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The thing that immediately jumps out to me is Solarian losing armor spec. Yes, light armor specialization was a bit of an issue on account of that not existing, and also despite getting a class feat for heavy armor proficiency they couldn't get heavy armor spec, but I really really don't think the Solarian's defense needed a nerf. This class did not need a nerf. Also the blog post is out but as of this comment the actual errata in the FAQ isn't, I'd love to check the detailed changes.
The remaster greatly simplifies refocusing by removing the requirement that one must have spent a focus point since last regaining any focus point. This doesn't quite hit the spot for at least a couple reasons: - Classes that mitigate or remove the refocusing barrier have lost their edge and are now less-desirable choices until they get "remastered" themselves. Oracle isn't scheduled for that until next year, and psychic isn't scheduled at all (though I assume it will get treatment of some kind eventually). - The replacement 12-level focus-point recovery feat is basically a never-take: the difference between recovering three focus points in 10 minutes and recovering them in 30 minutes is immaterial in most situations. Instead of removing the focus point recovery barrier entirely, why not turn it into a "refocus max" and preserve the recovery feats/class features, rewriting them to instead raise that max? E.g., a wizard with a focus pool of 2 can only refocus to 1/2 points until it acquires its 12th-level refocus feat, at which point it can recover to full. If the wizard is already at 1/2 points, refocusing does nothing until they acquire that feat. This would still simplify the existing rule by removing the need to track whether one spent a point the last time they refocused. It would also preserve (or arguably even increase) the value of the refocus feats and class features.
A handful of NPCs in recent AP books have firearm attacks with the Scatter trait. Breaking with convention, there's no listed splash damage on any of them, and one even just has a straight d8 with no flat modifier added. This is not the case with NPCs that throw alchemical bombs, in contrast, which will have creature-level-appropriate splash damage explicitly included in the stat block. Unfortunately there are only ~3 examples to reference, so I'm left wondering if the splash damage was unintentionally omitted, or we're expected to actually add splash damage of some amount to their attacks.
New Chirurgeon:
You can use your proficiency rank in Crafting for anything that requires a proficiency rank in Medicine (such as prerequisites), and use your Crafting modifier in place of your Medicine modifier for all Medicine checks. I'm interested in the latter half: usually an ability like this will have you make a different type of check (e.g., make a Crafting check instead of a Medicine check). The Chirurgeon class feature is new and unique in that you're still making a Medicine check but using your Crafting modifier. But what does that mean? From the CRB, we know: The sum of all the modifiers, bonuses, and penalties you apply to the d20 roll is called your total modifier for that statistic. But then bonuses are typically granted for a type of check. E.g., Risky Surgery: If you do, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your Medicine check to Treat Wounds, and if you roll a success, you get a critical success instead. So my confusion is: 1. A character's Crafting modifier is the modifier used to make Crafting checks, and their Medicine modifier is the modifier used to make Medicine checks.2. Chirurgeon allows one's Crafting modifier to be used for Medicine checks, but they're still making Medicine checks. 3. Risky Surgery and other items & abilities grant bonuses to Medicine checks, while the Crafter's Eyepiece and other items & abilities grant bonuses to Crafting checks. 4. A Crafting modifier used for Medicine checks is then ... what, exactly? I'm confident enough to say that it includes one's intelligence modifier and Crafting proficiency bonus, but what else applies?
CRB 4th-printing FAQ:
Page 370: The soothe spell can now target “1 willing creature” instead of “1 willing living creature”. It can be used to heal undead, constructs, and so on. (This change matches the rules noted in Book of the Dead and Blood Lords Player’s Guide.) Note that it has the mental trait, so it still doesn’t heal or otherwise benefit mindless creatures like zombies or animated objects. CRB 4th-printing Soothe spell traits: [EMOTION] [ENCHANTMENT] [HEALING] [MENTAL] CRB 4th-printing Undead trait: Once living, these creatures were infused after death with negative energy and soul-corrupting evil magic. When reduced to 0 Hit Points, an undead creature is destroyed. Undead creatures are damaged by positive energy, are healed by negative energy, and don't benefit from healing effects. Even setting aside the whole debate on whether undead PCs benefit from healing effects, I don't quite get what the Paizo writers are up to here. Should we just toss the Healing trait out the window entirely? "Specific beats general," but also "it has the mental trait, so it still doesn’t heal or otherwise benefit mindless creatures like zombies or animated objects."
I recently watched the GenCon 2020 panel discussing Rage of Elements, and it made me wonder what the angle was with the ushering in of the new elements. Metal and wood are obviously borrowed from Chinese wuxing philosophy, so one would think that in a Pathfinder book they would be a fantasy adaptation of it, somehow tying it in with Tian Xia. But in the video, there is talk of "getting [the new planes] as close to on par with the ones we've developed," as though they'll be rolled into the fantasy classical Greek elements. When looking at second edition, I see, for example, that great care was taken with fulus in Secrets of Magic, including a sidebar detailing their real-world inspiration. And of course there's LO: Mwangi Expanse, which is in its own league of quality and attention to detail, with genuine and deep Africana research evident throughout. Wuxing deserves a comparable level of attention, and I hope we will find it in this new book.
The initial rules for the Flurry edge seem to not require weapons except for offhand mention in parentheticals:
You have trained to unleash a devastating flurry of attacks upon your prey. Your multiple attack penalty for attacks against your hunted prey is –3 (–2 with an agile weapon) on your second attack of the turn instead of –5, and –6 (–4 with an agile weapon) on your third or subsequent attack of the turn, instead of –10. But the level-17 Masterful Hunter Upgrade for Flurry is far more explicit about it: You can blend your weapon mastery with skillful targeting to make a series of precise attacks. If you have master proficiency with your weapon, your multiple attack penalty for attacks against your hunted prey is –2 (–1 with an agile weapon) on your second attack of the turn, and –4 (–2 with an agile weapon) on your third and subsequent attacks of the turn. A strict reading of the first passage would limit the MAP reduction for unarmed attacks to -3 and -6, with weapon attacks exclusively receiving -2 and -4. But that sure is an awkward way to express a rule. Then, at level 17, unarmed attacks receive no additional benefit. All that doesn't seem intended, but I'm not sure what the underlying intent would have been. Is it weapons-only for all of it, weapons for most of it as in the strict reading, or something else entirely?
An incorporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against physical creatures or objects—only against incorporeal ones—unless those objects have the ghost touch property rune. Likewise, a corporeal creature can’t attempt Strength-based checks against incorporeal creatures or objects. Does this mean a Strike attack roll can't be attempted against an incorporeal creature unless the weapon/unarmed attack is ranged or has the finesse trait?
Description of Bless: Blessings from beyond help your companions strike true. You and your allies gain a +1 status bonus to attack rolls while within the emanation. Once per turn, starting the turn after you cast bless, you can use a single action, which has the concentrate trait, to increase the emanation's radius by 5 feet. Bless can counteract bane. The spell lacks the Aura trait (unlike, say, Protective Ward), and the description above states nothing to indicate that casting the spell creates an aura. So it would seem that it's just a standard emanation, staying put when the caster moves. However, the spell list on page 310 of the CRB calls it and Bane auras ("Bless (enc): Strengthen allies’ attacks in an aura around you."), and there is apparently at least one AP in which an NPC stat block directs the GM to have an enemy cast Bane and then move forward to affect as many of the party members as they can--as though the emanation will move with them.
Champion summoners get along best with divine eidolons matching the alignment associated with their cause—angel eidolons for the tenets of good, devil eidolons for a tyrant, and so on. I'm guessing this is in error, with the devil eidolon presumably getting dropped by publication time. Might we see devil eidolons in a future book?
From the Escape action:
Attempt a check using your unarmed attack modifier It's notable that it is phrased seemingly to make it clear that such a check is not an attack roll per se but one that merely uses the attack modifier. So what is an attack modifier outside the context of an attack roll? For a PC, is this their unarmed proficiency bonus plus their strength modifier--excluding the finesse trait, handwraps potency runes, and anything else that specifically applies to attack rolls? For NPCs, it feels even less well-defined. An NPC may or may not have one or more unarmed attacks (for lack of use of the unarmed trait, whether an attack is unarmed is hinted at by the name of the attack), each possibly with a distinct modifier. An NPC simply doesn't have an unqualified "unarmed attack modifier" on its stat block. Is there a go-to procedure for inferring the number, or is it an ad hoc GM call?
The object glows, casting bright light in a 20-foot radius (and dim light for the next 20 feet) like a torch. I have a very important RAW question: does "like a torch" modify "the object glows" or "in a 20-foot radius" (which is incidentally true)? Or: does the effect of the Light spell have a torch-like quality or merely cast bright and dim light of the same radii as a torch? Please grace us with an answer, Dr. Paizo, before my group starts trading blows.
The Summoner feat Expanded Senses makes a point of granting eidolons both low-light vision and darkvision. How is this different than just granting them darkvision?
Looking at the rules here, I'm not seeing anything that says what a vehicle's space looks like when rotated to a non-right angle. Should it be a "fat line" of sorts, using the line effect area rules and widening it sufficiently to represent its length and width?
From the APG:
A specific familiar has several traits and abilities, as listed in their stat block. The Granted Abilities entry lists normal familiar and master abilities that familiar has. The familiar also gains unique abilities listed below the Granted Abilities entry. It's not clear to me from this passage whether unique abilities count against a familiar's ability limit. Even more confusingly, the PFS Guide lists unique abilities in the Granted Abilities entry. Are unique abilities free in a sense, our do they each take a "slot?" Aside: It is utterly confounding that the dwoemercat cub is not called a "dwoemerkitten."
Do the rest recovery abilities from these feats stack? On a straight reading they seem to (Dream May reads as replacing the recovery rate, and Fast Recovery doubles it), but even if you feel the same, would you anticipate table variance? [...] You regain HP equal to your Constitution modifier times double your level instead of just times your level [...] [...] You regain twice as many Hit Points from resting. [...]
There are a handful of spells that call for an attack roll but do not have an Attack trait. From this rule I know they are subject to the MAP, but do they increase it? I was thinking perhaps not since they are all either focus or very-high-level spells, so maybe the idea was that they were limited in other ways. Am I missing something? Examples:
It seems odd that they're limited to retrieving worn items. Are they going to hand me my cloak? What worn items might I want my familiar to retrieve? And if they can spend "up to" two actions to take my hat and shoes off at the end of the day, does this mean that they can't do normal things if I command them into valet mode for a turn? You can command your familiar to deliver you items more efficiently. Your familiar doesn't use its 2 actions immediately upon your command. Instead, up to twice before the end of your turn, you can have your familiar Interact to retrieve an item of light or negligible Bulk you are wearing and place it into one of your free hands. The familiar can't use this ability to retrieve stowed items. If the familiar has a different number of actions, it can retrieve one item for each action it has when commanded this way.
... particularly when the spell has no visible effect, such as with Zone of Truth. Do you have to somehow test empirically whether the spell succeeded?
Until Paizo gets around to filling out the rules for Hustle, is there a consensus on the best way to handle its use and reuse? Limited to once per day? Higher or no limit, but fatigue happens sooner? And given how short a duration a typical party's Hustle activity lasts (10 minutes if a character has 12 or less CON), is there really much use for it at all?
I think I've looked at this a dozen times and didn't notice until today. Flavor text aside, Aura of Courage doesn't appear to benefit allies. That can't be intentional, right? You stand strong in the face of danger and inspire your allies to do the same. Whenever you become frightened, reduce the condition value by 1 (to a minimum of 0). At the end of your turn when you would reduce your frightened condition value by 1, you also reduce the value by 1 for all allies within 15 feet. Edit: Disregard. I am covered in shame.
There seems to be some tension in the rules on what alchemical bombs are. The rules section on them says they are "martial thrown weapons," but: From the above I'm wondering whether alchemical bombs ...
I'm currently running an Extinction Curse campaign, and the party has just finished the first chapter of The Show Must Go On. They are suitably bruised and battered following their encounter with Nemmia and have expressed a desire to stock up on field-recovery goods upon entering Abberton. I didn't see an indication of level for the town: Did I miss it? If there is no set level, would it be appropriate to consider it a level two settlement when filling out marketplace opportunities?
On my first read-through of circus mechanics, I'm left a little confused as to the rationale behind the mechanics of critical success for both tricks and the show. - It seems that a critically successful trick may imperil a normal success for a show, as it generates no more excitement than a merely successful trick and also causes anticipation to increase. In one way this is intuitive: A very impressive trick may raise expectations among the audience, who in turn may be left disappointed by the more-modest performances that follow. On the other hand, it creates the potential for a show going from success to failure entirely due to some of the tricks having been critical successes instead of mere successes. - A critically successful show is one in which final excitement is equal to final anticipation. This I just don't get: In what sense is it "critical success" that anticipation was met exactly by excitement generated? Absent this rule I would have called that a show of precisely marginal success. Doesn't this create situations in which is it desirable to fail a trick so as to lower excitement closer to anticipation? - Finally, the first show only has an XP award on a non-critical success. I'm guessing this is a simple omission and is trivial to fill out, but just checking to make sure I'm not missing something.
Does a player character's racial type and subtype function as anything other than a determinant of what spells or other abilities can affect them? Do PCs get access to the abilities listed in the corresponding (sub)type grafts, for example? I'd lean toward "no" for this second question, except that a "yes" would clear up some confusion in what abilities PC races in the Alien Archive have.
If I am positioned at a large cargo crate, I can use it for cover and fire by peaking above or around it. Does the crate also provide the same cover to my enemies while they are running around exposed on the other side of the crate? Likewise with improved-cover situations: If I am positioned at the example "gun port in a defensive wall," do both sides receive the same cover? Intuitively I'd think most people would say only I should receive cover in both scenarios, but I'm not sure how to interpret the rules in a way that would make that the case.
Reposting from a slight thread derail here in case it's of interest to anyone else. I'd also appreciate checks on my numbers in case I'm wildly off (it happens):
If Voyager (344 m long, 130 m tall, 63 m wide) were a cuboid of 700,000,000 kg, its density would be ~248 kg/m^3--or a little under a quarter that of water. So let's say the Voyager takes up a quarter the space of its cuboid, making it about as dense as water. A mid-weight huge (810 US tons, or 734,820 kg) Starfinder ship of the same dimensions would be ~0.26 kg/m^3 as a cuboid and ~1 kg/m^3 as the shape of Voyager. That's a little lighter than air at sea level. Information sources and assumptions:
Is there anything stopping the following from working?
Some considerations:
I'm trying to accommodate a player who wants his drone to be able to grapple somehow. Given that grappling requires a "free hand," and drones don't have any hands as such, I'm not seeing a convincing RAW means of allowing this except perhaps via a manipulator arm--with its -4 attack penalty. With a little GM hand-waving, I suppose a melee arm with a battleglove affixed could serve as a grappler. Thoughts?
Would Paizo staff be willing to to either update First Contact or provide a separate table of equipment data for all the novel items that aren't in the Core Rulebook? The ones I've noticed without full data available are (wielders in parentheses):
Data for some of these can be reasonably guessed at by comparing Core Rulebook tables, but it'd be nice to have official info.
I'm starting up some miniature conversion projects for Starfinder and have been looking around for heads to pop on figures. I have humans covered, of course, and I even have a satisfactory undead elebrian look with Kromlech's elongated "abhuman" skulls. At this point I'm looking for a good solution for Vesk heads. So far nothing I've come across quite fits Vesk facial features, particularly their distinguished "boxy" snouts. Does anyone know of minis with reptilian heads that closely resemble the Vesk in that way?
The pilfering hand spell, in one of its usage cases, calls for a combat maneuver check: Abrupt Maneuver: You instantaneously attempt a disarm or steal combat maneuver against a target within range. Use your caster level as your Combat Maneuver Bonus, adding your Charisma modifier (bard, oracle, sorcerer), Intelligence modifier (magus, wizard), or Wisdom modifier (cleric) in place of your Strength or Dexterity modifier. Does this mean that feats like Improved Steal don't contribute to the calculation of CMB for the steal maneuver? I ask this because the spell seems to provide a complete formula for calculating CMB: caster level plus spellcasting attribute modifier. Compare with, e.g., the strangling hair spell: Make a grapple check against the target using your caster level as the base attack bonus plus a bonus equal to your Intelligence bonus (if a witch or wizard) or Charisma bonus (if a sorcerer). In this case, one's caster level only stands in for BAB when calculating CMB. Is the difference intended to be a meaningful one in that I should apply non-attribute bonuses to combat maneuvers in the case of strangling hair but not pilfering hand? |
