Xethik's page

What does the war pig's support and advanced maneuver do? I saw an undead raising poison when looking through Foundryvtt data which is intriguing.

Any fun backmatter material that appears in this one?

In Divine Mysteries, the Azlanti deity Elion has the 'weather' domain, which doesn't exist. It probably should be Lightning or Nature?

My watch has ended, already! Dang

Excited for Divine Mysteries! I think it's great that you are giving out the PDF copies for Special Edition subscribers this release window - hopefully no one abuses that

The Vindicator Mark focus spell is missing the attack trait.

My watch has ended

I usually just keep the Order Status page (accessed from Order History) open and refresh that throughout the day/week. Not sure if the digital products get added before that updates or not, though.

I don't think we know what the main inspiration for Imrijka's outfit is... Sometimes we get some insights from Wayne Reynolds but I don't believe I've seen any in the years since the APG released. The Spanish Inquisition skit has always been my assumption but I also always think of Carmen Sandiego when I see her in art. Perhaps Alucard was mentioned in design notes for Wayne. I'm not sure if anyone would even remember at this point.

It's interesting that Player Core 2 also went a little more literal with the blood portion of bloodline (at least with some of the new options). It feels like the same design idea is being brought to life here.

I'm not sure what tradition bloodrager will be - I lean towards a choose a tradition like suggested based on your usual... Prey. But maybe they will simply pick arcane and add to it based on what you consume.
I wouldn't mind stealing focus spells from sorcerer even without the martially-inclined ones available.

It doesn't sound like there's any bloodlines, considering we already know the "blood" name is about the blood they drink. It'd be weird if "bloodrager" was referring to two unrelated "blood" components.

It could still allow for both with feat options, or special text with the blood rager dedication that let's you grab feats as if you had sorcerer dedication.

Well... one issue with your plan might be this:

Regarding Giant Barbarian, if you're smaller than Small, then you can only use weapons 1 size category bigger. That means you'll be using a Small weapon, which might put a damper on your damage.

I'm not sure that will do anything to change the damage dealt, but being Tiny does make reach a bit of a problem.

Spirit Warrior brings up a question of the intent of fist Strikes and needing a free-hand, as well as using the parry and disarm traits added to a fist when both hands are occupied. I won't regurgitate the whole discussion but it would be good to have clarification on the general intent.

My watch has ended - I wonder if this is the first batch for non Lost Omens+AP?

Here's to hoping mine gets shipped by tomorrow- I've got a society game on Saturday and I'd love to bring a new hybrid study magus to the table!

You have to wait for options to receive organized play sanctioning before using them in Society play - so that won't happen until the 28th at the earliest.

My watch is complete!

My last few have shipments have been day one ships, so it seems deserved that I am still waiting.
But hopefully not much longer.

Just got my PDF for this adventure a few hours ago and…WOW. From my first run through paizo may have even undersold this adventure. Its epic in every meaning of the word, delves into a lot of lore, a ton of interesting player facing options as well. I haven't given it a thorough read yet but I would be please to answer any relatively spoiler free questions about it to build up hype.

I'm very curious on the spoiler side of things but ignoring that.. how does the Red Mantis archetype handle spellcasting? Is it divine plus the new wizard school?

My watch has ended friends. Godspeed to you all!

Hopefully that means the CrowdStrike outage isn't slowing down shipments.

I think it's just somewhat random in batching of like orders.

Mine just shipped out so they're on the way!

Nice! Seems like just rulebook subs are going out first. I'm hoping my Starfinder playtest sub doesn't move me to a later batch...

I actually find it a bit weird that the Twirling Throw text doesn't say "thrown weapon Strike" - that feels like a minor error compared to how things are usually written.

But I'm a big fan of the panache changes with Bravado!

Looks like a Poster Map PDF was added. Huzzah!

Interesting...

How long, Mark?!?

I think I bought this already but I can't remember...

Has anyone heard of anyone getting the shipping notice?

I haven't heard anything yet - seems likely to have not been quite kicked off yet. I'm sure the posts will come rolling in once shipments begin.

It's important to practice your Alarming Disappearances before combat to keep your allies from getting too frightened. (Seems like it should be enemy only, easy enough to adjudicate)

Arcane shroud was nerfed rather badly. More flexibility in what you cast but the spell now only lasts until the end of your next turn at best. It used to be end of your next turn or the spell's duration, whichever is longer.

I'm fairly sure that was a confirmed mistake which is why it was restricted for PFS since launch.

Huzzah!

I'm hoping Thunderstrike is only replacing shocking grasp in that it is taking its place on revamped creatures, items, and bloodlines/deities. They have said that OGL-era options will still be valid and I think magi will be happy about that when choosing attack spells.

I do wish there was a way to sustain it as a free action, as is you have fewer actions to move or strike than a Wild Shape Druid. There is the Sustaining Dance, but that isn't as much movement as a normal Stride, usually, and isn't helpful if you don't need to move and would be trying multiple strikes or maneuvers.

There are some upsides for the Animist - aside from the 1 action initial cost it also has the upside of the status bonus being added from using the form's attack bonus instead of the other direction. This means you are not being pulled towards boosting your physical attack stats and this battle form is good for flexing into a backup martial on a character that hasn't specialized into it at all. Sustaining Dance does feel pretty mandatory so that you can Leap into melee range (or even step out of range after Striking).

Xethik wrote:

Or do we know of any battle form spell changes that might make these heightenings unnecessary?

I don't know of any since the Remaster hasn't been released yet and the previews - at least as far as I know - haven't shown Animal Form or the like.

But I would not be surprised if they fixed such spells so that they had effective heightening all the way up to 9th and 10th rank.

I just wasn't sure if it came up in a Q&A or remaster panel that I had missed - but it sounds like no. Battle forms seem like something that could be cleaned up a tad with the remaster but time will tell.

Darkened Forest Form was a spell that initially underwhelmed before I warmed up to the sheer versatility it had on a class that specializes in the very idea of flexibility. My only standing issue is that it feels underwhelming once you cease gaining heightened benefits, namely at rank 8, 9, and 10. Up until then it seems like a great focus spell option for any animist that has it primarily attuned.

It feels like adding Monstrosity form mostly fits the theme while patching rank 8 and 9 - does it make sense to anyone else to add those as options? Or do we know of any battle form spell changes that might make these heightenings unnecessary?

I could see a high level feat adding the spell to the options as well, especially if it was wandering (I believe the other two feats related to the focus spell are not).

Ohhh...that dragon looks positively nasty

waht dragon is it?

Mirage Dragon

A question came up this week in the pathfinder 2e game that I play in. We have a paladin who used retributive strike (https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=5) in response to an attack from an Ice Yai that dealt bludgeoning and cold damage. The question immediately popped up on how the trigger for retributive strike actually works. The trigger specifies that "An enemy damages your ally, and both are within 15 feet of you." and this makes sense so that retributive strike can be used for things besides just attacks. However, because it specifies "An enemy damages your ally", do we consider the bludgeoning and cold damage to be both apart of that same trigger? In that scenario, we would have 15 damage resistance to both the bludgeoning and cold damage. Or do you have to respond to either the bludgeoning or the cold damage, effectively only helping resist one of them?

Now, to be clear, I want to state that our GM is fine with either interpretation of the rule, he just wants it to be consistent. The issue is that I have been trying to find an official ruling on how exactly this is supposed to work. This has apparently been ruled by Paizo on multiple streams to provide the damage resistance to each type of damage. Does anyone have a link to one of Paizo's streams where this occurred?

Resistance to all damage applies to each damage type individually.

It’s possible to have resistance to all damage. When an effect deals damage of multiple types and you have resistance to all damage, apply the resistance to each type of damage separately. If an attack would deal 7 slashing damage and 4 fire damage, resistance 5 to all damage would reduce the slashing damage to 2 and negate the fire damage entirely.

The bludgeoning and cold would be from the same instance, and each would be reduced.

My watch has also ended! The early shipments were foretold by Austin upthread.

The Unseen Shadow is one of my favorite sidebar characters.
10/10 would die in combat with it.

Minor Highhelm issues I noticed with the goat animal companion:
- The support benefit does not require the animal companion to be adjacent to you/within reach of the character.
- The goat's headbutt has the shove trait, but I don't believe the shove trait does anything for an animal companion as they cannot gain item bonuses to their attacks, the unarmed attack does not have extra reach, and the goat cannot drop the "weapon" on a critical failure.

Sorry, I should've specified I was speaking in terms of the flavor-mechanics relationship. It was specified in an earlier version of my post but I guess I cut it out rewording some things and forgot to add it back in.

It seems counterintuitive to me, if the rune's flavor is meant to dissuade enemies from using lethal attacks, for the effect to leave them roughly the same off regardless of whether they switch or not.

As it is, yeah, it makes no difference from the perspective of someone just looking at it as a flavor-agnostic debuff.

Oh, I see. Yeah I generally agree that it has weird mechanics to back-up the flavor, but I think that's there to alleviate any confusion on the intelligence required to make non-lethal and to keep the effect consistent.

Huzzah!

Yoon is looking great as always - love the embracing of each element despite staying true to her fire.

Setting aside the action economy and static DC, it seems like the Pacifying rune mainly works if the target has both lethal and nonlethal attacks (which is rare IME), or if you're also investing resources in Tripping them, no?

By default the -2 penalty is the same you'd take for making a nonlethal attack with a lethal weapon, although the shift from untyped (Pacifying) to circumstance (nonlethal) means the latter won't stack with prone or similar effects. So you have to impose one of those for the target to see a net benefit in switching to nonlethal.

The Pacifying rune causes a creature - on a failed save - to take a -2 on attack rolls unless they have a nonlethal attack built in.

In the product thread for Stolen Fates 3, people mentioned it is in the individual chapter version.

You should email customer service about PDF issues like this - that is the usual recommendation to get it resolved.

Grankless wrote:

Evan Tarlton wrote:

My watch has ended, and I've skimmed through the adventure to get to the Continuing the Campaign bit. At PaizoCon, we were told that there would be a number of hints about the next few adventure paths there.

Yeah. Yeah. WOW.

** spoiler omitted **

Oh, and the adventure proper looks very good, building upon both the earlier installments and previous works dealing with the Harrow. And don't think I didn't catch the Starfinder hint.

It's so cool...

** spoiler omitted **

Yup!

** spoiler omitted **

Oooooooooh - I wish I had known and subscribed this month. The 28th feels so far away.

One small thing you may have missed: when you hit 0 HP and fall unconscious, your initiative moves to the turn just before it happened. This gives the party the maximum amount of time to pick said member up including with things like the Heal the oracle used.

But it's also possible no one recognized the danger the Inventor was in (or had no way to remedy it) at Dying 2.

I recommend emailing customer support about the Interactive Map issues - that's usually the recommendation from paizo reps.

Ryze Kuja wrote:

What QoL wands should I be going for besides Longstrider or See Invis?

Also, if not Pacifying Rune, what would you suggest in lieu of this?

As a Sniper, you are a crit fishing striker; so I'd go for a less commonly resisted elemental damage rune like Shocking (electricity) or Thundering (sonic).

Those runes are level 8, so out of grasp for the character at the moment.

Dual classing AND free archetype? then you got a full platter of a menu

if you are alchemist secondary you should consider the medic archetype or another alchemical archetype to get a few more reagents and special options to use those

although barbarian in its current form is one of the worst for dual classing - because of the many feats and features with the concentrate trait your friend is going to need moment of clarity and pays a one action tax whenever something needs concentration

Alchemical archetypes do not stack with alchemy reagents due to the archetype rules, just fyi.

Oh and as for a status bonus to AC, I'm not familiar with too many reliable ways to get one outside of spells. There is one archetype from an adventure path that focuses on familiars in combat, but it is an action every turn to maintain it.

The Cassian helmet can give you a permanent +1 status bonus to AC against evil creatures, but it is an item that is restricted in Pathfinder Society and many home games.

Ah, so Scales and Drakeheart do not work together anymore. Is there another archetype that gives a status to ac, that works with the monk?

This build was going for a strength based monk.

Correct - Scales and Drakeheart do not stack but you may be able to use drakehearts as a way to boost your AC by a point or two at most levels if I am remembering correctly.

For a strength monk, I would recommend a stance besides Crane. Wielding and raising a shield can give you a greater AC bonus and something like Dragon Stance could give you more powerful Strikes. The flames stance can give some extra speed with a solid attack, and the level 8 stance Ironblood gives solid flat resistance. My experience with monk personally is that Raise -> Stride -> Flurry is a great routine that should cover the circumstance bonus Crane gives but you can also get even more defenses by kiting melee enemies out rather than going toe-to-toe.

Until you get Scales of the Dragon I would recommend Mountain Stance for the reliable AC, but then you can retrain.