SandersonTavares's page

Here's my idea: I hate the kingdom rules, even if the very helpful Vance and Kerenshara rules make them a tad better. However, I'd like to not scrap them, but instead overcharge them in a way that 1 kingdom turn (and the rolls associated with them) mean 3 months instead of one. I could simply triple the XP and the leveling would feel ok, but what about buildings and advancements. Can someone advise me on it?

Title. Investigator PC is going to fight a Grim Reaper. They are inside the GR's Aura of Misfortune. Investigator wants do Devise a Stratagem. What happens?

1)They declare intent to do it, use an action, and nothing happens. If they want to Strike the reaper later, they must roll twice, take the lowest, and not use Intelligence.

2)They declare intent to do it, use an action, nothing happens. If they want to Strike the reaper later, they roll only once, but can't add Intelligence.

3)Something else?

I'd like someone to point me to a clear rule, if possible, but I'm open to discussion.

It's been a contentious topic on most forums and groups I've been a part of. On one hand, it would feel awful to have an 8th level spell be countered by very low level resources, and on the other, some people think it's absurd that the spell is essentially uncounterable other than by seeking and counteracting. I'm on the first camp.

I hope we can leave behind questions about weapon property runes triggering golem antimagic, and the whole "is targeting enough or do i have to hit with a ray of frost to trigger" etc.

So, I won't pretend that I'm the first or 80th person to talk about this, but after experiencing it live throughout a whole campaign, I legit think adding more voices to the chorus of people asking for errata is a good thing.

If for whatever reason you're not convinced, I'll echo some classic points about these effects:

1)They allow characters with Attacks of Opportunity to Pronelock an enemy, a kind of cheap strategy that even Paizo themselves have said, with regards to Stand Still and some reaction timings, that is NOT their intention.

2)Every single critical specializtion effect in the game that occurs without saving throws has very minor but strategic effects, like shoving them one or two squares, making them flat-footed (something that can be accomplished by flanking as well, so not very valuable in some cases but clutch in certain party makeups). Every one that does something that eats up actions, like making them slowed or stunned has a saving throw. The halfway point would be bows, which immobilize, costing an action, sure, but it's a mostly optional action most of the time, and doesn't hinder the creature's defensive or offensive capabilities, only their positioning.

The aberration that is flail/hammer crit spec screws all that over. Making an enemy prone means automatically making them flat-footed (which, as swords demonstrate, is fair without a save) WHILE ALSO giving them a -2 penalty on all melee attacks and depriving them of any movement actions other than standing or crawling. And with the way reactions work, any attempt at standing up may lead to the pronelock.

Anyway, this is, admittedly, an old issue that has been beaten to death, but much like some changes took a while to come on the recent erratas, I can only hope Paizo has not completely closed their minds off to the idea of errataing this to need a saving throw.

And yes, it's a very simple house rule, but PFS exists and some groups really like to use the rules as they stand, which mostly works fine.

TL;DR: Please Paizo make Crit Spec for Flail/Hammer require a saving throw. The idea that knocking someone prone (and being able to keep them there if you have AoO) is as weak/strong as just making them flat-footed or shoving them 5 feet is insane.

This may seem like an obvious question, but hear my reasoning. The rules for flat checks are very specific and unambiguous at a first glance.

When the chance something will happen or fail to happen is based purely on chance, you’ll attempt a flat check. A flat check never includes any modifiers, bonuses, or penalties— you just roll a d20 and compare the result on the die to the DC. Only abilities that specifically apply to flat checks can change the checks’ DCs; most such effects affect only certain types of flat checks.

If more than one flat check would ever cause or prevent the same thing, just roll once and use the highest DC. In the rare circumstance that a flat check has a DC of 1 or lower, skip rolling; you automatically succeed. Conversely, if one ever has a DC of 21 or higher, you automatically fail.

So reading that, it makes sense to me that a flat check cannot be modified by rolling a 1 or a 20, given that it would render the bolded sentence invalid.

However, and any experienced player knows where I'm going with this, Recovery checks read as follows:

When you’re dying, at the start of each of your turns, you must attempt a flat check with a DC equal to 10 + your current dying value to see if you get better or worse. This is called a recovery check. The effects of this check are as follows.

Critical Success Your dying value is reduced by 2.

Success Your dying value is reduced by 1.

Failure Your dying value increases by 1.

Critical Failure Your dying value increases by 2.

Using our brains it's easy to see that the lowest possible DC for a flat check, not counting feats that alter it, is 11. Which means that if natural 20s don't influence a flat check, it's impossible to get a critical success on a Recovery check.

Common sense leads me to believe that the intended behavior is that 20s and 1s still matter on flat checks, but it would still warrant a change in the bolded sentence on my first quote.

Another reason this is relevant is because of the new variant crafting rules in Treasure Vault, where a character crafting a lower level item could have to make a Flat Check with a Negative DC. While impossible to fail, if Nat 1s matter, then you might still ruin your crafted item with bad luck.

This came up on a session of mine. A troop with weakness 15 to area damage got hit by an Eclipse Burst and then a Frigid Flurry. Both are clearly area spells and deal damage in two types. The general rule is absolutely clear, the weakness applies per type of damage. But it does seem a little bit on the Too Good To Be True. I'd love that to be clarified.

Just for adding to the discussion, this rule exists:

If more than one weakness would apply to the same instance of damage, use only the highest applicable weakness value. This usually happens only when a monster is weak to both a type of physical damage and a given material.

It still doesn't perfectly answer my question, mainly because the definition of an "instance of damage" is not given at any point that I can recall.

Hey guys. I'm a big fan of the way EXP is handled on 2E, and I have no intention of abandoning it in favor of milestones (though I'd do it if I had to).

The thing is, as I'm nearing the end of book 5, it occurs to me that there is WAY too much EXP on this book and the beginning of the next.

Now, the book is vague enough with the milestone suggestions. "The PCs should be level x before y." That's the usual format, which is very much open to interpretations. The thing is, for example, if I track EXP correctly, my PCs would reach level 18 on the way to fight the book 5 boss, for example. I'm aware of the fact that there should be some extra EXP because many groups will miss parts of it, but a huge chunk of the adventure is unmissable, so it's pretty impossible to not be overleveled pretty early on, I think.

How have you guys dealt with that, particularly on the last two books? (I hadn't felt this with any book all the way up to book 4).

As per the title. A rogue player in my game attempted to use the Critical Debilitation Feat against a creature that was immune to paralysis. The enemy had a critical failure. Being that they were immune to paralysis, I didn't know if I had the grounds to confirm that they should suffer the effects of a normal failure instead. It feels dumb that crit failing is BETTER than failing in this case, but i'd like to know if there is an official ruling about this kind of interaction.

So, I present to you version 0.1 of The Nonlethalist Archetype, created to fulfill the need for a more sensible approach to the problem presented in Agents of Edgewatch. I'd love some feedback on my work!

Hi. My players have gained access to the teleport spell, and one of them said they would like to take a trip to Absalom for shopping eventually(when they get to level 13, since the distance from Breachill to Absalom is about 700 miles). The thing is, it has been established time and time again that Absalom is THE city where you'll probably find every item you're looking for. If you look at it levelwise, it's safe to say that if not level 20, Absalom is definitely somewhere above 15. The devs from Extinction Curse themselves said that shopping on that AP is not much of an issue because they assume players will travel to Absalom and get whatever they want.

My point is exactly what the title says. Will my game be severely broken if players are allowed to ocasionally teleport to Absalom for shopping? I mean, they still need to have the money to spend, after all, I'm just worried because city level for shopping has been a major hurdle they had to deal with so far, and I'm not sure it's intended for the adventure to lose that aspect.

As per the title. The Lich has an action called Drain Phylactery, which is a free action that can be used once per day to cast any arcane spell up to the highest level that they can cast, even if they don't have it prepared. The exact wording is:

"The lich taps into its phylactery’s power to cast any arcane spell up to 6th level, even if the spell being cast is not one of the lich’s prepared spells. The lich’s phylactery doesn’t need to be present for the lich to use this ability."

Is the intent for the spell to be cast as a free action? Or does the action only enable the Lich to then cast the spell using the required actions as per the spell they choose? Because this is bizarrely strong if it's the first case (and, given the nature of liches and the once per day restriction, MIGHT be ok).

Stone Giants have an ability called Big Swing, that pushes an enemy 10-20 feet, and if they collide with a wall or land on the ground(a very confusing clause, by the way, given that an enemy that is on the same level as the giant will technically always land on the ground) they take damage as if they had fallen that distance.

Does that mean a character with cat fall will potentially negate all damage from being thrown to a wall? It makes no sense to me and is easily addressed by a ruling on the table, but I would love to know the intent.

Hi folks, bestiary/creature question here.

Both the Shadow and the Greater Shadow have an ability called Shadow Spawn. It reads as follows:

Shadow:

When a creature’s shadow is pulled free by Steal Shadow, it becomes a shadow spawn under the command of the shadow that created it. This shadow spawn doesn’t have Steal Shadow and is perpetually and incurably clumsy 2. If the creature the shadow spawn was pulled from dies, the shadow spawn becomes a full-fledged, autonomous shadow. If the creature recovers from its Enfeeblement, its shadow returns to it and the shadow spawn is extinguished.

Seems pretty clear to me that you just replicate a shadow sheet, add Clumsy 2 and remove the ability to generate more. Now for the Greater Shadow version:

When a creature’s shadow is pulled free by Steal Shadow, it becomes a shadow spawn under the command of the greater shadow that created it. This shadow spawn doesn’t have Steal Shadow. If the creature the shadow spawn was pulled from dies, the shadow spawn becomes a full-fledged, autonomous shadow. If the creature recovers from its Enfeeblement, its shadow returns to it and the shadow spawn is extinguished.

Now here's the issue: apart from no longer being Clumsy 2, what is the difference between this "Shadow Spawn" and the one generated by the regular shadows?

My question, in TL;DR form is as follows:

When a Greater Shadow spawns a new shadow:

A)It uses the stats for a regular level 4 shadow minus the ability to generate a new one.
B)It uses the stats for a greater shadow (level 7) minus the ability to generate a new one.

Which one is it? And is there official confirmation?

Hi. Sorry, this seems like something someone else has probably asked before, but for the life of me my search didn't find the answer.

Very basic question, looking for the strictest RAW possible:

Imagine a fighter with a +1 striking bastard sword does a power attack with two hands, do they cause 4d12 damage(ignoring modifiers) or do they cause 3d12? I used to think so, but then I realized that power attack scales with level, and if that's true, the tendency is for the numbers to get completely ridiculous, because a level 10 fighter with the same sword would deal 6d12 on one strike(with a level 4 magic item) and a level 18 would deal 8d12. The problem gets more bizarre if you add the higher level striking runes.

The logic that defends this argument for adding the striking runes is in page 279, where it says:

Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune. They don’t count extra dice from abilities, critical specialization effects, property runes, weapon traits, or the like.

.

That would make sense for power attack if it didn't scale with level, but since it does, I'm hard pressed to believe that the intent is for a level 18 fighter with the right rune to deal 12d12 damage every turn with two actions. I am aware the fighter is meant to be a beast but this seems a bit overboard.

Power Attack reads:

You unleash a particularly powerful attack that clobbers your foe but leaves you a bit unsteady. Make a melee Strike. This counts as two attacks when calculating your multiple attack penalty. If this Strike hits, you deal an extra die of weapon damage. If you’re at least 10th level, increase this to two extra dice, and if you’re at least 18th level, increase it to three extra dice.

It can easily be read to only add 1d12 instead of adding more, and then that scaling with level would lead a level 18 to deal 7d12 damage with two actions, which makes it strategically sound. Just confirm I'm not going insane hahaha. Thanks and sorry for the long post.

Sorry for the vague title, this is because I am not entirely sure of the spoiler policy here. I'm making this post because I have not found a thread addressing the fact that

Can anyone explain to me if I'm wrong?

Title. I ask because certain conditions say "penalty to your dex DCs, including your AC", but if something says it is a penalty(or bonus) to ALL my DCs, generically, does that include AC? So for example, the Frightened condition affects AC?

Hi, I have a doubt about the way the Rupture mechanic functions. The game says, about enemies with the Swallow Whole Action:

"If the monster takes piercing or slashing damage equaling or exceeding the listed Rupture value from a single attack or spell, the engulfed creature cuts itself free. A creature that gets free by either Escaping or cutting itself free can immediately breathe and exits the swallowing monster’s space."

Does this mean that the Rupture damage can come from a creature OUTSIDE the creature? The way I read it, it seems like it, but then the game goes on to say:

"If the monster dies, a swallowed creature can be freed by creatures adjacent to the corpse if they spend a combined total of 3 actions cutting the monster open with a weapon or unarmed attack that deals piercing or slashing damage."

So, is this to imply that my first impression was wrong and creatures outside the engulfing creature can only help after it's dead?

Would love some official reply here, thanks!

Hello, a couple of questions if I may, since I've just ran my first playtest game(homebrew one-shot adventure, level 3)

I am aware that to keep a spell going on further rounds you have to use the Concentrate On Spell action, but if I cast a Spell like Flaming Sphere, which deals damage when it appears and on the same turn I still have an action, can I concentrate to deal damage again? Where in the rules does it say I can't?

Also, this a spell that is worded peculiarly. It has a 30 foot range, which is pretty straight-forward, I choose a point in that range, the sphere appears, I deal damage. But the next time I concentrate on the spell I can move it to any point WITHIN RANGE. Does that mean that I can move the sphere up to 30 feet from the SPHERE'S actual location or from mine, the spellcaster? I mean, could I just double Stride and move the Sphere something ridiculous like 110 feet from where it was when my turn began?