Vaku's page

I should take “Lore - Rovagug”, but I wanted to specialize and took “Lore - Terrasque” instead.

I have been pretty adept at identifying things that are not a Terrasque, so far.

I just got my CRB today and was going to ask a question but instead I want to leave a comment for Jason Bulmahn:

I was going to ask how you would go about making a Rogue archetype Counterfeit Mage in this edition, but after looking at the Rogue class, everything you would need can mostly be selected as part of the level-up process! It looks easier than ever to make an interesting archetype while still staying useful and pertinent in play!

Great job to the whole team!

Has this been covered anywhere, or any further clarification?

As new products are being announced for 2E that seem to be all coming out at launch, I have a few orders that would likely be shipped together.

I may have missed this information elsewhere, but I wanted to see if these orders would recalculate and combine shipping closer to shipment date? Or is cancelling an reordering the only way to do that?

Same thing I always ask for. A book including rules for harvesting monster parts and crafting armor and weapons with them.

PF1 came close with the monster hunters manual, but ultimately said that the PF1 rules were too restricted by 3.5 to work on a large scale. Maybe now?

Bob has 110hp.

Bob takes 112 damage, gains the dying 1 and unconscious conditions.
Bob is healed back to 110hp, but is still unconscious and dying.
Bob gets hit for 1 damage three times.
Bob has 107hp and is dead.

That seems super weird. Breaking the connection between hp total, consciousness, and death seems hard to get used to.

Bob takes 112 damage, and gains the dying 1 and unconscious conditions AND moves in front of the monster that killed him in initiative order. - unless you have a large amount of monsters you rolled independent initiatives for, Bob will get a turn after all other players but before the monsters.

The rest doesn’t matter. This example also completely ignores the use of hero points, which Bob could spend just as he hits dying 4 to remove the dying condition.

And, like others have said, they are reviewing the death and dying rules.

I just realized that the typing of Adopted Ancestry should not be General. It is a first level feat and should be chosen at only first level because it is about thinks that happened before the character was first level. So it should be an Ancestry Feat and not General. Also, General Feats are not available to characters until 3rd level.

-- Gary Ciaramella

It could also occur due to a romance or intense friendship, it would make sense to take after level 1 if you were a halfling in a party of dwarves, and after traveling for years, you feel more dwarvish than halfling.

The biggest problem with Adopted Ancestry is that you sacrifice a feat for it but you don't actually get the feat from the Ancestry you're looking to dip into. Then that ship sails and you're stuck waiting five levels for something you were hoping to start the game with--something that's only a first level feat. By the time you qualify for it, I'm not it would matter anymore. It just strikes me as a frustrating and needless straightjacket.

We have a player in the game I'm GMing. We're making characters for the second part of the playtest adventure. He wants a talking dog. His character has ties to gnomish culture in his backstory and it sounded like a blast. Seems easy enough. I figured he could sacrifice his human feat to pick up an Adopted Ancestry to grab the gnome familiar, so he can be a human fighter with a talking dog, just like he wants. But that's not possible according to the rules: he either has to be a gnome or a spellcaster. I'm not sure what in the rules makes it so he can't just start with another races' Ancestry feat at the cost of his own. Seems plenty balanced to me. I wish I could do it for him.

Yea, you’re right. RAW, the adopted ancestry only allows you access to those ancestries. You would need to either wait for your next ancestral feat or burn your next general feat on the skill, which seems like a lot for what are kind of average feats.

There doesn't seem to be. I'd be inclined to be lenient since P1's insistence that all ammunition was destroyed when fired rubbed me wrong. But if there are going to be official rules on that, they look to be forthcoming.

From the Pathfinder (1st edition, 6th printing) core rulebook pg 141, “Generally speaking, ammunition that hits its target is destroyed or rendered useless, while ammunition that misses has a 50% chance of being destroyed or lost.”

I think this a generally fair rule and will be using it for 2nd edition unless decided otherwise.

I’m leveling up a character to level 4, and it says I get two skill feats and one general feat. I’m reading over the general feat section, but I’m confused on how the feats are laid out.

Can I pick any feat with the general trait for general feat? Can I pick any feat with the skill feat for skill feats? Further, can I pick a feat with the skill trait if I’m taking a general feat, as long as it has the general trait?

I know I have to meat the requirements, but otherwise I’m confused with skill feats vs general feats.

Are you not the GM? Just flat out rule, “no you can’t”, unless you don’t mind letting him.

The wording is there for the non-human monks, the tengus that use wings and the vanaras’ that might use their tail. Also to include feet and such. There is no need to change the wording for what can be easily dismissed by the GM.

To quote the second edition playtest rulebook: “Those who reject the divine might find themselves adrift in the afterlife, without a home for their souls to find peace, or possibly even sacrificed to stave off the end times.”.

I want it to be known, as an Athiest, I find nothing offensive about this passage or the ideas it entails.

Just want to point out a couple things I noticed while prepping this encounter. First, he quasits have to use an action each round to Change Shape as it has the concentration trait. Two, knockdown is not automatic with each Strike and requires a followup action. Thus, to attqck in wolf form, the quasit can either make two Strikes or a single Strike and then Knockdown.These were not very obvious.

Not very obvious is right! Looking at the Bestiary, it doesn’t even explicitly say that these actions require the listed amounts of actions to be used, just describes how the effect works. I’d like to see this updated for the final release.

From 196 of the core rulebook: “If you’re a sorcerer Casting a Spell from the spell list that matches your bloodline, you can draw on the magic within your blood to replace any Material Casting actions that require material components with Somatic Casting actions. You can’t replace a Material Casting action that requires a spell focus.”

I think for monsters (especially demons and such) that’s the material component. But it would still require an action.

Looking for a little clarification or verification. I know we currently don’t have the scenario for the 10th level playtest, and maybe I missed an important word, but, 10th level characters still only get one uncommon rarity item, outside of feat approved items?

I’m guessing this is to playtest the actual mechanics of a 10th level character in what is essentially a pick up group, but I did want to make sure I was reading this correctly.

It also encourages role play. New players or players that aren’t interested in the role playing aspect are now asked, “what is your character doing as he moves from room a to b?” Maybe he will always say “I move cautiously with my shield up scanning for traps or enemies.” But that is a valid choice and does help build a character narrative.

I like the idea in theory, but mechanically I think there are better ways to do it, at least in 1e there were. (Thinking about effects that could target a body part at a higher ac but disabled different enemy abilities)

Also, not to be that guy, but in Monster Hunter, often, after breaking a body part, extra damage on that part is increased, not wasted. Additionally, the monster can still use that body part, but it’s effectiveness is lowered.

One last point, if you had three separate creatures, this encounter would have given the monsters 9 actions per round, instead it only got 5. That’s a huge difference and severely changes the danger of the enemy.

Think about it like this, higher level characters are used to sleeping in dangerous areas. As such, they have gotten used to sleeping “with one eye open” while getting all of the benefits of a full nights reat. Additionally, their combat expertise allows them to unconsciously maneuver their body, to a certain extent.

Yeah I’m seeing this as a feature, not a bug.

Yeah! And so far my “Lore:Tarrasque” skill only tells me what a Tarrasque isn’t! Do you know how hard it is to find a level 0 job with this lore skill?!

Diagonal movement is identical to how it works in first edition. 5 feet, then 10 feet, then 5 feet, then 10 feet, etc. making all diagonals cost 10 feet is too punishing and defeats the purpose of diagonals.

Also, remember, jaws are piercing damage

“If your enemy is far more powerful than you or a task beyond your abilities, you might roll a natural 20 and still get a result lower than the DC. In this case, you succeed instead of critically succeed or fail. If you lack the proficiency for a task in the first place, or it’s impossible, you might still fail on a natural 20.” -still on page 292

Keep in mind, if you roll a 1 on a skill check, but your modifier would otherwise allow you to meet the DC, you still fail, but it is treated as a failure instead of a critical failure.

For example, if you are a level 15 fighter, 18 STR, still an expert in athletics, and you are attempting to climb a cliff with handholds, DC 15, lets say. If you rolled a 1, your modified roll is 21, so you would just not move at all, compared to falling.

Why does the barbarian have 2d8 base damage? I'm pretty sure a larger weapon just goes up a die. So if the base weapon was 1d8 it would go up to 1d10.

And why did his crit multiply his damage bonus by 4(4x4=16) instead of 2(2x4=8)?

“For example, if you critically hit with a +1 longsword, you would roll 4d8 and add your modifier twice instead of rolling 2d8 and adding your modifier once.”- Page 283 of the core rulebook.

DerNils wrote:

I honestly wonder what the point of these items is? If I remember correctly, the next time they play these characters they are level 5 with completely new equipment, so will the even care about this item?

You make a new group of characters for part 2, another new group for part 3. Back to the original characters for part 4. Another new group for part 5, another new group for part 6, ending with the original character for part 7.

So... yeah, they get to keep their items. It says the characters retain what they earned from the first part and get additional items going into part 4.

He gets that, but his question is if a level 3 magic item will be pertinent to a level 7 player when they come back in part 4.

I don’t know, yet, but if nothing else, the player would be able to sell it off getting ready for part 4.

Vaku wrote:

Can you explain the why a bit better? I print stuff for all of my games, (including note cards for equipment). I just hit the save ink/toner box on the print screen and print on black and white. This is from the standard free version of adobe reader.

I’m just curious if you’re using a different pdf reader or what the issue is.

It has nothing to do with the pdf reader first off, the pdf is the pdf. It's no different from printing a scan of the physical book if you have it.

It comes down to the fact that since there is a bunch of "texture: going on in the "background" of the sheet, the printer has to print that, which requires more ink/toner.

A printer friendly version (i.e. without the textured background) would save even more ink/toner than asking your printer to save on ink/toner as, well... there'd be less to print and therefore less to waste ink/toner on in the first place.

I understand what you are saying, but for me, it’s negligible. Now, without the two of us sitting down and comparing our sheets, I don’t think there’s anyway we could fully understand how much or how little the background affects the other.

In my instance, saving ink/toner (the pdf setting) and printing on a laser printer, the background is 96% white. That 4% only has a very negligible effect on my toner usage.

Again, though, I can understand that we both have very different situations and set ups, which is why I was curious as to what your set up was.

I prefer it. In all of the Absalom lore, SP is the primary currency, with all prices from vendors listed in SP, even if the item costs 450 gp.

But I always wondered, if sp is the standard in Absalom, and Absalom is the central trade city of the world, why doesn’t the world run on sp.

Now it does.

Admittedly, this was an issue with 1st edition, too. It may not seem like it now, from the pedestal of experience, but I got into the system about a year and a half ago, and I had this same issue. The book asks you to make all of these decisions about your character before you actually know how the system works.

Conversely, the basic rules section could go first, but if you’re talking excitement, it’s definitely the worst part. You don’t get someone excited for programming by explaining advanced logic arguments, you show them what that can do. But, for making a character, I almost feel that as what you need to do to know how to really make a character.

Well, if they are using Celsius, then that would be 230 Fahrenheit. It would be weird if they have one international measurement vs the US standard for feet and etc.

Please can the playtest pack be updated with a printer friendly version of the character sheet - i.e. plain white background rather then the papyrus colour like background.

Although the coloured one looks fab, it's very hard on my pocket to print these for my group. This will save me a fortune in ink/toner.

I wont be printing quite so many tracking sheets, so I can live with that one.

A very, very many thanks in advance.

Can you explain the why a bit better? I print stuff for all of my games, (including note cards for equipment). I just hit the save ink/toner box on the print screen and print on black and white. This is from the standard free version of adobe reader.

I’m just curious if you’re using a different pdf reader or what the issue is.