The annoying thing about your GM banning Stasian technology is that it ends up unnecessarily limiting gadgets—and, by extension, the inventor class itself.
It’s similar to a critique I often level at GMs who restrict certain "exemplars" based on rarity or lore. I like to point out the irony: it’s perfectly fine to play a sorcerer with a bloodline tied to some spectacular creature—or even one descended from a deity or an exemplar—but the moment you try to be, say, part-deity with similar powers, suddenly "that’s not allowed." It’s a shallow, ridiculous perspective, held by someone who’s fixated on a minor detail while losing sight of the system as a whole.
An elemental sorcerer who can hurl supernatural lightning—even using it to resurrect fallen allies (via *Shock to the System*)—is considered perfectly acceptable. Yet, an inventor who utilizes Frankenstein-inspired electrical technology—which is far less potent—is barred. At the end of the day, it’s nothing more than a shallow, baseless prejudice.
The fact that you jump to calling it shallow, baseless prejudice is funny, because that is exactly what your whole post reads like.
GMs can and should ban anything they feel doesn't fit the vision of the story they want to tell with their players. jhuns has said they're playing in a homebrew fae realm, their GM feels stasian technology doesn't fit the setting, and jhuns is ok with it. That's perfectly reasonable.
Acting like it is shallow, not thought out or ridiculous is wild.
Yes. Not all ancestries have a good selection of ancestry feats at each of 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels. For example, many of the higher level orc ancestry feats require Orc Ferocity; if you didn't take it earlier, your options are a lot more limited (and, no, Orc Ferocity is not a "must have" for every orc or dromaar character).
Why not take Orc Ferocity if you can ?
Because it might not fit your character? Because it's mechanically underwhelming? Because there's other feats you want?
I think the likelihood of choosing to play an Orc or a Dromaar and wanting to avoid Orc Ferocity is pretty low.
And I do not find it underwhelming at all. Pretty much the opposite actually.
It's a 1/day ability that requires a Reaction to maybe let you survive long enough for friends to bail you out.
But most of the time I've seen it used it ended up with the PC dropping to Dying 2 instead of Dying 1 as the monster's 2nd attack hit them.
And the upgrades are mostly very bad. By the time you get Undying Ferocity, the difference between 1 HP and your level in HP is basically nonexistent, a single monster Strike or even a succesful save vs a damaging ability is going to bring you down anyway. Incredible Ferocity sounds good but if you're using Ferocity multiple times per day you're either in a particularly deadly game or your party has huge problems.
Only Rampaging Ferocity is anything to write home about and it is way too high level for what it actually does.
Yes. Not all ancestries have a good selection of ancestry feats at each of 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels. For example, many of the higher level orc ancestry feats require Orc Ferocity; if you didn't take it earlier, your options are a lot more limited (and, no, Orc Ferocity is not a "must have" for every orc or dromaar character).
Why not take Orc Ferocity if you can ?
Because it might not fit your character? Because it's mechanically underwhelming? Because there's other feats you want?
Natural Medicine is an ok feat for a Druid, Ranger, or anybody who will be maxing out Nature. It won't turn you into the primary healer, since you'll lack Battle Medicine, Continual Recovery and Ward Medic. But you can use it during downtime to speed things up alongside the primary healer.
The Escape bonus from Musetouched is actually just overall useful for any class, but particularly Melee martials. Not caring about Critical Failures means you'll never be locked out of retrying, and turning successes into Criticals will allow you to put some distance between you and the grappler when needed. Just keep in mind it's a Stride, not a Step, which is important for reactions.
Neither feat is anything to write home about, but that's true of most lineage feats tbh.
Also you don't need to cross your fingers, you can always ask the GM to use Ancestry Paragon!
Vancian doesn't mirror fantasy books or stories or movies.
Actually it does. A lot of the time, wizards can cast spells only a single time (or at least a limited number of times per day). Repeated cast of the same spell is not the general rule.
It's usually framed as casting magic being tiring, requiring time, requiring limited reagents and such.
"I can't cast this spell again because I literally don't remember how anymore" is only found in Vance and it's derivatives, which is mostly D&D-based fiction.
3 attacks at 0 MAP and you still have 1 action left.
And you can do it every turn.
It's important to note you only get 3 Attacks at 0 MAP with this combo if your initial Melee Strike from Stab and Blast hits. If it doesn't, no Ranged Strike, which means no Clear a Path.
And also you're opening yourself up to Reactive Strike, but that just comes with the job.
Quite true. But your Melee attack is at Master proficiency. And Legendary at level 13.
And if you miss, you still only get your 2nd attack MAP on attack 2 (Ranged) and 3 (Clear a Path).
No, you get the full -10 MAP since Stab and Blast says "This counts as two attacks toward your multiple attack penalty, but you don't apply the multiple attack penalty until after making both attacks.". It doesn't matter if you miss and don't get both attacks, your MAP still goes up by as if you'd made 2 attacks.
And you'll only get your full firearms proficiency if you're using a Combination weapon, but it needs to be a 2H combination weapon that's a firearm, and none of those are particularly good. But at least they aren't terrible.
The Viper Technomancer is the one that eats the Wizard's Lunch here:
And the Operative eats any Pathfinder ranged martial and the Mystic eats the Cleric.
Overall, Starfinder has many classes that are above Pathfinder level of power. But if you compare the Technomancer to the Mystic, the Mystic is clearly the big fish here (even compared to Viper which is clearly the strongest Technomancer programming language).
As someone currently playing a Mystic in a PF game and having played a Cleric previously, Mystic does not eat the Cleric. Or at the very least, a Healing Connection Mystic does not eat a Cloistered Cleric, they both have pros and cons. But Healing Connection is probably the most "boring" Mystic, even if it's pretty powerful.
Also PF2e and SF2e classes can and should be compared since Paizo designed them with the expectation of them playing with each other.
I am looking for anyone who has practical play experience with the Bloodrager Instinct.
1. How did you handle the Drained condition from casting spells both in and out of combat?
2. Did you find it fun?
3. Is the spellcasting worth loosing current and max health?
4. Any examples would be greatly appreciated!
P.S. Is the search function not working for anyone else on the forums?
I did not play one myself, but a friend of mine did so I forwarded these questions and will post his answers (sans a lot of swearing...)
1 - He prepared for it by playing a Svetocher Dhampir (Human) so he could cast one spell without needing to worry about it. He also says he was lucky that the GM let him use Draw Blood on his Pack Mule (just a bought animal, not a Companion) when out of combat to bring the Drained condition down, since there were multiple times where combat ended with all enemies dead or fled and he was still Drained.
He also mentions that while Draw Blood works as HP recovery in the low levels, past level 3 or so it can't keep up with the damage you take from Drained, and it gets worse as you level up.
2 - He overall did find it fun enough to stick with it, but mentions it was nothing special, and that he would never, ever take the Class Archetype in a non Free-Archetype game. The only standout feat for him was Hematocritical at 10th, other than that he found the Archetype itself very meh.
I asked him what feats he took: Dedication at 2nd (Arcane), Rising Blood Magic at 4th, Siphon Magic at 6th, Spelldrinker at 8th, Hematocritical at 10th, Surging Blood Magic at 12th. Campaign ended at 16th but he didn't take any other Bloodrager feats.
3 - In his words, one spell per fight is worth it even if you're not Svetocher. More than that was dubious not just because of Drained, but also because his Spell DC was pretty mediocre due to relatively low CHA (he was still a Barbarian so he needed STR, CON, WIS) and delayed proficiency progression he mostly stuck to buff spells until around level 10. Casting cantrips was basically never worth it, he only really did it the first few levels just to feel like his Archetype was doing something.
I asked what his Attribute spread was and he said (in order STR/DEX/CON/INT/WIS/CHA; a * means partial boost):
+4/+1/+2/+0/+0/+2 at level 1
+4*/+1/+3/+0/+1/+3 at level 5
+5/+1/+4/+0/+2/+4 at level 10
+5*/+1/+4*/+3/+4* at level 15
As a final note, he wanted me to mention he thinks the Instict itself is trash. He felt it basically did nothing when fighting foes immune to Bleed, and even when enemies could bleed the amount inflicted was pitiful; further, adding Rage damage to spells sounds neat but it's so low it felt like too little to make up for everything else he was giving up. The only saving grace was the Resistance, which he mentions saved his butt more than once.
3 attacks at 0 MAP and you still have 1 action left.
And you can do it every turn.
It's important to note you only get 3 Attacks at 0 MAP with this combo if your initial Melee Strike from Stab and Blast hits. If it doesn't, no Ranged Strike, which means no Clear a Path.
And also you're opening yourself up to Reactive Strike, but that just comes with the job.
There are a handful of feats that are pretty cool, and the idea of a Spell Cache is a shinning feature, but the technomancer cannot cast as many spells per day as a wizard so it is significantly more limited than the spell substitution thesis, and a lot of the flavorful feats I see that are not overly tied to one specific programing language seem to be tied to assumptions about adventure design that just don't port over to PF2 as well.
The Viper Technomancer is the one that eats the Wizard's Lunch here:
- It gets a free spell gem (aka, scroll) per Rank it can cast per day, which is the Wizard's 4th slot. Unlike the Wizard, however, the Viper Technomancer can fill this slot not only with any spell in their database (aka, spellbook) but also any spell for which they have a spell chip (aka, wands).
- While overclocked, it can cast spells from spell chips or spell gems of any tradition without a check required so long as they'd be able to cast spells of that Rank from a Technomancer slot. So, Trick Magic Item+++, with no extra action cost, but it requires a bit of foresight to use (since you can only Overlock 1 gem or chip at a time until 14th level, and even that requires a Feat)
- At 3rd level, while Overclocked, they can use a Free Action to use Universal Spell Bus on any of their spell gems or spell chips and then immediately Overlock again for a free action. Not only does this give you pretty good action compression, it means as long as you're Overclocked you can effectively cast every spell you have on a gem/chip without needing to Interact to draw it. And because the Jailbreak automatically Overclocks you afterwards, it's a super easy loop to keep going.
- Dynamic Frequency Scaling (a Spellshape) allows Viper Technomancers to double their usage of spell gems and spell chips (the latter are still broken on 2nd use, but only destroyed on a Natural 1, meaning you can much more safely use them twice.)
- Turbocharge Lattice (a Spellshape) gives you more bang for your buck from all those spell gems and spell chips by automatically heightening the spell in it to your [Max Rank-2].
These are the main reasons the Viper completely outclasses the Wizard in the versatility department, but there's a few other points that apply to all Technomancers:
- While Download Spell is limited to your Spell Cache (aka, School Spells), the Technomancer can customise their Spell Cache to their liking thanks to the 4th level feat Expanded Cache and the 8th level feat Spell Library, allowing Download Spell to be used with a selection of [Rank x2] + 2 spells. This is less than Spell Substitution (by a lot, even), but Download Spell is also a Free Action you can use during a fight, which increases it's usability immensely when coupled with the fact the player can build their own customised Cache.
- Unlike Wizards, Technomancers don't need to Multiclass to get 3 Focus Points, they can get them natively from their Class. But wait!. Not only can they get 3 Focus Points from their 3 Programming Language hacks, they can also learn the Initial and Advanced Magic Hacks from other programming languages thanks to Cross Platform Application and Advanced Cross-Platform Application! But wait! because they also get feats that given them special Magic hacks anyway! The wizard, meanwhile, only gets their 2 school spells. No Cross-school study. No feats giving them special focus spells. Nothing.
- This is more personal but the Technomancer has an in-built gameplay loop of using Overclock to feed into Jailbreak Spell to make better use of Spellshapes, which I enjoy because it's a lot more active than the Wizard (who doesn't really get an equivalent).
The most recent writeup oN The Widow is in Infernal Inheritance and it essentially says "basically nobody remembers anything but its name, and it doesn't grant spells to any worshippers". That is, sadly, all the context we have on it beyond its actions during Earthfall.
One can kind of infer there might've been a falling out since the other Forsaken made the Caligni stay in the Universe, while the Widow brought refugees to the Netherworld* itself, but it's pure conjecture.
I'm hoping Blossom is more than yet another Leaf reskin, and considering it has a whole page dedicated to it I'm hoping for some new feats at least. Otherwise we're gonna have 10 orders, 4 of which are just Leaf variants and that's just lazy.
And I think Spore Druid got done dirty, honestly. It could've been much better tied to decay and rebirth with some interesting feats, but it's just Leaf with the serial numbers filed off.
As much as I'm happy with the previews from Unseen World...what looks like yet another plant-themed druid makes me think someone at Paizo is really into botany.
It probably has more to do with action economy than anything else. Wands and Scrolls take the same actions to activate as the spell they hold, so almost always 1-3 actions. Potions and Oils, in contrast, are all 1 action to activate, which means for 90% of the spells you'd get an action discount by turning it into a potion.
The existing potions that replicate spells (such as the invisibility potion or the potion of flying) compensate for this with either cost, level availability or lower effectiveness when compared to a scroll. While I don't doubt the Paizo devs could cook up a way to make generic "Magic Potions", it'd probably take too much work to balance to their liking, which is why they haven't done it.
1 action, if you're already holding it in your hand.
2 actions if you've got it in some sort of potion bandolier on your body. 1 action to retrieve, and 1 to open.*
More actions if it's in a pouch or backpack or something like that.
*Having it visibly on you could run into a situation where an enemy targets it, although the rules about destroying items are vague/incomplete but as a GM I would totally make rules about targeting potions in plain sight. However, I wouldn't abuse it either to so as to completely dissuade players (or NPCs) from ever using potions.
Also, If the devs we're only specifically concerned about number of actions, they could make activating a potion require the same amount of actions of the base spell.
Which is a long way of saying, I don't think the primary reason was action economy.
Regardless, we're on the same page that "custom" potions aren't available without your GM specifically approving it.
Needing an action to Draw the item also applies to scrolls and wands, hence my off the cuff "90%" number. If a spell needs one action to cast, there's no difference between potion, scroll or wand. But if the spells are 2 or 3 actions, the potion wins out. Using the examples I talked about with invisibility or flying, it's always going to be 1 action less than using a scroll of the given spell.
Action economy is likely one part of it, but the other likely reason is that potions/oils do not require Trick Magic item or any kind of spellcasting to use and they wanted to limit the available effects.
It probably has more to do with action economy than anything else. Wands and Scrolls take the same actions to activate as the spell they hold, so almost always 1-3 actions. Potions and Oils, in contrast, are all 1 action to activate, which means for 90% of the spells you'd get an action discount by turning it into a potion.
The existing potions that replicate spells (such as the invisibility potion or the potion of flying) compensate for this with either cost, level availability or lower effectiveness when compared to a scroll. While I don't doubt the Paizo devs could cook up a way to make generic "Magic Potions", it'd probably take too much work to balance to their liking, which is why they haven't done it.
Thank you for your answers, but I find myself with a secondary question: can you only make oils/poitions of the types found in the GM Core/various supplements. Or can you make a potion/oil to simulate any spell?
Unlike Scrolls and Wands, which have a generic option called Magic Scroll and Magic Wand (respectively) on which you can put any spell, Potions and Oils lack an equivalent in the currently printed rules.
That means unless your GM cooks up equivalents you're limited to the existing, pre-defined potions and oils.
Also keep in mind any Craft Requirements the item may have in addition to the feats. Magical Scrolls for example require that you provide a casting of the spell you want to make into a scroll at the listed rank.
I mean Elric (like quite a lot of fantasy characters) doesn't fit neatly into any kind of class based RPG, but particularly not PF2e.
He's not a Magus because he's not Spellstriking or doing anything close. Most of the time he just wins because of Stormbringer, and when he does cast spells he doesn't really "cast" anything, he asks Arioch (or the demons that serve him) to aid him (because they must, due to him being the last Emperor of Melniboné) and they pull out whatever cool thing Moorcock could think of that also solves the problem.
He does use special tonics to keep up his strength, which makes you think of Alchemist, but he's not really an Alchemist in the PF2e sense either.
The best fit is really Fighter (he is a very good swordsman, when he's not in one of his weakness periods) with a ton of extra benefits the GM threw on top because boy did this solo campaign get out of hand!
The Raven Black wrote:
Do we know how Stormbringer behaves in another character's hands ?
Maybe Mournblade would be interesting to assess too since it has been wielded by many characters in the books.
It's never really explained too well, Mournblade and the other Demon-Turned-Swords that appear sporadically seem to all work the same way as Stormbringer, which itself seems to work fine no matter who wields it. People just don't because the swords are intelligent and drive you mad with bloodlust unless you feed them souls, which is not something most people want to deal with...for obvious reasons.
Are we trying to keep things moderately balanced or simply porting the sword over as is? Because those lead to two very different outcomes.
In both cases it'd be an Intelligent Artifact with both mythic striking and mythic potency. It'd also have a better version of Drink of My Foes from Barrow's Edge, but activated as a Free Action after every succesful Strike and giving you more bonuses than just healing, likely Temporary HP, status bonus to FORT saves and a status bonus to melee damage.
If you go book accurate it'd also ignore Hardness and Item bonuses to Armor Class, and anybody it damages would instantly die.
I don't know if you're missing something per-se, but this is an 18th level mythic feat that could get you, let's see...
- Diehard makes it so we die when we reach Dying 5 rather than Dying 4.
- We're mythic, so every time we would die we instead increase Doomed by 1, and we properly die when we reach Doomed 4.
So we're Wounded 4, and reach 0 HP. Instead of Dying (Dying 1 + Wounded 4) we gain Doomed 1. If someone heals us back from Unconsciousness we'd be Wounded 5. If we repeat this process until we get to Doomed 3 we would be at Wounded 7, which is a +7 Status bonus to AC and +14 status bonus to damage. If we go down again at this point we die for realsies though.
If we also have Spirit of Vigil then we can add 1 more Wounded, so +8 and +16.
And if we have Lifeblood's Call, we add another +8 circumstance bonus to damage.
That sounds pretty awesome but you do need to be right on the edge of death, and it's an 18th level feat locked to a specific mythic destiny so I don't really mind.
It irks me somewhat that people want Nature to be better than Diplomacy at imposing your will on animals.
When imposing your will on any creature is definitely a matter of Charisma and not Wisdom.
But then I believe Intimidation makes a much better job at this for animals than Diplomacy anyway.
Aside from the oft cited reason in this thread that it fits the fantasy better, it's because "imposing your will on animals" is 95% knowing how those animals will react to what you do, which is Nature, not Diplomacy. Hence, Command an Animal being a Nature Skill Action, and Train Animal being a Nature Skill Feat.
And Intimidation would be terrible. Scaring an animal very rarely elicits compliance and is a sure fire way to have them run away or fight you.
Actually, Force Barrage requires you to see the target because it says so.
The general rule for spells with a Targets entry is that your GM decides whether you can target a creature you can't precisely sense. If they do allow it, you have to deal with the usual flat checks and square guessing that come with targeting creatures you can't see.
Wish there was guidance on when to allow or not allow it, though. FAQ CANDIDATE, perhaps?
Probably a FAQ candidate, but even if the spell didn't have that line force barrage would require you see the target because it says "Targets 1 creature" and in Ranges, Areas and Targets it says:
"The target must be within the spell's range, and you must be able to see it (or otherwise perceive it with a precise sense) to target it"
As you point out, allowing anything else is GM discretion. The RAW is that if a spell has a Targets entry, it requires perceiving them with a precise sense, and it also requires Line of Effect unless otherwise noted.
Fireball only requires line of effect between the caster and the origin point of the burst. Wall of Shadow does not block that line of effect since it is not a physical barrier. So now the caster can successfully target a point on the opposite side of the wall even though they cannot see it.
Being able to target an area spell to a location that the caster cannot see is a violation of the rules for Targeting.
This is incorrect since Fireball (and other Area effects) do not Target anything, as evidenced by the fact they don't have a Target line. Nor do the Area rules ever refer to targeting or seeing.
Note, also, how the Line of Effect subsection in Effects (which you even quoted previously) says:
"When creating an effect, you usually need an unblocked path to the target of a spell, the origin point of an effect's area, or the place where you create something with a spell or other ability."
Meaning an effect's target (for example, the bandit we want to hit force barrage), the origin point for an area effect (our fireball center) and "places" (for example, the square an Eidolon appears in when we use Manifest Eidolon) are all different things.
fireball and other burst area effects do have two lines of effect: one from the caster to the center of the burst, and one from the center of the burst to all the creatures the spell can affect. wall of force prevents both, so you can't put a fireball behind it, unless you're flying or on higher elevation and can draw line of effect over the wall's 20 foot height. And if you did manage to do it, anyone on the opposite side of the wall would be safe from the fireball (or whichever burst effect you put down).
Finoan wrote:
The two are defined in (very slightly) different places in the book. But they are defined to be mechanically identical. Right down to the 1-foot square gap rule and the example of a portcullis.
As far as I can tell, listing the general line of effect rule and following it with a separate line of sight rule specifically for vision effects is done for historical reasons - so that people familiar with previous TTRPG games who go looking for line of sight rules will find it successfully.
The two are actually defined in the same place, Page 426 of Player Core. And they're two different things, since, after all:
Visibility doesn't matter for line of effect.
But it very much matters for Line of Sight, which leads us to:
Finoan wrote:
So, second challenge (and don't think I haven't noticed that no one has attempted the first challenge yet): Define a mechanically significant difference between a visual line of effect and line of sight.
This challenge fails because there's no such thing as a visual line of effect, as established right above where visibility doesn't matter. You're confusing the fact that choosing Targets requires that you have Line of Sight to them with what Line of Effect is.
TL;DR: If an Effect has a Target, it requires both Line of Sight and Line of Effect. If an Effect doesn't have a Target, it still requires Line of Effect. The origin point for Areas are not Targets, and so they only require Line of Effect, not Line of Sight.
Some effects, like the clairvoyance and clairaudience spells ignore these rules, but the general rules are clear as day.
This is, by the way, a mistake on both our parts, because lowering the DC of a Recall Knowledge check applies exclusively to identifying creatures.
This isn't true, since the Recall Knowledge Skill Action itself states:
"Using an applicable Lore to Recall Knowledge about a topic, such as Engineering Lore instead of Crafting to find structural weaknesses in a bridge, typically comes with a lower DC."
shroudb wrote:
You find an old ruined castle in cheliax, and the player going "I use my Untrained Improvisation/Keen recolection to use "Ruins of Castles in Cheliax Lore" to see what I know about it.". Since the Lore is extremely specific, it should qualify for the -5 to DC for very specific Lore checks.
This isn't how it works, for two main reasons:
1 - As explained above, while Creature Identification does say the DC is usually easy or very easy, the actual Recall Knowledge action simply says a lower DC. It doesn't say they must get a lower DC, nor does it give numbers. And as I've show in another post, the developers themselves don't even give lower DCs all the time, nor do they ever give you the much coveted "-5".
2 - Just because a player says they want to use a skill doesn't mean they get to, particularly with Lore skills when the GM decides if they exist at all. In your example, I'd just say "That Lore doesn't exist, but you can use Cheliax Lore* or Architecture Lore if you wish".
Your example only works with an extremely permissive GM that interprets the rules in the way most advantageous to the player, which I'd argue is not how most tables would play and therefore useless when discussing the power and use of these abilities.
*Interestingly, the rules on Lore Subcategories found in Creature Identification actually say a country lore shouldn't be allowed, but you need look no further than the many Adventure Path Player Guides to find Backgrounds that give you Belkzen Lore, Isger Lore, Cheliax Lore, etc; so it seems they are a fine Subcategory after all.
40 feet by 40 feet is 1600 square feet. Assuming we have three standard floors of 10' high (to make use of the full height), that gives us 4,800 square feet of property. Which is actually a lot of space, though it's very vertical, and not exactly "Palatial".
If you feel that's too little, making it bigger isn't going to unbalance anything and if your player will enjoy it, go for it. Just make sure to give them more servants to keep it all clean!
This leaves us with 16 Recall Knowledge checks that have DCs for one or more Lore Skills and one of the general skills.
And how many of those have a separate listed DC for "absolutely any Lore skill you happen to have"?
Two, though they phrase it as "an appropriate Lore Skill" and it's the same DC as the other Lore they have listed. In one of them, funnily enough, it's any Appropriate Lore or one of the general skills, and the DC is exactly the same for both.
Also that's not how it works anyway? Untrained Improvisation/Keen Recollection would just help by letting you roll the presented Lore at the listed DC. You don't get to make up a Lore and ask for a lower DC.
I hesitate to call it RAW because it’s the sort of thing written in the GM Core more as a guideline for the GM than a hard rule (after all, the GM is the one who determines the DC at the end of the day). But precisely because it isn't a strict rule, I interpret it to mean that—in order to benefit from a reduced DC due to Lore being more specific than a standard skill—the Lore itself must be specific, rather than a general ability that works for anything.
As an experiment, I combed through both Hellbreakers and Hell's Destiny to see how well the developers themselves stick to the idea of Lore skills having lower DCs when used to Recall Knowledge. I'll put the results in spoilers just in case, but keep in mind I never mention the skills, context, or anything of the sort, just raw numbers.
Spoiler:
There are, in total, 33 Recall Knowledge checks between the two APs: 26 in Hellbreakers, 7 in Hell's Destiny (yes, the discrepancy surprised me too!)
Of those 33, 11 offer a DC for a single skill to Recall Knowledge with, so they're not useful to us since there's no DC to compare.
Of the remaining 22, 6 offer DCs for two non-Lore skills, so again, not useful for us to check, both because we cannot compare DCs to Lores, and because all of them are the same DC to both skills besides.
This leaves us with 16 Recall Knowledge checks that have DCs for one or more Lore Skills and one of the general skills. Of those 16:
- 5 (31.25%) offer exactly the same DC between the general skill and the Lore skill
- 2 (12.5%) offer exactly the same DC between two Lore skills
- 1 (6.25%) offers -1 DC to the Lore skill
- 7 (43.75%) offers -2 DC to the Lore skill
- 1 (6.25%) offers -3 DC to the Lore skill
It is interesting to note, however, that the DC is always the same for all Lore skills presented as options for a check, even though some of them would definitely fall into "more specific" than others (Country vs City; Whole Region vs Specific Faction).
Non-spoiler conclusion: the developers mostly stick to giving Lore checks lower DCs (though curiously, not always); they don't differentiate by specificity (all Lores get the same DC), and the vast majority of them are "easy" compared to the non-Lore skill (so, -2 DC), with none of them being "very easy" (-5 DC).
So the idea of being able to roll any Lore you want doesn't seem to translate to -5 DC to all rolls, at least in the mind of adventure writers.
I am on the RAW side and I dislike people trying to game the system through "creative" reading of the RAW.
There is no creative reading here. Are all the different Lores a skill? Yes. Is Recall Knowledge an Untrained action? Yes
The RAW side is that you can absolutely roll to Recall Knowledge on any Lore you want, even when Untrained. Without any of these Feats or Class Features.
If you see a Skeleton you can ask the GM to roll Skeleton Lore to identify it, even if your INT is -1 and you're Untrained, though the GM has to give the ok like in any monster identification.
If the GM calls for a Patisserie Lore check to Recall Knowledge, that same character can still roll it. This is all RAW, and it doesn't change because you have abilities that make your Untrained rolls better.
People just don't like the RAW for various reasons.
Anything which uses a weapon past level two is using a magic weapon
This is actually not true at all, and a casual read through NPC Core (or Nethys' Humanoids monsters) will provide you with plenty of examples of mid to high level foes without a single magic item, let alone magic weapons.
However, because the real breakpoint of when magical items become standard on enemies appears to be level 7 this means Keen Magical Detection should still work most of the time if you're fighting on-level humanoid foes. If you're fighting Troops (which never get magical items) or monsters (which basically never get items, but might have a magical effect) then the feat is much less useful.
This already makes the feat situational by default, but it's not the feat's biggest weakness. That would be the fact that it only works if the required enemy is within the range of your detect magic spell, which is 30 feet and never gets better.
When the Technomancer hits Archives of Nethys in a couple of weeks there's going to be a lot apologies for their bad opinions in this thread.
I didn't want to derail the thread but yes, Technomancer in general, and Viper Technomancer specifically, eats the poor wizard's whole lunch and drinks their milkshake.
I'm not saying I wouldn't let someone use Keen Recollection on every/any recall knowledge attempt, I'm saying they're not going to get to do so at a decreased DC.
Super Zero wrote:
They're definitely not effectively Trained in all Lore skills.
The most broad skill possible is the exact opposite of a specific skill.
Answering both of these here because they both ignore how this actually works in published adventures, where checks are presented with DCs for specific skills, like for example:
"A PC who succeeds at a DC 18 Diplomacy check to Gather Information or DC 16 Underworld Lore check to Recall Knowledge has heard of the bandit gang."
If the Investigator is using Keen Recollection to roll Underworld Lore, they get the DC 16 check. Artificially raising it serves no purpose except to make the Investigator feel bad that they can't take advantage of their cool class feature (assuming their modifier would be better than their Diplomacy).
Similarly, why would you increase the DC for the Thaumaturge, who's already going to be taking a -2 to the roll to Recall Knowledge?
So if you as the GM in a home game think "They can acquire this information with Gather Information, Coerce, or Recall Knowledge" why would you not let these classes use the Recall Knowledge DCs (even if lower)?
So a Thaumturge has a class feature that gives them a broad range of knowledge (by which I mean it would transcend multiple skill) but the subjects are limited to haunts, curses, and creatures. With an ADDITIONAL class feat, the subject can be expanded to anything, but then you take a penalty to it.
Yes, but there is a big difference here: the Thaumaturge gets automatic advances to Esoteric Lore, which means if they take Diverse Lore then by level 3 they're effectively Trained in all Lore skills, by level 7 they're Expert in all of them, and by level 15 they're Master. All for one Class Feat. A Level 1 Class Feat, even.
Keen Recollection not only doesn't ever scale (and you can't upgrade it), it doesn't even give you the +2 from Trained, all you get is your level. It is a much weaker feature that comes online 2 levels later. So nerfing it further by not allowing the Investigator to Recall Knowledge using Lores when appropriate just makes it even worse.
The thing about Battle Harbinger in OoA is that unless you plan to keep the character and take them into another campaign, its going to end before you get any of the Battle Harbinger's interesting things. You won't get Master in Martial Weapons and you won't get Empowered Onslaught.
Sure you end up being an Expert in weapons for two more levels compared to the Warpriest, but I don't think that's worth losing the Heal Font, which is the BH biggest oof. Losing 4-5 top level heals to get an extra 4-5 1st Rank spells that do not scale at all is a terrible trade.
And without going into too many spoilers, Brigh and her clergy are an afterthought in the AP. Unless your GM is willing to add more for your character to do in that regard, its not a character concept with any more legs than simply being a Brigh worshipper.
For the rules side of things: yes, you can absolutely use Shield Block against a Reactive Strike that was triggered by you Standing, provided you meet all the requirements for the Shield Block reaction.
For the narrative side of things, the first thing that came to mind was Hector blocking Ajax's blow in the movie Troy. Granted, he's not actively trying to stand up, but I can easily see a character doing so.
Some spellcasters get a blank spell book for free, I think.
Indeed, both classes that need a spellbook get one for free. However, if you're copying your spellbook onto a second one, you do need to buy the spare.
ottdmk wrote:
Still, I've come to realize that the notion of using Learn a Spell to copy a spellbook isn't actually set in stone. There's nothing that references copying a spellbook anywhere on Nethys that I can find. Learn a Spell seems to believe you only have one spell repository.
It's in the first sentence of Learn a Spell
"You can gain access to a new spell of your tradition from someone who knows that spell or from magical writing like a spellbook or scroll."
If you can copy spells from Zarthrax's spellbook onto your own, it stands to reason you can copy spells from your own spellbook onto a blank one. You're just not "learning" a new spell.
As for only having one repository, the Magus class addresses that in its own entry for Spellbook:
"If you have a spellbook from multiple sources (such as being a magus with the Wizard Dedication feat, you can use the same spellbook for all your spells."
Note it says you can use the same spellbook, not that you have to.
Now, granted, the Wizard itself doesn't have this caveat, so you could argue they can't prepare from multiple spellbooks. But if that's the case, the class feature also says nothing about replacing your spellbook if stolen/destroyed , or designating other spellbooks to prepare from. Which would be way worse, and also disallow Wizards from using Grimoires, which is clearly unintended.
I'm honestly more perplexed that we have essentially three different variations of plant druid but we still don't have anything resembling a Winter/Tundra Druid or a Desert Druid.
Adding to Teridax's excellent overview, sure strike is also better because it lets you ignore all circumstance penalties to your attack roll and you ignore the flat check if an enemy is concealed or hidden.
So no, DaS is not "free no cooldown sure strike". It's not even particularly good on a Magus, just kind of ok.
Take a wizard's spell book away from him. Wait a day. He now has a bunch of empty spell slots he can't fill, because he needs a spell book to do that. I don't see how you can claim that a spell book is useless.
Honestly I think you've lost sight of what the discussion was about. You asked Tridus why they thought Spellbooks sucked, and I provided my own reasons.
You either didn't read or ignored that and have now circled back to one of the reasons why they suck: if a Wizard is deprived of their Spellbook, they can't do anything.
This does not make the Spellbook good. It makes it a liability. No other class except Magus has to deal with this kind of thing, and neither the Wizard nor Magus gain anything from the Spellbook at all.
Compare them to the Witch, which has a similar class feature in their Familiar. The differences between familiar and spellbook, however, are staggering:
- As a spell repository, the familiar cannot be lost for an extended period of time unless it is kidnapped. If they die, they simply return the next day, with all the spells they knew intact.
- If you find a scroll of a spell you could learn, you can give it to your familiar to consume. They will learn the spell in 1 hour with no check needed, but you lose the scroll.
- They are a full familiar with extra abilities, meaning they can scout, function as your valet, etc. The abilities granted by your Patron vary in usefulness, but some of them are incredibly good.
Other prepared casters simply have access to their whole spell list every day, without the need for a spellbook or familiar. Or they're the Necromancer, which is slightly weird.
So, to recap: for the Wizard and Magus the spellbook adds nothing except hassle. It is required for them to use their spellcasting feature, but every other caster is able to use their spells without needing to deal with the disadvantages a spellbook brings.
A wise wizard (the word "wizard" comes from Old English "wys ard" meaning "wise man") will make at least one copy of his grimoire and put it somewhere other folks can't get at it. He might also put a trap or two on both copies.
In another world (Kèthîra, aka "Hârnworld") there was once a Fyvrian (Earth element) mage whose "grimoire" consisted of a necklace of small jade figurines that only he could read. And a Dwarven Jmorvi (Metal element/Artifice) whose grimoire consisted of metal (bronze I think, iirc) plates on which his spell notes were engraved in Dwarven runes, probably with various misdirections and traps built in, though none of the humans who found it some thousand years after his death could read it (in this world, dwarves do not teach their language to outsiders).
Ok, cool. Making a copy takes even more money, time and skill checks*, and trapping either of them doesn't do anything if the bad guy just destroys them/tanks the trap/doesn't care/etc.
And they gain nothing from all this hassle. There is no advantage to having a spellbook. It's all downsides. Hence why they suck.
*For example, making a copy of WatersLethe's spellbook in the OP would take 37 hours, require 23 Arcana checks, and cost 114 gp. As a reminder, throughout 5th level, this wizard is expected to get about 337 gp in treasure, of which about 80 gp is currency, which means they'll need to spend more than 1/3 of their treasure share to make a spellbook copy.
The spellbook sucks in general, no reason for the GM to make it harder.
Can you expand on this? In what way does the spellbook suck?
You need to both pay and pass a skill check and spend time to add spells to it, which isn't a huge deal but adds nothing when compared to the prepared casters that simply pick from their whole list every day. You're just worse.
It is a physical item that can be stolen and/or destroyed, at which point not only are you incapable of preparing spells, you need to pay/pass the skill checks/spend the time to rewrite it from scratch (and you lose all the free spells you'd written down from levelling up until that point too). With the Witch, if your Familiar dies you're in a bit of a pickle but you're a-ok by the next daily preparations. If you're a Wizard or Magus and your spellbook is gone, you're in a horrible situation no matter what way you look at it.
TL;DR: they are a mechanical weakness with no upsides whatsoever.
The example given at the end of MoLaD's description would be meaningless if Harm still healed them : "For example, you could have the harm spell deal vitality damage to undead enemies,".
I know, but it's the same thing that has happened with Dhampirs, or anyone who uses Nudge the Scales, or gets Void Healing in some other way while not being Undead, where the developer intent clashes with the actual rules.
You can absolutely use harm to deal vitality damage to Undead if you have Mastery of Life and Death RAW. Unfortunately, as written, you will also heal them, because the spell has two distinct effects, and RAW doesn't allow you to ignore one of them. It just says "If A, B happens. If C, D happens" and it was likely not intended for A and C to be the same, but now the game has advanced far enough that it has happened, which leads to issues.
If stuff worked like in 1e we wouldn't have this problem, the spell would deal Void damage to everybody and Undead (and people with Void healing) would just get healed instead.
But as it stands GMs need to use common sense to realise the spell dealing damage and healing at the same time is dumb, and not intended.
I mostly remember Karzoug in the initial RotRL using spells against us and not a single time trying to use his polearm.
But that was a long time ago, so I might be misremembering.
I mean, yeah, because a Wizard using a polearm in 1e was even more of a joke than 2e. And not just because they were bad with them (though they were) but also why would they even bother when they can cast wish to teleport the whole party into the center of a sun (with a Will save, of course). And Karzoug has 2 wish spells prepared!
Way I read Mastery of Life and Death, the Invert Harm feat and the Harm spell, when you cast 3-actions Harm with only MoLaD :
1. Living ally, you choose vitality damage for the target = no harm done.
2. Undead ally, you choose void damage for the target = no harm done and healing occurs.
3. Living enemy, you choose void damage for the target = they get hurt.
4. Undead enemy, you choose vitality damage for the target = they get hurt. And they do not get healed because it is vitality they get rather than void energy. Otherwise, the example provided at the end of MoLaD description would make no sense.
The problem (and confusion) is that this isn't how Vitality/Void damage (or healing) work, nor how the harm spell works.
A normal harm spell has two very different effects depending on what it targets:
If it targets a living creature, it deals void damage.
If it targets a willing undead creature, it heals them.
Mastery of Life and Death has two relevant parts that change this:
- "Whenever you Cast a Spell or use an ability that would deal void or vitality damage, you can choose for the spell to do either void or vitality damage to each target separately." -> This is what lets us change the damage in harm to vitality when we target a living creature.
- "When you Cast a Spell or use an ability that would affect or target only living creatures or only undead creatures, you can affect and target both. This does not apply to the healing effects of spells or abilities." -> This is what lets us target Undead creatures with harm's void damage (which otherwise can only target living creatures), which we then change to vitality thanks to the other clause in Mastery of Life and Death.
The problem is that harm is worded such that these changes effectively make the spell say this:
"If the target is a living or undead creature, you deal 1d8 void or vitality damage to it (chosen for each target separately), and it gets a basic Fortitude save. If the target is a willing undead creature, you restore that amount of Hit Points."
So an Undead target would effectively be damaged and healed by the effect, but that is clearly not intended. Mastery of Life and Death is worded fine, the problem lies in the harm spell itself.
Also worth noting that Invert Harm doesn't help with this, since that simply allows you to restore hit points to living targets. There's no way to remove the fact that harm as written heals willing undead no matter what else you do.
The order is immunities, then weaknesses, then resistances, as described in Step 3 of dealing damage.
If a werewolf were immune to slashing and got hit with a slashing silver weapon, then any weakness to silver doesn't matter. This werewolf doesn't take damage from slashing, period.
If a werewolf instead had slashing resistance 10, then we apply the silver weakness first, then the slashing resistance.
This moonbeam spell should work similarly. A creature immune to fire would be completely unaffected, even if they had silver weakness. Without that immunity, a creature with silver weakness will take extra damage due to the weakness, but any resistance to fire will also apply.
This is true but the Weaknesses section also states:
"Some weaknesses can apply when a creature wouldn't normally take damage, as determined by the GM. In such cases, you take damage equal to the weakness value when touched or affected by something with that characteristic."
So a GM could rule that your Slashing immune Werewolf still takes the Silver werakness because even though the Axe can't penetrate their hide, Silver is still making contact with them.
Ditto for this spell. In the event a creature is immune to fire damage but weak to silver, you could rule being bathed in silver flames is still enough to trigger the weakness.
But it's a GM call, and they would not normally take the damage per RAW.
However, they then went and added specific Magical Siege Ammunition, which clarifies that yes, magical shots require the special magical ammunition.
I don't think they did. Nothing in the Siege Ammunition section of Battlecry says other magical ammunition doesn't work, they just printed ammo that specifically works for some Siege weapons.
Or to put it another way, just because Gruesome Bolt must be put on a ballista bolt doesn't mean you can't make a preserving shot (Ammunition: any) into a ballista bolt.
The same would apply to alchemical ammunition. I think the bigger problem you'll run into is that a lot of ammunition has effects on hit/critical hit/etc which is not something that happens with the Inventor's mortar, or with a lot of siege weapons, which call for saves and not hit rolls. Which means you (or your GM) would need to rule how those interactions play out.
That said, at a minimum re-reading the magical siege ammo, I would absolutely allow all of them except the bolts to be used with the Inventor's Mortar Innovation, since they're made for weapons that target like the mortar and thus are very easy to adjudicate.
Yep, it works just like that. The ability specifies each target separately, so you can indeed choose to deal vitality damage to your allies to refrain from hurting them while dealing Void to everyone else.
TheFinish, good pushback — and you've put your finger on the real question, which is not range at all. It's whether these activities suspend the spell's targeting requirements. They don't, and Spellstrike is the proof.
Spellstrike is proof of nothing except Spellstrike itself, and nothing else. To attempt to use Spellstrike to limit these other abilities would be like me saying Flying Tackle is wrong when it says you can Trip someone at the end, because Running Tackle says you can Grapple or Shove at any point during a High Jump or Long Jump.
The abilities may work similarly but they're not the same, and therefore one of them doing X does not mean the other one also does X.
When you Cast a Spell using any of the three abilities being discussed here, you do not choose a Target at all. If you did, you could conceivably choose Target A for the spell, and then Target B for the Strike, since there's no stipulation against that. But they don't need to, because the abilties say (with small changes):
"The effects of the spell do not occur immediately but are imbued into the required weapon. Make a Strike with that weapon. Your spell flies with the ammunition, using your attack roll result to determine the effects of both the Strike and the spell."
This is important because per the Reading Spells subheader on Player Core, page 303, the "effects" of a spell are all placed after Defense and Duration, in the block of text. And if you go look at spells, you will find that the wording that asks you to make a spell attack roll against your target is found in that block. You do not choose a target (and therefore, check for Range) until you resolve the spell's effect.
But the abilities say the effect depend on our Strike, so we don't need anything but the Degrees of Success provided by the spell, and nothing else matters.
And because the ability places no restrictions on the Strike, it works like any other Strike. The range of the spell doesn't matter because making a spell attack roll against the target is part of the effect, which is ignored and instead determined by the Strike.
They don't need to include sure strike in the immunity because it's baked into the spell now thanks to the Fall 2024 errata. true strike never got the errata, so PFS has to clarify.
When the rules say something "costs" movement they're explicitly talking about voluntary movement, as per the rule SuperParkourio posted, which reads in full:
"When the rules refer to a “movement cost” or “spending movement,” they are describing how many feet of your Speed you must use to move from one point to another. Normally, movement costs the number of feet you're moving. However, sometimes it's harder to move a certain distance due to difficult terrain or other factors. In such a case, you might have to spend a different amount of movement to move from one place to another."
Forced Movement further reinforces this by saying:
"When an effect forces you to move, or if you start falling, the distance you move is defined by the effect that moved you, not by your Speed. Forced movement doesn't trigger reactions that are triggered by movement. Some common causes of forced movement include the Reposition and Shove actions of Athletics. In the rare cases where it's unclear whether your movement is voluntary or forced, the GM makes the determination."
Getting Shoved into Difficult Terrain doesn't "cost" extra because you're not "spending" any movement, you're just getting Shoved into it. It is not an effect defined by your Speed, and so cannot incur costs.
Now, there are some instances of Forced Movement that would be ambiguous here (the most common one being Leading Dance, from Swashbuckler), but instances such as Shove, Reposition, hydraulic push and begone (among others) very clearly fall under forced movement and should not be shortened by terrain, IMO.
