Tim Schneider 908's page

**** Venture-Agent, Australia—NSW—Newcastle 156 posts. 4 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 33 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.



Grand Lodge

Hi,

I've noticed on the last 2 shipments on my subscription that the shipping costs have tripled to the point where the shipping costs as much as the product itself.

Based on these new tripled charges I would like to cancel my subscription.

I would also like to cancel pending order "36630996" which is part of this subscription.

Thanks,
Tim Schneider

Grand Lodge

Had someone get KO'd in the water in a game the other day & found the rules weren't as clear as I'd have liked... wondering if anyone else has been able to work this out better than me?

1) If you're swimming on the surface and go unconscious from damage and sink, do you get to hold your breath still for 5+con, or do you go straight to suffocating? The rules say "When you run out of air, you fall unconscious and start suffocating" - so by one reading being unconscious for another reason shouldn't start that.

In the game we decided that it seemed wrong to let an unconscious person hold their breath & skipped to suffocating.

2) If you die from the fortitude save Drowning, can a hero point save you? Obviously it'll give a reroll but can it be used to simply "avoid death"? Technically the dying condition didn't increase which is the listed time you can do it.

The player didn't have the hero point so I didn't have to make a call, but I'd have eer'd towards saying yes as I think it's in the spirit of the rule (And in general I tend to be lenient if a character's life is on the line & there's any grey area).

Grand Lodge

Was looking at the revelation spells and debilitating dichotomy caught my eye so I went looking... and it's not in any mystery. Is this one that accidentally skipped in from a mystery that's not in the playtest or am I missing a way to get this?

I also noticed "Borrow feat" was missing from the Battle mystery, but I imagine this should be "Heroic Feat" (Which is listed but not in any mystery)?
EDIT: Just saw Lyz's post confirming the assumption here.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Agent, Australia—NSW—Newcastle

So... I started wondering how loot per tier on the chronicle sheet works in 2E and I found myself reaching a strange conclusion... there doesn't seem to be anything?

I had assumed you'd cross off the tier you didn't play, but the advice in the guide seems to only say:

Quote:
GM Instructions: Cross off any items that the players did not earn during the scenario. Unless the GM Resources section says otherwise, players only lose access to an item if they did not earn the treasure bundle that corresponds to that item.

Which suggests if they get the treasure bundle you leave it... possibly irrespective of tier. Which given the new logic around tiers & just doing gold by level may be intentional. The new restriction that you can only buy them at level+2 reduces the impact as they can't buy it anyway...

So... should you cross out the tier that wasn't played on a chronicle in 2E? Is there something in the guide to say this, or was it omitted by mistake, or is this just me coming in with a 1E mindset and thinking it should be a rule?

Grand Lodge

Latest subscription order has shown up at full price.

It still has the text:
"Legacy Paizo Advantage - Adventure Path Pathfinder Adventure Path subscribers who were subscribed at the end of the First Edition Adventure Path line get 30% off Second Edition Adventure Path products."

Last month's order had the discount, this month it's gone? I've also noticed the 15% discount on the store is gone too...

Is this a bug or a change? I thought the previous blog said that 15% was going to stick around if you were in before the cutover date?

Just looking to understand as if all the discounts are intentionally gone somehow I'd like to cancel my subscription.

Grand Lodge

Most adventures are written with a little room-by-room fighting clear without the enemies getting much chance to react. I ran Fall of Plaguestone over the weekend, which had a few dungeon-like areas, and I hit a few points where the party's delays due to the new healing left me a little unsure of how I should handle it.

In 1E a GM mostly had to worry about this if the party decided to rest the night before proceeding. 2E has introduced a lot of 10-minute activities post-fight activities... and I've started wondering just how long a party should be able to stall mid-dungeon before as a GM you should realistically start going "Ok, things may be getting harder because this place is on alert & you've given them a ton of time to be ready"?

It seems pretty clear to me that taking 10 minutes to catch your breath after your average fight is at a minimum what the game's designed around, but what about when a failed medicine check stretches this out to 1-2 hours? And what if, like happened in my game, really bad luck stretches that to 4 hours downtime inside the enemy base while they can't pass a medicine check to save their lives...

To clear a bit of the "it depends", let's look at this as a typical group of bandits in a hideout. If the party kills the lookouts in a combat that's not especially noisy or quiet, and hence likely was overheard inside, how much downtime would you allow while still running the next fight as planned? And if more extreme downtime was in play what kind of advantages would you give the enemies?

If I didn't have a more obvious ticking clock I've kinda been working on a 30 minute mark for your average human-level intelligence enemy who might have been alerted as the "Ok, they've stopped being worried and starting being very prepared" line, with my go to impact of delays being bonuses to initiative for the enemy & letting them use things like stealth for initiative & be in more advantageous spots (to reflect preparing an ambush) unless there's some obvious actions they could take.

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Agent, Australia—NSW—Newcastle

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I've noticed my GM'd scenarios are only showing 1 AcP per session on the Sessions list in the My Organised Play page.

Other AcP values all look to match the guide - 4 for played, 1 for played quest & 2 for GM'd quest. But for GM'd scenarios it's giving 1 where guide says it should be 8.

Not really a big deal when there's no way to spend them yet, but figured I'd mention it to make sure it's on someone's radar.

Grand Lodge

Had a question come up in a game I was running around whether the additional effect on a Strike action (e.g. Poison/Disease/Grab) can apply if the attack deals 0 damage... I found in the core rulebook that if they're immune to the damage any other effects won't apply, but what if it's 0 damage another way? Such as:

1) The attacker just does 0, like a viper at d8-3 can easily do 0 damage.
2) The target has a Resistance that reduces the damage to 0.
3) The target raises their shield, and the hardness absorbs all the damage.

In these cases, is the target affected by a poison (Like a viper), a disease (Like ghoul fever), or other abilities associated with the Strike (Like ghoul paralysis)?

In researching this I found that for an Alchemical Poison of type Injury you have to be actually damaged by a Slashing or Piercing weapon to deliver it, but no such text occurs in the Bestiary Poison ability. Couldn't find anything useful to define "exposure" for a disease. Grab & the like seemed pretty clear in that it just needed a successful strike.

I'm currently assuming they apply regardless... but it does seem weird if you block the whole attack with a shield to still get poisoned.

Grand Lodge

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Hey all,

I've made a new Spell Database application for 2nd Edition Pathfinder. Just a little app to search spells & also has a few quick reference sheets for conditions, traits, monster abilities & other things you need at hand GM'ing. Also has a bookmarking feature so you can manage multiple bookmarked spell lists - good for tracking your spells available on different characters or just flagging a spell you're interested in returning to as you're browsing.

The app is available on the Google Play Store for Android. 100% free, no ads, just spells! Made it for my own use, figured I should share.

Big thanks to Archives of Nethys who did most the hard work digitizing all this data. I did some of my own data entry & cleanup, but there's no way I'd have made this app without being able to piggy-back their hard work by pulling some of the spell data from their site!

And also an obvious thanks to Paizo who actually owns all the data & their use of the OGL that lets community content like this exist! I hope this is both in the letter and spirit of your OGL :D

PS: App is open source, so if anyone's curious you can hit it up at the GitHub Repo.
PPS: Working on an offline usable browser version currently to handle iPhones & desktop use. Have shared it with my local group, one issue left to clean up so this shouldn't be too far behind.

Grand Lodge

Level 2 feat for druid:
Your affinity for the natural world grants you protection against some of its dangers. You gain poison resistance equal to half your level, and you gain a +1 status bonus to saving throws against poisons.

Now I'd have interpreted that as just a constant effect, other than the fact it has an action icon on the feat header.

Is the action icon superfluous or is there a duration meant to be listed? Should it last a round or forever? Pretty big difference in usefulness...

Grand Lodge

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Just wondering if/when we might expect some of the community use packs to see any logos based on the 2E style?

I've got a convention I'm organizing part of in August where we're gonna mix in some 2E content to spark interest & we'll likely be putting some fliers in local game stores soon. It'd be great to be able to use 2E related art in the fliers as it may catch the eye of some people who aren't avid 1E players but might be intrigued by a new system.

Looking at the community use packs it doesn't seem any of the 2E stuff is available? I imagine it's a low priority with everything going on, but is there any ETA's around this or is this something you're holding off for now?

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Agent, Australia—NSW—Newcastle

Hey guys,

Picked up new core ACG and the crimson throne expansion at paizocon after playing a demo & thought I had all I needed to take it back to Australia and try to get a bit of an org play acg thing going... however upon reading the guide it sounds like in addition to those sets you need a class deck per player to actually play in org play?

Just thought I'd check if I misunderstood anything here & the core set maybe counts as any or something like that? Pretty sure I've understood right but holding out hope since the game does have rules to make decks from that set...

Due to terrible stock availability in Aus for the card game (I've never seen any part of the ACG for sale anywhere) this kinda sucks & is quite a barrier for a new player (Not just walk up to the FLGS and grab one but buy a deck but get it shipped from america ordering it a month before the game, which I've heard some even had trouble with that for ACG stuff - massive delays getting it here). I was hoping with the core set+crimson throne I'd have enough to run some games. Worst case I just play with the set outside org play, but as a VA & with most the players participating in PFS & hopes of spreading beyond my local region at cons I did really want to bring the games under the org play banner.

Grand Lodge

Quote:
Brutal Beating (Ex): At 3rd level, whenever a thug deals sneak attack damage, she can choose to forgo 1d6 points of sneak attack damage to make the target sickened for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 her rogue level. This ability does not stack with itself—only the most recent duration applies. This ability replaces trap sense.
Quote:
Distracting Attack (Ex) (Advanced Player's Guide pg. 1): A rogue with this talent can make sneak attacks with subtle flourishes that disorient and distract her enemy. When she hits a creature with a melee attack that deals sneak attack damage, she can forgo the additional damage to cause the creature to become flat-footed against one target of her choosing until the beginning of her next turn. The rogue cannot designate herself as the creature gaining the benefit of this talent. Creatures with uncanny dodge are immune to distracting attack.

Can you use both of these abilities on a single sneak attack? They're both giving up your sneak attack damage to do something extra, one gives up all & the other only gives up some of it.

My gut says you can't spend the same thing twice, but I can see the argument that if you resolve brutal beating first & had at least 2d6 sneak attack you still have sneak attack dice to give up... so I'm not 100% sure.

Grand Lodge

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I've been a bit disheartened listening to recent podcasts where Jason has been saying that we're really only getting to the relevance of resonance in the higher levels and it hasn't had much impact at low levels.

At my tables low level resonance was a HUGE deal. And the way the surveys asked questions didn't really seem to convey this well as they only cared when people crit-failed trying to keep using it but things like potions have a huge cost on just a fail.

To hear it referenced like it was in those podcasts leaves me very worried that Paizo's designers haven't really seen this impact. I sincerely hope they mean they haven't had a chance to see it with the issues it was designed to combat, which I do understand is very true (And if that's the intended meaning I apologize for misinterpreting/misrepresenting your position & eagerly await the fixes you come up with).

Are we alone here? Have other people's gaming experiences been that resonance has truly been un-impactful at level 1 and 4? (I'm not trying to propose we solve the problem here, just asking has it explicitly been a problem for others in actual games as opposed to theory)

More detailed breakdown of my experiences in spoiler:

Spoiler:
Level 1 (2 games of Doomsday Dawn, 1 GM 1 Player, and 1 GM of the PFS scenario): We frequently had more consumables than we had resonance & making decisions about sleeping the night based on inability to drink potions. Every single player was discussing their resonance totals. The biggest impact was the death of a character when he was poisoned and failed his resonance check for a healing potion that would've bought him enough time to likely live (He started with 0 resonance as a dwarf with 8 cha level 1, and not realizing how bad that was had bought 3 healing potions). He didn't die, but someone else did while the druid ran to heal him. It wasn't as big a deal in the PFS scenario, I believe mostly cause the party wasn't pushed as hard.

Level 4 (1 game Doomsday Dawn Player): It was also impactful on our level 4 game. My cleric was the only one impacted really, and that's cause I had a wand and a staff. I actually found it an interesting resource to balance, and felt like it'd truly nailed it's goal for me here. Other players did comment they wouldn't want to manage as many resources as I was juggling (Resonance, Spell Points, Wand Charges, Staff Charges, Channel Pool, Spells Remaining & Hero Points - I had a wide range of tracking counters & dice out :) ), but personally I enjoyed it and felt I caused it with my gear choices so it's an option for those who want to manage resources. Resonance was typically the cause of our resting but it didn't feel too premature.

Grand Lodge

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I was just making a character & decided he was a noble so I jumped to the noble background, and found a rather confusing result.

It grants the skill Nobility Lore - seems sensible enough on it's own.

It then grants the "Courtly Graces" feat - a feat that allows you to use Society in place of Nobility Lore for Recall Knowledge...

So the background both grants you a Lore, then immediately undercuts it by granting you a feat who's primary purpose is to let you use a different skill instead of having to be trained in that lore?

Grand Lodge

Trying to interpret a rule here. Trying to understand what happens when your affliction tries to go beyond it's max stage.

"If a failure or critical failure would increase the stage beyond the highest listed stage, the affliction instead repeats the effects of the highest stage."

The problem is whether it is instead of:
A) The advancement
B) The listed effect
C) The advancement and the listed effect
To illustrate I'll use a 2 stage poison. Stage 1 is d4, stage 2 is d6.

A person was at Stage 1. They crit-fail their save. Do they:
A) Go to stage 2. Since you can't advance to stage 3 you take the stage 2 effect of d6 for not advancing. Then you take the normal d6.
B) Go to stage 3. Since stage 3 doesn't have an effect we use stage 2 and take the normal d6.
C) Go to stage 2. You can't advance. You then take the normal d6.

So far I've ran it as option C, because I went with the best outcome for the players, but my gut interpretation is B. With only 4 stages of dying this could make a huge difference to a character who falls unconscious while poisoned.