Viandaru Hearth's page

Many of the GMs headed to PaizoCon are hitting preparations hard. I plan to spend a lot of hours with this adventure over the next week and will post helpful content here. Please join me!

I hope to see you from behind the GM screen :)

Greetings Pathfinders,

Portland PFS is incredibly excited to offer over 50 PFS sessions at GameStorm 19! This convention has a diversity of games and is the busiest of its kind in the area.

We are looking for a few more GMs and hope to see many new players. If you have any questions, or wish to volunteer (free badge), please respond here or send me a private message.

We will be featuring the following adventures (and a few more):
#6–99: True Dragons of Absalom
#7–99: Through Maelstrom Rift
#8–00: The Cosmic Captive
#8–04: Wardens of Sulfur Gulch
#8–08—Tyranny of Winds, Part 1: The Sandstorm Prophecy
#8–09—Forged in Flame, Part 1: The Cindersworn Pact
#8–10—Tyranny of Winds, Part 2: Secrets of the Endless Sky
#8–11—Forged in Flame, Part 2: Cleansed With Fire
#8–12—Tyranny of Winds, Part 3: Caught in the Eclipse
#8–13: What Sleeps in Stone
#8–14: To Seal the Shadow
#8–15: Hrethnar's Throne

Hitting the prep hard this weekend. I'll try to get statblocks and reflections posted in a couple of days for those with limited time before the convention.

Can We Be Goblins!, and similar adventures with pregenerated characters, be ran for a table of characters created under the Core Mode detailed on page 20 of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide? I'm under the impression that this is the case and see that this is a reporting option on Paizo's site, but can find no confirmation outside this.

Thanks muchly! :)

...If a creature that already has the associated mystery or spirit wears the amulet, that wearer does not gain any of the abilities described below; instead, the effective level of her mystery or spirit powers increases by 2...

Under the shaman section of the Advanced Class Guide there is no mention of spirit powers being spirit abilities or spirit hexes. Would you rule that the Amulet of the Spirits only effects the base spirit, greater spirit and true spirit abilities? Or would you rule that it effects the spirit's hexes as well?

Hey Folks,

I've been focusing on creating characters that give me the opportunity to play with some of the more obscure or lesser known character mechanics, but I'm running out of ideas. I play a lot of casters and have labored to absorb all of the animal companion rules. I've scratched the more difficult classes from the Advanced Class Guide and have advanced a couple of the Occult Adventures classes. I'm even eyeing a serpent-fire adept from Occult Origins to play around with Chakras. What character mechanics do you think are particularly challenging to master?

I have a 3rd level character advanced entirely through GM credit. I've desperately wanted to master the animal companion rules. From what I can tell this character's animal companion will start knowing a whopping two tricks, as all non-bonus tricks must be trained. Ouch.

I'd like to suggest a FAQ allowing GMs to train one trick per scenario.

I feel very fortunate to live in Portland and can't wait to watch this performance with our local PFS group :)

Charging trip has a +4 bonus in parenthesis and it is unclear if it is restating a festrog's CMB or if this is a bonus on top of its base CMB and charge. How would you run it?

Charging Trip (Ex) A festrog that hits with its bite after making a charge attack on all fours can attempt to trip its opponent (+4 bonus). This trip does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

I'm disappointed that I don't know, and can't find, the answer to this question: Does the Mobility feat, and similar abilities, apply when attempting an Acrobatics check to move through an opponent’s space? Thematically I'd think it would, but I cannot find it explicitly written out, which makes me question this. Is a creature generally able to threaten its own square with a non-reach melee weapon (such as a claw or longsword)?

Threatened Squares: You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you’re unarmed, you don’t normally threaten any squares and thus can’t make attacks of opportunity.

Mobility (Combat Feat) Prerequisites: Dex 13, Dodge. Benefit: You get a +4 dodge bonus to Armor Class against attacks of opportunity caused when you move out of or within a threatened area. A condition that makes you lose your Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any) also makes you lose dodge bonuses.

Hey Folks,

I finished this document for our local group as a way to educate myself and help others quickly consider and build a Vigilante. After some reflection I've decided to share with the messageboards. As this is not playtest feedback it will likely be of minimal help to the developers. However, it may help people digest and play the class to then offer feedback.

Xebeche's Vigilante Playtest Notes for PFS

Please keep in mind that these notes are for PFS and they have been created in a vacuum. I've ready very little of the messageboards, in part because it is a challenge to keep up! Feel free to offer feedback and to discuss, but please keep in mind that no one has perfect perspective, myself very much included.

Is it possible for our watermarked names/emails not to be on the printouts?

Thank you for putting together the most enjoyable PaizoCon yet! As a player I think the venue worked very well. Games ending at midnight and starting at 8am made sleeping a challenging activity, but I can appreciate why the schedule was setup the way it was. The seminars were great, too. I especially loved the diversity panel. I'm already making plans for next year. I hope you all allow yourself some rest before GenCon :)

I've read page 10 of Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play 6.0 and pages 188–191 of Ultimate Campaign and cannot find justification for using the retraining rules for my character from the Advanced Class Guide. I also checked the FAQ and ran a search in this messageboard—nothing helpful. Can these characters use the retraining rules for something as straight forward as an arcanist exploit?

It is refreshing to trot about The Inner Sea :)

Two days ago I was like, "What?! Where are all of the lottery events and seminars." Now I'm like, "Oh, there they are." There's a lot of good stuff on your schedule. I've got my fingers crossed to be able to appreciate and enjoy as much as I can. Thanks for the opportunity :)

The Intro
After leveling several characters in Pathfinder Society Organized Play I’ve noticed a wealth discrepancy between some of my PCs. This drove me to analyze the opposite ends of scenario gold rewards from 1st- to 12th-levels. It is important to emphasize that this is an exercise in extremes. While most characters fall in the middle, it is then a question of how far to one side or another each character finds its wealth.

Before we proceed, feel free to consult my data section below and view a copy of my figures.

The Summary
Lets focus this discussion on characters who would have just reached 10th-level. This gives us several levels of wealth gain to examine, as well as perspective for how it can effect legal PFS characters. According to Table 12–4: Character Wealth By Level (Core Rulebook 399) a 10th-level character is suggested to start with 62,000 gp. Whether or not this is a good figure to compare to PFS wealth is irrelevant, but it does give us a Core baseline to at least consider. What we are really interested in is the discrepancies between what is possible while actually playing PFS.

If a character receives the lowest amount of wealth reward at every possible opportunity, they will receive about 51,915 gp by the time they reach 10th-level. If a character receives the highest amount of wealth reward at every possible opportunity, they will receive about 100,526 gp by the time they reach 10th-level. These two hypothetical characters have a drastically different amount of wealth. There is no question that nearly twice the amount of gold can buy significant advantages. Even if we assume that one character has earned 60,000 gp and another has earned 80,000 gp by 10th-level, this discrepancy can still be noticeable.

According to my figures an average PFS character can expect to earn about 76,000 by 10th-level.

My Thoughts
Why is any of this a problem? For characters that have been able to abuse the wealth curve, and for those who have been victim of circumstance, there is a real danger of being overshadowed and sidelined. We all know the juxtaposition between the player who has an average character build and the player who has made every perfect choice from every splat book they can get their hands on. Wealth is no less relevant and the power that an extra 10k, 20k, 30k, or even 40k gold can buy will be an ambiguous, but impressionable difference. And just to be clear, this benefit wasn’t necessarily earned through in-game decision making or roleplaying. It exists because of how subtier and out-of-subtier wealth is rewarded.

This system also punishes players with higher level characters who play down. Its easy to imagine this being the case in smaller venues where less tables are run to cater to varied levels. On the other hand, the system can also be abused by a player who regularly seeks to play up and earn a higher out-of-subtier reward. One might suggest that this is a self-correcting problem as such a character has a higher risk of death, but the risk can be substantially minimized by player actions.

A Solution
Reward characters solely based on character level. For example, a 7th-level character receives the same rewards as another 7th-level character, regardless of playing up or down. Regardless of playing tier 5–9 or tier 7–11. Yes, there is a little more accounting for the GM, but it would not require new chronicle sheets to be issued for existing scenarios. Instead, Paizo could publish the wealth rewarded at each level in another source (such as the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play) and it would apply to all scenarios. It can be argued that this removes randomness and variability, but there are so many character options and ways of spending wealth that I’m not troubled by more calculated wealth rewards.

The one complication that I can think of that such a system would have for a scenario is how to subtract wealth rewards for incomplete encounters. In such a case, Paizo might see fit to reduce wealth rewards by a percentage for each incomplete encounter. I could see a figure like 10–33% being realistic.

The Data
I’ve averaged the wealth gain for every subtier (and out-of-subtier) category available under current PFS rules. This was taken from Seasons 4 & 5, and does not include specials, scenarios that cannot be run by any GM (regardless of stars or venture officer status), and those that do not conform to tiers 1–5, 3–7, 5–9, and 7–11. You can look at a copy of my numbers here.

One question at the forefront of my mind when creating any new Pathfinder character is: "Why is this creature of Golarion a member of the Society?" Certain classes and archetypes are easier to explain than others. Take a rogue or wizard, for example. Both have class features and interests that are well suited for travel and discovery in civilized and uncivilized areas. Other classes, such as barbarian, druid, samurai, and warpriest present a challenge for my imagination. Why would the uncivilized or religious zealots want to join an eclectic band of adventurers pursuing a wide variety of objectives on a global scale?

I'd like to stir the pot and challenge my perceptions. Why is your class a Pathfinder agent?

For our 10th-level playtest we had enough time to complete one CR 13 encounter. We had a Spiritualist, Medium, Psychic, and Kineticist at the table. I will be writing for the Psychic.

I’ll start with my conclusion: I don’t feel compelled to play a psychic over a sorcerer, the class that seems to have the most in common with the Psychic. Even taking precautions by having options for use against creatures that are resistant or immune to mind-affecting effects isn’t enough. The class is hard countered by some of the most challenging combats in the game.

The spell list is limited and easy to distill down to a short list of best spells known. The rest of it functions as scroll and wand fodder. Here’s the disappointing part: your scrolls and wands are going to cost more than for a sorcerer. Why? Because a psychic cannot cast arcane or divine spells and there isn’t a full caster psyionic class with spell progression like a wizard (i.e 2nd-level spells at 3rd character level and so on). That said, there are some immediate action spells available only to the psychic which could prove to be a thematic boon to your companions. I’m on the fence about them though.

Mind-affecting effects are unreliable against the most dangerous opponents. These are some of the best thematic options for the psychic. Everything else a wizard or sorcerer can do just as well. Those constructs, oozes, undead, plants, and vermin (without will of the dead) are going to be frustrating. Plenty of high CR creatures will have protection from evil spells active, or the equivalent.

The phrenic amplifications are very disappointing. Out of the six options only 3 are even remotely worth considering. That’s not saying much either. Overpowering Mind is fine, but its not fun. A +1 or +2 is not a defining power. Give me something exciting. Will of the Dead is a little better as I can now effect undead with my best spells! Except that I have to expend a lot of my resources on a single casting. Hey, at least that phrenic pool isn’t going to much use anyway. It’s for this reason that I personally chose to keep the ability score keyed to my character’s phrenic pool (Wisdom) at a 10.

The disciplines are okay, and I chose one of the worst, yet most thematic for a supposed Pathfinder: discipline of lore. Few casters that select spells known are going to want to choose augury, blood biography, contact other plane, or so on. The automatic writing ability doesn’t even allow for regaining of phrenic pool as it is a supernatural ability. Discipline of pain is one of the better options because the character gets automatic breathe of life. However, it feels half-baked that a discipline based around pain would have one of the most potent healing abilities.

My suggestion, which is probably too late at this point: Compare the psychic to a bard, not a sorcerer. Give them the cool psychic only spells (adjusted for fewer spell levels) and use the lost spell casting to allow them thematic choice. If any class or archetype can use the power of their mind to do nearly impossible things, it should be the psychic. I’d actually like to see them able to select spells known similar to an arcanist. Or have them prepare psychic spells similar to a warpriest. A psychic’s mind should be flexible and unique.

You can see my rough draft character sheet here.

Battle Cry (Combat) Pathfinder RPG Advanced Class Guide 141

Your shout heartens your allies and encourages them in the fight.
Prerequisites: Cha 13; base attack bonus +5 or Perform (act, oratory, or sing) 5 ranks.
Benefit: A number of times per day equal to your Charisma bonus, you can let out a battle cry as a swift action. When you do, allies within 30 feet who can hear you gain a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls and a +4 morale bonus on saving throws against fear. This effect lasts for 1 minute.

If an ally is under the effect of this feat and fails a saving throw, she can choose to end the battle cry’s effect on her to reroll the failed save. The ally must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s lower. Each ally can use this effect only once per use of this feat.

I would like clarification on the second paragraph of this feat as only fear effects are covered in the first paragraph. Is it intended for this feat to apply every bit as much to slay living as it would to cause fear?

Hey Folks,

I created a custom Scenario Reporting Sheet for my needs and figured I'd share it in case someone else finds it useful. This came about as a result of faction name changes (and a merger). Almost all Scenario Reporting Sheets are now out of date. I also included fields to help me determine APL and to quickly break ties for Initiative results.

Xebeche's Custom Scenario Reporting Sheet (PDF)

I had an after thought to include a check box for slow track characters, which is something I will implement in the future. Please let me know if you have suggestions for improvement.

My GM stars are not showing with my messageboard posts or on my Pathfinder Society ID Card. Is there a known issue or reason why this might be the case?

Here is a screen capture my my GM history.

Alex,

Back in 2010 I had never played a tabletop roleplaying game. A coworker at the time introduced a few of us to Pathfinder after he had transitioned from D&D 3.5. I was hooked, but meeting once a month for our Kingmaker campaign wasn’t cutting it. After I had come across the existence of Pathfinder Society Organized Play I built up the courage to try it. You were my first PFS GM back in the summer of 2011 and #29: The Devil We Know—Part I: Shipyard Rats was my first PFS scenario.

It was immediately evident that more GMs were needed, so you encouraged me to give it a shot, despite my inexperience. Pathfinder has become more than just a hobby, in large part because of your generosity and good will. The years that have followed have built lasting friendships. A large group of us regularly get together to enjoy Pathfinder, board games, and outdoor activities. Heck, one of these friends is now my roommate, and I am very happy for that.

Truly, your hard work to make Pathfinder available, and enjoyable, for the Portland, Oregon community has done a great deal to influence my life for the better. I have no doubt that it has been the case for others as well.

Always grateful for your friendship,
Jeremy

DIRTY TRICK MASTER (COMBAT) —Bastards of Golarion 25

You are adept at stifling your enemies and can expertly make a bad situation even worse.
Prerequisites: Greater Dirty Trick, Improved Dirty Trick, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: Whenever you successfully perform a dirty trick combat maneuver against an opponent who is still affected by a condition inflicted by a previous dirty trick (whether your own or another creature’s), you can cause the condition to worsen. In addition to increasing the duration of the condition as normal, you cause an opponent who is dazzled to become dazed, entangled to become pinned, shaken to become frightened, and sickened to become nauseated. This worsened condition replaces the previous dirty trick condition, and lasts for the duration of the dirty trick (including any rounds remaining from the previous dirty trick condition) or until the opponent uses a standard action to remove the condition (whichever comes first).

Nauseated Condition: Creatures with the nauseated condition experience stomach distress. Nauseated creatures are unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate on spells, or do anything else requiring attention. The only action such a character can take is a single move action per turn.

I've unsuccessfully searched the messageboards for a similar topic after observing that the nauseated condition doesn't allow for standard actions, thus the condition wouldn't be removable when applied by the dirty trick master feat. Is it intended that this be the case, or is there an exception to the nauseated condition for this situation?

Assassinate (Ex): A ninja with this master trick can kill foes that are unable to defend themselves. To attempt to assassinate a target, the ninja must first study her target for 1 round as a standard action. On the following round, if the ninja makes a sneak attack against the target and the target is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly killing the target. This attempt automatically fails if the target recognizes the ninja as an enemy. If the sneak attack is successful and the target of this attack fails a Fortitude save, it dies. The DC of this save is equal to 10 + 1/2 the ninja’s level + the ninja’s Charisma modifier. If the save is successful, the target still takes the sneak attack damage as normal, but it is immune to that ninja’s assassinate ability for 1 day.

Breath of life: This spell cures 5d8 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +25).

Unlike other spells that heal damage, breath of life can bring recently slain creatures back to life. If cast upon a creature that has died within 1 round, apply the healing from this spell to the creature. If the healed creature's hit point total is at a negative amount less than its Constitution score, it comes back to life and stabilizes at its new hit point total. If the creature's hit point total is at a negative amount equal to or greater than its Constitution score, the creature remains dead. Creatures brought back to life through breath of life gain a temporary negative level that lasts for 1 day.

Creatures slain by death effects cannot be saved by breath of life.

Like cure spells, breath of life deals damage to undead creatures rather than curing them, and cannot bring them back to life.

Is there anything in RAW that I'm missing regarding a Ninja's Assassinate ability and how it would work with breath of life? It doesn't explicitly state that it is a death effect, which is good or bad, depending on spells like death ward or breath of life. If Assassinate is not a death effect and a creature can be brought back by breath of life then how would the creature's hit points be determined?

I'd be inclined to roll damage normally and set that as the negative hit points, but this has no basis other than simplicity.

I'll be playing in the Wrath of the Righteous adventure path soon. Ever since reading about the Riftwarden prestige class in Paths of Prestige I've been very excited by the role that these characters play in Golarion, and beyond. Now that I finally have the chance to play one I started looking into the class mechanics and have been increasingly disappointed.

At first I thought to play a cleric, but without access to dimension door, teleport, and greater teleport the Riftwarden's Counterport, Improved Counterport and Greater Counterport class features are much less valuable, especially with reduced spellcasting. Then I moved on to Wizard because they can access higher level spells with efficiency and can reach 17th caster level at 20th character level. However, they are not charisma based, which is important for Planar Channel, Planar Scourge, and Planar Purge. Wizards transitioning into the Riftwarden prestige class also do not gain their bonus spells so must spend gold or get lucky and find valuable spellbooks in order to cast higher level spells. So, a Sorcerer? This character couldn't be a 10th-level Riftwarden and cast 9th-level spells, but they can cast the helpful teleportation spells and they are Charisma-based. Spellcraft is very important to using the Riftwarden class features and a Charisma-based character is at a disadvantage. Lastly, the Planar Guide class feature's benefits to a non-skilled caster (favored enemy/favored terrain/terrain mastery) are minor. Add to this the nearly useless Spell Focus (abjuration) requirement and it just seems silly.

I deeply want the flavor of this class for my trek into The Worldwound, but I can't confidentially say that they are the caster a party needs, especially with 15 point buy.

Have I done a reasonable job of examining the class, or are there elements that I'm missing? If you were to houserule this prestige class from the perspective of a GM, what, if any, changes would you make? I'm thinking about approaching my GM with these issues to mitigate what I feel are unnecessary tradeoffs for flavor.

I've been interested in trying to build a poison use character within Pathfinder Society for a while. The alchemist always seemed a natural as they can apply poisons very quickly. With Pathfinder Player Companion: Champions of Purity the Celestial Poisons discovery became available, making poison even more versatile with their ability to effect undead and evil outsiders. With this I set out to compile the options and came to some disappointing conclusions.

Say by 10th-level an alchemist player character can bring a giant wasp poison from DC 18 to DC 24 through the use of Concentrate Poison and Malignant Poison discoveries. Giving the benefit of the doubt to the player character, lets say they know that they are able to spend a full-round action preparing this enhanced poison immediately before combat with a Glabrezu demon (CR 13). Lets also say that the party of adventures manages to apply the shaken condition to the Glabrezu, reducing its Fortitude save to +16. This means that there is a 35% chance that the Glabrezu will fail a save under these ideal conditions for the alchemist, which is still not very good odds. On the other hand, this character's use of poison might be more discriminating, like any class ability. Unfortunately, even with these silver linings, these poisons will not become more potent while creature Fortitude saves will only rise. Short combats also penalize poison use. Lastly, poisons are expensive over the long haul.

How can alchemists craft in Pathfinder Society Organized Play?
"Alchemists can use the Craft (alchemy) skill to produce items with their Alchemy ability. Follow the Craft rules on pages 91–93 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook as well as in the alchemist’s Alchemy ability description. Any item created must be properly noted on that scenario’s Chronicle sheet. Under "Items Bought", note the amount of gold spent and the item created. Alchemists are assumed, for Pathfinder Society Organized Play, to carry the necessary items and tools with them to use available resources to create alchemical items. If they have a base of operations from which to do so, they may use an alchemy lab to gain the +2 bonus on their Craft (alchemy) check. Alchemists may never sell any of their created items nor may they trade them to another PC. However, they may allow other PCs to borrow or use items they’ve created (so long as the alchemist class ability being used allows them to do so)." —Pathfinder Society FAQ

How do poisons work in Pathfinder Society Organized Play?
"Any character with the Poison Use class ability can purchase and use poisons. For now, they are the only classes that have a list of “always available poisons” (those noted below)—no other class may purchase poisons unless they appear on a chronicle sheet. Alchemists, ninja, and poisoner rogues may only purchase the following poisons from the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook:

—Giant wasp poison [210 gp, DC 18, 6 rounds, 1d2 Dex damage, 1 save]
—Large scorpion venom [200 gp, DC 17, 6 rounds, 1d2 Str damage, 1 save]
—Medium spider venom [150 gp, DC 14, 4 rounds, 1d2 Str damage, 1 save]
—Shadow essence [250 gp, DC 17, 6 rounds, Initial Effect 1 Str drain, Secondary Effect 1d2 Str damage, 1 save]
—Small centipede poison [90 gp, DC 11, 4 rounds, 1 Dex damage, 1 save]" —Pathfinder Society FAQ

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Rival Guide —Legal as per Additional Resources
—Cockatrice Spit [1,000 gp, DC 12, 4 rounds, 1d2 Dex damage (a creature who takes Dexterity damage equal to its Dexterity score from this poison becomes petrified; each day, a petrified victim can attempt a new DC 12 Fortitude save to recover from the venom and become unpetrified with an amount of Dexterity damage equal to 1 point less than its Dexterity score), 1 save]
—Fiddleback Venom [500 gp, DC 13, Onset 1 minute; Frequency 1/minute for 6 minutes, Initial Effect nauseated 1d4 rounds, Secondary Effect 1d3 Str damage and 1d4 Con damage, 2 saves]
—Hag Spit [1,500 gp, DC 16, 6 rounds, Initial Effect blindness for 1d10 rounds, Secondary Effect 1d4 Wis damage, 2 saves]
—Rainbow Jellyfish Toxin [400 gp, DC 14, 2 rounds, Initial Effect staggered for 1d6 rounds, Secondary Effect paralyzed for 1d6 minutes, 1 save]

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Equipment —Legal as per Additional Resources
—Black Adder Venom [120 gp, DC 11, 6 rounds, 1d2 Con damage, 1 save]
—Bloodroot [100 gp, DC 12, 1 round onset, 4 rounds, 1 Con and 1 Wis damage and 1 round confusion, 1 save]
—Greenblood Oil [100 gp, DC 13, 4 rounds, 1 Con damage, 1 save]
—Malyass Root Paste [250 gp, contact, DC 16, 1 minute onset, 1/minute for 6 minutes, 1d2 Dex damage, 1 save]
—Nitharit [650 gp, contact, DC 13, 1 minute onset, 1/minute for 6 minutes, 1d3 Con damage, 1 save]
—Terinav Root [400 gp, contact, DC 16, 1 minute onset, 1d3 Dex damage, 1 save]
*These are in addition to those listed in the Core Rulebook.

Lesser poisoner’s jacket (12,000 GP) —Ultimate Equipment, page 222
AURA faint conjuration and necromancy CL 5th WEIGHT 3 lbs.
Three times per day, the wearer of this dark jacket can create a vial containing one dose of any poison from the Core Rulebook that costs 300 gp or less. The jacket’s poison always looks like a murky amber fluid. This poison becomes inert after 1 hour.

Greater poisoner’s jacket (58,000 GP) —Ultimate Equipment, page 221
AURA strong conjuration and necromancy CL 15th WEIGHT 4 lbs.
This jacket has the abilities of a lesser poisoner’s jacket, and once per day the wearer can create a vial that reproduces the effect of any poison in the Core Rulebook that costs 4,000 gp or less. The jacket’s poison always looks like a murky lime fluid.
This poison becomes inert after 1 hour.

Immunities Constructs, plants, undead, oozes, daemons, demodands, demons, devils, and elementals are immune to poison. In the case of the crypt breaker, constructs and corporeal undead are especially vulnerable to alkahest bombs. Further, with the Celestial Poison discovery, undead and evil outsiders become vulnerable to poison, but usually have strong Fortitude saves despite this. This leaves plants, non-corporeal undead (if they still cannot be poisoned), oozes, and elementals unaffected by poison, or another Crypt Breaker Alchemist ability.

Discoveries Concentrate Poison (50% duration, +2 DC), sticky poison (6th; a single dose of created poison lasts Int mod), celestial poison (8th; good; poison undead and evil outsiders), and malignant poison (10th; +4 poison DC; no onset)

Dropping Fortitude Saves Shaken, sickened, pernicious poison (no save, but subject to SR), Con damage, and anything else that drops a creatures Fortitude saving throw, directly or indirectly, will make poison use reasonable.

Alkahest Bombs (Su) A crypt breaker’s bombs are specially designed to work best against constructs and corporeal undead—two foes commonly encountered in ancient tombs. Known as alkahest bombs, these bombs deal acid damage instead of fire damage. Alkahest is an alchemical fluid that eats away unliving flesh and animated constructs, but it doesn’t work as well against other targets. Against constructs and corporeal undead, alkahest bombs deal 1d8 points of damage, plus 1d8 points of damage for every odd-numbered level instead of 1d6. Against all other creatures, alkahest bombs deal 1d4 points of damage, plus 1d4 points of acid damage for every odd-numbered level. This ability otherwise functions as and replaces the standard alchemist bomb class feature.

I'm interested in playing a Crypt Breaker Alchemist for Pathfinder Society Organized Play and am considering discoveries. Something that is not clear to me is the Crypt Breaker's Alkahest Bombs and how they are modified, if at all, by discoveries such as Dispelling Bomb, Force Bomb, Acid Bomb, and Concussive Bomb. Each discovery is explicit in what it does, so it leads me to believe that while a Crypt Breaker wouldn't make a simple fire-based bomb like most alchemists, but that these mentioned bomb discoveries would expand the kinds of bombs that the Crypt Breaker can create, allowing for more versatility against non-construct and non-corporeal undead. Does this sound like it would hold up at PFS tables?

The Riftwarden prestige class in Paths of Prestige has a 10th-level capstone ability called Greater Counterport (Su) which grants the following:

At 10th level, a Riftwarden can counter a teleportation effect as an immediate action, without the need to ready an action beforehand. In addition, as a full-round action, the Riftwarden can expend two uses of her planar channel ability to forcibly recall a creature that used teleportation to exit an area within 30 feet of the Riftwarden since the end of the Riftwarden’s last turn. Planar channel deals damage equal to the amount normally dealt by one use of planar channel. This damage affects only that target, and affects it regardless of its current distance from the Riftwarden. If the target fails its save, the teleportation effect is reversed and the creature returns to the point from which it teleported (or the nearest available space, if that space is now occupied by another creature).

Planar Channel (Su) is gained much earlier and explicitly states that it only works on extraplanar creatures.

At 2nd level, a Riftwarden can channel baneful energies against creatures with the extraplanar subtype, regardless of alignment or plane of origin, as the cleric’s channel energy ability. The Riftwarden deals damage as a cleric of a level equal to her highest caster level. This energy can only harm, not heal. This ability cannot be used with feats, magic items, or other effects that modify channel energy. A Riftwarden can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + her bonus for the relevant ability of the spellcasting class she selected.

I can read this in three different ways as there is no history of the topic being discussed before on these boards:

• Any creature, regardless of type, can be returned from the point it teleported from and takes damage equivalent to the planar channel ability.
• Only extraplanar creatures are effected by Greater Counterport as Planar Channel only effects extraplanar creatures.
• Any creature, regardless of type, can be returned from the point it teleported from, but only extraplanar creatures take damage equivalent to the planar channel ability.

For those characters that wish to venerate minor deities, archdevils, demon lords, qlippoth lords, empyreal lords, horseman, elemental lords, the eldest (and so on), what inquisitions, if any, are legal for play?

On page 41 of Ultimate Magic it states that the Conversion Inquisition is available to "Any deity." Now in Faiths & Philosophies the Excommunication, Redemption, and Reformation Inquisitions are listed without any deities. The only source I've seen to exclude specifics. Currently the Additional Resources page states "Inquisitions: all inquisitions on page 23 are legal for play" in regards to Faiths & Philosophies. So, am I interpreting it correctly that these four inquisitions are legal, and perhaps the only legal Inquisitions, for PFS characters of all non-major deities?

I've found this discussion to be the only one relevant and can locate no other helpful information.

Would these creatures lose all the benefits they gained as animal companion and completely revert back to their appropriate bestiary stat block?

Is making use of the crafting feats a reasonable option for this adventure path? More expensive items especially can take quite a while to finish. I can find no mention in the player's guide or on these forums.

Knowledge of the Ages (Su) You can search through time to recall some bit of forgotten lore or information. You can retry any Knowledge skill check you have made within the past minute, gaining an insight bonus on the check equal to your Charisma modifier. You can use this ability a number times per day equal to your Charisma modifier.

This is an Oracle of Time's Revelation. It appears to require a standard action to use, correct? The reason I ask is because Knowledge checks usually require no action.

My primary concern is making a compartment appear mundane (and near impossible to discover the charade). Some combination of skilled craftsmanship, practiced deception and longterm magical warding may be necessary. The compartment must be protected from detect magic and other forms of magical piercing. My intent is to keep magical items secreted away. Nondetecting (though lasting hours and costing 50 gp per casting) seems like a justifiable solution, but are there other means of blocking the detecting of magical items? The effect could be maintained by a spellcaster, but will be necessary over a period of months or years.

I'm hesitant to provide more details than this for my PCs frequent these boards. Thanks!

I'm preparing an encounter with a Shambling Mound. It has the Power Attack feat and it has the Constrict ability. When I run this, if the shambling mound power attacks it would suffer the penalties on its slam attacks, and, if successful, on the grapple checks to start a grapple. However, I'm uncertain about whether the power attack bonus damage would be applied to the constrict damage. Constrict is using 1-1/2 times the strength modifier for damage, so if power attack does increase constrict damage does that mean it would gain +6 damage instead of +4 damage? If the case, the entries would look something like this:

Melee 2 slams +11 (2d6+5 plus grab) or
2 power attack slams +9 (2d6+9 plus grab)

CMB +12 (+16 grapple or
+14 power attack grapple)

Special Attacks constrict (2d6+7) or
power attack constrict (2d6+13)

I have a couple situations that are making me scratch my head and I cannot locate answers in the forums or rulebooks.

1) Do the traits Indomitable Fait (+1 Will save) and Loyalty (+1 vs enchantment; Grand Lodge) stack? If they stack a character could effectively get a +2 trait bonus against enchantment effects that require Will saves.

2) Do eyes of the eagle and minor burglar boots stack? The first gives a +5 competence bonus to perception checks, the latter gives a +5 competence bonus to Perception checks to spot or locate traps and devices on the floor.

Thanks Muchly!

I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen many archetypes that specifically cater to a Druid's Wild Shape ability. Shamans don't get Wild Shape until 6th level and it operates as two levels higher for their thematic forms, but this doesn't add much besides an additional wild shape per day at the expense of all other forms. This is especially true at higher levels.

Terrain shamans and domains add a little spice for elemental forces and plants, but it seems like these could be taken farther. What about the druid who wild shapes into an elemental (water, air, earth or fire) at +2 to their level? Or an affinity for one of these natural elements (not just arctic) that empowers electrical, fire, acid or cold spells and abilities? Of course their is the Elf Treesinger archetype for a plant theme, but that is quite exclusive.

Are these an oversight or intentional?

Would an inquisitor of the conversion or heresy inquisition benefit from a circlet of persuasion on bluff and intimate checks? On a character level these skills are based on wisdom, not charisma, but on a game design level they are almost exclusively based on charisma. To which would the circlet adhere to? And if it wouldn't work for this character, does that mean that skills that could be based off charisma instead of their normal ability would benefit from the circlet?

First, my apologies if this is the incorrect forum for this topic. I won't be offended if this thread needs to be moved. Okay, on to the meat and potatoes.

I'll be setting up a YouTube channel soon where I can talk about Pathfinder. My primary intention is to make it a tool to introduce players and GMs to various aspects of Pathfinder and Golarion using audio and visuals. I have two concerns before I get started: 1) If I use "Pathfinder" in the channel name will that draw the ire of Paizo? 2) Can I briefly show images from the bestiaries, campaign settings and other Paizo materials without drawing the ire of Paizo?

Here is the minimum product quality I'm willing to produce. I have to work on my voice presentation quite a bit... Pathfinder Character Creation

I want to thank Paizo, everyone who made it to PaizoCon, and especially those involved in leadership and GMing. I'm not only new to tabletop roleplaying games, but this was my very first Con of any sort. The experience exceeded my expectations and I already look forward to next year! I know I'm not alone ;)

I'm under the assumption that much of the information in the Advanced Race Guide for the core races will become legal for PFS. I have a character that I haven't played, but has earned levels through GM credit. Would it be appropriate for me to use the Advanced Race Guide if and when content becomes legal for PFS?

Hey folks,

So, my group and I took down Vordakai (spelling?) and our GM said that we get Varnhold and 2 hexes all around as long as we connect our kingdom hex to one of these Varnhold hexes. However, we didn't nail down a couple of other details and he is VERY busy with work, school, family, etc. I've asked for some information, but he has life stuff keeping his attention. I'm trying to prep as much as possible to limit time spent kingdom building at the table.

My questions:
—What buildings does Varnhold start with?
—What do the map symbols mean? (i.e. stonehenge, gravestone, animal paw, coin, etc?)
—How far north can we claim hexes? I imagine Restov would not appreciate our land encroaching beyond a certain point.