If he doesn't rage, you should probably lower his damage a little bit, although it likely won't make a difference.

Why? He gets 3 actions per round and he doesn't have to move anywhere, so he makes 5 attacks by the end of his second round after raging. There are only 4 logs, so unless he somehow managed to roll two natural 1s in 5 tries (not very likely!) the logs are done for. Even if he needs to take a 3rd swing at -10 on round 2, it still hits on a 2, because he's just that awesome.

Having read through the various events at the Rushlight Festival, I have a few questions, mostly involving Villamor Koth (but some of the others too).

Aiming at the Target: Everyone's stated strategies are really not very good (none of them are REALLY good enough archers to make shooting at the red target worth it, even Damanjot), but Villamor's is especially strange. He's not a competent archer, so he only hits the red target on an 18 or better, and even if he hits (without a natural 20), he only manages to beat the Hardness 25% of the time. In practice this means he's quite likely to finish the event with either 1 or 3 points, depending on whether he gets the critical hit on his final shot at the blue target. He would be MUCH better off shooting at the green target throughout. Is the red target meant to be this impossible to hit? Navarathna and Florante can't hit it at all, ever (except on a 20), and even if they could, they can only barely beat the Hardness. Damanjot and Ilraith can hit it with Far Shot, sometimes, but not often enough for it to be better than shooting at the green target (at least Ilraith beats the Hardness half the time!).

Test of the Axe: Is everyone else intended to be competing for 2nd place here? Villamor is GUARANTEED to finish off his logs by the end of his 2nd turn. He never misses, even with his 3rd attack, and his minimum damage is more than a log's HP including Hardness. The extra strategies about what happens if he hits a log but doesn't destroy it are wasted verbiage, because this can never happen. The only plausible way to beat him is to be an equally badass fury instinct barbarian and win initiative, so you get there first. Are the logs supposed to be sturdier? This wouldn't actually help much, but it would draw out the suspense a little, maybe.

Boasting: Does Ankus's ringer actually provide any benefit if he isn't spotted? Obviously this isn't likely as Perception DC 36 is probably pretty easy by this point for at least one of the PCs, and they get three chances, but just in case.

The Midnight Joust: How does Villamor's stated strategy work? He's not planning to Rage because it would prevent him from controlling his horse, but Knockback is a Rage action, so he can't use it. Also, from other circumstantial evidence (specifically his Raging Resistance as well as his proficiency with a non-oversized greataxe earlier), he's a fury instinct barbarian and therefore doesn't qualify for Giant's Lunge. Awesome Blow seems like a good replacement. Additionally, should PCs who actually know how to do mounted combat (and have an Animal Companion minion as a mount) have more of an advantage here? Just getting to use Diplomacy instead of Nature isn't great, since characters with animal companions generally have exceptional Nature skills anyway. Can such a character use a non-horse as a mount, if they choose? Would I want to joust against someone riding a giant tiger? (I know the answer to this last one: definitely not!)

If you're concerned about a wild order druid's ability to hold a leadership position in the kingdom (which the AP certainly expects most PCs to do), it seems to me that a wild order druid would do just fine as Viceroy or Warden, spending the vast majority of their time out in the field overseeing expansion, infrastructure, or border defense efforts in ways that respect the wild environment. Not much risk of being corrupted by the comforts of civilization out there! Magister seems like more of a stretch in this case, although other orders of druids could certainly serve without trouble. Given Nicolas Paradise's further insights into the specific character in question, General doesn't seem like a huge stretch in this case either.

As far as I can tell, every instance of the words "west" and "east" in chapter 9 is backwards. Every... single... one. Did the maps for this area get mirrored from 1e, so that the spiral would be the opposite of Pharasma's holy symbol, as mentioned in room A9? (I checked and the map on p. 414 has this correct, but every single room description on both floors is the opposite of the map.) The descriptions in Chapter 2 Part 7 of the top part of the Candlemere structure are correct.

It sounds like what you're worried about is an unwinnable event working its way into your game.

Having read through this thread, that's not what I'm worried about. There are other ways to deal with events (even direct adventuring!), and they mostly aren't make-or-break anyway. What I'm worried about is particular skills that seem to be total gotchas: if you don't have them at least Trained, eventually you simply can't do anything with your kingdom anymore, and there is no escape hatch.

• Agriculture has been mentioned: if you don't have Agriculture, you can't build farms, and everyone starves to death.
  
• Engineering: without Engineering, you can't Clear Hexes in order to build settlements. (The actual settlement doesn't absolutely require Engineering, but Clearing the Hex first does, and it's required.) Also required for work sites and roads.
  
• Arts or Trade: is there any other way to get Luxury Commodities?
  
• All of the skills used to Repair Reputation: Arts, Trade, Engineering, Intrigue. These really aren't optional; sometimes Ruin is unavoidable.
  
• Warfare, unless you're all right with pyrrhic victories at best in every mass combat ever.
  
• Some way to recover each of the persistent army conditions, especially Defeated, Damaged, Lost, and Pinned. There are no real overlaps here; you absolutely need one of Defense or Folklore, one of Exploration or Wilderness, and one of Engineering or Magic (but you likely had both of those anyway). Defeated armies are probably easier to deal with by disbanding and reforming them.

I started the Pathfinder Rulebook subscription with order 36657006 in September, asking to begin with Secrets of Magic. Although I have correctly received Guns & Gears on this subscription (tons of fun BTW, thanks!), the original Secrets of Magic book is still pending and indeed has not arrived. Is this just out of stock and I'll have to wait for the reprint? I totally understand if that's what's happening, but some kind of indication on the order status page would be nice.

So I'm making an undine cleric of Gozreh (I know it's not a great build even for an underwater campaign, I don't care, it's fun) and naturally I wish to use my undine weaponshaft trident to stab things while pushing them around. I have some questions about the mechanics of this process, that I don't feel are fully explained in any answers I could find:

1) Using my hydraulic push spell-like ability provokes AoOs, unless I Cast it Defensively, even though I'm casting it as part of the unique full-round action granted by the undine weaponshaft. I think I'm understanding this right? This makes it kind of dumb and hard to use, but whatever; casting defensively isn't that bad. But still, it would be a lot more usable if this particular use didn't provoke, since you're by definition trying to use it in melee (unless you're using a reach polearm, I guess). Being able to use the SLA as effectively a move action through the undine weaponshaft is still pretty good though, so I'll put up with it.

2) What's the concentration DC to cast this SLA defensively? Most of the answers I've found here (example) refer to SLAs granted as part of a class, but this is a racial ability; I happen to be a spellcaster, but there's no guarantee that would be the case! But it does imitate a consistently-1st-level spell, so I guess I would use DC 17? Are there any racial SLAs that don't imitate spells? Would all racial SLAs be treated as 1st-level spells for this purpose, even a gnome's dancing lights, ghost sound, and prestidigitation?

3) What ability is the concentration check for defensive casting based on? Obviously, I'm a cleric, so I would prefer to use Wisdom. But is that correct? Racial powers usually use Charisma whenever a casting ability needs to be determined (example: gnome magic). If I were, say, a fighter, would this concentration check automatically be Charisma-based, or would I get to choose my highest mental ability score? As a cleric, am I forced to use Charisma, or can I use my (considerably higher) Wisdom? The spell itself specifically lets me use my favorite mental ability to determine the CMB, but that doesn't automatically carry over to concentration checks.

4) Would I be able to apply the benefits of Improved Bull Rush and even Greater Bull Rush to my hydraulic push SLA? I'm not planning on doing this (if nothing else, it would be a lot of work to qualify for these feats given an undine's Strength penalty), but maybe a more martial character might want to try it.

The broom of flying says that you can name any destination on the same plane (as long as you have a clear idea of it), and if it's not carrying a rider, the activation lasts until the broom gets there. If you've been there (maybe a trip through an aiudara?), could you use this to ship up to 30 Bulk of items to Castrovel? Very.... very......... slowly? I mean, sure, it only goes 4 miles per hour so it will take... um... quite a few millennia to get there. But there doesn't seem to be anything preventing it.

This isn't really an erratum about the content but about the formatting, specifically of the PDF version. All of the bookmarks to the various sections of the book go to the right places. However, they also forcibly set the zoom level to 50%, apparently overriding even "accessibility" options (at least on Acrobat Reader DC). 50% zoom is COMPLETELY UNREADABLE on a 17" 4k monitor. The actual displayed size of the pages is about 2" by 3". This makes the bookmarks near-completely useless, since I have to go and set the zoom to something sensible (like "Fit Width", which is what I literally always want). Please, PLEASE, fix these bookmarks to use "Inherit Zoom", which just means "don't mess with the user's zoom options."

The Core Rulebook and Lost Omens Character Guide have the same problem, but at least they set the zoom to Fit One Full Page, which is somewhat reasonable. But still, they really shouldn't be messing with my zoom settings. But the Lost Omens World Guide being fixed at 50% is just not usable.

Crafting & Treasure: The table on 543 also has elixir of life, lesser listed as a 1st level item; it should be elixir of life, lesser to match other errata.

And of course this should actually be "elixir of life, minor". Turns out, errata are hard! It's easy to get confused!

I'm going through and applying the Errata to my CRB. Here's a running list of the remaining questions I've had, or places where I suspect an erratum should have been applied but wasn't called out. I would appreciate confirmation or clarification on any of these!

Alchemist: the erratum removing "you created" from the improved mutagen feats should probably also apply to Glib Mutagen. However, the erratum actually does nothing on Persistent Mutagen, because that feat still only applies to Infused items; or if it's supposed to work for Persistent Mutagen, it should probably also apply to Eternal Elixir.

Champion: Instrument of Zeal should require the paladin cause rather than the tenets of good, since it doesn't do anything for non-paladins.

Cleric: Should the erratum adding unarmed attacks to other proficiency improvements be included in the assorted Doctrines that specifically increase the cleric's favored weapon? It says to apply it to any effect that improves "a specific set of weapons", and I suppose a single item is still technically a set, but it seems unfair for clerics of Irori, and it doesn't really make any sense.

Cleric: Deadly Simplicity's prerequisites should allow deities with unarmed attack as their favored weapon.

Sorcerer: The sidebar erratum for Bespell Weapon's level is backwards: it should be changed from 6 to 4 to match the feat.

Spells: Polar Ray is also missing the Attack trait. (Possibly other spells as well, I just happened to notice this one.)

Crafting & Treasure: The table on 543 also has elixir of life, lesser listed as a 1st level item; it should be elixir of life, lesser to match other errata.

Crafting & Treasure: Belladonna isn't an injury poison, but the erratum about applying injury poisons being 2 actions includes it.

Thanks to Paizo for this great product and customer support!

PC will get a free grapple check to avoid being grappled if you try to pull him more than 10ft off the ground. So be aware of that.

Really? I missed that rule. Repositioning during a grapple says that the target gets a free attempt at +4 to break free if you try to reposition him into something hazardous (examples given are over a pit or into a wall of fire). However, our roc is using the "hold" rules from the grab special ability, which doesn't seem to grant any kind of extra chance to break free for walking away (or flying away) while holding the target. If the monster had the swallow whole ability, it could easily fly off with a PC in its stomach; why should this be any different?

I second the being careful with fire sentiment. Last time I played an alchemist, I burned down two ships I was traveling on.

Eh. As well all know, a ship in an adventure game is nothing more than a device which is designed to burn, sink, break apart, explode, or otherwise suffer some form of ill-explained existence failure within a day after the last hero steps aboard. So I wouldn't worry about burning your ship down around you, because at worst you're only hastening its inevitable doom.

(Seriously, when's the last time you ever heard of heroes actually getting where they wanted to be on the first try by sailing there? Yeah, me neither. Shipwrecks are dramatic, and therefore mandatory.)

Well, the roc entry does specifically say that this is a roc's favorite food preparation technique, so let's make sure it's actually possible.

The Snatch feat allows creatures to start a grapple with particular attacks as though they had the grab ability. Of course, your roc already has the grab ability! So it doesn't need Snatch to pick up enemies.

The Snatch feat also permits flinging, which acts more or less like a bull rush (causing enemies to move involuntarily). You only need this if you want to launch your enemies horizontally from your roc's current location; if you just want to drop them vertically, you can do that anyway, just by ending the grapple (unless your target has somehow managed to reverse the grapple on you; not very likely against the roc's CMD of 37).

So the only impediment to this plan is that, normally grappled creatures (such as a creature using the grab special) can't fly, because they can't move. You can use the special wording in the grab ability to try to hold your target in just the talons, but that reduces your roc's CMB to +9, which is... still pretty decent, actually. That's probably enough for your roc to keep wimpy characters grappled long enough to carry them 200 feet into the air, and then drop them. Stronger characters with better CMD will probably get dropped halfway up though, when you botch one of your rolls to maintain the grapple. It takes 5 rounds to get up to 200 feet, unless you have a handy cliff to jump off of (not an uncommon feature of roc territory).

Note that holding with a single limb doesn't appear to reduce the roc's CMD against a target actively trying to escape the grapple; I think this is an oversight, personally, and it should probably have the same -20 penalty, but it should also add +4 to the roc's CMD for the same purpose. It probably balances out.

My point was, you can use the CRB as an Expert Beginner Box (if that's not a contradiction). It's about 95% compatible with the BB, where they overlap, and the very few discrepancies might not even be noticed the first time through. If you're not happy with the amount of rules made available by the CRB, throw them out! Don't understand combat maneuvers? Gone! Can't figure out what a particular spell is supposed to do? Strike it from the list! Can't get your head around the intricacies of two-weapon fighting? Don't do that, then! The game is surprisingly robust to home modifications of this nature. Even fairly major (but complicated) systems like ability damage can be removed: if you just ignore all mentions of it, and avoid using spells that deal it or monsters for whom it's a primary mechanic, the game lurches along just fine, at least through 10th level or so.

As you gain more familiarity with the game, you can (and probably should) consider reinstating some of the systems you threw out during your transition from the Beginner Box. Regardless, Paizo is absolutely never, ever going to make an "extension" for the beginner box, because doing so would very obviously split their customer base, which is automatic death for any niche industry.

American half-dollars are almost extinct precisely because they're so difficult to use, and 2 Euro coins, while not extinct, are certainly much rarer than the smaller and more convenient denominations. I get pairs of single Euros in change at stores much more often than I get the double Euros.

Huh. When I was in Greece a few years ago I constantly got the huge 2 Euro coins. Which threw me for a hell of a loop, because as an American I'm not used to coinage actually being worth money, and I was living in Qatar at the time (where the coins really aren't worth anything and no one uses them), so looking at a handful of change comprising maybe a dozen coins and realizing it was worth about $15 inspired some cognitive dissonance. At least those big bi-metallic suckers are attractive and obvious; they actually make decent souvenirs, which I'm sure drives EU monetary regulators crazy.

The half-dollar is nigh-extinct because it's not a very useful increment between the quarter and the dollar. $2 bills and $50 bills are essentially extinct for the same reason, and $10 bills are becoming increasingly uncommon too (at least, the cafeteria at my office never seems to have any). Except, of course, at casinos, where $50 bills and especially half-dollars are extremely common because of the advantage (from the casino's point of view) that they're kind of hard to spend anywhere other than the casino itself. If quarters were redesigned to be the size of half-dollars (and soda machines across the country were universally retrofitted to accept the new ones), I think people would be a lot happier to use them; even quarters are too easy to lose at the bottom of your pocket.

If you want to argue that a coin as large as a gold piece, which has an effective buying power of a hundred dollar bill, should be large and classy, I can't really argue with you (although, as you point out, the solidus was even more valuable and much smaller). But in Pathfinder, the simple copper piece also weighs ten grams and is the size of a half-dollar,.... in fact, it's even larger than the gold piece due to metal density.

My point was that I feel like the given uniform weights for PF coins suggest that they are not solid bullion, even copper pieces. I would assume they're mostly nickel, coated with pure metal; or, more fancifully, bimetallic coins (like the double Euro) with a core of pure metal surrounded by a ring of a sturdier base alloy to resist clipping and sweating. (C.f. Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, which uses standard-sized gemstones encased in glass spheres as money.) So copper pieces aren't larger than gold pieces (for the same weight), they just contain more pure copper, while gold pieces contain a fairly small amount of actual gold.

At 9 grams each, I agree they would be pretty aggravating to carry around in very large quantities, but the world assumption is that only adventurers would actually need to do that anyway. Even well-to-do townsfolk would manage with just a pouch containing 20-30 cp and 5-10 sp at a time (think $50-$200, which is what most middle-class Americans carry today) and maybe an emergency gold piece stuffed in their boot, with the remainder of their coined wealth stuffed under their bed, or behind a fake flagstone in their hearth, or whatever. This pouch weighs less than a pound and contains plenty of money for even a fairly significant grocery run and a visit to the tavern. If I'm trying to buy five pounds of flour, a dozen eggs, five candles, and two tankards of ale, neither the chandler, the barmaid, nor I want to be fiddling with dime-sized coins to do it. If you've ever worked in a diner, how many of you have discovered a dime out of your tip stuck to the table because it landed in a puddle of coffee? That doesn't happen to bigger thicker coins; they're easier to pick up.

Villagers and rural peasants, of course, only keep coinage for the purpose of paying taxes (in jurisdictions where paying taxes in kind isn't allowed), and generally don't carry more than a few copper pieces.

Larger purchases that actually do require hundreds of platinum pieces would presumably be transacted in chests, notes-of-credit against major organization treasuries (kingdoms or major churches, typically), or solid bullion, and would in any case be attended by well-paid guards during the actual transfer of payment and goods. This doesn't happen often enough for the inconvenience to become a problem.

Personally I assume that the coins in Pathfinder are not actually solid bullion; they just bear an official stamp that means "this coin contains the appropriate amount of pure metal for its notional value." Of course such coins can be shaved, clipped, counterfeited, &c; I assume the assorted world powers in Golarion take at least the kind of precautions against such shenanigans that 10th century European powers did (milled edges, hard-to-reproduce stamps, &c).

The reason PF coins are so heavy at 10 grams is that using lighter, smaller coins as actual money is fiddly and difficult. 10g is about the weight of a modern 2 Euro coin or American half-dollar, which are both huge classy coins that you couldn't lose if you tried. (This is why the Susan B Anthony silver dollar was phased out; it looked and felt too much like a quarter, but had four times the value.) If you assume that the PF coins are mostly base metals with only an appropriate coating of precious metal, it's likely that they are about the size of 2 Euro coins, as well. Who here actually considers coins smaller than quarters (or Euro-quarters?) to be real money? Yeah, I didn't think so.

For historical comparisons, Orfamay pointed out the 4.5g Roman solidus, but solidi were really too valuable to be used for everyday expenses (at almost 150,000 antoninani when they were introduced, and only increasing from there as the antoninanus was increasingly debased). They were generally only used for international trade, for which they traded at weight, just like any other bullion. The argentus was created at roughly the same time, a less-debased silver coin which was officially worth 1/10 of a solidus (sounds familiar?). In addition, the solidus replaced the aureus, which was standardized by Julius Caesar at a little over 8 grams and worth 25 silver denarii, closer to the PF size. (This was before the denarius and the related antoninanus were so absurdly debased.) Later gold coins (English and British sovereigns) were mostly minted in this same 7-10 gram range; US Gold Eagles (worth $10) were about twice this weight.

The guidance I've always received for actual values is to think of 1sp as basically equivalent to a US dollar, with the caveat that food and lodging are considerably cheaper in a medieval economy than in modern times, and the wealth distribution curve is a lot steeper. So if you want to tip the porter for lugging all your crap up to your room in the inn, a couple of cp is appropriate (maybe 10% of his daily wages).

Paul Zagieboylo wrote:

Now what I've always wondered is: why is there no "improved" version of alter self that gives you more special abilities such as a troglodyte's stench, or a kobold's natural armor bonus; or allow you to take the form of monstrous humanoids (c.f beast form III permitting magical beasts)? There's giant form for most of the more useful humanoids, but it's still a hole in the polymorph system.

There is.

Aha. I don't have UM so I usually turn it off when browsing the PRD. Still, this doesn't allow ordinary humanoids, although it really doesn't matter that much; the very few abilities that non-giant humanoids possess can be acquired in other ways. Thanks!

Now what I've always wondered is: why is there no "improved" version of alter self that gives you more special abilities such as a troglodyte's stench, or a kobold's natural armor bonus; or allow you to take the form of monstrous humanoids (c.f beast form III permitting magical beasts)? There's giant form for most of the more useful humanoids, but it's still a hole in the polymorph system.

At a guess, Wandering Wizard's GM might be whining about a boggard's tongue attack, which has some weird special ability rules associated with it. I say it's still clearly a natural attack granted by alter self, but the fact that Sticky Tongue (Ex) isn't specifically granted by alter self may be a sticking point (hee hee) for a particularly obsessive GM who's a real stickler (ok, I'll stop) for exact rules.

Paizo already makes an "expert rules" version of the Beginner Box. It's called the Core Rulebook. No one said you have to use all the complicated rules in the book; as a GM you can slim it down as much as you like without really breaking the system too badly at low levels.

No, because in order to craft the magical item, you must first have the mundane masterwork item fully made. The "magical crafting time" is just for the enchantment. In this case it still takes the 6 years or so to make the ordinary thing, and then a couple more weeks to enchant it.

Adjule is right. When Wizards of the Coast originally designed these Craft rules for D&D 3.0, they didn't really expect anyone to use them, ever. As a result, they... don't really work. At all. Ever. Paizo didn't change it because in the early days of Pathfinder they wanted to stay as compatible as possible, and this utter failure of a craft system isn't, in the long run, especially important to adventurers, except for gnomes using the Master Tinker alternate racial trait.

The pamphlet Adjule was trying to remember is indeed "Making Craft Work", by Spes Magna Games, and you can buy it right here on Paizo from http://paizo.com/products/btpy8ffg?Making-Craft-Work. It's only 8 pages, but on the other hand it's only one dollar. It's not perfect, but it's better than the built-in system. This may seem to be damning with faint praise, and it is, but still, worth a read.

The problems with this dagger are 1) its ludicrously high retail value, such that it's kind of a problem to sell; and 2) the fact that no adventurer can use it. A Tiny light weapon gets shifted off the scale even for Small adventurers. I personally would rule that a Small adventurer can throw it but not wield it in melee, but I have no rules support for this position (and it's a moot point anyway, all of my PCs are Medium).

So the PCs probably want to sell it, but they're unlikely to find a decent buyer in Sandpoint, they're unlikely to have the time for a trip to Magnimar themselves, and they're unlikely to trust anyone in Sandpoint enough to act as their agent for a sale that valuable (except maybe Sheriff Hemlock, who has already left for Magnimar by the time the PCs find Erylium).

I was previously wondering why it was cold iron (since all that accomplishes is make it more dangerous for Erylium), but another thread pointed out that Erylium actually needs it to be able to injure herself so she can summon sinspawn. So that answers that!

Spoiler:

Oops! Looks like that little inconsistency slipped through dev/editing. Yes, you're correct. The map and the description in D4 are accurate, while the text of D10 should read "He bears the glowing red sigil of Daegros on his left hand, which can be used to open the door to area D13." The text of D13 should read "The door to this room is locked with an arcane lock effect that can be dispelled by a creature wearing Daegros's red sigil."

Mat Black wrote:

so, reading through the accursed halls leaves me with a question. the map says that the scale is 1 square equals ten feet, but the text descriptions seem like the scale should be 1 square equals five feet. which is correct?

1 square equals 10 feet. Just so I can get a clearer idea of what you're referring to, which read-aloud boxes seem to contradict this?

The other one I see that seems to strongly suggest the map scale being 5 feet is:

My questions though: