TheFinish's page

Except Thrash doesn't target, so not RAW IMO.

If you know you're holding something, you can Thrash it around. One might say that implies targeting, but that's RAI (the implied version of RAI, not necessarily the intended version).
Sadly, whether one knows they're holding something circles back to Foil Senses re: touch...

This is adjudication territory IMO, and were rigorous rules laid out, they'd likely become too exploitable and/or fall apart given all the size, limbs, and other physiological/magical variance.

Thrash does have a target: your grabbed foe.

A lot of good points

I actually agree with you on all of this and think Concealed should be ignored in these cases, at least until it's reworked. But to answer your question on how I'd rule if I said it applied:

1) You do the Whirling Throw flat check before rolling Athletics. If you don't pass, you don't roll Athletics and just waste the action.
2) Yes, a failed flat check is a miss for the purpose of those feats.

TheFinish wrote:

That being said, it'd be nice to have a sidebar that said something like "Unless noted on a creature's statblock, X is a Precise Sense, Y is Imprecise, Z is vague." for Sight/Sound/Smell/Taste/Touch

You might want to check the post and link I quoted 5 posts above yours.

I've read that section, I find it unsuitable mainly for two reasons:

1) As I said, I think Touch is Imprecise, not Vague, especially going by the descriptions the book itself provides. Touch has less range than smell (at least, for those of us who aren't Mr. Fantastic) but it provides a ton more detail than smell or even hearing in most situations.

2) It doesn't provide ranges, which isn't super necessary but it leads to things like a character being able to use Touch to Seek any 30 foot burst within LoS with one action. Of course, since Touch, being Vague (allegedly) can only go Unnoticed->Undetected, it wouldn't do anything according to seek.

Compare to Mutants and Masterminds: http://i.imgur.com/Iw5LIli.jpg

I'm not saying PF2 needs that level of detail, the Perception/Concealment rules just need a bit of polish.

Castilliano wrote:

If one had Trash/Collateral Thrash (Barbarian), you could exert more control over the foe and w/o the miss chance. Furious Grab also avoids this miss chance (though could be read elsewise I suppose), as would Constrict (like an Eidelon or monster might do), and those seem more extreme & Attack-like than maintaining.

Funnily enough, my GM ruled in a session earlier today that I'd have to make a flat check to Thrash an invisible creature I had restrained, much to the disagreement of the table. I plan on bringing up that ruling next time an invisible PC gets Constricted, Engulfed, or Grabbed.

While I agree with you that it seems very silly, your GM was sadly going by RAW. Concealed is explicitly called out as an entirely separate effect from your status as Observed/Hidden/Undetected/Unnoticed. Unless you can ignore the creature's Concealed condition, you must make the flat check to target it with any ability. Yes, even if it's restrained. Or you've swallowed it. Silly as it sounds.

As for the OP, the Core Rulebook says, when talking about Precise senses:

"Average vision is a precise sense—a sense that can beused to perceive the world in nuanced detail."

And then, for Imprecise:

"Hearing is an imprecise sense—it cannot detect the full range of detail that a precise sense can." (emphasis mine)

While Vague senses state:

"A character also has many vague senses—ones that can alert you that something is there but aren’t useful for zeroing in on it to determine exactly what it is." (emphasis, again, mine)

So, with these descriptions, Touch is an imprecise sense. It can certainly be useful for zeroing in on something to determine where or what they are, but it can't give you the full range of detail sight can.

If you're fighting something invisible that stunk, your vague smell could tell you the general vecinity. If you swept your arm around and hit it, you'd know exactly where it is, but not what weapons it's holding (if any), it's size, color, armor, etc. To me that means Imprecise.

That being said, it'd be nice to have a sidebar that said something like "Unless noted on a creature's statblock, X is a Precise Sense, Y is Imprecise, Z is vague." for Sight/Sound/Smell/Taste/Touch

I'll be honest I have no idea, I'm not well versed enough with the system yet.

Back in PF1, you could try any maneuver with any weapon you wanted, with some exceptions.

In PF2, I don't know if that's the case. It seems from my reading that you can only use a maneuver with a weapon is the weapon has the corresponding trait. If it doesn't, you're not using the weapon, you're using your free hands.

So in this example, Gorilla Slam has Grapple, so I can Grapple with Gorilla Slam. I can still use Trip or Shove because Gorilla Slam is Unarmed, which means my hands are free, but I wouldn't be using Gorilla Slam, so I don't get the Backswing.

You also wouldn't need to make Grapple the first check, I don't think, since Backswing is on the next attack.

So, if you use Gorilla Pound and miss, then use Mixed Maneuver. First you try to Trip. The Trip doesn't use Gorilla Slam, so you don't get Backswing, but you can still do it since your hands are free.

Then you Grapple. You can use Gorilla Slam to grapple, and if you do, you get the +1 from Backswing, because it's your first attack with the weapon after the miss. You would also get to add any bonuses Gorilla Slam would get (like from Handwraps), which is neat.

That's how I'm reading this interaction, but as I said I'm not super duper comfortable with Monks and Stances and their different Unarmed attacks, so I could be wrong.

So, to see if I followed:

You're in Gorilla Stance, using Gorilla Slam attacks. You use the Gorilla Pound Feat, and your attack missed.

Then you use the Mixed Maneuver Feat for your next two actions.

Backswing states:

"After missing with this weapon on your turn, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your next attack with this weapon before the end of your turn."

I think, as long as you used a Gorilla Slam Strike for your Mixed Maneuver, it would work. But since Gorilla Slam doesn't have the Shove or Trip traits, the only maneuver that would qualify would be Grapple, since you could Grapple with your Gorilla Slam Strike (which is an attack) and get the bonus. You can't Shove or Trip with a Gorilla Slam Strike itself, so they wouldn't get the bonus, because you're not attacking with the weapon required to activate Backswing.

That's my reading, but I could be wrong.

The Strike still works fine, since Subordinate Actions has this clause:

"The subordinate action doesn’t gain any of the traits of the larger action unless specified."

Enchanting Arrow does not state the Strike gains either the Emotion or Mental trait. Therefore your Strike is still a normal Strike and would deal normal damage, it just wouldn't deal the Mental damage.

EDIT: Forgot to say this is under the In Depth Action rules sidebar of Page 462 of the Core Rulebook.

Good points. I feel the Level 18 ability doesn't make much of a case, because high-level abilities shouldn't be used as examples for entry-level abilities, but the Forceful Trait requiring Power Attack to deal more damage doesn't make much sense.

Magic Weapon and Shillelagh don't contribute to the discussion. Both enhance weapons that only have one die to begin with. A Power Attack with a Shillelagh against an undead creature would deal 6dX.

The Critical Specialization point also makes sense, though. So, as I see it now, the rules elements are simply contradictory. Which seems odd to me, because I've come across many players using Power Attack, and my Fighter playing under a couple different GMs, and nobody bats an eye at it.

So either it's widespread misunderstanding, or there's another rules element out there that supports Power Attack multiplying all of a weapon's dice, and it hasn't been mentioned yet.

shillelagh and magic weapon add to this discussion because they further clarify what a striking rune does. It doesn't turn a weapon damage die into 2X (2d6, 2d8, whatever), it simply adds a weapon damage die, bringing the total to two damage die.

That's my whole point in including it. You're claiming a striking rune changes the weapon damage die. It doesn't. It adds damage dice to the weapon.

For your interpretation to be correct, shillelagh and magic weapon would need to read something like:

"The target becomes a +1 striking weapon, gaining a +1 item bonus to attack rolls and increasing the weapon damage die to double its original value (d4 becomes 2d4, d6 becomes 2d6, etc)."

But it doesn't. Every mention of striking runes is about adding damage dice, same as Power Attack. There is no contradiction here.

I will say though, if you find me a weapon with a base damage die of "2d6" like the PF1 greatsword, then yeah, every rune would add 2d6, and every level of power attack would add 2d6. But as it is, this doesn't happen, because those weapons don't exist.*

*Except maybe all the Polymorph Battle Form weapons like claws because that seems to be its own big can of worms.

I agree with you that there is a need for Errata on which save is required. I'd personally go with Will, but that's just me.

For your first question: I was unable to find a general rule in the rulebook that covers this. However, in every spell that targets attended objects I could find that requires a save (curse of lost time, necrotic radiation, grease) or a similar creature ability (shattering harmonics from the destrachan), the wielder attempts the corresponding saving throw. In light of that, I'd rule the weilder just rolls a Will save with appropiate effects.

For your second: There's no mention of being allowed to willingly fail/crit fail saves, so the target would have to attempt the save per RAW

I've never seen anyone run it different. Good thing it's explicitly allowed*:

Damage wrote:

Effects based on a weapon’s number of damage dice include only the weapon’s damage die plus any extra dice from a striking rune.

The damage die of a Pick is 1d6. Power Attack increases this to 2d6.

The damage die of a Striking Pick is 2d6. Power Attack increases this to 4d6.

Which of course, makes sense, because the idea behind Power Attack is that it effectively deals double the damage of a single Strike.

It'd be pretty useless otherwise.

*with the usual caveat that everything read is up to interpretation.

So by your interpretation of the rules, something like a greater striking falchion (3d10) would only deal +1 damage with it's Forceful Trait on the second attack, and +2 on all subsequent attacks (because I only have one damage die, 3d10)?

Or if I have a greater striking pick (3d6) and I crit (Fatal d10) and I have the critical specialisation for it (+2 damage per weapon damage die), I only add +4 damage (1 for the 3d10, and another for the Fatal d10)?

I don't think that's the case. On Page 278, under damage rolls, it reads:

"Magic weapons with striking, greater striking, or major striking runes (page 581) add one or more weapon damage dice to your damage roll."

So striking runes add weapon damage dice to your roll. We have further evidence of this with things like shillelagh or magic weapon which say:

"The target becomes a +1 striking weapon, gaining a +1 item bonus to attack rolls and increasing the number of weapon damage dice to two."

So a striking weapon has 2 damage dice, and every other step adds another damage die. The same with Power Attack. Power Attack adds one die of weapon damage, and then 2, and then 3.

So a Power Attacking striking pick that crits (which turns all d6s into d10s) will deal:

1d10 base
1d10 striking
1d10 power attack
+ any bonuses

You duble all of that (by whichever method you prefer), and then add a d10 from the deadly trait.

Man, this one is a complicated one.

The relevant part of Lead the Pack states:

"When you Command an Animal, either choose one of the companions to take 2 actions, as normal, or else both companions can take 1 action to Stride or Strike."

And Companion's Cry states:

"You can urge your companion to do its utmost. You can spend 2 actions to Command an Animal instead of 1 when commanding your animal companion. If you do, your animal companion uses an additional action."

My gut tells me they'd work fine in tandem: Either one of your animal companions gets 3 Actions, or one gets 2 and the other 1.

But while I'm certain giving one 3 actions is fine, I'm not sure the second case is RAW. Mostly because Lead the Pack limits your companions to Stride or Strike when you give them both actions, and I'm not sure how the extra action would apply. Would it inherit the limitation or not?

To answer the question: No, as long as it meets the listed requirements it doesn't matter how you acquired the spell in question.

Note that most (maybe all) of the Stances that lock you into a specific Strike have defensive bonuses and weaker (or situational) Strikes. It's obviously a trade-off that Paizo doesn't want bypassed by not using the Stance's Strike (and say a weapon).

Except somebody could bypass that by dropping in and out of Stances (which is why the activate one Stance/round rule is in place). If somebody could Strike twice by other means (weapon/Animal Barb/etc.), then switch to Crane Stance, they'd be getting all the benefits (including its excellent Reaction) with no downsides. Next round they drop out (for free?) and repeat.
I see this as shenanigans.

While I personally don't see it as shenanigans, it's easy enough to just make exiting a Stance an action (which is what I'll do if I ever run this game).

That way doing what you say would take them all turn, assumign they started in the defensive stance. And if they wanna do that instead of other things, more power to them.

Malicious Shadows would also be elegible, wouldn't it? 2 Actions, non-cantrip hex, no spell attack roll required. That comes on at 6th level.

But there's no denying there's only 3 Hexes you can use the second part of the feat with at all. I don't doubt more will become available as the game goes on though.

This is weird, I could've sworn there was text saying you could exit a Stance as an action somewhere, but I can't find it now. It seems you might be right which is...very odd, to say the least.

Neither Dhampirs nor Bone Mystery Oracles gain the Undead trait, therefore they are not Undead and thus, Malignant Sustenance can't target them, but Touch of Undeath Certainly can.

As for whether or not you can intentionally fail, you can't AFAIK. Unlike PF1, PF2 doesn't have any sidebar or paragraph related to willingly failing saving throws that I could find.

The sentinel quote you just put there says it won't upgrade if unarmored defense goes up so the wizard will stay at only trained with heavy.

You would need light or medium to go to expert from your class unarmored isn't counted for the feat.

"If you are at least 13th level and you have a class feature that grants you expert proficiency in unarmored defense, you also become an expert in the armor types granted to you by this feat."

The proficiency will get upgraded to Expert, but only at 13th level. For the Wizard, this doesn't matter (they get Expert Unarmored at 13th). For other classes (like the Monk, or an Animal Instinct Barbarian with Animal Skin) it's a significant delay.

-----------------

On Topic though, I don't think that's right. The Feat grants you Light and Medium, and if you already have those, it also grants Heavy.

Note that it doesn't say "If you already were trained in light armor and medium armor, you gain training in heavy armor instead", it says

"If you already were trained in light armor and medium armor, you gain training in heavy armor as well"

So at 13th level, the Wizard would be Expert in Unarmored, Light, Medium and Heavy.

Is it cheaper to apply runes to the nails and not buy handwraps if you plan to only ever use nails?

Nope, the cost is exactly the same, there's no discount whatsoever.

It doesn't, no. You summon it, as the spell describes. If the spell required a corpse it'd be described in a Cost requirement (Something like Cost: One corpse or skeleton), or alternatively it'd specify it must target a corpse or skeleton (something like Target: One corpse or skeleton).

You're not really animating anything nearby so much as pulling the dead thing from somewhere and giving it unlife.

For Lightning Storm: I think the clouds are also 5 ft bursts, since the description says if you're outside you can create two that cannot overlap.

Mechanically, it can only send the lightning bolts to the 5 foot burst you designated when you cast the spell, and this area cannot move, ever, for the duration of the spell (so better cast it on a chokepoint).

As a GM though I think it'd be fine to make the clouds as big or as small as you want, as long as the bursts from multiple clouds don't overlap.

For Reincarnate, it's a bit odd, but the description says:

"The target loses their heritage and ancestry feats, selecting replacements from their new ancestry. The target’s background, class features, and known languages remain unaltered."

For all Classes, Class Feats are Class Features and thus, under this reading, remain unaltered. However, on Page 18 of the Core Rulebook, it says:

"Prerequisites Any minimum ability scores, feats, proficiency ranks, or other prerequisites you must have before you can access this rule element are listed here. Feats also have a level prerequisite, which appears above."

If you think "Access" means "Take", then the character can still use those feats. If you think it means "Use", then they can't. I do think it's unclear and could be read either way, especially because the glossary says:

"Many feats and other abilities can be taken only if you meet their prerequisites."

So it just adds to the confusion. I think treating it as retraining is fair, but you could also just let them change them for other feats like you change the Ancestry feats.

Unfortunately it'd seem like you can't play an Ancient Elf Eldritch Trickster. Both give a Multiclass Dedication Feat, but they have no wording saying you can ignore the Dedication's requirements (like Multitalented does).

So you'd go through CC, pick Ancestry, get your Ancient Elf Multi-class dedication, then move on to class, and that's where the trouble occurs.

As a GM I'd be more than willing to let a player be an Ancient Elf Eldritch Trickster if their Ancient Elf Dedication and the Eldritch Trickster Dedication would be the same, but I'm not entirely sure that's possible under the rules.

As far as I can tell, you're missing nothing. A Witch would be better off using normal handwraps, since they'll apply to all their unarmed attacks, including their claws.

The only reason would be the cool factor of etching their nails, I suppose. But mechanically that's just plain worse than handwraps.

Part 2
Would you up the hp of items one degree for each size increase? Example normal sized long sword is 5 hardness and 20 hp. A large long sword would then bump up one 'catagory' and make it 7 hardeness and 28 hp. Seems silly a giants weapon is just as easily destroyed as a medium size creatures...

Thoughts?

PF2 doesn't have changes associated with size, unfortunately. Your idea can work, of course. If you prefer, you can also use the PF 1 method: for every size smaller than medium, halve the hit-points; for every size larger than medium, double them.

Hardness should probably remain the same, since the material is always the same, what's changing is the mass (which is represented by HP).

It is obvious that the Bard must be able to produce the sound (of the instrument) in order to cast a spell. But does this also imply that the spell does not work on a creature that can't hear it?

So if a bard can cast fireball for some reason and uses this to make it Auditory and has a bunch of Deaf minions he can have them tie up "hearing" enemies and he can fireball with no chance of hurting them?

No. The text is clear that it's Cast a Spell that gains the Auditory trait, not the spell itself. Which means, as we find under the auditory trait description that hyphz posted...

"An action with the auditory trait can be successfully performed only if the creature using the action can speak or otherwise produce the required sounds. A spell or effect with the auditory trait has its effect only if the target can hear it."

What that means is that your bard would be unable to use the Cast a Spell Action (and therefore, cast the spell at all) if they were unable to produce the required sounds. It doesn't matter if anyone can hear them at all, only that the bard can produce them.

So, for example, if your bard was under the effect of a silence spell, they'd not be able to use Component Substitution to cast spells with their instrument.

From the glossary of the CRB, p. 631:

effect
An effect is the result of an ability, though an ability's exact effect is sometimes contingent on the result of a check or other roll. 453-457

E.g., taking damage from a sword strike is an effect of the sword strike. The damage only occurs if you are first hit by a successful attack roll. Taking damage from a fireball is an effect of the fireball, which only occurs if you do not critically succeed on your Reflex save against it.

From the bestiary p. 184

GOLEM ANTIMAGIC
Harmed By Any magic of this type that targets the golem causes it to take the listed amount of damage (this damage has no type) instead of the usual effect.

That tells me it's only the effect that changes. You still have to roll attacks and/or saves as necessary for any effect to occur as a result of the spell. If no attack/save rolls were necessary for the effect to occur I think that would have been made clear in the antimagic text. Without utter clarity, I think it is just too much of a departure from game mechanics to be assumed.

Ok, but this still presents a bit of a conundrum. Obviously for abilities with an attack roll, if you miss you just miss, and if you hit...it's still a bit confusing, at least to me.

Like, lets take a Flesh Golem, they are Harmed by Fire. I am a level 8 Cleric, and I cast 4th level Ray of Fire at it.

If I miss, I miss.

If I hit, my normal effect would be 8d6 Fire damage. But the Golem would make it just 5d8?

And if I crit, It'd be (8d6x2) and also 4d4 persistent, but the Golem would make it 5d8 and 3d4?

That's how I read it, but it seems rather counterintuitive that the golem comes out taking less damage than what they otherwise would, while I still need to actually hit it and such for spells to take effect.

As far as I can read, you can Rage, you just don't get the damage bonus from it:

- You get the Temporary Hit Points if you want.
- You don't get the damage bonus, because it's untyped, not Circumstance or Status.
- You get the penalty to AC, because all penalties apply while polymorphed.
- You get the same restrictions regarding Concentrate actions and such.

That's how I read it, at least.

Psiphyre wrote:

Draco Bahamut wrote:

I have seen lesser or major controversy about most APs, <snip> Kingmaker were machist, <snip> Most complains dieout just after the AP is lauched through.

What is machist?

This is an honest query; I can't parse what you meant here. Sorry. (The rest of your post I understood -- typing on the phone(?) can be a pain...)

As to your last point: Yep!

Carry on,

--C.

Adjectival form of "machismo."

(Why doesn't English have an easy equivalent to "machismo," anyway?)

Because "masculinism" hasn't caught on, I guess. Also it sounds horrible. And meninism also sounds horrible, and means something else entirely.

I should also point out the correct adjective for machismo is machista, with an a. Though if you're trying to make it english I guess you'd drop the "a" so it's more in-line with feminist.

One thing to note is most enemies don't live long enough to get down to cantrips, except for the lowest of levels. Don't think I've ever actually cast a cantrip from a monster.

I was actually curious so I went through the Core Rulebook. The non-cantrip spells that use the spellcasting ability modifier for stuff are:

false life
glyph of warding*
illusory creature
spiritual guardian
spiritual weapon
weapon of judgement

*glyph of warding is an exception because all the modifier interacts with is how many glyphs you can have active.

Then I went through the Bestiary and Bestiary 2 to see if any monster had any of them as non-innate spells:

false life: Lich

glyph of warding: none

illusory creature: lamia matriarch, dark naga, worm that walks cultist

spiritual guardian: none

spiritual weapon: drow priestess, gnoll cultist

weapon of judgement: none

Of these, the Lich is described as a "wizard", so I'd use Int. The Drow Priestess is a Cleric, so Wis. The Gnoll Cultist is likely also a Cleric, but it's not specified.

So that leaves the three monsters that get illusory creature. Not a big deal, overall.

Of course there might be more in modules, and as the game progresses and we get more spells and creatures the list might expand so it'd be nice to have a ruling. And obviously if we go into cantrips there's a lot more, so it'd be even nicer.

The Syrinx are the "bird head, wings, humanoid body" of Pathfinder.

The trick is that Sneak is usually used for movement, but the text on spells doesn't say the trigger has to relate to movement. It just says that a Sneak check fools an Auditory sensor, which isn't how the move works at any other time.

Also, is there any answer on Alarm? It seems a bit problematic otherwise, because although Alarm might not be that dangerous, someone can potentially avoid any possibility of a spell being stealthed by casting Alarm, specifying the auditory option, then casting their actual spell with the trigger of "when the Alarm bell rings".

Alarm itself specifies how it works regarding sneaking past it:

"A creature aware of the alarm must succeed at a Stealth check against the spell's DC or trigger the spell when moving into the area."

Of course to be aware of the Alarm you need to detect magic somehow, but once you know it's there sneaking in is perfectly doable.

Now how about Champion tenents? Would it be a good idea to swap em out for the ones 5e uses, or should I just leave them alone?

Well that'd depend on what kind of champions you want to have. All the ones in 2E are different flavors of Good, while 5E offers quite a bit more flexibility.

The class itself would work with any tenets, but if you change the current paradigm for another (say, you scrap the ones in the book and use Devotion/Ancients/Vengeance from 5th), you just need to be very clear who gets what specific Reaction and associated feats.

Also keep in mind 2E assumes a strict hierarchy of the tenets, while 5E is more loosey-goosey (this is a scientific term!) in the tenets of each Oath, with all of them being more or less equal in importance. That's more a roleplaying thing for you and your group but it's something you should consider.

As long as each flavor of Champion you want has their own Code Tenets and an appropiate Reaction (and if you have more Codes than Reactions you can just repeat them) , you should be fine.

For creatures that have spells that do some damage roll plus primary casting ability modifier, what is that modifier? Is there a default stated somewhere, like divine spells always use Wisdom? Given that creatures have their own rules for their bonuses, I'm not sure I can reverse engineer the bonus from the Spell DC or Spell Attack.

I looked over Core and the Bestiaries and unfortunately there's no clear cut rule (except for Innate Spells, which always use Cha), and even worse in some cases the books just confuse you more.

The prime example being Dragons, where the bestiary says with spellcasting Dragons you might increase different mental stats (Int/Cha for Chromatic; Int/Wis/Cha for Metallic; Wis/Cha for Primal) to "reflect their mastery of magic". So...which is their spellcasting stat? Who knows. Take your pick.

They really should errata this at some point, and I'm curious as to how it's handled in PFS (if they've even realised the issue).

Losing +3 Greater Resilient unarmored clothing to a critical hit from a corrosive rune is immensely lame.

Yeah, it sucks. I'm not entirely sure the Corrosive would work on Explorer's clothing because it's not technically armor, but the Wrecker Demon's ability would work, which still sucks.

If you're willing to house rule (not sure how your table feels about it), you can copy PF1s system, where every +1 (in this case it'd be potency) gave +2 Hardness and +10 HP.

So your +3 greater resilient explorer's clothing would be Hardness 7, HP 34 and BT 17. It'll hurt when hit with corrosive, but it won't destroy it completely even on max damage from Greater Corrosive, or an Abrikandilu's Wreck (unless it crits, I think).

(I was unable to find any similar rule in PF2, hence why I'm defaulting to PF1)

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Just ran into a situation that was quite harsh. An enemy critically hit my monk wearing +1 unarmored clothing with a corrosive weapon property rune weapon. The run says it does 3d6 acid damage to the individual's armor. This isn't much damage for a plate wearer, can be dangerous for a chain wearer,and is absolutely devastating for a cloth or leather armor wearer. It completely wrecked my armor.

So a few questions came from this:

Do armor potency or resilient runes increase hardness or hit points of armor or unarmored clothing?

If your armor is destroyed, are the armor potency and resilient runes destroyed?

This type of attack which is automatic as a corrosive rune crit or can be done as part of an Abrikandilu attack completely destroys unarmored clothing with no save or defense. If the runes are destroyed, that means any class using armor can have a major investment of their wealth immediately and irrevocably destroyed with fair ease. This makes plate wearers the main way to go for defense as investing in for example +3 greater resilient unarmored clothing only to have it easily destroyed a single critical hit from a corrosive rune or similar attack seems like a real liability when playing a defensive monk type.

Anyone know if there any rule that allows higher level magical armor to have greater hardness or hit points?

You can't have +3 Greater Resilient Explorer's Clothing. Explorer's Clothing is not Armor, and only grants an exception for Potency Runes. You can't put Property Runes on Explorer's Clothing.

You can have +3 Greater Resilient Explorer's Clothing just fine. The only property runes you can't put on Explorer's Clothing is Fortification, Invisibility and Shadow.

Plus explorer's clothing is included in the "Magic Armor" description ("A suit of magic armor is simply a suit of armor or explorer’s clothing etched with fundamental runes."), and the Robe fo the Archmagi is +2 Greater Resilient Explorer's Clothing.

The Gleeful Grognard wrote:

krobrina wrote:

The other thing I don't get: if you have flapping wings, you shouldn't need to roll to hover in still air. It would be like making people roll to sit down.

I would like to point you to the vast majority of creatures with wings that find it incredibly difficult to hover in place with still air.

O.o

I googled which birds can hover and there are quite a lot of them. But let me ask you. The ones that don't. How do we know they can't? After all they're just dumb birds and you can't easily ask them to try it.

Maybe someday we will be able to do this and I'll bet that if we made a bird of prey human intelligence it would beat any fighter pilot in understanding of aerial maneuvers because it's natural for it.

Bone structure, muscle anatomy, weight and physics. The only birds capable of hovering indefinitely in place are hummingbirds. Some birds can hover for a little bit before doing something (most notably kestrels), but it's hard, especially if you don't have headwind (and using headwind to hover isn't a "true" hover in the sense you're not mantaining position by wing movement alone)

Still, what can or can't happen IRL shouldn't have bearing on PF. Personally, I wouldn't require a check, simply because the Fly action doesn't list Hovering as requiring one.

It's no sillier than the Fly action letting you slam into the ground at full speed from 120 feet in the air with a single action (if you have a Fly speed of 60 feet) while taking absolutely no damage.

TheFinish wrote:

As for your putting it on your spellbook,that'd depend on whether you consider a spellbook a "container". But assuming you do, I'd never use a password. I'd use the trigger "Anyone but me touches my spellbook". Then you don't need to speak, and it won't go off when you manipulate the thing (but careful with handing it off to friends!)

As soons as you allow triggers like "Anyone but me touches" then you have allowed grenades, unless you are distiguishing based on intent or relative motion.

You put a leather cover on a book and give it a buckle. The leather binder is a container now. Spell book inside. No problems. Glyph can be effectively applied. If the GM is really tight on it I suppose you could make it a pouch.

Armour I suppose is semantics, maybe a bridge too far. I expect most GMs wouldn't allow that.

Just for the record there is a Leshy subtype Gourd Leshy that is a container - that's right a PC can be a container. Glyph goes off when you touch him ....

Hmm.

Yeah, I know. I've said from the first that RAW the spell allows "grenades" and such. It doesn't say "if a creature willingly moves, opens or touches." Put a glyph on a metal drinking flask, throw it at an enemy, hit, it goes off. Put an AoE spell on it, and the flask will even be fine and reuseable afterwards!

And the trigger can be whatever you want. Nothing prevents a trigger like the one I stipulated. Or something like "A hostile creature touches it". Or a hundred other such triggers.

That's not even the biggest problems the spell has. How, exactly, do you "center" a cone on a triggering creature? A line? How long is the glyph deactivated if I speak the password?

If I were to ever run PF2, I'd just use the PF1 glyph of warding and not bother with this version.

For 1 - Seeing the wording, I can definitely believe that interpretation. My thought had been that if a creature set off some kind of effect from a 1st glyph, it could set the second off, but if direct interaction is involved, then it makes sense.

For 2 - Good to know. Thanks!
For 3 - Why not? As the specifications for the container are essentially non-existant, I'm curious. I personally disagree with the grenade or weapon use interpretation due to the fact that a spell storage glyph exists for weapons, meaning that as someone doing the interaction with the weapon, you can't force it to go off when it touches another creature both because it's not the intended use of the spell, and another in-game mechanic already covers it.
But since armor isn't going to be used in that way, I could still see it as being booby trapped. Still, I was also considering that if not armor itself, perhaps a shield.
For 4 - I thought as much, but I wondered at the interpretation, since to set off the glyph the creature would already need to be in physical contact. I am not precisely sure how such things are treated in this system. By that I mean, does a failed melee attack miss, or potentially simply connect and not get through? And depending on that, how does it work in terms of a spell? My thought on Shocking Grasp, for example, would be that a failed attack has to miss, since even slight physical contact would be enough for that spell to work, especially against metal armor wearers.

1) You could theoretically set two (or more) glyphs off, if you do something like: put a glyph of warding on a chest, and the spell is gust of wind, and when they try to open it the spell pushes them into the area of another glyph.

3) The reason I don't consider Armor (or shields) to be a container is simple: if armor is a container, then the spell knock, the chime of opening, and the Force Open action all work on it. Could you, theoretically, make armor, or a shield, or even weapons that are containers? Yes, absolutely, but I think that goes beyond the intent. You're free to do as you wish though.

4) In PF a "miss" can be either of those, or however you wish to flavor it. Maybe the shocking grasp didn't go off correctly, maybe it just gave the guy an annoying (but not damaging) jolt, maybe he flinched and the whole zap went past him. The important thing is that it doesn't affect the character.

TheFinish wrote:

Niloc716 wrote:

I'll try to do these in order:

1 - No, you can't make a landmine. You can target either an object or an area. If you target an object, then it only goes off when someone touches it, moves it or opens it without doing whatever needs to be done for it not to go off (aka, speaking the password, fulfilling the trigger, or both).

I don't see the wording in the rules anywhere as tightly as you do.

I do believe you can set it on an object with a password. More the object somewhere else not triggering it because of the password. This is a landmine.

It fails the common sense test not to be able to move a glyph. Otherwise why would a wizard ever put this on his spell book? The most classic use for this spell. Suddenly he can't move the spell book to his work bench? Not reasonable.

IMHO landmine is possible and supported by the rules.

TheFinish wrote:

2 - Glyphs fo Warding can absolutely overlap each other, so long as you don't have more glyphs active than your Spellcasting modifier.
3 - No, your armor isn't a container.
4 - The spell goes off as normal, it just targets whichever creature triggers the glyph. So yes, you'd need to roll a Spell Attack roll if the spell requires it.

Agree with these. Though I normally house rule against players stacking glyphs.

But not the rest of your commentary. Accidently stepping on a glyph should trigger it. The intent of the victim, voluntary or not, doesn't come into it.

My first response was to Niloc's commentary of making a proximity mine with the glyph. As in, you put it on a chest, and whoever approaches the chest triggers it. My answer was no, just approaching the chest won't trigger it. You need to move/open/touch it to trigger.

If you want a glyph to trigger when someone moves somewhere, that's an area glyph. But you can put the chest inside an area glyph. Or bury the chest so the top is exposed, and if someone steps on it, it goes off, sure. But there has to be actual contact for your "landmine" to work, proximity isn't enough.

As for your putting it on your spellbook,that'd depend on whether you consider a spellbook a "container". Butassuming you do, I'd never use a password. I'd use the trigger "Anyone but me touches my spellbook". Then you don't need to speak, and it won't go off when you manipulate the thing (but careful with handing it off to friends!)

And I think you misinterpreted the rest (or I wasn't clear). I am absolutely in the camp that says intent doesn't matter. The glyph will go off whether you manipulate the object/enter the area willingly or unwillingly.

How does the staff sweep work with a halfling slingstaff?

The feat says 2 targets within your reach, but a ranged weapon has no reach.

Probably not doable per RAW, but wouldn't the easiest solution be to just treat the slingstaff as a 2H staff in melee for this purpose?

So your reach would be 5ft, and you do d8 Bludgeoning (since you're using the staff in two hands).

Forgetting for a second about the grenade idea - assuming you have a glyph in a container and the container is placed somewhere, would it still be possible to have it trigger based off a creature of a given time entering a stated proximity? So, less like a grenade, and more like a landmine.

Next, since you can have it cover an area, is there any rule stating that a glyph can't overlap partially or fully with another glyph in terms of the area it's inscribed in?

Would it be possible to inscribe a glyph on your own armor with a trigger for when a creature attacks you, and the target set as that creature?

Lastly, if a glyph is set off by a creature touching it directly, whether it be a container or an area (for the container, the creature touches or otherwise manipulates it, and for the area, the creature steps inside the glyph), if a melee attack spell is used, would it need a spell attack roll since the creature is the one who initiated contact, even if unknowingly?

I'll try to do these in order:

1 - No, you can't make a landmine. You can target either an object or an area. If you target an object, then it only goes off when someone touches it, moves it or opens it without doing whatever needs to be done for it not to go off (aka, speaking the password, fulfilling the trigger, or both).

2 - Glyphs fo Warding can absolutely overlap each other, so long as you don't have more glyphs active than your Spellcasting modifier.

3 - No, your armor isn't a container.

4 - The spell goes off as normal, it just targets whichever creature triggers the glyph. So yes, you'd need to roll a Spell Attack roll if the spell requires it.

------

On the topic itself:

While I think that the intent is for the spell to only activate when a creature willingly manipulates whatever object, the wording is not that precise. Touching is touching, whether voluntarily or not, so the hand grenade idea works fine, on paper. Just as the glyph would work if you dominate someone into touching your booby trap.

I'd recommend to just use what PF1 did, where only opening the object set it off.

Similarly, it'd probably be a good idea to use the PF1 stipulation that multiple glyphs cannot be cast on the same area, lest your players create a stack of them to instantly obliterate the poor fool that dared enter the 10-foot square of ultimate doom (or got shoved into it, or such). Unless you're fine with that, of course.

As far as I can tell, no. Polymorph states:

"Unless otherwise noted, the battle form prevents you from casting spells, speaking, and using most manipulate actions that require hands."

The Choker of Eloctuion gives you knowledge of that language, and the ability to understand, speak and write it...but the spell does not allow you to speak it, since neither the Choker of Elocution nor the spell itself allow you to ignore the polymorph rule's "no speaking clause"

You could still understand and read it though, and depending on what form you take, write it as well.

Lets see...

Form Control states:

"With additional care and effort, you can take on an alternate form for a longer period of time. If your next action is to cast wild shape, wild shape’s spell level is 2 lower than normal (minimum 1st level), but you can remain transformed for up to 1 hour or the listed duration (whichever is longer). You can still Dismiss the form at any time, as permitted by the spell."

Perfect Form Control states:

"Thanks to magic and muscle memory, you can stay in your alternate forms indefinitely; you may have even forgotten your original form. When you use Form Control, instead of lasting 1 hour, wild shape is permanent until you Dismiss it."

So we combine these two, and we get that for a 20th level Druid, if they spend an action to use Form Control, their subsequent Wild Shape is cast as an 8th level spell, and the duration is infinite until dismissed.

And then we have True Shapeshifter, which states:

"You transcend the limitations of form. While under the effects of wild shape, you can change into any other form on your wild shape list; if the durations of the forms would vary, use the shorter of the two durations.

Once per day, you can transform into a kaiju, with the effects of nature incarnate; if you have Plant Shape, you can instead transform into a green man."

So I think the answer is Yay, as long as you stay in a form under 8th level Wild Shape, you can change at will and they'll be permanent. Which I think covers everything except Heightened Monstrosity Form.

Given the current state of the rules, and after some rereading, I think the second interpretation (that is, that the bonus is kept up indefinitely) is the "correct" one per RAW, but like you said, I'm unsure if it's intended.

I should point out though that at 12th level, if you're still using a bog-standard Tower Shield...sure, take the extra +2 AC. There's no way to upgrade it (besides Darkwood, which is incredibly questionable for the price), no magical Tower Shields have been printed (that I know of, I don't own every module). You can't use it to block (it will get obliterated instantly), you can't slap any nifty effects on it (because shield runes aren't a thing)...so yeah, if your player wants to run around with a Tower Shield, why not. It's not gonna break anything, I don't think.

On Tower Shields, the Core Rulebook says:

"When you have a tower shield raised, you can use the
Take Cover action (page 471) to increase the circumstance
bonus to AC to +4. This lasts until the shield is no longer
raised."

The Take Cover Action States:

"This lasts until you move from your current space, use an attack action, become unconscious, or end this effect as a free action."

If you use Paragon's Guard, your shield will always be Raised. However, I think you'd lose the Cover bonus if you do any of the things listed under Take Cover.

But I'll admit I'm not sure if "This lasts until the shield is no longer raised" overrules the other considerations. I could see it going either way.

I'm more amused by the fact that Jirelle is correctly holding a buckler but the rules still describe it as being strapped to your forearm in the CRB and leaving your hand free. It's been more than a decade people, we know bucklers don't work that way!

They all look very nice though.

For the Champion kit, not really, I don't think. The mechanics for the three flavors (Paladin, Redeemer, Liberator) work fine without alignment.

Looking over it, the only Feat that might require a rework would be Radiant Blade Spirit, because it allows the Champion to choose the alignment weapon properties (which deal the corresponding damage).

The rest of them either don't interact with alignment at all, or provide Focus Spells, of which only Litany Against Wrath and Litany of Reighteousness interact with alignment damage and would need to be reworked if you get rid of it.

I'm inclined to say no. I always read those as being just the die, no modifiers.

I base this mostly on the wording of Strike, which says:

"Success You deal damage according to the weapon or unarmed
attack, including any modifiers, bonuses, and penalties you
have to damage."

Since Brutal Finish and their ilk doen't specify, it doesn't get any modifiers, whether bonuses or penalties.

I'm not entirely sure it works quite that way. It's not that spell autofails on people who can't see/can't hear you. Although I can see how you'd get that impression from the description of the traits in the magic section.

However, while the sidebar in the magic section doesn't go into it, the glossary has a more detailed description and says:

"Auditory actions and effects rely on sound. An action with the
auditory trait can be successfully performed only if the creature using the action can speak or otherwise produce the required sounds. A spell or effect with the auditory trait has its effect only if the target can hear it. This applies only to sound-based parts of the effect, as determined by the GM. This is different from a sonic effect, which still affects targets who can’t hear it (such as deaf targets) as long as the effect itself makes sound."

"visual (trait) A visual effect can affect only creatures that can see it. This applies only to visible parts of the effect, as determined by the GM."

I think the idea for veil's heightening is that it allows you to impersonate other senses. Sure, if the other person is deaf, then the auditory part of veil doesn't work, but you still have the visual.

Similarly, for a blind person, the visual part of the spell wouldn't work (which would mean a non-heightened veil probably auto-fails, since it's only visual), but the auditory part would, letting you still use the Deception bonus and ignoring penalties.

At least, that's how I read it. I could be wrong though.

thenobledrake wrote:

I didn't say your examples are invalid - I said they aren't as illustrative as you would think because of the level at which they happen having a known balance-hiccup.

If it's not a rare occurrence, shouldn't take more than another "literally 2 minutes" to find more examples outside the level 5-6 and 13-14 balance-hiccups.

** spoiler omitted **

Wait, wouldn't a 15th level Wizard be able to heighten the spell to 8th level, meaning the Incapacitaion trait would only trigger on enemies of level 17 and over? Since Incapacitation is specific about being more than twice the spell level.

Meaning, in your first example, Incapacitation doesn't apply.

The other example, and the two you posted earlier are fine.

Basically if your spellcaster is at an odd level and just gained a new level of spellcasting, you can use Incapacitation spells on creatures of up to your level +1 without triggering Incapacitation. If you're at an even level, anything higher than your level will benefit from Incapacitation.

Yeah I'd say arrows are "metal weapons"in this case. If I were to rule this I'd go "Is the hurty bit made of metal?". If Yes-> Bonus applies. If No-> It doesn't.

So arrows, halberds, axes, guisarmes, etc all count. A normal club wouldn't, but if you have a metal truncheon, yes.

Unfortunately the Crafting rules are pretty clear that if you don't have a Formula on hand for the item you quite literally can't craft it. So yes, sharing knowledge unfortunately does require hard copies.

So, with Baleful Polymorph, does the creature you transform (especially if it crit fails) take on ALL of the stats of the new creature, or does it simply... look like it?

For example: enemy crit failed against Baleful, gets turned into a crayfish (because why not) and he's just... a crustacean. Does he then take on all the base stats, as the spell states 'Body and Mind'? Does this ALSO apply if the target simply fails?

Crit fail says they completely change, but a normal fail just states they transform, without specifying exactly what that means. If I Polymorph Her Infernal Majestrix Queen Abrogail Thrune II, and she just fails, can I then have my familiar cottontop tamarin simply snack on the now-a-harmless-animal Queen of Cheliax? Or does she still retain all her AC and HP?

I'm sure there's an answer I'm not seeing somewhere.

I agree with you that it's rather unclear, but given the steps needed for this spell to work on powerful foes (which you pointed out), I'd go for the more powerful interpretation, that is to say they become a truly harmless animal. AC 10+Dex you feel is appropiate, speed as appropiate, and HP so low they die in one hit.

Turn them into an ant and have your familiar eat them? Sure. Go nuts.

But I do agree the rules could be a bit more specific in what stays the same and what changes.

I'd imagine a lot of places in the Mwangi expanse and other tropical areas of Golarion might very much be like in our own world, where nobody batted an eye at going with very little or no clothing.

And as has been said before, I wouldn't be surprised if members of ancestries that have another layer of insulation (like catfolk, lizardfolk, kobolds, and such) would fall in the same category (I mean, I don't have the Lost Omes Character Guide on hand, but I seem to remember all the lizardfolk art being basically loincloth and jewelry).

And this isn't even counting the weirder ancestries like leshy or wyrwoods.