The Gleeful Grognard's page

There have been users who have made the "additional damage" argument previously citing that additional damage wasn't adjusting the statistics but instead adding to them, this is something I have disagreed with historically.

This may help clear up developer intent

You transform into a ferocious Large dragon, gaining the effects of 6th-level dragon form except that you use your own AC and attack modifier, you apply your extra damage from Rage, and the Breath Weapon uses your class DC. The action to Dismiss the transformation gains the rage trait.

If rage was intended to be a part of the elements that can adjust a battleform's statistics, it wouldn't be explicitly called out as an exception here.

Now of course this could be a developer mistake, however it is in line with the literal interpretation of the polymorph trait's text and doesn't result in weird balance issues for martial classes dipping into druid.

So, cantrips frequently use ability modifier scores... but spellcasting npcs don't have their modifier listed and often don't list a spellcasting class.

Do people here apply the character's highest mental ability mod, try and match it to the spellcasting class the character seems to be from.

Or do people not include it all?

Is there anything pointing to RAI that people have found?

Last we heard the following was the plan

The Pathfinder Core Rulebook second printing is coming soon. It will contain updated errata beyond what was released in the first errata blog. The current plan is that it will be added to the Pathfinder FAQ. There is a blog tentatively scheduled for late October/early November to announce the update and give highlights. The Core Rulebook PDF will be updated when the second printing starts to ship.

The CRB's second printing seems to be shipping now (as of last week) and people who got the code from humble bundle have been receiving their codes. As the PDF has not been updated, there may be a better than zero chance that it won't be updated for this print.

I advise anyone against purchasing the second printing as a replacement for the first until it has been confirmed that the errata has indeed made it into the book by people with it in their hands.

-----

On a side note, can anyone explain why they think Paizo would delay a PDF version release to coincide with shipping?
I understand why when it comes to initial releases and not stepping on retail toes, but when it comes to a 2nd printing of a book that is already out in the wild, it seems odd to me to sit on errata for 2-3 months from when it first went to the printers.

So, up until now I have been allowing my players to simply roll the relevant skill to identify items they find. But on further reading I may have been running this incorrectly

--- The Action---

Once you discover that an item, location, or ongoing effect is magical, you can spend 10 minutes to try to identify the particulars of its magic.

The key words of this being "once you discover", which for elements that have a visual effect or evidence that makes sense. Then, sure maybe that works with Runes right, as they are visible.

How about things that are described to you, that you didn't witness or cannot see then? The pedantic part (majority?) of me suggests a strict reading of the personal "you" element from "once you discover" but the reasonable part also believes this could be unintended.

--- The Spells---

Then we get to the spells detect magic and read aura.

You send out a pulse that registers the presence of magic. You receive no information beyond the presence or absence of magic.

Detect magic seems intentionally vague in its readings, heightened versions of the cantrip help make it more precise but not overly so.

You focus on the target object, opening your mind to perceive magical auras. When the casting is complete, you know whether that item is magical, and if it is, you learn the school of magic

This seems fairly straightforward and designed specifically for finding magical items. It has a long cast time and its heightened effects are all about more efficient magical object/item dousing.

--- Initial Conclusions / Further Complications ---

After reading this I was fairly sure of two things:
- Magic spells are probably required to identify even if runes are visible.
- Detect magic is likely not intended to be an outright better version of Read Aura when it comes to identifying magical items. Especially since the precision should only be limited to the highest school effect.

However those hunches aren't enough to get me to rule against player convenience so I decided to do more digging and PDF searching and I found something else in the GMG that had me decide to post it here for other opinions.

Appraising Eye The merchant can use Mercantile Lore to Recall Knowledge about items, including determining their value. They can also attempt to Identify Magic using Mercantile Lore and can do so without first knowing whether the item is magical.

This ability suggests that knowing that an item is magical is required for a check, that the "Once you discover" element might be more hinged on the "you" and "discover" elements than I had thought.

--- In/Conclusion ---

I am asking on the forum to see if anyone else has any evidence of RAW or RAI through other abilities / readings / items as I am stumped. I will probably just keep ruling it in favour of players identifying freely for now, but it is worth figuring out imo.

I wonder if we will get a skill feat in the APG allowing for identification of Magic Items like the Merchant can, that would certainly put the debate to rest for me.

So, we are now 8 months into PF2e without a replacement for the FAQ system and 4 months after Mark last mentioned the (I assume still in progress) next errata document.

Does anyone have any idea of what form it might take? I am not expecting them to go the twitter route like 5e did, I would love to see them implement a system where to request an answer tou have to move to the appropriate area.
As well as collecting the info in an easily filtered environment like with the easy action tools website (where custom output pdfs could be output)

As people are probably aware RAW anyone wielding a melee weapon, reach weapon or is able to make an unarmed strike (remembering that it specifically says you can make attacks outside of punches); qualifies for flanking purposes.

So, in a very real meta sense the optimal route for casters and alchemists would be to carry around whips. Never using them, just getting that flanking bonus from 10ft away whenever it is possible.

There are some cases when this won't make sense to do, but they are few and far between. What do others feel about this, do you think this is a design intention or a weird unintended interaction?

Personally I don't mind anyone being in melee range getting AoO, but the idea of a caster with a whip and produce flame getting an AoO from 10ft away but a person with a crossbow, sling, bow or javelin won't, is a bit weird.

Since asking via email was fruitless and time is running out for subscriptions (1 week ago)

I have two questions regarding subscription shipping.

1. Currently my shipping cost is "Shipping & Handling $0.00" if I select "ship with my subscription". I have four subscription items added to my cart with two of which shipping on next available shipment, I want to know if that means that these two items won't incur a shipping cost or if I will be charged when they ship.
I am in Australia, so free shipping is not something I expect and eye with caution.

2. When does the Paizo advantage apply? Is it only after the first payment of each subscription has been processed?

3. What sort of packaging are the hardcovers sent in, I was subscribed to the AP and module paths in the past. But I am not a fan of receiving damaged books so bubblewrap parcels like amazon uses are a no go (you should see how wrecked my CRB is)

So, I am not saying that this is RAI but I am putting forward that this is likely RAW. Mage armour seems to be worded in such a way that you can use it and gain a benefit even if you are wearing armour.

You ward yourself with shimmering magical energy, gaining a +1 item bonus to AC and a maximum Dexterity modifier of +5. While wearing mage armor, you use your unarmored proficiency to calculate your AC.

So, I put it forth that a reasonable reading suggests that a wizard in full plate at level 15 could have the following AC bonus. (leaving out level, base and item bonuses for simplicity sake)

Armour = 6
Dex = 5
Proficiency = 4

Total = +15AC

Meaning we are back into a territory where any arcane or occult spellcaster not progressing in an armour class they picked up is actually still objectively better off wearing that armour if this is indeed the case.

Now, I think there is an argument that could be made that "you use your unarmored proficiency to calculate your AC." could mean that they want you to simply ignore the armour and treat it as if you were unarmoured. But then I find the wording of the spell to be odd.

For the record, I believe that the way it was worded was so that it could mesh with most any armour or clothes a character wore and still provide a benefit.

PS. This is just a mechanical experiment, and for a wizard to do it optimally they would probably be looking for light/medium armour rather than going for that extra 1AC from full plate.

And yes, a champion casting it on themselves would be rather amusing at level 13... Looking at ~31 without a shield. It is only a 4 point boost, but it is on top of what is already a pretty defense heavy class. :)

Please cancel my adventure path subscription.

I enjoy the adventure paths as a whole, but this next one just isn't my speed.
I will resub again in the future.

Thank you for your great work to date :)

Why isn't this a separate purchase by now? for anyone who bought the physical book it is a huge extra cost to chuck that extra $40 ontop just for maps and nothing else.
I know people have been clamoring for it and there are atleast 4-5 different threads asking but no paizo staff have responded.

Is there some special logical reason? I know that the file exists because it has been confirmed to be a part of the Anniversary pdf package. So it isn't like it would even take any extra work on paizo's part to create the pdf itself.

I am a recent subscriber of the AP and Module lines and just received my
first module "The Dragon's Demands", a large part of my subscription was
my receiving of the .pdf file that I would be able to extract tag free
image files from.
Now this worked perfectly for me from the start (despite others having
issues where tag's would remain on their saved images) however the image
file itself is heavily compressed and of a low resolution.

Is there any way of gaining access to higher quality versions of the map
files?
The reason I wanted the .pdf aswell as the physical copy was so
I could make my time reading roll20 campaigns as easy as possible.
A good chunk of that being stopping me from having to remake every
map in photoshop.

My second query would be about Rise of the Runelords, I have a physical
copy of the anniversary edition and was told on these forums that there
are interactive maps for it, would this require my purchasing the entire
$40 pdf for the maps ontop of the $80au the book already cost me?
Or is there some hidden and separate interactive map purchase for the
campaign that won't harm the wallet even further?

If for some odd reason paizo really really doesn't wish to provide .pdf
files with decent resolution maps where the squares are bigger than
14x14 pixels (the size of the squares in The Dragon's Demands) would
Paizo be against my recreating maps and sharing them with the community?

I love Paizo and pathfinder ofcourse, I wouldn't buy every hardcover
released otherwise, however virtual tabletop is becoming bigger and
bigger all the time with some serious progress being made thanks to
Roll20 and I see having 70x70px or atleast 50x50px grid maps as
being really important with paizo showing their support.

Hey I was thinking about running this campaign via roll20 and getting the subscription to the AP line...

However I cannot find any details as to if the .pdf files have interactive or clean maps or not.
I know some of the older AP lines (skull and shackles) had interactive maps but I haven't read or heard anything about this one having them or not an read that the last AP didn't either.
I am currently running a RoTRL campaign as of the moment and unless the pdf files that come with the AP subscription have interactive maps I can put off purchasing the series until a bit later.
This said, if they do come with interactive maps I will be signing up now to save on eventual costs/the time spent creating my own maps.

Anyway sorry for being a bit here and there but anyone who can answer this question would be much appreciated.