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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber. Organized Play Member. 6,898 posts (6,900 including aliases). 3 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 6 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.


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The reason I think the suppression effect was added and left in even for non-magical causes, is because it allows this spell to be effective in lower level slots for much longer than it would be otherwise. I think this is a good thing because the conditions it removes are common, but not often life threatening enough to waste a high rank spell slot and 2 actions on in an encounter situation. Giving the spell a pretty nice boost of “this is not likely to fail uselessly” feels like a kind way to keep it pretty relevant in a top rank -2 to -4 spell slot, where it’s not taking up a ton of character resources, but can be useful enough in a couple of encounter situations where I can see a lot of level 7 to 11 prepared support casters taking the time to memorize one in a lower tier slot.


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For conditions like grabbed, things that let you give it to someone else tend to specify that the grab ends if the creature moves away from source. I would personally then just rule that if the cause of the effect is no longer in position to maintain or give the condition, the condition just ends.


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Any effect that does damage or has DCs or makes rolls probably should have a level given to it. Even if you are using Simple DCs for something that could be giving conditions like grabbed or Clumsy, a trained DC 15 is also a level 1 DC. An expert 20 DC is also a level 5 DC, a Master 30 DC is also a level 12 DC, and a Legendary 40 DC is also a level 20 DC.


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Ravingdork wrote:

They have and they haven't, and where they have, it's pretty scattered about in various official blogs, Twitch streams, book publications, and other sources.

Drow have been retconned to have never existed. They were either subterranean lizard people, false reports made by surface dwellers, or evil cabals of cavern elves.

Dragons and many other creatures don't need such changes; as they're still very much a part of the setting. Even though you won't see them printed anymore owlbears still populate the forests of the Inner Sea.

I said it was underground lizard people all along and everyone just laughed at me.


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Wouldn’t someone looking at “core only” in either the remastered content or the original PF2 rules be ignoring all supplemental books? Like, even if you are playing core only in a preremasted game you aren’t going to be seeing any Kineticists, psychics, magi or inventors.


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The thing about Kobolds is that you can absolutely still play a kobold character that is a smol dragon, and as a GM you can have entire groups of them that fan girl a dragon around, so nothing about the kobold loses the old flavor of existing kobold groups, you just probably aren’t likely to see more draconic kobold material in adventures and AP material for a little while until they can get enough other kinds of representation that players can get used to seeing other kinds of kobolds too.


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I guess a question I have about these tradition-based dragons is:

Do they inherently have spells that relate to their various traditions? or is the tradition less about the magical essence of the dragon and more about their role in the world? Will we get lots of caster dragons that study different traditions of magic than is their core essence?


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I think the Expert but with the juggernaut type effect makes a lot of sense of the Rogue as a "Luck" type character. A lot of traps and hazards do target fortitude and I think it is very on brand that Rogues tend to either be fine from such effects, or they are in big trouble.


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I think Kingmaker, having the video game and crossing over from PF1 to both PF2 and 5e has to be pretty high up there. The very first PFS2 scenario might be up there too, just from convention play and online play by post.


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The Raven Black wrote:
Finoan wrote:

There will certainly be new books of monsters. I don't expect that the developers are going to say, "enough is enough and we will just continue using the same stagnant monsters that we already have".

I think people are getting confused about what a book being Remastered means.

The Remaster was never intended or advertised as causing old content to become unavailable - other than some things removed for licensing problems.

The idea that 'Oh, that was from an old book, so we can't use it since we switched over to the Remaster rules' is something that is coming from people on the internet - not from the game developers.

For example, the Cave Scorpion is from Bestiary 2. Which hasn't been Remastered. But that doesn't mean that the next AP book that comes out isn't going to include a Cave Scorpion or reference Bestiary 2 to get the stats for it rather than reprinting the stat block for the creature in the AP page count.

The only thing I don't know is what the name of the new book of monsters will be: "Bestiary 4" or "Monster Core 2".

AFAICT ORC and OGL must be completely divorced. Paizo could not mention an OGL book or a monster that comes from an OGL book in any of their future products since all those will be ORC.

For home games, everything is still available though.

I believe this is why we haven't had any ORC APs yet, because the content was there to publish an AP under the ORC license. Going forward after 7 dooms though, I am pretty sure any AP that wants to use a monster that is not in ORC published content is going to have to put the creature in the AP bestiary or have the stat block in the book as a "new" creature.


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Bluemagetim wrote:
keftiu wrote:
You don't have to be the inventor of the engine to blow it up when you try to modify one while it's running.

This is kind of what im trying to parse out.

Is it a single engine? is it many engines?
Are the engines of the gods fundamentally different from the ones mortals tap into.

So when Nethys breaks the engine what engine actually broke? who draws from it. are there others and so on.

Anyone who has an answer for you is trying to sell you their version of how magic works. After all, we already have Halcyon casting in PF2 which is a combination of arcane and primal magic.


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Zoken44 wrote:

A fair point has been made that with the lack of wide spread taboos and hang ups regarding LGBTQ relationships, terminology regarding them would not be as colorful and euphamistic as it is for us.

However, what about inter-ancestral relationships. I'm not talking about simiply humans/elves, or Elves/Orcs, y'know, basicaly the same thing with a few cosmetic changes, but seriously varied creatures.

like is there a term for a person from a medium ancestry in a relationship with a small ancestr? Or what about being an animal ancestry (including the more common humanoids) in a relationship with a plant ancestry?

Do Gebbites have terms for their undead who have relationships with the Quick (living)?

I guess a quickie in Golarion is a very different thing than on Earth.


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keftiu wrote:
Our hint for this week from Luis: the deity has a two-syllable name.

This is a hint about which god will be featured this week, right?


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Xenocrat wrote:
If a creature has multiple spell effects on it and you're not specifying which one you're trying to dispel then how do you handle it? One at random?

If the caster was casting the spell without any further direction than "I think there is a spell effect there" than I would probably randomly roll to decide which effect. That is also how I would handle a character deciding to attack a square adjacent to them that contained more than one potential target (like a couple of tiny creatures).


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Strike can only target a creature. But if I have a player character that believes a creature is in the square next to her, I have always allowed that player’s character to make a strike where they believe a creature is, then resolve the action and tell them they don’t hit anything, the same as if a creature was there and they missed on a concealment check, or just didn’t roll high enough to hit. The player doesn’t need to know what the creature is, or if it is actually a creature or statue or an illusion. I play dispel magic and spell effects the same way.


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Remember that our knowledge of divinity in Golarion and its powers are mostly tied to myth, not certainty. Also different regions in Golarion have different gods for different domains. Sarenrae’s death would not necessarily mean the sun disappears, we are not even certain she made it/there is not worldwide agreement on that.

The same is true for every PF2 deity. Even Phrasma’s death would not necessarily end the cycle of birth/death and the movement of souls through the boneyard. People, maybe even the gods themselves might believe such things, but the story only ends that way if you, or the GM, decides that to be the case…or if the writers end up writing it that way in a future book, and even then, you don’t have to go along with it if you don’t want to.


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Simple NPCs are your friend for running small parties through dungeons. Just creatures like level-1 goblins or other creatures that have 1 attack and minimal complexity can provide the “Hero” (or in my case 2 Heroes) enough support to handle how dice dependent PF2 is. That is the real threat to small parties. If the whole PC team is only rolling 1 or 2 attack dice a turn a string of bad luck is death. Those super basic NPC allies can be an easy way to help mitigate bad luck and spread out damage without adding a lot of complexity or show stealing potential. Especially if they have 1 handed weapons and shields that they raise every round.

The key to making it all fun though is to make sure encounters are built around the 1 or 2 player characters. They won’t cover every skill or be good against every type of combat encounter, but if the player wants to be a Ranger with a bow, add shootouts/enemies with ranged weapons. If they want to play a trap finding rogue, add traps. If they want to play a caster, add level -4 minions and watch spells like burning hands/fire breath or acid burst shine in ways that will never happen against a party of 4.


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Leliel the 12th wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Squiggit wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:


The death of the hunter at the claws of a primeval beast that then becomes a pure hunter of deities. And how both mortals and deities struggle to adapt.

My only real gripe is that instead of being a prophecy about the death of Erastil it's more like the prophecy of a monster that happens to kill Erastil along with a bunch of other deities.

It's supposed to be his story but you could take him out of it and wouldn't have to even change much. The story is very interesting but I feel like it doesn't do quite enough with the brief for me.

It is more the story of his legacy IMO. But I think Old Deadeye would approve.
And that's kind of why I'm going back to the "this is a series of stories about what the gods fear or being unable to be their natures" theory; Erastil, the ultimate hunter and community protector, is overcome by a predator that goes on to slaughter a significant portion of his community, the other gods. Quite simply, in this story, he failed his nature and task, and in Golarion's actual continuity, it's a warning for him to not get overconfident.

Also, Erastil is not just a god of the hunt, but of community and family. A predator that doesn’t just come to kill him, but goes on to kill everything he was trying to protect is a very Erastil centered story.


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Stormlord506 wrote:
keftiu wrote:
As a fan who came in with 2e, I still feel like I barely know daemons and the Horsemen... but I know some 1e fans really love them. I'd welcome this being their big apocalypse push!

Honestly, same. I've been reading Chainsaw Man for a while now, and I'd like to see more classic apocalypse stories.

Also, is Daemon pronounced Day-mon or Dee-mon?

The opposite of a Daemon is a Nightmon.


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Jonathan Morgantini wrote:
Noven wrote:
I really wanted Pharasma to be the one to go.
She can be in your games if you want! I know at least one Infinite author has come up with something for that scenario. Side note, if someone DOES do this in their home game (Pharasma or whomever) let me know how it goes because I'm insanely curious.

One of the really cool things about the way y'all are handling this with the promotional blogs and everything is that any GM can very easily run with any one of these stories and make it into the seed for a whole campaign very easily.


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See I feel like with Cayden Cailean as your diety, it is also fine not to be too specific about what kind of adventuring party you are about to join. I mean, either way you wake up the next morning sore, hungry, and in need of a stiff drink.


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For sure, and even if it isn’t center stage (which I don’t want it to be) it could be caused by any number of malignant forces in world beyond gods enough for it to affect cultures and languages.

I guess, I would just personally want it to be localized enough that in many areas those two married guys that run the local book store are just married, and they could even have kids without requiring any special terminology or backstory because there are spells that turn humans into rabbits forever, and there could be bountiful domestic rituals that are as cheap and accessible as any GM wants them to be in their setting.

But I would also love it if, for example, holy Calistrian texts detail methods of giving pleasure with clinical, economic inspired terminology that would clearly indicate that understanding what a person wants is the best way to keep them coming back for more with bigger and bigger stacks of coins, which I think would probably generate a plethora of metaphors and coded language that could be rich and secretive.


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I mean part of the trick to thinking about language, especially coded/euphemistic language is understanding the need for it. If there is no one on the planet insisting that relationships must be between one man and one woman, and no religions who’s gods are putting forth such ideas as edicts or anathemas, then there are probably places where there is no such thing as a gay or queer or lesbian relationship, because those are just relationships. People don’t tend to develop language to talk about differences that are largely invisible or not the subject of public scrutiny or discussion. It does seem like sexuality in much of Golarion is just not a subject of political discourse, probably because writing adventures about it falls outside of Paizo company baseline topics, even if the adventures and setting material does do a good job with representation generally. Removing alignment might make it easier to have antagonists so focused on the control of other people that controlling bodily autonomy and sexuality could a plot line without overt politicization, but I doubt these would be aspects of villainy pushed to the center stage in a game module.

So negative language around gender and sexuality in Golarion feels like something that wouldn’t have much cause for getting invented in the first place to lead to reclaiming words like queer, but I could see places where relationships like those of highly revered gods would be celebrated and “noticed” socially in a positive context enough for language to evolve around it. I think the churches of Shelyn and Calistra would be two of the most long standing sources of creative expression around sex and sexuality, with Nocticula being a new player in the creative language game. Maybe Cayden, and maybe Zon Kuthon would be sources of creative inspiration for language too.

(Sorry, I am a language scholar, I can’t help but dive deep into how words take on meaning. This is intended to be a fun thread and I am trying to positively contribute to that, but if I am off base, I apologize).


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This is just my head canon, but I always read Nex as a place where people used magic so often, especially polymorphic magics, that the idea that a person hasn’t spent some amount of time living in different identity categories (including gender) would be kind of strange. Like maybe some folks struggle to afford such opportunities, but that generally, exploring different ways of being would be a social value.


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I think the point about scrolls for casters is having lots of different types of spells. A kineticist isn’t going to be covering missing element types with scrolls.


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James Jacobs wrote:
Ed Reppert wrote:
I suspect that if you met the five goals you specify in your spoiler, the revised Second Darkness would be much more popular than the original.

Perhaps. But that's the goal with any compilation product.

ALSO Please don't take my posts here as any sort of indication about upcoming plans for any product lines. I kind of got swept up in the "what if" of the topic, since Adventure Path compilations are near and dear to my heart. Sometimes I lose sight of the fact that as a creative director at Paizo that it's not responsible for me to give the impression of something like this being in the works when it's not.

We love that you get to be a human being and fan of the setting you have worked so hard to develop here. These insights are wonderful and fun for us to think about too! Thank you


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So how about those spacious bags?


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Reza la Canaille wrote:

[dice=And the god roll is...]1d100

Asmodeus.

Asmodeus wrote:

Edicts: negotiate contracts to your best advantage, rule tyrannically and torture weaker beings, show subservience to your betters

Anathema break a contract, free a slave, insult Asmodeus by showing mercy to your enemies

Those edicts and anathema are pre-remaster. The new ones for Asmodeus are:

asmodeus wrote:


Edicts negotiate contracts to your best advantage, rule tyrannically
and torture weaker beings, show subservience to your betters
Anathema break a contract, share power with the weak, insult
Asmodeus by showing mercy to your enemies.


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It really seems to me like the link of all these prophecies is that they would be disruptive to the faithful if they were to get out into the public. Like it is not necessarily what the deity is afraid of, but it would be a prophecy that, if even based on a kernel of truth would cause a lot of worshipers to question their faith, or potentially undermine the authority of that god over their domains.

For this one, I don't think it would spook living worshipers, but if there were undead worshipers who's faith was predicated on assuming that Urgathoa is promoting the cause of undeath across Golarion, I could see them getting pretty mad/considering how they might contribute to her final death to bring about such an apocalypse. Minimally, they might at least start questioning her commitment to the cause and think a better champion of the cause might be worth finding and taking her place. I think that link could potentially connect all of this to the upcoming godswar. Undermining the faith of your enemies worshipers would be a powerful weapon.


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i love how all of these "prophecies" contain elements of complete impossibility, but in such a way that they would cause heresy and apostasy if the were widely shared.

I don't want it to be, but these all read like lies that Norgerberg would really love to sitting on top of, to share at exactly the wrong time.


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My biggest problem with Golem antimagic is that it felt like a mechanic for a different system super imposed over PF2. It doesn’t interact at all with 4 degrees of success, just targeting the creature was enough to trigger everything, and how many adventure designers could really be expected to know how difficult some golems would be for some parties at certain levels based upon whether strong magical options were available at those levels? Golems were overly complex puzzle encounters that nearly remove the D20 from determining the outcome of the encounter. Even worse, they removed all other tactical magic use as well because of how poorly the limits of what being unaffected by spells were defined.

At lower levels, bastion resistance is going to be 10, or 5, or even lower for level -1 to 1 types, which we might reasonably see in the future of the game. I hope we see some with creative weaknesses (either direct weaknesses or abilities that can be overcome). I hope we can get more into the lore of them in PF2 remastered as well to create new stories divergent from “it’s a D&D golem with the serial number filed off,” and I think bringing them back closer to PF2 mechanics will help do that.


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Yeah, but if you compare where Kineticists were vs Golems as opposed to bastions, they are in so much better shape against the remastered Bastion.

In order for a Kineticist to have nothing to do against a Bastion, they have to be incapable of doing enough damage to meaningfully overcome resistance, they have to not have an ability with a relevant damage type or trait, and they have to have no impulses that are useful beyond doing damage. Compared to Golem anti-magic which has one good damage type for doing damage, one damage type that will slow, and then nothing else the Kineticist can do is useful, because all impulses are spells and no spells have any affect on Golem anti-magic.

Personally, I think this is a very reasonable way of having creatures that still have resistances enough to matter, but not making it a locking picking encounter that essentially has 1 key to unlock.

I mean, unprepared martials are in worse shape than the vast majority of Kineticists against a bastion.


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The key for Kineticist though is that it is just resistance, not a special feature, so if the bastion has the corresponding elemental traits, they can now clearly extract element from the creature and then use all their abilities against it. They could not do this against any kind of Golems without a lot of GM arbitration. Additionally, all of their non damaging effects will work just fine against golems, which was not the case before.

Losing 1 additional damage type which just slows a creature is not a big deal compared to being able to clearly interact with the rest of your nondamaging impulses/aura effects and being able to extract element from bastions. A metal kineticist was nearly worthless against an Iron Golem. They will not be so against an Iron Bastion.


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Well, if kineticist impulses count as spells for resistance purposes, (which will either need to be called out in the monster core when talking about resistances or be a contentious sore spot in the rules forever) then at least only the damage is prevented. Against golem antimagic the kineticist can’t do anything with any targeted abilities unless the “spell” does one of 2 damage types.


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SuperBidi wrote:

I agree, a good monster design should balance resistances by weaknesses to encourage parties to adapt to the situation. Right now, I feel that this Bastion is just "resistant to everything, deal with it". Against this kind of enemies, combat is just a slog.

I also forgot: Kineticists will be mostly unable to affect Golems unless they have the proper element. Speaking of slogs...

No because the resistance is to spells, not magic. Energy attacks, even magical ones, will mostly be very effective unless the bastion is immune to the energy type.


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Also, the nebulous rules around golden antimagic confused many players about whether it is only magical sources of these element types that trigger weaknesses/healing/effects, or any element could do it.

Like the Iron golem was immune to fire so couldn’t actually take fire damage. The rules about fire healing are exclusively in the golem antimagic description so many folks read that to mean only magical fire could heal a golem. Otherwise the ability to heal from fire should have been separated out from that ability.


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"All these other Zyphus worshipers have it all wrong. You see these cults that think they can go around setting lethal traps and then claiming the deaths as "accidental" are all just a bunch of morons who are sending souls to the boneyard and just reinforcing Phrasma's power and authority over death. A R-E-A-L devotee of the Harvestman understands that our purpose is to save anyone who would die an otherwise practical or purposeful death, which would include someone dying from a trap set for the purpose of "accidentally" killing someone. No, a pointless trap is a trap that just reminds someone that trying to die a meaningful death is actually just a meaningless gift to Phrasma's sense of self-importance.

The best way to make sure souls get where they really belong is to do everything you possibly can to make those around you feel invincible, so that they think no challenge can harm them, and get them to start taking ever-increasingly foolhardy risks with their life, until finally they die in such a way that truly serves no purpose at all, as that will be the one final end of all of this nonsense anyway."


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The only real value at level 1 and 2 for the rank 1 spell, is having a way to use your school slot for one additional spell. The cantrip is a decent benefit though, so even at level 1 it is doing something for you.

If you rush to get an early staff, then the extra spell becomes pretty useful to you by level 3 to 5, especially if you are putting a rank 2 slot (maybe still your school spell if you don't love your options) into your staff, because then you have 2 spells to choose from instead of just one to spend your charges on. (Those low level staves are pretty limited).

The thesis really starts getting valuable at level 8, because you can expend lower level slots together to get enough charges to cast higher level spells or just have more of the flexible casting versatility that many people feel the wizard lacks. These boards have many proponents of the staff nexus thesis wizard, saying that it is as strong as the spell blending thesis because you get more flexibility with charges than you do with static spell slots.

Personally, I still struggle with taking any thesis other than spell substitution on any wizard I play because I love changing up what spells I have prepared with every 10 minute rest, and being able to reuse fun utility tricks multiple times in the same dungeon without having to go buy more scrolls, instead just buying 1 of most scrolls except for some combat options that I will use almost every encounter.

But the staff nexus thesis is kind of a balance between the spell blending thesis (which takes a long time to get rolling) and the other theses that are more front loaded as options, in that you get some benefit right from level 1, some additional benefit at level 3 if you can get your first permanent staff, and then a big boost at level 8.


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If all the thesis did was give you a magical staff at level 1 that contained a rank one spell and a cantrip (that could later be added to a different staff you invested in) why not just say that, instead of awkwardly redescribing what a staff is, but with an obvious and glaring omission?

It makes a lot more sense to include the text that was included if the makeshift staff is not exactly the same as other staves.


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If the "makeshift staff" was supposed to work exactly as a regular staff, except that it only has one cantrip and one rank 1 spell in it, then all of the text in the thesis is unnecessary. It could just say "you begin with a special staff that contains 1 cantrip and 1 rank 1 spell. Until level 8, there is no difference between a staff nexus wizard and another wizard who has a magical staff except that the staff nexus wizard can have one additional spell and one additional cantrip in their staff.

The purpose of the text there is to let you know that you can still expend a slot to gain additional charges, even though you technically do not have a magical staff item, you have a "makeshift magical staff" which is a different custom item from other magical staves.


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@Trip.H, it sounds like you have a table then that is fun for you and that you are able to use this spell the way you want. Great!

As for why I arbitrate that the spell only works against 1 target (and have since before the remaster, I just think the remaster makes the trait issue clearer), it is because the spell itself only ever talks about having an effect on the target of the spell, which is stated as 1 creature. I all the alchemical poisons in the game use the word “victim” or “victims” which would include any exposed to the poison. But puff of poison is very particular in its language, so even if the spell did create a cloud (a point I do not agree with you about), then only your target can be affected b the spell because there is no language in the spell suggesting anyone other than the target has been exposed to the poison.

Again, I am not telling you that you are not allowed to play the spell however you like with the tables that agree with your interpretation, but that your reasoning is not convincing to me that there was any intention on the part of the spell’s writer to make it affect more than 1 target.


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The part you are extrapolating from in the GM core is specific to alchemical items. The entry on that page does not define the trait generally, only provide further information about alchemical poisons. The only place the trait is defined in in the player core.

Specially the text tells us that each poison has one of these traits, then the section tells us how alchemical poisons with those traits operate. But the traits are defined in the player core.


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Giving item traits to spells has caused confusion since the original PF2 player’s core rulebook. Splash was given to acid splash (a cantrip) and there was never a functional, consistent way to interpret how it worked because of how the trait was clearly written for items, not spells.

The inhaled trait in the player core one just says “This poison is delivered when breathed in.”

I think this issue has essentially been stealth resolved and the crux of this debate is on using pre remastered rules. I don’t believe the intention was ever for the spell to create a cloud, and that is probably why it doesn’t anymore in remastered rules. Not using those rules, it is going to be a table by table debate, and not one rules lawyering is likely to resolve consistently in the same way. I would certainly not expect PFS GMs to give you a cloud, and definitely not consistently.


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If Lamashtu dies raining the afterbirth of bestial horrors down onto Golarion, I will personal devote all future characters to her worship, even if they can never possibly cast a divine spell. If it is her, and she dies any other way, my characters will all forsake all gods forever.


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I'll add that while i love love love lamashtu, if she goes out raining the afterbirth of bestial horrors on to Golarion, i will retract my desire for butterflies and rainbows.


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I am very glad that PF2 remastered has abandoned alignment and left these discussions for players at the table and not to try to be resolved by comparing actions with a general guide about alignment in a game rulebook. I mean any character could have an anathma against killing unarmed foes, and that is perfectly fine as long as it plays well with the other players at the table. It doesn't need to be rooted in good or evil to be valid. The group I play with has pretty much adopted an anathema against using magic to influence or control the actions of NPCs because it makes them uncomfortable, and knowing this, I can make sure to not push against it, even if I don't necessarily think that the magic distinction makes sense to me personally. I know as a player and a GM not to push this because other players don't think that these kinds of scenarios would be fun.

Larger conversations about ethicality don't really matter because I could play with other folks/play other games if exploring those stories is something I want to do. Morality could be about more, but fundamentally we know that it is about social interactions between people and anything more than that is about belief systems and faith. Be careful about using the pretense of playing games to force anyone into discussions that they don't really want to have.


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The bad fish smell for me about this whole scenario is "what was the GM trying to do here?"

I don't mean this in a judgy--the GM had bad intentions--way, I mean it in that GM fiat was clearly used to create this situation in the first place because these run of the mill bandits didn't die when they reached 0 hit points. So if the party decided to revive them afterwards to probe them for information, then the party really should have been contending with the decision from the beginning of the encounter with attacking non-lethally. But if it was because the GM was encouraging the party to act with mercy and try to tend enemies because it felt like the morally responsible thing to do at the table, why let one player act unilaterally at the end of the encounter? That does nothing to foster a positive space for the players to have discussions about morality at the gaming table and is setting everyone up for bad feelings and an argument.

Before any characters take action, if one player is insistent that their character has a right to act in a certain way that will cause enough tension for one of the players to go to the internet to ask others for some kind of ruling that will probably reinforce their own desired take on the situation, then the game needed to stop before the action was taken because you don't have a party playing a game together anymore.

I recognize that some people have a lot of fun with PvP games and characters with mysterious objectives that might class with other players characters, but it is clear from the player behavior after this situation that this is not the kind of agreed upon situation. Very basic rule 0 issues are being ignored at the table before the ethicality of the situation can even be evaluated.

Again, these things happen in games. The GM Core has suggestions for GMs to help avoid them in the first place, and talking through what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future is a really good idea, but returning to the table and saying "actually, this is what a truly good character would do, because the internet said so" is not a really good idea in this situation.


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Kaspyr2077 wrote:
Wow, that is just... shockingly ahistorical. Most of the land you're talking about was empty desert the first time a European set eyes on it, mostly from the plague that was always going to happen the first time someone from anywhere else on the world landed on these shores. The Lewis and Clark expedition described most of it as a worthless, empty desert wasteland, not villages, orchards, and croplands. The villages that were eventually burned were largely a consequence of people like the Blackfoot putting on other people's markings and making just absolutely horrific attacks as false flags. I would know - I'm Blackfoot. But I'm not sure why you would bring any of that up. It's not exactly relevant.

There were many different nations already existing throughout the American West, from North to South. Lewis and Clark never went to the south west and very little of the land they surveyed could possibly have been called desert. The US army burned Hopi peach Orchards before surveyors ever got there with the intention of Wastelanding what was being used as fertile cropland, an agricultural feat that we can just barely replicate today. Even in the North West, Lewis’s and Clark would have been dead several times over if they had not followed pre existing trade routes and engaged in diplomacy and commerce with people along the way. The history of the American Weat is not a singular story, but one shaped by many different people’s telling, all of which relates to trying to establish the “official correct moral action” in the OP situation by pointing out that everyone here insisting on there being one morally correct way to proceed is assuming the legitimacy of some immediate “civilized” legal system, of which the captives may or may not have been beholden to (we were not told). But, that could be a perfectly fine assumption if it is the assumption of everyone at the table, because the GM and the table define those assumptions for themselves, not people arguing on the internet.

The behavior of one character acting “in character” against the will of the rest of the players is the potentially real problematic behavior here, not the originally proposed scenario or action, which either could or could not be ethical or moral based upon the desires of the players, since none of the characters involved are actual, real people, and the ethical considerations we observers from the internet want to project on the scenario could or could not be relevant to that table’s game experience.


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The “Wild West” is an apt metaphor for the impossibility of having this conversation objectively, because most of us are talking about a land that was a vibrant and often peaceful place until the US army swept through burning villages, orchards and cropland to create an intentional wasteland that “demanded” slow colonial repatriation as US territory. So it was a land turned “lawless” for the sake of freeing it from any ownership claims that the US government would have to pretend to respect. The only reason Marshals ever pursued criminals into these territories and pre-territories was if there were bounties placed on those people and the total number of people left for dead across the south west of what is now the US is unknown. So you had “bad people” deliberately being pushed into an over century’s-long expanding war zone, but the “good guys” were the US Marshals who came into this land only to collect bounties on the specific people who had committed enough crimes against settler colonists to justify paying for their return to “civilization” so they could be hung in front of the people that the US legal system was trying to convince that it had complete authority and reach.

Everything about the scenarios we play out in our games is a contrivance created by everyone at the table to have fun storytelling and rolling dice together. If tales of morality and who gets to act with righteous authority are fun for a table, you can get as nuanced and complicated as you AND your table want to get. But the very reason the rules don’t easily facilitate this, and why so many players have had trouble with both the APs that tried to push themes of acting as agents of legitimate justice and authority is that such stories are only going to work with everyone at the table buying into the narrative that their characters respect the legitimate authority (from the perspective of the story/adventure) equally and understand/are willing to collectively negotiate what that will mean at their table. When players are not ready to do that, games can easily get mired in hurt feelings and arguments about moral codes for imaginary people that literally exist to serve as pawns in games people are playing for fun, not to serve as proxies in interpersonal debates about ethics and morality.

Just “doing what my character would do in this situation” is a dangerous justification for anti-social behavior when that character’s actions make the other character’s players upset about the consequences of those actions. It is everyone’s responsibility at the table to make sure the playing environment is fun and that no one is being made to participate in activities that they find disturbing to be involved with. PF2 is a game that tends to feature a lot of violence, but how we moralize that can tend to get gritty very quickly the more complicated our encounters get with additional constraints about enemies surrendering or being taken captive. As a GM, I love playing with this space, but I bring it up in session 0 and will change how u handle it for different groups I play with. I generally hate “enemy fights to the death” as character motive but it is an easy one to ruthlessly vilify


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Was this a fun situation to role play out? Or did it lead to bad feelings? As a GM you need to pay attention to whether your players are enjoying having these kinds of discussions, or are using them to force each other to accept each other’s beliefs about right and wrong. It doesn’t really matter if the internet thinks thespecific scenario is objectively evil or not. It matters if this kind of situation is what everyone signed up for when they played the game, and if not there are multiple ways to avoid it in the future, as a GM and as a table. None of those ways are coming back to the next session saying “people on the internet say…”

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