The Contrarian's page

So the question is "does this work if the enenmy is an Undead/Construct"? (note that this doesn't work on a Necromancer's own Thralls no matter what because they aren't enemies).

The undead are everyone's enemies.

I was paraphrasing the trend of posters in this thread that were indicating that the persistent damage's flat check is what removed the persistent damage. It was intended as a kind of shorthand, rather than making a wall of quotes, or calling out one particular poster.

I was not quoting rules at all in that instance.

"Flat check removes it."

That contradicts the rule in the curse trait though. It clearly states "Effects with this trait can be removed ONLY by effects that specifically target curses." It also says "A curse is an effect that places some long-term affliction on a creature." That seems to indicate that it is not intended to be a short duration effect.

/devil's advocate

The Contrarian wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

But, as you well know, Golarion has absolute morality, which is not something we have RL. So, RL morality issues very often do not properly translate in Golarion.

TBT you are not the first person who would like to explore shades of grey in a fantasy world. But the Golarion setting does not actually support this.

I would argue that, due to the revocation of alignment in the Remaster, this is far less true today than it has ever been.

If anything, there is more room for shades of grey scenarios than ever before.

The opposite IMO. The removal of the Law vs Chaos axis strengthens the Holy vs Unholy one and this was made on purpose because Good vs Evil stories are much more accessible to the usual players.

I guess it's all double plus good then! /snark

But, as you well know, Golarion has absolute morality, which is not something we have RL. So, RL morality issues very often do not properly translate in Golarion.

TBT you are not the first person who would like to explore shades of grey in a fantasy world. But the Golarion setting does not actually support this.

I would argue that, due to the revocation of alignment in the Remaster, this is far less true today than it has ever been.

If anything, there is more room for shades of grey scenarios than ever before.

Sir, this is Second Edition Remastered.

We don't serve evil here. (Or any other alignment.)

That's not work that's just being contrarian.

Hey! What's so bad about that?

If you want to claim that the rules are not ambiguous, then you are taking on that burden of proof.

The rules are not ambiguous at all. ;P

Obviously the eidolon doesn't go anywhere and does not have to concern itself with manifesting or conduit tethers.

This is clearly to make up for the plant and beast eidolons being among the weakest eidolon choices.

Well of course you would find broken combos when combining unbalanced and outdated pre-Remaster rules with the refined and balanced Remaster rules.

;P

The Contrarian wrote:

Tridus wrote:

They understand it just fine: they didn't implement it because one part of it contradicts another part of it. If you actually follow through with both tables, you don't get the stated outcome of a creature of a given size should be able to carry the equivalent gear in equivalent bulk as a creature of another size.

And to that I say "So what?" There's nothing stopping them from implementing it other than themselves.

Not incompetence; just a lamentable choice.

"The rules contradict themselves so we're not implementing the contradiction" is a pretty good reason to stop.

I can't tell if you're serious and just don't understand the problem or if you're being deliberately obtuse.

I just don't see it as a problem. Contradiction or no, it could be implemented as is without impacting gameplay negatively.

They understand it just fine: they didn't implement it because one part of it contradicts another part of it. If you actually follow through with both tables, you don't get the stated outcome of a creature of a given size should be able to carry the equivalent gear in equivalent bulk as a creature of another size.

And to that I say "So what?" There's nothing stopping them from implementing it other than themselves.

Not incompetence; just a lamentable choice.

I would argue that it is actually not that hard at all.

The logic boils down to three straightforward steps, which any competent programmer can implement with basic conditional checks and simple math:

1) Check the creature's size (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, or Gargantuan--this is just a single attribute on the creature object).

2) Check the item's base Bulk (stored as a value like "negligible," "L" for light, 1, 2, etc., along with the size category the item was designed for--usually Medium by default).

3) Apply the appropriate conversion formula based on the mismatch between creature size and item size, then output the effective Bulk for that specific creature.

This isn't some exotic algorithm--it's nested conditionals referencing a small lookup table or multiplier (exactly the kind of modular math you see in game systems all the time). For example:

- A Large creature treats a 1 Bulk (Medium-sized) item as Light bulk, and Light items as negligible.
- A Tiny creature treats negligible items as counting toward Bulk much faster, and scales upward accordingly.
- The conversions scale predictably (roughly doubling or halving per size step in most cases, with special handling for Light and negligible).

The system can (and should) recalculate dynamically any time:

- An item is transferred from one creature to another (different sizes = different effective Bulk).
- A player or GM manually resizes an item (e.g., "this longsword is now sized for a Large creature").
- Any other inventory change occurs.

Modern virtual tabletops and character managers already handle far more complex interdependent calculations (ability modifiers, spell effects, multiple stacking bonuses, etc.) in real time. This is well within the realm of "basic event-driven programming." You define the item once with its base stats, attach a size tag, and let the code apply the size-conversion rules on the fly. No constant manual tracking required.

I've seen plenty of nested modules and formula references in codebases--this is no different. It's just inventory math with a size axis. Claiming it's "too complicated" for software underestimates how straightforward conditional logic and data-driven design actually are.

Just connect the stepping stones to one another to make your bridge. The sides of the stone disks themselves are vertical surfaces (they do not have 0 height) so it works out fine.

Also, the disks clearly defy gravity already, since they FLY to the points you designate, so I see no reason why you would even need to connect them. The whole anchoring business also begins with YOU CAN, not YOU MUST, which is obviously giving you more options rather than a limited list of options, so you should be able to create floating paths just fine.

Either way, you're good for short temporary bridging.

Roadlocator wrote:

Funnythinker wrote:

The Contrarian wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

Pretty much everyone wants a Shifter class that is a martial focused on shapeshifting.

I hope to never see a Shifter class in 2e. >8D

Might I ask why? was it due to bad experience or something?

their username is The Contrarian. I think that MAY have something to do with it. Possibly

that's fair , i just wanted to double check to see if they had experience that altered their view.

Never played it, but I still shudder at all the negative hype the first edition class got. I doubt a 2e version would end up much better.

Pretty much everyone wants a Shifter class that is a martial focused on shapeshifting.

I hope to never see a Shifter class in 2e. >8D

Justnobodyfqwl wrote:

I think it's genuinely kind of an accomplishment to manage to turn even a thread arguing about the benefits of adventuring with your coochie out into a back and forth rules minutia debate.

It's one of my favorite aspects of the Pathfinder fanbase, at least as long as the debates don't get acrimonious or toxic. I'm not being facetious here; it's genuinely always fun to stumble into threads and conversations where those sorts of discussions are running in tandom.

You think this odd? You should see the thread he started about poop.

RD is a really, really weird guy.

Oh wonderful. Another glorious 'clarification' from on high to strip away the last scraps of joy from this wretched game.

Back in my day, weaknesses meant something. You'd hit a troll with fire and watch the beautiful extra damage pile up like a dragon's hoard--instance after delicious instance, because why not? It was CHAOS. It was GLORIOUS. Monsters actually felt dangerous instead of these pathetic participation-trophy bags of hit points.

But noooo. The Design Team--may their dice always roll natural 1s--decides 'instance of damage' needs to be parsed like some infernal contract written by lawyers who hate fun. Now everything's one tidy little package, weakness applied once, and poof! There goes the math that made my evil GM heart sing.

I hope you're all happy with your sanitized, balanced, boring little game. Me? I'm going to sit here in my trashy basement of despair, clutching my outdated printings like the precious relics they are, muttering 'Bah! Errata!' every time someone mentions 'consistency.'

Go ahead, pat yourselves on the back for 'clarity.' I'll be over here, in the dark, resenting every last one of you for ruining a perfectly good exploit.

Humbug.

;P

You may not like it, but assurance medicine is what peak performance looks like.

It's the ONLY case imo.

I dunno about that. Assurance with Athletics to mountain climb against static DCs is a pretty good example of peak performance as well.

I would say Yes for the axe since it does not say you must be wielding it to benefit from it. It doesn't even say you need to attack with it to get the damage bonus.

Sadly, the same does not appear to be true of the staff, which clearly states you must be wielding it, which you cannot do while it is absorbed into your form.

Hasn't this been sufficiently discussed before?

No.

*Yawns*

Guess I'm not needed here. ;P

glass wrote:

I am not QuidEst, but....

The Contrarian wrote:

LOLWut? The +3 guy literally has a 10% increase in how often it succeeds.

No he doesn't. He succeeds on 10% of the total possible rolls where he otherwise would not have, but that is not the same thing.

The Contrarian wrote:

You're totally going to have to walk me through that 33% reasoning.

If the +1 character would succeed on a 15+, then the +3 character succeeds on a 13+. That is 8 results rather than 6. 8 is 33% greater than 6.

Exactly this. In a more extreme example, if somebody needs exactly a 20 to get a success, getting +2 triples how often they succeed (because they succeed on three numbers instead of one). That's still only ten percent of the rolls becoming a success, but it's very significant because the expected time between successes decreases to a third of what it was.

And, if you aren't looking at increases to the critical success rate, that means it's somebody who is succeeding less than half the time. That's pretty normal for demoralizing, since it resolves against Will DC. But it does mean that the +2 shift has a more noticeable difference in things like "how many times do I have to fail before I succeed".

Bah! Lousy statisticians always swapping numbers to benefit their own arguments!

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics!

The Contrarian wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

Unicore wrote:

One mechanical issue I have with trying to represent abilities mathematically in a system where level is so much more relevant is that ability scores only actually matter in a very specific level range

That's just flatly untrue. A +1 vs +3 cha person using intimidate is a significant difference all the way throughout levels 1 to 20.

It's just 10%. It's certainly noticeable, but it's not significant. 9/10 times the +1 guy achieves the same results as the +3 guy.

It makes a difference one-in-ten times, sure, but that's probably at least a 33% increase in how often it succeeds.

LOLWut? The +3 guy literally has a 10% increase in how often it succeeds. You're totally going to have to walk me through that 33% reasoning.

Unicore wrote:

One mechanical issue I have with trying to represent abilities mathematically in a system where level is so much more relevant is that ability scores only actually matter in a very specific level range

That's just flatly untrue. A +1 vs +3 cha person using intimidate is a significant difference all the way throughout levels 1 to 20.

It's just 10%. It's certainly noticeable, but it's not significant. 9/10 times the +1 guy achieves the same results as the +3 guy.

I'd wager that the Remastered magus won't be much different from its predecessor, save that starlit span will be nerfed.

I can't go to a PFS game without hearing people complain and/or joke about Rain in Cloudy Day.

No way is that guy not an iconic leshy.

Players casting fireball in a room full of people with no one having a chance of figuring out who cast the spell is not something I would ever allow as a GM and would strongly caution any GM from considering. Pathfinder 2e is not “mass murderer the role playing game.”

I beg to differ! Adventurers aren't commonly called murder hobos for nothing!

A natural attack is not a weapon.

Why can't I go "Hold, hold, hold, NOW" when an enemy charges me again?

Because enemies act one at a time in initiative.

Short of having GM buy in to have all the enemies acting on the same initiative, it's not possible to have one large group readying actions against another large group to any significant effect. The moment the first enemy comes within range of a spear and suffers multiple readied actions and dying, every enemy after them in initiative is going to adjust their tactics (perhaps by charging in after their fallen comrade where there are no more readied actions left).

I suppose you could get a close approximation to the scene by using troops.

Unicore wrote:

I am not sure if I would run it this way or not as a GM, especially as feats like foil senses only end up on custom built NPCs, but dark vision is a big enough buzz kill to me, that I would at least consider running dark vision as a special sense. At least regular dark vision has the “only black and white” restriction which actually feels a lot easier to foil to me than something like life sense or tremor sense or echo location.

If it would just super disrupt my campaign, I would probably still not allow it, but I think there is plenty of of room to interpret dark vision as something different than “vision.”

Don't you think that anything (darkness excluded) that hampers vision would also hamper darkvision ?

Blinding light would not hamper a person with darkvision, since they can only see the dark, and not the light, like a lightvision person can.

;P

Even if the items need to be used or be wasted, a Garden of Healing built in a city can spit out Contagion Metabolizers, etc, while the PCs are away. The PC can come back to collect a fat purse from the hireling who sells the daily healings. Even if the gross-costs net per-Activate value is like 20% of its listed gp cost, it's still kinda a yikes gold factory.

No such thing in PF2e.

By the time the PCs pay their hirelings, purchase the materials necessary to sustain and maintain the garden, taxes on the products, fees to the local crafter guilds, and bribes to criminals and politicians to get around red tape and other troubles, they're just making an Earn Income check to see what's left for their own personal profit.

I do nothing, as there's no problem.

Pathfinder 2e is perfect as it is.

agree on the fireball (because it's visible as soon as it leaves your person), disagree on the "the direction the pain comes from"

Witch of Miracles, Deiven, shroudb:

That's not how fireball works. The explosion of fire simply appears; there is no "trail back to the caster."

Exemplar should only give the Transcendance with a once per 10 minute limit. And even then it'd be super strong.

Exemplar should not have a once per round limit on Transcendence unless gained from the archetype.

They may touch imaginary weapon and they may not.

I'd wager that it gets a power boost in some way. ;)

In that example you won't benefit from the precision damage because you've already used it. But I'm not sure what extra combo you're missing there.

The combo of following up a high damage hit with a guarantee of another high damage hit (especially if you were lucky enough to have crit the first time). Sure the precision damage doesn't carry over to the second Strike, since that is once per round (what is it with Paizo limiting everything to once per round anyways?), but guaranteed extra damage after already landing a high damage Strike would have been pretty sweet.

My point is, if you take all the ikons that benefit archers, you can't benefit from them all. If you take all the ikons that benefit throwing weapons, you can't benefit from them all. If you take all the ikons for most any other theme you want, you can't benefit from them all.

It's inefficient. It's lack of synergy. It's waste. It's the extra hoops that hold back the swashbuckler, the witch hexes, the inventor, and many other classes.

The limit of one transcend a round really limits what you can do with the ikons.

For example, if you use Gaze Sharp as Steel for the defensive bonuses against ranged attacks with your archer exemplar then for your first action transcend A Moment Unending to get the precision damage bonus on your next attack and into Unfailing Bow for the passive damage bonus, Strike with your bow and hit, you can't then make use of Arrow Splits Arrow.

In fact, you will almost never get to use Arrow Splits Arrow while benefitting from those other ikons.

The exemplar is rife with "obvious combos" that simply don't work well, if at all, due to that limitation. It's a shame they limited the class so much. I've seen more than my fair share of exemplars who, in practice, had at least one dead ikon that almost never saw the light of day.

The class would have been better if they started with only two ikons and didn't have the once per round transcend limitation.

Is it intended to redesign/design the dragons as "more nightmarish" and "outerworldy alien"?

They're neither of those things. They're just different. If they weren't, WotC could potentially sue Paizo out of existence.

And because of the way human brains work, different naturally trends towards the subjective uncanny valley.

Note that PC undead using the skeleton ancestry and the undead archetypes from Book of the Dead are subject to the Doomed condition (as well as many others that normally don't affect undead)...

Unless applying the optional "Unleashing the Undead" on page 45 of that book.

Hence why I said "generally destroyed." There's exceptions to almost everything in Pathfinder.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that undead cannot be doomed by the breath weapon yet.

Their breath is a line of spirit damage that dooms undead creatures, helping guarantee their destruction.

Undead are not impacted by doom since they are generally destroyed at 0 hp.

Your soul has been gripped by a powerful force that calls you closer to death. Doomed always includes a value. The dying value at which you die is reduced by your doomed value. If your maximum dying value is reduced to 0, you instantly die. When you die, you're no longer doomed.

Your doomed value decreases by 1 each time you get a full night's rest.

Oftentimes undead don't even have a soul present for the powerful force to grip in the first place.

Double Strike combines the damage, no? Isn't it then fair to assume that both strikes are made simultaneously and therefore should both gain the benefit of an off-guard target?

Thanks for the help! I'll take this back to my table and see what they think. I suspect they will agree with you.

Because of that bad OG construction, you need special lines for every case where that assumed total of four is wrong.

Ah, that makes sense.

The current phrasing is not as clear or as obvious as I'd like though.

Even now it reads to me like you add the value of the witch bonus to the bonus value granted by the feat. Kind of like how armor potency runes don't add an item bonus to AC, but rather increase the item bonus granted by armor.

If I have two apples, and Gary is to deliver me 3 apples, and Bill tells me he is going to deliver 2 apples plus an amount equal to that which Gary is delivering, then when all apples are delivered, I should have 10 apples.

2 + 3 + 2 + 3 = 10.

I don't see the source of your confusion.

You do not get to add twice your bonus familiar abilities for being a Witch.

Except the feat clearly states to do exactly that: "Add the bonus familiar abilities you gain for being a witch to this amount."

2 + 3 = 5.

Then why would it say "Add the bonus familiar abilities you gain for being a witch to this amount."

"This amount" being the extra abilities granted by the feat.

If that wasn't the case then surely there's no point in including the above text in the feat. It goes without saying that a feat that gets you extra familiar abilities isn't going to take away abilities granted by a different source.

Enhanced familiar says "You can select four familiar or master abilities each day, instead of two." For witches it then goes on to say "Add the bonus familiar abilities you gain for being a witch to this amount."

So if I'm playing a 6th-level witch, my familiar would have...

2 base abilities that all familiars get
1 patron themed ability
1 bonus ability at 1st
1 bonus ability at 6th

For a total of 5 familiar abilities.

If said witch took Enhanced Familiar, then at 6th level the familiar would have...

2 base abilities that all familiars get
5 bonus abilities from Enhanced Familiar (2 base + 3 more equaling witch bonus abilities)
1 patron themed ability
1 bonus ability at 1st
1 bonus ability at 6th

For a total of 10 familiar abilities.

Is that right? Seems like a pretty meager feat if not.

How long can a magus sustain that though?

My last activity was Swipe, but my last action was a Strike. If both are true, then Drink of My Foes has had its requirements met and should work, without violating the "activities and their subordinate actions are not the same thing" rules.

If an activity is not its subordinate actions, then it gains none of the traits or other properties of its subordinate actions, no?

Seems like quite the slippery slope as that logical process and line of reasoning would completely break the game when taken to its logical conclusion.

Ergo, it must be the case that Swipe can be used prior to Drink From My Foes.

Thank you for the 5th Glyph and the recognition :)

Nexedo Selias wrote:

Guys at Paizo: I believe you are doing a great job in handling the remaster situation, I really do and I really love the game.

I want to just to say that it is OK to admit and OK to accept to have made mistakes. It is a complex system you are handling here and I believe you are more and more improving in the craftmanship of making PF2 fun and flavorful.

The ranger has many issues, some of which you are admitting here in what are majorly bug fixes here from oversights (spellcasting, crossbow ace not working with previously used hunter prey on tracks) but these do not answer the true problem of the class which is linked to its identity.

For what a ranger can offer today in matters of choices can be easily replaced by a fighter with a Beastmaster dedication, a gunslinger with scout maybe or just the thaumaturge. I mention this in terms of efficiency in a party AND in matter of flavor.

With the release of the gunslinger you gave this new class a head's up on the ranger in terms of combat capabilities and now you want to balance it up, understandable. But level 16? And only for those who chose to take spellcasting feats?

The class key feature that makes it different to other classes is today Hunter Prey. But... Hunter prey is a mandatory action that put the class in par with other ones. It is not an interesting choice like the Spellstrike of the magus or a Bon Mot before a will based spell that balances other choices, it IS the thing the ranger HAS to do to be even useful. And the advantage? Just to make the class what it is supposed to do. There is nothing that unique about Hunter Prey aside of making class features "working" or not. I believe that if you want to nail this weird class is to deal with this Hunter Prey thing. Maybe it could give instead bonuses to the allies to concentrate the efforts to a single creature, maybe it can be a combined action (action economy advantage) for the ranger to execute a certain action like striding towards the target, reloading,

...

Really appreciated your take, but yeah, we clearly see it differently :) mostly in correlation with the other classes as well.

The action economies you are mentioning are not really what I am proposing as an idea and I am aware of the one you highlight for sure.

Although I believe as well they will not take into consideration a random comment in their feed, I believe however they need to hear it for future considerations like they clearly did for what they did so far.

Guys at Paizo: I believe you are doing a great job in handling the remaster situation, I really do and I really love the game.
I want to just to say that it is OK to admit and OK to accept to have made mistakes. It is a complex system you are handling here and I believe you are more and more improving in the craftmanship of making PF2 fun and flavorful.

The ranger has many issues, some of which you are admitting here in what are majorly bug fixes here from oversights (spellcasting, crossbow ace not working with previously used hunter prey on tracks) but these do not answer the true problem of the class which is linked to its identity.

For what a ranger can offer today in matters of choices can be easily replaced by a fighter with a Beastmaster dedication, a gunslinger with scout maybe or just the thaumaturge. I mention this in terms of efficiency in a party AND in matter of flavor.

With the release of the gunslinger you gave this new class a head's up on the ranger in terms of combat capabilities and now you want to balance it up, understandable. But level 16? And only for those who chose to take spellcasting feats?

The class key feature that makes it different to other classes is today Hunter Prey. But... Hunter prey is a mandatory action that put the class in par with other ones. It is not an interesting choice like the Spellstrike of the magus or a Bon Mot before a will based spell that balances other choices, it IS the thing the ranger HAS to do to be even useful. And the advantage? Just to make the class what it is supposed to do. There is nothing that unique about Hunter Prey aside of making class features "working" or not. I believe that if you want to nail this weird class is to deal with this Hunter Prey thing. Maybe it could give instead bonuses to the allies to concentrate the efforts to a single creature, maybe it can be a combined action (action economy advantage) for the ranger to execute a certain action like striding towards the target, reloading, or even grappling that bear for those melee options. All of these could be linked to the class Hunter's Edge if you want like the different reloads works for the gunslinger.

TLDR: IMO fix hunter's prey or redesign the class in the newer eye with which you made the most recent classes: fun, useful and interesting.

Interesting to see Society limitations with alignment disappearing.

Please bring this AP to Foundry like you did with OoA (シ_ _)シ

Always wanted... decided to come this time. It's going to be a long ride from switzerland, I hope the jetlag wont kill me. See you there ;)

I agree on the +2 Int instead of Charisma.
+2 Dex make sense, ok, sneaky, small, ok no questions asked.
+2 Con I would doubt it a little as I would see it as really also physical robustness in which I can't see a goblin tough as a dwarf (C'mon). I would give instead even -2 Con BUT they have this hard stomach so it balances out.. I guess? Flat Con would make sense here IMO.
Goblins fit better the Scrapper/mechanic/alchemist concept and all of these are Int dependant.

Take the perspective of the same race on a different domain: Starfinder.
Would you see better a Goblin Mechanic or a shiny Goblin Solarian (or better a Goblin Envoy)?

I think that with the current stat bonuses if you really want to have a Goblin Sorcerer you can do it anyway without the starting +2 bonus.
IMO the Stat distribution for Goblins should be

Bonus: Dexterity, Intelligence, Optional
Malus: Strength