I highly doubt a VO would ban you for having a different interpretation of the rules than they do. A GM could ask you to bring a different character or play a pregen or fix the character, if they believed it wasn't legal, though.
The character options state that all agents have access to all firearms "with the exception of Beast Guns and any limited or restricted items below, unless the item indicates otherwise." The book indicates that simply having the Dwarven Weapon familiarity is not enough to gain access to dwarf firearms. If dwarf firearms need both dwarven weapon familiarity AND access to firearms according to the book, then simply having access to firearms is not enough to give access to dwarf firearms.
It's pretty clear what the intent here is, and while your interpretation is also plausible, "Everybody gets access to all ancestry-limited firearms" is clearly too good to be true when compared to how nobody has access, by default, to clan daggers or elven curved blades. It's clearly not intended that clan pistol is something any random adventurer can find on the market, but clan dagger is not.
So, now that the Remastered Runelord is out, how should Legacy Runelords be treated going forward?
It uses the Core Rulebook Wizard chassis, which doesn't get a remaster rebuild since we are now outside of that window. But it also utilitizes "a character option other than the entire class" which should therefore be treated as errata and auto updated.
I have not yet tried to figure out if the new Class Archetype mechanically functions on the Legacy chassis, but I suspect it will be odd.
Can I just continue to play it using the Legacy version? Or must I update it to the Remaster version, and if I do so, must I also update to Remaster Wizard? (Or *can* I update it to Remaster Runelord & Remaster Wizard if I decided I wanted to?)
None of these options would upset me (although, like I said, I expect weirdness if the answer is Remaster Runelord on Legacy Wizard) -- just want to make sure I'm doing it right.
(This character was built from a Charity boon I won in a raffle, which also gave it a unique background allowing Runelord access, so it might be a real corner case in a lot of ways.)
Repeating this question now that the Remastered Runelord is live.
In the absence of other guidance, my VC is going with "Existing Wizards were grandfathered in, so you can continue to use Premaster Runelord," so if the intent is something different, please let me know.
Previously existing characters with the Runelord class archetype as printed in Secrets of Magic may continue using it alongside the legacy wizard class as printed in the Core Rulebook. New boons for this version may not be purchased.
New characters or characters which have rebuilt to use the remastered wizard class in the Player Core must use the Runelord class archtype as printed in Lost Omens: Rival Academies.
As a general rule, the OP team does not provide guidance on edicts or anathema, as they are inherently subjective. Runelord anathema should evaluated in the context of their former spell schools and common sense for the game. A temporary fireball is not considered creating something and attacking an enemy would not violate an anathema against protecting others or changing a physical thing.
The argument isn't that "you're too trained, it doesn't qualify as an improvised weapon", the argument is "you're not actually improvising, pick an actual weapon to represent your weapon of choice, instead of claiming that you're improvising when you are not."
It's not about a character losing benefits, it's about a player building an "improvised" weapon build that does not actually use improvised weapons - if the character always fights with a broom, make a staff-build instead of an improvised-build, because that character is not improvising and you shouldn't be claiming that they are.
Imagine someone playing a wizard but describing it like each of their spells isn't actually spell, but a consumable - they say they are throwing an alchemist fire, but they are casting a fireball. They say they are giving you an "elixir of extra actions", but they are casting a haste. If they want the class fantasy of alchemist, they should be playing an alchemist, not reskinning a wizard to work like an alchemist.
Or the improvised weapon, but other way around. Imagine playing a character where you describe how you pick up the leg of a chair and swing it at the troll, dealing... (2d12+4)x2+d12 damage! "How the heck is that leg chair hitting that hard?" "Oh, improvised weapons suck, so this is actually my +1 striking heavy pick (fatal)" -> No, if you want to improvise, improvise, if you want to use a single weapon, make a build that uses a single weapon instead of claiming you're improvising when you're not.
ESPECIALLY if you're using a build that constantly breaks the weapons. How many brooms are you carrying around?!
That's a fair concern. Aside from some very specific situations (you're in a room that's specifically cleared/empty, like a cell or some something) I would personally as a GM assume that there's *something* within grasp that you can grab and use as an improvised weapon, **at all times**. Claiming that "nope, no loose rocks, no branches, no nothing" in an abandoned ruins or dungeon seems just... hostile, for no good reason - preventing a character's build from working for no benefit whatsoever - But I recognise that some GMs are less comfortable with "yes and.." / improvising and if the room looks very empty on the map (like most of the flipmat tiles), they may be tempted to say that "nope, nothing here you can use".
I hope that you never face a situation where the GM goes "there's nothing here you could use as an improvised weapon" because I think that shouldn't really ever happen.
... No, I'm saying that if your character concept revolves around using the same object every single time, go for a weapon that best represents what you're doing instead of expecting a GM to always rule the same way.
My character has a bag of bricks they use as "Improvised" weapons: No way to be sure what stats Gm will give it.
My character has a bag of Bricks - light hammers actually, brick just fits the theme better and gives a nicer mental picture: 1d6 martial thrown 20ft agile.
If a GM complains about bricks not being light hammers/that's taking 'reskinning too far' -> "Fine, the character wields a bag of light hammers (for the GM), (everybody else is free to imagine them throwing bricks)."
Point is: If you want to benefit from abilities that require improvised weapons, actually improvise your weapons on the fly. If you want a character that uses a specific object as their weapon of choice, don't go for an improvised build because they aren't improvising, go for the closest actual weapon and just introduce it during character introduction and check with the GM that they are fine with the (hopefully just a small) re-skinning, like using using a staff that 'looks like a broom' or using a spear that 'looks like a pitchfork'
I agree - I need to rephrase that "consistently using the same thing is no longer improvised" bit - I too did have an improvised weapon user (in 1e), that always used a beartrap as their weapon of choice. However, I always asked GM if it was okay to treat it as an 1d6 weapon and didn't care about the damage type GM would assing to it - and if they had said "no, too unwieldly for 1d6, it's 1d4" I would have just responded with "Fine, show me a stick that's big enough for 1d6 and I'll use that instead."
The problem with "consistently using a specific object as an 'improvised' weapon" only comes up if it's used as an excuse to get more from the weapon than what a baseline actually improvised weapon would be: If you're fine with your favored improvised weapon (be it a wooden sword, a broom, an umbrella, a brick) getting the same stats as a stick, a long stick, or a rock that you pick off the ground, then there's probably no issue. But if the favored 'improvised' weapon is something like "a very sharp chunk of silver" or "a cold iron pot" and the you describe it in a specific way in an attempt to get it to function as if it had specific qualities, then you should probably use an actual weapon instead. Like a silver dagger or a cold iron frying pan.
If you buy a bag of bricks and plan to use them as weapons, they probably aren't "improvised" anymore. A common 'loophole' that gets suggested when talking about improvised weapons is buying something like, a chunk of precious material and bludgeoning people with it as an "improvised" weapon, for a fraction of the cost of an actual precious material weapon, and that's clearly not intended - if you want your "weapon" to count as a special material, you need to pay the listed price for it. And if you consistently use a specific item as your improvised weapon, it's no longer 'improvised' and you should use actual weapon (stats) to represent it.
You probably would need to pick them up during an adventure, but they wouldn't 'carry over' to the next one if you found one you liked (and it wouldn't be an improvised weapon anyway if you started to use it regularly).
Improvised weapons are up to individual GMs. I would assume that most let you choose between an 1d4 finesse/agile pointy thing (basically a dagger) or a 1d6 bludgeoning thing (basically a club) or maybe 1d8 two-handed blunt thing (basically a two-handed staff), anything above those seems... I want to say unlikely, but also partly unreasonable. An improvised weapon should always be *worse* than an actual weapon (because it isn't meant to be used as a weapon), so I'd probably pick stats from a simple weapon that is closest in resemblance and maybe drop a trait or two off.
Yes, this does mean that the new magus would never benefit from having an "improvised weapon with forceful or backstabber" because there are no simple weapons with those traits, but honestly, that archetype is amazingly bad (aside from a single OP feat it has) and would work much better (or rather, at all) in regular campaign where you could talk with your GM beforehand and either agree to a list of random possible improvised weapon stats, or to some sort of point-buy "build your own improvised weapon" system.
To be more specific, PCs do not get to keep any of the treasure found in the scenario. The ONLY monetary or physical reward PCs receive is the treasure bundles awarded at the end of the adventure plus anything explicitly stated on the chronicle (for instance Intro 1: Second Confirmation has a boon that awards a Wayfinder). The commonly held "in game" explanation for this is that all the treasure is given to the society and then the agents are paid an amount of gold indicated by the treasure bundles.
in fact the scenario in question is Intro 1. The chest at C2 has gems worth 25gp
If you check the Treasurebundle section at the end of the scenario (p.38) it's actually accounted for in the TB's (TB for overcoming the hazard).
In any case, the scenarios have gold and item rewards for two purposes: One, the items can be used during the adventure and 2. the scenarios might be run outside of society play, either as oneshots or some GMs might include them in their own campaign, in which case the campaign characters would get to keep the items/gold. But for society purposes, your only rewards for a scenario are: Gold per the TBs, XP, Reputation, possible boons, and possibly unlocking some items through the chronicle sheet's item list. Society characters do not get to keep anything they find after the adventure is done.
Spoilered blessed boundary because it's not really relevant to the topic, I just think it's an interesting example of ambigiuous spell
Spoiler:
Blessed boundary has several issues/ambiguities: It's a sphererical shell 2 inches wide - it deals damage to each creature that intersects with it when it's created. Question is - can it ever hit medium creatures? If you draw it following square boundaries, the shell is always between squares and would not ever intersect with any medium creature, it could only hurt large or larger creatures because those are the only creatures that can 'stand' on the square boundary. If you draw it like a circle it would go through the 'boundary squares' and hurt creatures that stand on the edge of the circle, which feels like the intent - it's unlikely that the spell is inteded to only hurt large creatures on cast - but ten it becomes a question of "does it hit all the edge squares? Certain corners are cut cleanly and those squares are probably not hit, etc. Is the intent to not hit medium creatures, or is the intent to hit creatures that would actually be in the drawn circle?
If you make the shell smallish, say, 10ft burst in a 10ft hallway, does a creature get damaged twice if it runs through the whole area to reach you (passing through both sides of the shell) or just once?
Quote:
"The creature also takes the damage at the end of its turn, but only if it didn't already take damage from the shell that turn."
Does this bit only refer to creatures that start their turn standing on the barrier and don't move, or does it mean that if you move through the shell and crit succeed on the save (and thus don't take damage), you still take damage at the end of your turn? If the creature fails it's save, you get to push it 10 ft. Can you push it again into the barrier to deal another instance of damage? If it keeps failing, can you keep pingballing it off the boundary until it's dead?
I think there's a reasonable interpretation for the spell, the above is just throwing out questions that the text as written brings up.
Quote:
What loopholes? They want us to use the remastered rules whenever possible. For this encounter, it looks quite possible to do so. And I wasn't looking for a way out of running Captivating Song. I started that thread so I could wrap my head around how "sustaining" it worked.
The problem is with the "for this encounter". If you're supposed to update for the remaster version of a creature for this encounter then you should be updating for all encounters, which brings out various issues as I pointed out earlier - invalidating tactics, invalidating synergies between creatures, accidentally buffing or nerfing creatures when there were deliberate changes in the statblock.
As others pointed out, rules are "how this ability works" (like grab), not "does this creature have captivating song or not". If a writer put in a monster with a certain statblock and ability, you should be using that statblock, instead of switching it to something else entirely - if that ability wasn't meant to be used, it would say so in the tactics or encounter description or statblock.
GMs can change the presentation of adventure elements (reskin) to avoid phobias or otherwise ensure a positive experience for all players, but cannot change the mechanics of those elements.
Adjust obvious typos or errors in a scenario
Use alternate maps (or areas of provided maps) for encounters
Reskin enemies to avoid phobias or for personal preference without altering mechanical traits
Per the guide, you aren't supposed to change the mechanics, and swapping from captivating song to stench is not a typo, nor is it an alternative map. The remaster rules for society statet that if a player option has been reprinted with the same name, it's treated as errata - it does not apply to monsters. Even before remaster, if an adventure had a statblock for a creature that was different from the bestiary entry, you wouldn't change it for the bestiary version - so why would you do it now?
Further, if this is the specific scenario I'm thinking about, it has 3 different harpies - creature 5, 7, 9. Swapping the creature 5 harpy for the bestiary harpy also gives it a bigger damage for it's attacks, different AC, different HP, and a disease, plus changes skills, making several mechanical changes to the combat: While it could be 'easy' to just swap out the song for the stench for the creature 7 and 9, those don't have statblocks printed anywhere else, so how do you adjust the ac, hp, dmg and skills? Just guesstimate what they would be? Then you're just making stats up, not "running with the remaster version".
Messing with the statblocks is unnecessary, and just creates more problems if it's taken as a general guideline.
I don't think there's any good reason to change a creature that has a printed statblock in the adventure, to a different statblock.
Why would you ever do that? What does this accomplis? What's the benefit? The GM is just creating additional work for themself and potentially causing either lore inconsistencies, or messing up the intended mechanical encounter.
Quote:
SuperParkourio considers to use the one from the remaster because the Captivating Song action of its legacy version is poorly written and leads to doubts that significantly change the difficulty for players to deal with it, as discussed in the thread
Legacy Harpy: Extending Captivating Song.
If this is the case (as written, ability is ambigious) then the solution is to try and work out a reasonable adjudication on how the ability works - not to try for loopholes to replace it with a completely different ability.
As an example that I stumbled upon recently, old Blade Barrier - now Blessed Boundary - is just poorly written and ambigious. But if a scenario has a creature that has Blessed boundary on it's statblock, Your job as a GM is to figure out how you run blessed boundary, and then run it consistently like that when it props up - not to go through a spell list and try to figure out if the creature could prep a different spell instead.
Or the recent thread about roiling incant. Spellschools got removed which causes issues with it's abilities, the creature has engulf which requires striding twice which in turn uses landspeed, but it only has fly speed. The correct solution is to work out a reasonable way to run the creature, not to scour a monster core to look for a closest match and replace it with a different creature.
Use the provided statblocks (but fix obvious issues).
The problem with changing to "remastered versions" is that it can have unintended consequences that significantly change the difficulty of the encounter.
The NPC statblock in the scenario can have deliberate changes in it and switching to the 'new version' might override these - for example, there's a scenario where a monster has a favored enemy type of an ability (typically human), but for the scenario the favored enemy is an ancestry that is highly unlikely (possibly even impossible) to be a PC. This seems to be a clear balancing choice, ensuring that the creature does not get to fully use it's most powerful tools. Switching to the default version would mean that it suddenly becomes a lot more effective against humans.
In the harpy example - while it might not be relevant in this specific adventure, changing to the new version and switching from captivating song to stench fundamentally changes what the creature is about - from drawing the opponent close, to keeping them away. In some other scenario, this could completely change the encounter or even invalidate it: "Harpies on the rocks! Oh no, try not to get captivated and drown!" vs "Harpies on the rocks! No worries, let's just... Not go there.!"
Or it could otherwise mess up the encounter design - maybe the harpies have allies that have abilities that only work on fascinated opponents, maybe there are traps they are pulling PCs into, and so on and so on.
Changing from a specific creature to a creature that has a different name but is the "spiritual successor" is completely out of the question. Despite Archives of Nethys thinking that Vordine is the remastered version of Barbazu, it is not: They are two completely different creatures with different names, lores, abilities, and functions, and while they are both creature 5, they are very different in terms of difficulty, and in how they can utilise their surroundings to their advantage. Mechanically, they both serve the same function - melee fiend at creature level 5, but that doesn't mean they are interchangeable at will.
There's also a scenario where an enemy, if you were to switch to remastered version, gets a completely new ability. The remastered version has DC 27 for that ability (because it's higher level) but the scenario version is scaled to 4 or 2 levels lower, and that DC 27 would be way too much for the PCs. It's also a ranged ability that hampers movement (and deals a lot of damage on lower level PCs) which would make an already difficult combat even harder as PCs already have trouble engaging the monster. It's just one more example of a why deliberately switching statblocks or trying to update them to 'remastered versions' is a bad idea.
The bottom line is that the adventure was written with the specific statblocks and there's absolutely no reason to go changing them, unless you're fixing a specific error.
I have, I think a bit over 60 scenarios GM'd and played on a rough guesstimate. During those, I know my investigator has died twice, once on lvl 8, once on lvl 9, and I think a different character of mine died in a scenario, but it got retconned because there was some sort of mix up (accidentally used wrong scaling and run high tier instead of low tier, or something similar).
I've killed one actual PC, I've had two pregens die at my table in different scenarios (they were filling up the table that had just 3 players, so no consequences for any players).
One 1st season scenario I GM'd would have ended in a TPK, but I had a misunderstanding about how shields work and because of it, the last surviving party member (druid) stood standing and managed to cast heal, reviving the whole team, and turned the tide of the battle. Without it, it would have been a TPK.
The one PC I killed was also almost a TPK - whole party was on the ground, dying or stabile, except for the last PC who killed the boss, and managed to save... almost everyone, before people bled to death.
As a player, I had a similar experience in a different 1st season scenario, where the whole party was dying except the fighter, who managed to kill the boss at the last moment. That time, they managed to revive the whole party though, despite some really, really grievous wounds >.>
Oooh, and I wasn't personally part of that table, but we had 2 tables run the same scenario at the same time, from year 2 I think - one of them breezed through it (high tier), one of them took a TPK in the first encounter.
Firstly - I would treat any spells that were evocation spells before the remaster, as if they still had the evocation tag for this monster. I would also count any spells that are 'spiritual successors' to old spells like if they had the evocation tag (force barrage being the new magic missile, which used to be evocation, as an example).
If it got hit by remaster spell that very strongly feels like it would be evocation spell (like, say, some sort of "lightning strikes from the sky!") I might also count that as an evocation spell... But this would be more context sensitive decision and I'd be tempted to rule in a player's favor.
Secondly, yeah, not being able to use it's engulf, which it clearly is supposed to be able to use, would be 'too bad to be true'. It has only one movement speed so that's the one I would use for it when using engulf.
If it has like, "speed 10ft, fly 40ft" then this question would be more complicated, because one could argue that it's intended as a balancing factor that it can only move 20ft if it wants to use engulf and not 80ft and we don't actually know what the devs were thinking - but now that it only has one speed, it's clear that's what it's supposed to be using.
Your experience is highly atypical, as more often the complaint is that PFS adventures are very railroady, without the characters really having much say in where the adventure goes. Sure, you can Solve issues in different ways, but the issues and problems you are facing are pre-written.
Practically speaking all PFS players know that the scenarios have pretty rigid structure and we're just along for the ride, although sometimes there's room for improvisation and very creative solutions, so trying to run off the tracks is extremely rare.
If a PC tries to go way off the rails, the typical response (after trying to gently guide them back on tracks) would be that "that's outside the scope of this adventure, your character can run into the sunset if they want to, but they won't be participating in the rest of this scenario" or similar.
That being said, "it's what my character would do" is not an excuse to act like a jerk - there's a difference between a player who is willing to work with others to have their (wildly acting) character participate in the adventure (in which case it's a character problem and can be solved ingame) and between a player who is not willing to work with others to have their character participate (and who uses "it's what my character would do" as an excuse), in which case it's a player problem and needs to be dealt with outside of the game.
1) as many have pointed out, this depends on the group, location, and adventure. For example, last game I played we had some absolutely delightful RP going on - we had an academy dropout caster and an ustalav academic caster that had good banter about how "real life teaches you everything you need to know" versus "you couldn't even finish school, while I graduated valedictorian", combined with two kitsunes that were extremely polite and respectful of the spirits in the forest of spirits while the academics were scoffing at them, and lastly but not least, a leshy (nature spirit) thrown into the mix and being kinda in their natural environment.
It had some good sitcom like energy with the friendly but competitive banter, some minor cultural clashes, and all in all was super fun. Not all tables are like that, though, but it helped that the players were familiar with each other and we had plenty of time while the adventure was on the shorter side, so we didn't need to rush.
2) On the other side, the previous adventure I played saw the group almost TPK to a boss fight, and my lvl 9 investigator had to buy their second resurrection to continue their journey. Some fights are easy, sure, but this ties in with a different problem 2e, especially AP's have:
2e often has a lot of combat, especially adventure paths. GMs often try to cut out some combats to streamline the experience a bit - and often this means cutting 'filler encounters' that aren't 'plot relevant', but also they are often the more easier encounters. However, if you cut out all the easier encounters, you end up with an adventure that's very tiring - every combat takes long and is (potentially) dangerous, and that can lead to fatigue. 2e needs those easy, light combats to maintain pacing, and it makes those dangerous, high-stakes combats feel more impactful. They exist, even in society scenarios, but they aren't super common, and not all scenarios have those difficult combats.
Also, constant PC deaths, especially in low levels, aren't necessarily fun, nor do they support growth as they can discourage players from continuing with the campaign. That's probably a reason why lower level scenarios are often easier... But those too do have encounters with TPK potential, especially the ones with a solo bosses.
As the sanctioning requires that you use the provided pregens, I would run it with the provided pregens as they are. Sadly, this means that it's a poor 'learning experience' for new players.
Quote:
Using the provided pregenerated characters is required for Threshold of Knowledge.
It's up to the GM - "you CAN allow". Some GMs may allow you to improve the degree, some might not. This is also relevant for Life Shot, which says that willing targets are flat footed - in some tables, you might be flat footed AND improve the degree by one step. The FAQ merely states that the optional rule is in use - and the optional rule is that a GM can allow, if they wish and if the situation warrants it. Without the FAQ, the optional rule would not be allowed, which would be a blanket ban for GMs to allow it.
It's important to understand the context here. That rule is there because of a creature which 'overheals you' and attempts to kill you by giving you too much health, and when fighting it, it makes sense to sometimes hit your allies, and sometimes your allies may even want to help you to hit them. It's not intentend as a blanket "All abilities that target allies are always one degree of success better", it's intended to make creative solutions/using hostile abilities against allies easier (like shoving an ally out of harms way, or picking them up in an aqueous orb) - it's not meant to improve random abilities which were meant to be used on allies from the beginning.
Bones Oracle + Domain Acumen at lvl 2, or oracle dedication and basic mysteries -> domain acumen, costing you lvl 2 and 4 feats.
I'm not sure if there are any other ways currently to access it. But is there a specific reason why you need the domain, maybe that could be substituted with something else? Like touch of the void from champion?
Ah, I misread, I thought they beat up the summoners.
Yeah, Okay, the missed the boss fight and 90+% of the loot.
However, there's no instructions on how much gold you should deduct per missed encounter, and there's an argument to be made that "sneaking around the summoners" is a "clever solution" to avoiding the combat, but it's down to semantics.
In any case, I don't think a GM should go around changing scenario rewards without actual clear printed instructions on how to do so.
That advice isn't strictly speaking a clear rule,though.
The Guide says that "this value represents the total gold piece value a character receives for defeating all enemies and finding all treasure" but the emerald spire isn't written for pathfinder society, there could be, for example, an item on a floor that's value is more than the total wealth gained for that whole adventure. If the players miss that item, would you give them 0 gold despite them killing everything else and finding everything else? Obviously not.
To modify the gold value, you'd need to know what encounters are supposed to give how much gold. That information (for PFS) isn't written anywhere for the emerald spire, so just reward them the full amount.
Just cross over the items they missed (as per guide, p. 16, step 7).
Especially if you only spring this onto the players *after* the game, they'll probably be disappointed - If missing loot meant losing gold, they (probably) would have just crawled through every nook and cranny and room, instead of playing it safe and smart.
ALSO, for this adventure, something like 90%+ of the loot is tied to the summoners anyway. If this was a PFS scenario, there would probably be rewards for copying notes and figuring out stuff.
So the contradiction is that the Guide says "characters created 15 nov. 2023 or later must use the reprinted version" while the remaster states that the classes in PC2 can use the old chassis if they were created prior to august 12.
Use the newer text to avoid the confusion.
After 15th of november 2023, all new characters using classes from PC1 must use the PC1 version, not the old version, and after 12th of august 2024, all new characters using the classes in the PC2, must use the PC2 version.
So, if your class was in PC2 but your character was made between 15th of novemeber and 12th of august, you don't have a free rebuild available, but you can continue to use the old class chassis.
Note that some of your abilities (feats, sub-class options, etc) may have received updated texts, and these must be treated as errata.
I'm getting ready to GM 5-08, and I'm trying to figure out where I can find the battle-mat which is used for "C. The Final Exam"? It's not labeled, and I can't seem to find it anywhere. I suppose in theory I could just use the image from the scenario, but that seems optimal since it's got "non-terrain" markings on it.
You might be able to use a PDF extractor of some sort to grab just the map, without those markings, if they haven't flattened the image. At least on newer scenarios that works, but I have no recollection if that worked for this old scenarios.
Ye, for Society play, you really need to plan your character being self-sufficient, so the odds of someone using a shield but not being able to repair it is really low - after all, what would they do if they went into a scenario where nobody in the party knew how to repair shields?
You also can't craft items for other players, unless you consistently play with the same person every time, and you craft items just so you can lend them out to that person during sessions, since wealth transfer isn't allowed.
Crafting skill checks definitely do come up, though.
Is the exemplar class allowed in Pathfinder Society? The boon text I can see says "exemplar multiclass archetype" which to me implies archetype rather than class
Aren't they the exact same weapon? Both are 1d6 bludgeoning martial clubs with L bulk, 1 hand, shove, thrown 30ft, and the grippli/tripkee trait? Why change it anyway?
By default, there's no rules for "just changing one weapon to another".
However, if you're still level 1, you can sell back equipment at the original price, and then buy the new weapon, effectively losing nothing.
If your first chronicle sheet was received before... November 15th last year I think, you have one use of the remaster rebuild for the character. As part of that rebuild, you may sell back equipment at full price, and then purchase a new weapon, effectively switching it out for free.
Both of those options do require that you have some sort of character rebuild available, though - either lvl 1 or remaster rebuild. Outside of those, there's no special rule allowing switching weapons (other than transfering runes at that 10% gp price), although in this case as the weapons are literally identical, I doubt anyone will mind if you just call your rungu a Cruuk instead. Technically speaking though, they are two different weapons because they have different names.
There was a thread not that long ago that had ideas about crafters being able to trade or sell items to other characters, if you want to take a look at the discussion. It's not really feasible, as it'll be a wealth transfer one way or another, not to mention that it would be either extremely easy to abuse or a horrible burden on bookkeeping.
Most importantly:
If you ever feel that crafting was a poor choice, remember that you can always retrain the feats and skill increases you chose, with 7 days of downtime per feat/skill increase.
Second: A lot of players/characters skil earn income rolls, because the reward is basically pocket change. Crafting has a tiny advantage over earn income: your earnings are calculated based on your level, not your level -2, and the DC is based on the level of the item you're making. You'll get best results if you figure out [a consumable] that your build constantly uses anyway, and you can keep crafting it day after day. That allows you to make the crafting check versus a low DC while earning more than your earn income peers per day of downtime.
To really benefit from crafting, requires spending considerable IRL time on optimising your downtime. For many, it's just not worth the hassle. For those who really dedicate the time to figure out the options, you can get results such as: Rolling DC 15 as a level 4 character with +14 on the skill, critting on 11+, and (effectively) making 1gp per day spent (8gp for the downtime of a scenario). At level 4, you can get 64gp from the scenario, so 8gp extra is 12,5% increase in your earnings. A regular earn income check (DC 16, but your skill and bonuses probably aren't maxed) from the same time is 2,4gp (or 4gp if you crit), so you're earning more than triple (or double) extra compared to them.
One issue is that the best items to craft are: Expensive, lower than your level items that you don't need right now, but those aren't super common in the end (which is why I recommend consumables instead)
can I still use the Career Change boon to quickly retrain feats and such without having to switch to the remaster chassis and lose the School benefits?
"Such characters retain their school lore unless and until rebuilt under Remaster rules." and "Legacy characters who are rebuilt under Remaster rules must remove any bonus lore and feat earned from Pathfinder Training."
-> If you aren't using the remaster rebuild (but are instead using some other rebuild or retraining) you retain the old school benefits.
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will we get a refund
Traditionally, the answer has been that No, there's not a refund - your acp got you the option to play the ancestry/heritage early. However, other ancestries and heritages that were changed to common/always available got an updated text in the boon, giving them a free resurrection, so you probably get a free resurrection too.
(Free feat seems unlikely, but then again, the only one that lost anything was ganzi - previously, they gained that random resistance instead of LLV->DV upgrade like other planar scions, now they get the vision upgrade like everybody else and need to spend a feat for the resistance. Aphorite previously got the same Low Light Vision, so your Nephilim "aphorite" lost nothing compared to your old Aphorite and doesn't need a free feat to be exactly identical to the old version. If you check how tiefling/aasimar was handled when nephilim got reprinted, the character options state that nephilims get to choose either aasimar or tiefling, and they count all old aasimar OR tiefling feats as having the nephilim trait, or vice versa. I expect the same to happen with aphorite and ganzi, meaning that your nephilim can still select aphorite feats as you previously could.)
It would be cool if nephilim had the option to take a free lineage feat INSTEAD of gaining the vision upgrade, though! Would also make them more appealing for ancestries that already have dark vision...
The (other) enemy has Retributive strike but no champion's aura, and retributive strike refers to the aura to determine the range.
I'd ignore the prerequisite of having used twin parry. The enemies were given these reactions for a reason, and to me it seems clear that they are supposed to be able to use the reactions too, so I'd just let them twin riposte as a reaction if someone critically misses them.
"As a reward, the NPC gifts players [an uncommon weapon] at the end of the scenario."
However, chronicle sheet does not list said weapon.
To me, this seems like an obvious error: There is no point in handing the players a weapon, then taking it away immediately, and not giving access to it on the chronicle sheet. However, messing with the chronicle sheet seems extremely dubious.
Would this be considered an obvious error that a GM would be free to correct, adding it to the chronicle sheet's list of items unlocked?
example, 6-03:
Bloodletting Kukri (uncommon, lvl 5, GMC) is given to the PCs a moment before the end of the scenario, yet isn't on the chronicle sheet. It's accessible through other scenarios, so it clearly isn't a case of "we don't want players to get access to this weapon".
To emphasise, I don't really care about this specific example (despite having asked it elsewhere too) specifically - I just think it's an excellent example of a situation where 'an obvious error' might not actually be one.
Run combat encounters without deliberately increasing difficulty
seems to imply that a GM may deliberately lower difficulty of encounters. Is this correct? Is the intent that a GM may add Weak template on some enemies or maybe even reduce the numbers of enemy creatures in encounters?
It's clear that GMs always have the ability influence the difficulty of an encounter by running enemies more smartly or having them make tactical mistakes, but the old version explicitly called out changing encounters as a no-no, while the new text seems imply "Please don't make stuff harder, but feel free to make it easier if that's good for the table".
If that's not the intent, then wording should probably be "run combat encounters without deliberately changing difficulty"
For my own pathfinder agent, I record the exact creatures, but I mention it (and throw the list) to the GM before the game/at the start, and mention that it's unclear what the type should mean - they get to make the judgement on when it applies and when it doesn't.
What Pirate Rob said. The DC really should be there (somewhere), we do not have any kind of official guidance or rules for "skill checks without a listed DC".
Note that for many skill challenges with multiple parts, the format could be something like following:
"Escape from the dinosaurs! (moderate 3)"
[blah blah blah explanation of what's happening]
the DC's are 17 for the lore, 19 for the other skills (or 19 and 21 for high tier).
Dodge the boulders!
Suddenly, boulders drop from above. PCs can dodge with underground lore, athletics, acrobatics or reflex save"
Avoid the nosesaurus!
PCs can hide from the creature with animal or dinosaur lore, stealth, or nature
Oh no, planar rift!
Magical rift opens up, PCs can counteract it with any planar lore, arcana, occultism"
and so on, where the DCs are listed in the main body of the text, not in individual challenges.
In some scenarios (multitable specials especially) there could be a sidebar at the beginning giving you a table of DCs per each different level range, and then just saying "Hard DC, Medium DC, Easy DC" and you use the DC the table gave for your party's tier.
EDIT:
Specifically, if this is regarding Foundation's Price you're running, I think the DC you might be looking for on the bottom left side of page 7, while the skills&challenges are described starting at top of page 7.
(I just noticed you posted there, didn't check which part of the adventure you were in)
Would it be possible to buy the Parrying Scabbard and say the sheathe of the sword cane is the parrying scabbard for society play?
Yes, that's exactly the purpose of the parrying scabbard.
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Curious if this could work and allow the sword cane's flavor of concealment to still work while paying for the parry trait with the Scabbard.
Probably. I imagine that most society GMs would let it work. Some might argue that the scabbard is obviously reinforced and thus the benefit might not apply.
Technically speaking, you should still receive the +2 to hide the sword, but onlookers might notice that the scabbard is weird, as the scabbard doesn't have any bonus to hide it's true nature.
That being said, I don't think that's ever going to come up. It's exceedingly rare for scenarios to throw you into situations where you need to pretend you don't have weapons, and when they do, do you really want to take the risk even with a +2 to smuggle a weapon through instead of actually arriving unarmed? And if you do want to risk it, you can probably just ditch the scabbard if GM argues that it doesn't work, maybe buy yourself a buckler just in case for that occasion. Also, it's kinda typical for people to walk around with their weapons drawn when they expect danger, in which case neither the concealed trait nor the "can draw scabbard when you draw the weapon" seem that relevant.
Does anyone know if champions can take the obedience cause and touch of the void devotion spell? This is for a potential character I want to spin up
Yes and yes.
To help you navigate character options in the future, is there a specific reason why you're unsure if either are allowed?
To expand on this: character option page says that all options in PC2 are standard unless otherwise noted, and both of those are among common options, and neither requires sanctioning to unholy (which is specifically illegal).
Ye, notice how both of them refer to Starfinder Galaxy Guide, a product that does not yet exist? (as far as I know)
You'll have to wait until it gets published to get the rules for those ancestries.
It's probably the equivalent of "Lost Omens World Guide" but for SF2e instead of PF2e.
There's nothing saying that you must use official art, and indeed in meatspace games you might not even have tokens with appropriate art, but rather a random assortment of miniatures or just generic markers etc.
I'd avoid purposefully using misleading art, tho - for example, if the players are faced with lizardfolks, you wouldn't want to use zombies or skeletons.
Personally, I think the token art should be as representative as the description you're giving them, but not much else. If the players want to know whether that's a lizardfolk or a serpent folk or a nagaji (or just a very large kobold) (Or a werecrocodile), they get to roll a recall knowledge for it. This is especially true with undead, unless they are specifically described in a clearly identifiable way: if it's just a pile of bones animating, then sure, it's a skeleton (probably). But if you check the art for a skeleton champion and say, draugr, they look very similar and could easily be mistaken for one another. And if the skeleton has even a bit more armor or a closed helmet, it's no longer immediately recognizeable as a skeleton guard.
This ties a bit into a somewhat popular discussion about "if we're facing a skeleton / zombie, is it metagaming to know that bludgeoning / slashing works against each?" to which my answer is that you typically shouldn't know you're facing a skeleton/zombie without an RK check. You can definitely gamble that it's a skeleton/zombie, but it could just as well be draugr or a flesh golem, or possibly a Morhg, ghoul or a wight.
Specifically, on the product page here, check the greyish box that's located between the video and the VTT links that says:
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The adventure in the Pathfinder Beginner Box, "Menace Under Otari," is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download.
, it includes a link to the sanctioning document which includes the chronicle sheets.
Your doctrine is a selectable class feature, so it takes 28 days to retrain.
Depending on what you want from warpriest, it might be easier to just pick up an archetype or feat for the survivability (I assume armor proficiency) as feats take just 7 days to retrain.
Can you elaborate a bit on what leads you to this conclusion, that they've become illegal?
I went through character options page and the guide, and I searched through PC1, PC2, and GMC and I can't find anything stating that azlanti language or lore has been made illegal, restricted, nor limited. (And AoN still lists it as Regional language.)
On that note, of the 4 scenarios in year 3 that mention azlanti, none of them actually require it - they all have easily accessible and common alternatives, with one even having an NPC that will translate for you.
If you wish, you can email Alex to refund the boon - that is explicitly part of the remaster rebuilding rules
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If, in the course of this rebuild, you wish to refund any purchased boons, please email orgplayreportingerrors@paizo.com with your character’s name, Organized Play ID and character number, and the boon(s) you would like to refund.
I think the intent is that if you don't intend to use the ancestry anymore, you can ask for a refund (like if it no longer works with your build, or it thematically doesn't fit what the new, rebuild character is going for) - I don't think it's meant for "oh this ancestry is now free, I guess I could take the refund while keeping the heritage!" but technically speaking the rebuild rules don't make any notion as to *why* you want the refund, it just says you can ask for it if you wish.
If you're an awakened flying animal, I don't think you need to take ganzi and vestigial wings to get Winged warrior: You're literally an animal that can fly and that definitely comes with wings.
If you're worried about a GM saying that nothing technically says you have wings, you can use your awakened animal heritage to pick WING as your animal attack - then you also have a clear mechanic that says you have wing(s).
PFS requires that in order to take winged warrior, your wings must be mechanically supported by an ancestry, heritage, or other feat - given that flying animals explicitly learn to fly later through feats, the heritage should qualify for it.
That being said, the winged warrior says that "Any fly Speed granted by ancestry feats..." and since you currently do not have a fly speed granted by your ancestry feats, it does not increase by 5ft. If you pick up Take Flight (lvl 1 feat), that 15ft speed would increase to 20ft, though you fall after each move if you don't end up on solid ground.
Completely dependent on the character and their needs. Typically, I don't think any region actually gives anything signignificant unless you have a specific build that needs a specific item/weapon/archetype.
However, the most widely useful are: The regions from Guns&Gear sanctioning, as they give you access to a variety of firearms, and the new tian xia character guide seems to have a lot of options given access by being from tian xia.
I'm like 60-70% sure this functionality existed. I'm not sure if it only exists for some scenarios, or if I've just dreamed about this existing (rpgchronicles automatically checking the boxes on the chronicle sheet) or if I missed something just now when I tried it with 4-14, but nope, it did not fill in the checkboxes.
EDIT:
No, wait, it definitely does! It works with quest Quest 19, for example.
Players have filled their details on step 1, you fill in the scenario TBs etc on step 2, you move on to step 3, insert chronicle code, save information, and return to step 2: New field appears that has the scenario recap text (heavily edited to avoid spoilers;)
Spoiler:
You dealt with the capricious whims of a ........, and were able to ....... with [] the ..... ...... (name), []the .... (name) [] no one else.
You can then check those boxes, return to page 3, and then download the scenarios with the boxes already checked.
No idea why this didn't work for 4-14 for me earlier.
The A, B, C, D check boxes are on the second page before yiu enter the scenario code on the third page.
I don't mean those, I mean the tiny boxes on the chronicle sheet's recap page "And so you went down the path of []red light, [] blue light, []neither, where you faced []dragon, []werewolf, []a hag", they don't appear until you've filled out the chronicle code on page 3 and returned to page 2. if you don't return, you'll need to manually edit the PDFs after you've downloaded them, to make the correct notes on the chronicle sheets before sending them to your players.
I'm just saying that functionality isn't clearly instructed on the webpage.
What software are you using to handle the pdf?
For me, adobe Acrobat (free, not paid) allows to mark and sign the pdf and then print it as pdf just fine, as does opening it in edge, firefox, or chrome (I'm not sure if any of those are using some sort of extension?)
In either case, I really recommend giving rpgchronicles a try.
As others have explained, there's no need for an account - signing up to your game on rpg chronicles is just as easy for the players as it would be on any other platform, such as google sheets or where ever you may want their details to. Just throw them the link, they click it, they fill in their details.
It also automatically calculates the challenge points for you, and creates the chronicle sheets. There's a minor issue that isn't immediately apparent: If I recall, it doesn't check the boxes for "and you befriended/killed/let the BBEG go free" checboxes, unless you go to the end, insert the chronicle code, and then go one step back again to select the checkmarks.
Honestly, filling in the chronicle sheets is such a chore, and rpgchronicles is such a huge QoL boost to that.
It's a bit of a corner case, but given the guide text (emphasis is mine):
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Players can also use the Second Chance AcP Boon (to clear death) or the Pathfinder Condition Removal AcP Boon (to clear all other conditions.) When it is not feasible to purchase these Boons immediately after the game, GMs are encouraged to work with players to ensure that the Boon is purchased in as timely a fashion as possible, and not immediately mark the character “dead” as above.
I think it might not be wholly intended by the earlier text, but I still think it would be fine, to have the GM report the game and the character purchasing the second chance immediately afterwards. It would be weird to have a character die permanently in a scenario that results in you having enough acp for a resurrection.
