Slithery D's page

Thomas LeBlanc wrote:

I asked Wes during his AMA last night if Absalom Station was created before, during, or after the Gap. ** spoiler omitted **

That is an interesting response, as I can see some obvious problems with Absalom Station being created before or after the Gap.

Before: That would imply that somebody is capable of creating Absalom Station in the "now" of the Pathfinder universe.

It's thousands of years in the future. The only thing the AI god is known to have given mortals as a gift is hyperspace travel. Everything else (space ships, space stations, high tech weapons, etc.) has to be presumed to be native tech developed naturally. I have no problem seeing Absalom Station as a huge mortal built project that happened to sit directly above the original Absalom, connected by a space elevator. After Golarion disappeared the gods cut the tether and let it float loose, maybe with a few former Golarion inhabitants teleported aboard.

The rules problem isn't so much whether you're a permanent ghost (I think you clearly are), but how to handle Rejuvenation and a permanent method to kill the ghost. Taking away Rejuvenation seems ok to me, but that would just be GM fiat and takes a lot of the power of the template away.

Coaxing Spell is the metamagic to affect oozes with mind-affecting spells.

You can't undie from not completing the boon, so the only consequences of not doing it after you're a ghost is that you don't get the other boons, include the +2 DC to Illusion. But you're permanently a ghost at that point.

Signature Skill, enough ranks in Intimidate, and a success high enough gets you frightened, panicked, or cowered for one round.

Possession isn't mind affecting, and the caster survives if he's killed in his stolen body. Mind Swap doesn't have either of those benefits.

Psychic should have Protection from Evil.

I think Pathfinders would make more use of Zohls, archon of investigation and truth, if she was supported a bit more.

Her alignment restrictions are annoying. I wish she were NG. Lawful is the worst alignment.

The Surgeon Robot (check Archives of Nethys) can surgically restore sight.

I decided not to argue that, as I expected his response to be that everyone opposes everyone for the right to be first or at least ahead of others. Which I don't buy, as I think there is a clear "winner" and "loser" in an opposed check, not just a sorting among all participants. But I didn't care for five pages of back and forth, it's been done.

The only robot construct rules are in the 5th volume of the Iron Gods AP. You cannot make them with Craft Construct at all, let alone modify them. You need different feats, an appropriate lab that your GM lets you have, and a power source that your GM lets you have.

Flumphs are goofy.

Has Adam Daigle ever cut you?

Deifiic Obedience boons tend to be much weaker than the others, so I see potential balance issues. This already the most powerful PrC.

^Yes, but somebody who is actually from the corresponding cuture might have a better chance of making something that will sell, provided that they can make the bridge to the main existing audience.

Nothing about the history of English language published stories set in other cultures or lands suggest this is true.

One would think that Numeria's tech would have accelerated technological development such that interstellar travel would be an option within a few hundred years, not a few thousand.

Numeria's tech has had precisely zero effect on anyone but the Technic League for the last several millennia. What's special about the next few hundred years?

(The official timeline doesn't assume all the APs happen, and certainly can't guarantee a given outcome afterwards.)

The wrong logo appearing on the first printing of the Advanced Class Guide had absolutely nothing to do with speed or deadlines. Every product we produce has a step where, right before the book goes to the printer, multiple people verify that it has the right logos, bar codes, product numbers, price, "printed in" country, OGL statement, trademark notifications, and more, and at that time, the cover had the correct logo.

But several weeks after we send files to the printer, we receive a digital proof of the press-ready files. At this point in the process, we're just doing a technical review—we shouldn't be changing content at this point. We're just making sure the fonts rendered correctly, image and text layers rendered correctly, the spine design is properly aligned with where the cover will be folded, color and contrast have been maintained, and so on. In this case, we needed to correct a technical issue on the cover that was unrelated to the logo, but when we uploaded the final corrected file, the file's link to the RPG logo had accidentally been relinked to the AP logo. This is the exact moment that our baby bird leaves the nest; once we reach this point in the process, nobody at Paizo sees the product again until we receive our firstbound samples from the printer, by which time the entire print run is already on its way to us.

It wasn't a lack of care, or a lack of time. It was a simple mistake, made during the last possible moment, during a time when this sort of thing wouldn't intentionally change, after all of the people responsible for checking these things had already done the job they were supposed to do.

I think "ACG debacle" refers more to the actual content. The entire design of the Swashbuckler class, awful things like the original Divine Protection feat, the many (many) editing errors in the text, etc. The cover mistake was just a cosmetic symptom of the fundamental rot within. It felt like you outsourced the book to the random know-nothing freelancers writing for Catalyst on the Shadowrun line the last time I checked in on that dumpster fire.

But, hey, Occult Adventures and Ultimate Intrigue were great books, so congrats on turning it around. You definitely won some of us back.

A developer clarified that at this time the FAQ applies only to what it covers (explicitly mentioning levels no less) so currently they are unnamed bonuses, which stack. We can spend days arguing whether they should or not, but as is thems the rules.

Developer comments have no rules weight, thems actually the rules, unless in a FAQ or published by the PDT account. We can only interpret the FAQ in light of its own language and the other rules.

They are going to publish something! The thing that they think makes them some combination of the most money and the most staff happiness, depending on internal dynamics and power relationships. Both those things are going to be influenced by the expected happiness of their customers, so it may influence them away from what you specifically want to see.

I thought that was part of your point, though, the "not racist enough" contingent would probably reduce their sales for that compared to something made up from whole cloth and wholly original. If Arcadia has empires that do universally have writing and the (non-toy use of the) wheel but don't have human sacrifice and lots of intertribal conflict what was the point in basing it (to whatever thin degree), they might say, on a real culture and time period?

Does a Fighter Weapon Training bonus come from the Weapon Training ability or the (level based) formula? Because if the latter, any other ability that gave damage bonuses at levels 5, 9, 13, or 17 would be duplicative under the "level is the source" ruling. That would seem weird! And yet directly analogous to the straight "add half your level" calculation.

I happen to think Chess Pwn is right from a common sense standpoint, Ssalarn is right from a "what deeply flawed 'logic' would the PDT apply if forced to answer this question" view. The correct answer is to apply it the former way now and curse them later.

You'd think the facial scars from standing in the front ranks without a mask would have fixed that problem.

Being afraid of people on the internet is silly.

It's not silly if you're in a business that does a lot of sales and customer relations through the internet. Not making people mad (and deleting forum posts that make your company or employees look incompetent or silly) are defensible in that circumstance.

Odraude wrote:

As for Tian Xia, I've pretty much accepted that we aren't getting that or Arcadia anymore. It's just not in the cards. It doesn't sell well enough and nobody else really wants it. Which is fine. I can always do a Native American fantasy world myself.

Excuse me, but i think that is nonsense.

Someone said that a long time ago, it was hinted that 2 books which came out a very long time ago didn´t sell that well, and people just repeat it over and over, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Maybe you wanna rethink that. A lot has changed since then.
Additionaly, things sell when they get hyped.

Things sell well when there is natural hype. Grassroots demand, not astroturf.

The spell for transmitting a clear (not loud) message at a very long range is Mage's Decree.

This is my favorite rules question ever.

Also, these are both vigilante talents, that are clearly designed to be possible to be taken together. If they don't stack, it's a deliberate trap option. Absent any other ruling, I rule on the side that allows an ability to work.

Why is it clear that they are designed to be compatible? This is Pathfinder, deliberate trap options happen all the time.

I actually think the Spiritualist is fine as a support, healer, debuff, or crowd control role. I suggest checking out this guide. It really helped me understand the strengths and weaknesses of the phantom types.

Your best 1st level spell, incidentally, is Cause Fear combined with a phantom that is incorporeal and focused on Intimidate debuffs. If Frightened is a good enough condition you can target different creatures, or you can double up (or pick up the spare if the phantom gets more than 1 round of Shaken duration) for a Panicked effect. Divide and conquer.

Can't remember the name, but it puts your book in a safe location on the Ethereal Plane indefinitely. You can bring it back with a standard action. Burn a 1st level slot every day to keep your primary book safe, or one once for a backup.

F=MxA. There's no way to make that incredible in a setting with actual guns. Your mass and your acceleration are capped by the bow form.

There's a 1st level spell in Magic Tactics Toolbox that allows you to easily and permanently stash a spell book for retrieval, making that a worry of the past.

"Albeit in Tome of Horrors" was supposed to give that away. Its only rival for most famous 3PP is the Dreamscarred psionics stuff, IMO. Paizo tends to include at least one ToH monster in each recent AP.

No, only class features that say they add spells to your class list can do that. There's a FAQ that applies, but phone posting so I can't find it.

Camera crews can visit the Outer Planes, do a documentary, and broadcast a view of Heaven and Hell to all the Arcologies in the solar system.

People would still worship the gods.

Rysky wrote:

Erastil isn't a god governing one set of traditions in one specific country. He's a primordial deity spanning the universe and all the traditions therein.

Unlikely since surely there aretradition about marriage that are not LG, like for example a place where is "cool" for a husband to punish his woman.

If she was acting in an evil way and his punishment was in accordance with the laws and traditions of his society, why wouldn't that be LG behavior on the husband's part? It's just delegation of just punishment to the lowest possible level.

Edit: Seems some published lore contradicted James' statements....interesting. Still James vision of her is decidedly different from the way many people appear to picture Pharasma. And even if she did join the fight against Rovagug, so did Asmodeus.

There's a 3.5 era AP article that suggests Pharasma helped against Rovagug, but it also said Nethys did, and he under current lore didn't exist yet. There may have been a couple of others like that. I take all of that stuff as retconned when the history of the gods and Golarion got more settled.

Correction, Cunning Caster and Subtle Devices were from Heroes of the Streets.

Conceal Spell is the feat from Ultimate Intrigue.

It seems like all of the evil aligned planes might have different "yield rates" for souls becoming outsiders. Is this accurate, with one type of petitioner (larvae, hunted, damned) more likely to become an outsider of some sort than the others?

Vague estimates based on what I understand of planar lore:

The Abyss loses some unknown number of larvae to random predation and mishaps, but several lesser demon types also produce several demons per larvae once they transform. (Others, like Balors, usually require several larvae to make one demon, but that seems to be the exception.) My guess is that they have the highest yield rate in terms of actual outsiders produced (regardless of whether there are more CE than NE/LE souls to start with), but they then go on to engage in enough fratricide to keep their numbers down.

Daemon's lose some unknown number of the hunted to deliberate daemonic predation, and it seems from their Book of the Damned like this is a pretty high proportion (definitely over 50%) with only a minority who survive long enough or who are particularly ruthless transforming into daemons.

Devils lose some unknown number of the damned to merger with the plane before they are chosen for promotion to devilhood. I have no idea if this proportion is high or low.

I want an artifact based on the Lazy Guns of Iain Banks' Against a Dark Background.

Also a solipsism society.

Dirty Tricks Handbook also has a feat to disguise wand use.

I think he's saying the character has a mortal and Nocticula as a parent. Because of the tiefling heritage they ditched the recommendation it be the patron god.

Cunning Caster feat is from Dirty Tricks Handbook, you can google it. I also can't remember the UI one, but Concealed Spell might be it. Each is mechanically different.

Related: can elementals drink potions? Which ones? Reliance on a blanket grant to corporeal creatures doesn't get us far.

Slithery D wrote:

While the bestiary just says "Constructs do not breathe, eat, or sleep" that doesn't include drinking.

Advanced Race Guide has some additional info on that: "Constructs do not breathe, eat, or sleep, unless they want to gain some beneficial effect from one of these activities. This means that a construct can drink potions to benefit from their effects and can sleep in order to regain spells, but neither of these activities is required to survive or stay in good health."

And potion rules has: "Any corporeal creature can imbibe a potion or use an oil."

So as long as the potion/infusion spell effect could affect golems: no issues with spell immunity/SR; doesn't have to only affect living creatures (cure X wounds for healing), and if requiring a fortitude save for whatever reason would also affect objects or is harmless; the potion/infusion ought to work.

I think most constructs simply don't have the physical capacity to drink a potion. No one is going to build a stomach on a stone or iron golem, and the mouth is just there for aesthetics to make it look more humanoid. It can't necessarily swallow.

I think that the rule from the ARG you cite applies only to constructs created using that book, not to the Bestiary constructs.
I see it as a exception made for the benefit of playable races, not a general rule.

Agreed, these were some special rules for Wyrwoods, which are very different from your normal built, unintelligent construct.

Well with that reasoning, a construct wyrwood wizard isn't able to get spells back without "8 hours of sleep".

The Bestiary entry says "Constructs do not breathe, eat, or sleep" not that they can't, nor does it say anything about drinking. Also potions still says "Any corporeal creature can imbibe a potion or use an oil."

The Advanced Race Guide entry didn't change anything, just explained how a PC character would still benefit, whereas typically a NPC construct wouldn't bother and not specified in the Bestiary entry.

There are rules for spell recovery for non-sleeping creatures. They have to rest or not do anything active for 8 hours. (You can sit and read or play solitaire or meditate on your past failures, but not craft or do anything useful.)

Potions says any corporeal creature can imbibe a potion or use an oil because there's a lot of simplifications in the rules for space constraints or because they didn't think of odd corner cases. I think you'll have a hard time convincing some GMs that a skeleton can imbibe and benefit from a potion, or that a creature without a mouth (I know that there is at least one) can do the same. Constructs are easily in a similar gray area, depending on how they are built and whether they have entirely unnecessary features like mouths, throats, and stomachs.

If it works you can think of it as exploiting ambiguities in the robot's programming or analysis algorithms, although Bluff is probably the better example. I think Iron Gods had a Bluff check to convince a guardian robot you were an authorized crew member even without the required security access badge. But perhaps Diplomacy could be used to convince the robot you're helping it fulfill its directives so that it cooperates with you.

Fairies? Why did it have to be fairies?!?

Scandalous pirates? How about some fabulous pirates;)

The carnival troupe sounds interesting.

I assume it'll have clowns, it is about villains after all. Probably material that got cut from Horror Adventures.

For those of you who have had an opportunity to analyze the new spells in this book ..... do any of you have any insights as to which ones are the most intriguing in regards to added utility, combat performance, etc.?

These were the ones I liked or thought might be broadly useful.

Brightest Light: An upgraded Daylight (level 4 and hr/level duration) that is a hard counter to Deeper Darkness (automatically dispels 3rd and below darkness spells that enter its area of effect).

Calistria's Guardian Wasps: Sets a day/level wasp swarm trap. Level 3 and no expensive material component, so you can build up several interlocking applications so that enemies can trigger several at once. (It's a 10x10 area, but triggered if you come within 20' without saying the password.)

Commune with Texts: Definitely gives you a max roll when you do research checks to deplete knowledge points in a library. Also gives you a the ability to get books to tell you about their past users similarly to Stone Tell. There's also some less clear fluff about instantly finding what you want in a library, but that sort of conflicts with the research checks stuff.

Dream Reality: For minute/round the target acts normally, but when the spell expires they forget all details of what happened during that time, like it was a dream. Not subject to the same easy recovery or permanent spell aura of Modify Memory. Great when you have to leave a witness alive but don't want him to come after you or testify. But it's pretty high level, 5/6.

Inveigle Person/Monster: Like charm person, but it makes it friendly to everyone. Seems intended to stop combat, since the whole party is now a friend, not just the caster. Can also be used to create a party friend/helper so that a low Cha caster can hand off wrangling duties to the face.

Nex's Secret Workshop: A mass Nondetection effect. Hide all objects and people within close range.

Recorporeal Incarnation: Wear someone's corpse as a long term disguise, not subject to most magical means of discovery and gives you a lot of abilities of the corpse (immunities, weaknesses, weapon proficiencies, spell resistance) so that you won't get found out too easily. I think this is a reprint of what the party uses to imitate drow in a certain AP.

Rotting Alliance: Level 8 so you won't really see it much, but curses a group so that if they are ever within 100' feat of another member of the group in a given day they have to save against 1d6 Con and Cha damage. You can't heal the damage if you stay together, you can't remove the curse unless you're near another afflicted. The ultimate magical restraining order.

Sealed Sending: Like Sending, but you send a scroll with a longer message to any location you have seen, so you can arrange for someone you don't personally know to pick up the message from a dead drop.

True Skill: True Sight for skills! Sort of. Lasts min/level, you pick a skill when you cast it and the next time you make a check with that skill you receive an insight bonus of half caster level.

Violent Accident: Level 2, curses the target from long range (no save) so that sometime over the next day an event will happen (falling roof tiles, runaway wagon, slip and fall, whatever) that inflicts 1d8 per level (max 5d8, reflex half) damage to the target. An interesting way to torment PCs or have NPCs assassinate low level victims that you have to investigate.

Constructs can drink potions and benefit from it.

Can they? They only semi-applicable rule I can think of is the Iron Body spell, which says you can't drink or benefit from potions in that condition.

Abrogail will be succeeded by whichever Thrune can pull it off. Most of the Thrune rulers of Cheliax were not the child of the previous ruler. Lots of cousins, siblings, and niece/nephews exploiting their predecessor's untimely death.

I vaguely recall rules for free form exploration of the ships interior spaces, but you probably want to fly.

If you have the Rivals Guide you might want to incorporate the Queen's Hands band of Thrune agents as possible rivals, allies, or background in this adventure. Although I think they were level 13 or 14.