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I know this doesn't fall entirely under PFS ruling, so feel free to flag this for the Rules forum, but I would like to see this clarified for PFS in specific so I don't have to ask every GM for their opinion on each individual skill and situation (essentially, I would like to see a PFS houserule on how this functions until errata or a general FAQ is provided).

For those less in the loop: spiritualist phantoms can either manifest in ectoplasmic or incorporeal form, or remain within their spiritualist's subconscious. It is unclear and nebulous at best what they can do while not manifested, other than use some class abilities.

The reason I bring this up is the Exciter archetype from Horror Adventures. Said archetype loses the ability to manifest their phantom at all - it is permanently confined to their subconscious. This got me to analyzing what, if anything at all, the phantom can do to help the spiritualist.

It is unclear what a phantom even does while it's not manifested. Is it conscious? Can it communicate with its spiritualist? Presumably it does not have senses and cannot communicate with or observe the world around the spiritualist even if it is conscious. If it is conscious, it should be able to use its link ability to communicate with its spiritualist.

All of the below would be assumed to be communicated to the spiritualist only, and all of the descriptions of assistance below would be to the spiritualist only as well.

Clearly out:
- Any sort of physical action on the phantom's part (Climb, Acrobatics, Stealth, so on)
- Perception and Sense Motive (the phantom doesn't physically exist (?) so it doesn't have senses and can't observe anything)

If not out, at least mostly useless:
- UMD and Spellcraft (I can't recall seeing a situation where the former could be aided at; the phantom can't cast Detect Magic and therefore would rarely be of use in the latter)

Requires GM fiat:
- Assisting on Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Bluff rolls (the spiritualist could mentally repeat everything that has been discussed or, in the case of Intimidate, tell the phantom what is going on; the phantom would dictate what is said in response and how, or just give points and counterpoints)
- Assisting on Disable Device rolls that do not need to be done in a hurry (the phantom could offer assistance based on the spiritualist's description)
- Knowledge rolls to identify creatures in combat with a penalty and maybe an ingame time delay (similarly to how some GMs allow PCs to identify creatures based on physical descriptions or their names with a penalty)

Requires GM fiat but (hopefully) sounds reasonable:
- Knowledge rolls that are not for identifying creatures in combat, maybe with a penalty or ingame time delay (the spiritualist can explain to the phantom what they're trying to remember details on)
- Linguistics, Heal, and Appraise rolls that do not have to be done in a hurry, maybe with a penalty and with an ingame time delay (the spiritualist can explain to the phantom what they are observing and the phantom can deduce based on the description)

Naturally, all of this is pointless speculation if it is ruled that a non-manifested phantom is not conscious and can do nothing while not manifested, or that a phantom is conscious and can communicate with its spiritualist but regardless cannot roll skill checks of any kind.

Comments are welcome and indeed much desired. I presume most answers to this topic will be "GM fiat" and "expect table variation", but I'd love to see at least a basic clarification on whether skills can be rolled at all or not. (Okay, what I actually presume is that I've just somehow overlooked a portion of Occult Adventures where all of this is explained and someone will point it out to me within five minutes, causing me great shame.)

I've been making a list of the replayable scenarios and modules - as much for my own reference as for others - and I went to check the chronicle for We B4 Goblins! to see if it was replayable. The PFS rules sheet preceding the chronicle proper contains the following language:

As always, each player may receive credit for each module once as a player and once as a GM in either order.

Puzzled, I went back and checked the original We Be Goblins!. Same language.

Does this mean that despite being Tier 1-2, these two scenarios actually aren't replayable like one might assume?

This is why we need an official list of replayables...

Pretty self-explanatory title. I asked this in my local community chat and got answers in both directions. And yes, this is for PFS. I debated whether I should bring the issue up here or over on the PFS boards, but I figured someone over there would flag it for this forum anyway.

One suggestion was that I could only roll skills where the situation can be explained to the phantom, since it doesn't actually sense anything on its own and has to do everything purely on a mental level. This would include some Knowledge skills but not much else. Another suggestion was that the phantom could aid another on some checks, although I can't actually think of any skills this would apply to. Another was of the opinion that since the phantom offers two Skill Focuses, it doesn't roll any skills of its own. I'm expecting the answer to be that last one.

The main reason I'm asking this is due to the exciter archetype, which loses the ability to manifest. It'll be interesting to figure out what the phantom does exactly in this case.

Last time I asked about a rules question here, someone pointed out the answer was in the sourcebook, so I'm half expecting someone to point the answer out for me directly...

Can a 4-star VA (read: yours truly) run True Dragons of Absalom? Because if I can't, someone at Paizo goofed and gave me the download regardless. (And I'll need to cancel the game of it I was going to run next week. Darnit.)

So I have a psychic in PFS who took the Focused Force amplification for some reason (it's been a while since I picked it) and I've been going over what he actually can and cannot use it on.

Magic Missile - obviously, since it's a direct damage spell that has damage dice.
Spiritual Weapon - well, it creates a weapon made of force that has a set damage die rather than a direct damage spell, so we get into "maybe" territory here.
Force Sword - this is where the problems begin, since this spell creates a +1 longsword made of force that you can hand to others.

I tossed this question onto a PFS-specific IRC channel, and got both the response "I'd allow it to work on all of those" and "I'd allow it on Spiritual Weapon, but not Force Sword".

Is there an official ruling on how this amplification affects spells like this that don't do direct damage, but rather create effects that do damage?

In the Magical Child archetype of the new vigilante class, it is stated "A magical child casts arcane spells and cantrips as an unchained summoner". Does this mean their casting stat is Charisma as the unchained summoner's is? I figure probably yes, but it's not outright stated. (Similarly, the warlock is stated to cast like a magus, but their casting stat isn't outright stated.) Should the "as a [existing class]" phrasing automatically be read to use the same casting stat as the original class?

So according to Additional Resources, all alternate racial traits from Blood of Shadows are legal. This includes the Drow Heritage, Flexible Half-Breed, Hidden Half-Breed, Lesser Spell-Like Abilities, Psychic Sensitivity, and Spell Resistance alternate racial traits, all of which imply a half-elf with drow heritage. Was the drow/half-elf section of alternate racial traits skipped in PFS review, since it seems unlikely to me that implied half-drow would suddenly be legal?

The Additional Resources also states that all feats except Cloak and Dagger Subterfuge and Cloak and Dagger Tactics are legal. This means that the Drow Magic feat would also be legal.

Note: This is not a personal thing I have for or against drow, just curiosity on why these new drow-related options are legal while previous options have not been.

A thread of pure theorycrafting, since I am far too poor to actually be able to afford traveling abroad to play PFS, but the thought has occurred to me on several occasions.

At a convention or at a game day, a player comes to your table you haven't seen before. They introduce themselves and explain that they're from abroad (or in the case of the US, another state) and happened to look up if there was PFS in the area. Having noticed there is, they decided to show up, since they happen to have their character sheets on them or perhaps uploaded online. What they don't have is the half-dozen hardcover books and ten-odd softcovers their characters have stuff from, since they weren't expecting to attend an event while traveling.

Do you:
A) Allow the benefit of the doubt and let them play their character, provided they are able to do so (they have the full texts of their abilities available somehow, f.ex. on Archives of Nethys or something)
B) Tell them they can only play a pregen
C) Other (what?)

Bonus round: What do you do if the player does not have the chronicles of their characters with them, but has the ability to, say, log onto Paizo to show you what adventures have been reported on the character, or the ability to IM a Venture-Agent in their area to vouch for them?

Is the Fey Magic alternate racial trait from Heroes of the Wild only legal for the non-human races listed, since choosing Fey Magic as a human would also give you Fey Thoughts, which is not legal, or do you just get Fey Magic and low-light vision without the benefit of Fey Thoughts? The former is how I personally would read this, but I figured it was oddly phrased enough that it warranted a question. I noticed some others had expressed confusion over this in the Additional Resources thread when it was first added, but the issue was never officially addressed.

I'm going to presume no, since the bane ability is replaced by burnt offering. Just trying to figure out if there's any way to make this terrible character more viable.

I know this has been addressed by John Compton before, and I've spent the better part of an hour (on a mobile device, no less) trying to find this ruling, so my apologies for essentially asking for someone to toss a link my way.

I did not realize until yesterday that my character, a multiclassed witch 3/investigator 1 (no comments on the inefficiency, thank you) had an unused wand, bought with gold, that they could no longer use without UMD due to the ACG errata making investigators unable to use wands and the spell not being on the witch list. I hadn't played this character since the errata and had kind of forgotten about it. The wand was unused, so no problem.

Later during the scenario, I used a charge from another wand I had, similarly bought with gold and unused. Naturally, the day after the scenario, I realized that wand had gone the same way - I could use it with UMD, but not otherwise, since the spell isn't on the witch list.

Is the end result now as follows: I have one wand with full charges that I can trade in for another wand of the same spell level, and one wand with 49 charges that I am stuck with and have to use with UMD?

Prepping this on very short notice for tomorrow night. Already noticed some errors in the stat blocks: the shadow companion is listed as having a +4 attack under Melee, but is listed as having BAB +10 as it should. I'm also not sure where its saves come from. By my math, they should be +6 +10 +4 (if we count racial base saves). I could be wrong though, math is not my strong suit and I'm especially legendary at miscalculating saves.

The dark stalker elites don't seem to have a rogue talent listed. I'm guessing they grabbed Improved Critical with it. They also don't seem to have a combat style feat, since they get Double Slice and Two-Weapon Fighting naturally.

Zodarna is missing two of her racial feats (Augment Summoning and Spell Focus (conjuration)). Presumably these have been replaced with two other feats, since otherwise she has too many.

The party I'm running this for has a Life Oracle with Daylight 7/day, so I'm expecting them to thoroughly steamroll every encounter. The only interesting things will be the haunt and the sacristans.

I'm not asking if I should, I'm asking if I can. She's LN, after all.

Disclaimer: if you feel this would better fit in a different section of the forums, feel free to flag this. I don't usually venture outside the PFS boards.

So, this upcoming fall I'm hoping to run Reign of Winter for some local folks. It'll be my first foray ever into running a full-scale campaign: I've run PFS quite a bit, and have almost finished running The Dragon's Demand (if only one of my players would come back from vacation so we could finish up, haha). I've also only played one long-term continuous campaign - we recently finished the first book of Curse of the Crimson Throne. So understandably, I'm more than a little nervous about getting stuff right for an AP that people have been wanting to play ever since it started publishing.

My problem is that since I have very limited experience with campaigns, I'm unsure of what route to take with character stat generation. My players have been planning characters for a few months now - I originally meant to start this campaign over the summer, but since Demand ended up getting postponed so much I moved it to the fall - and I would prefer a method that allows them to construct stats that fit the characters they have in mind. However, I'm very bored of 20-ptb, since I've dealt so much with PFS and so have my potential players. Therefore, I'd like to hear various other methods I could use for chargen, and their pros and cons.

I intend to have four or five players for the campaign, and am being quite flexible when it comes to sources - pretty much anything Paizo-published is a go, and I am willing to consider third party material if my players really insist on it.

There are lots of references to boon characters out there, but I wanted to ask about them in a thread all their own. So, what have you made with your race boon?

All of the nagaji I know of in my area are very physically oriented: Paladin, Barbarian/Oracle, Brawler. So I went a different way and decided to play a full-caster Oracle of Lore, with a focus on enchantment spells like murderous command. Time will tell if it's worth it. Probably not, but I fell so in love with the concept I made for her that I'd be hard-pressed to change anything about her.

I don't think we have any Kitsune in our area (though I know at least two players still have their boons), there are three Wayang (Wizard, Ranger/rogue, and amusingly enough, Bloodrager) and no other boons have circulated in our area (we had the same boons two years in a row - 2012 the Kitsune/Wayang/Nagaji boon, 2013 Nagaji/Wayang only - due to our only major con taking place somewhere around GenCon and the dates happening to fall thus).

So, what did you make with your boon, and what have you seen floating around?

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Scenario: #3-17 Red Harvest

Tier: 7-11 (subtier currently undecided - see the signup thread for more information)

Date @ Time (with Time Zone): Dec 30th, 2013, 11 AM CST (GMT -6)

Please read the thread at the Pathfinder Society Online Collective before signing up. And try to not be too scared by my sales pitch.

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Scenario: #5 Mists of Mwangi

Tier: 1-5 (subtier 4-5)

Date @ Time (with Time Zone): Dec 28th, 2013 @ 11 AM CST (GMT -6)

Pathfinder Lugizar Trantos recently returned from the Mwangi Expanse with haunted eyes and a pack full of strange idols. Absalom's famed Blakros Museum purchased his pieces and Lugizar vanished. The strange monkey idols he pulled from the misty jungles of Mwangi carry with them a fell curse, and now their power has laid claim to the museum. Can the Pathfinder Society uncover the source of the curse in time, or will the Blackros Museum be forever lost to the mists of Mwangi?

Sign up at the Pathfinder Society Online Collective. Four places are already taken, so you may want to hurry.

Just a quick question to make sure I've got things right before I commit to an idea.

I recently re-rolled one of my first-level characters into an oracle. I then started to wonder if I could grab him a prestige class, so I poked around a bit and stumbled on the Divine Scion. The only stumbling block is the need to have a deity. Are oracles allowed to become divine scions in PFS play in specific, as long as they worship the god (in this case Nethys) they would be a scion of and fulfill all other needed criteria? (I'm quite aware this would be allowed in a home game, I just want to know the PFS ruling, hence why this section of the forums.)

I'm sorry if this has been commented on before, but this scenario is impossible to search for on the forums because of its name, and I didn't notice anyone commenting on it in the GM Discussion thread either (if it's there, I apologize even more sincerely).

I'm presuming this is just a typo, and not a spontaneous discount?