Zaccheus's page

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the 'second class feat' option because to me, the whole point of the free archetype rule is to have characters branch out a bit in directions that may not be completely optimal. I feel that more often than not, a second class feat would compel players to pick from their own class at certain levels with very strong options. For players that really want to home in on their base class, I feel that most (if not all) classes have archetypes that are close enough in flavor to still allow this.

I also recognize the problem in combining free archetypes with the lockout conditions and the issue of archetypes not having a feat at every even level, but also being a bit wary about just taking dips into a large number of archetypes, I am using the following house rule for my home games: At any point, a character may have two dedication feats that are still 'locked' (rather than just one).

RAW seems pretty clear about it killing them, but I definitely wouldn't allow it. It seems pretty clear to me that it's just inaccurate wording since the specific interaction resulting from it is so weird and counterintuitive, especially with the way the order matters. I also seem to recall some other shenanigans pointed out somewhere else about creatures at 0 hp and the language around 'increasing' or 'decreasing', but I don't remember what that was about.

That said, I would allow the creature to be killed by increasing its doomed value to its dying threshold. It just 'feels right' to me.

I wouldn't think it does. It's not spelled out explicitly and, to me at least, it doesn't sound that far-fetched for the collapsed pile of bones to still contain your intact hands holding whatever they were holding.

I started with 5e and played it for a while, but once I started playing Pathfinder I felt less and less inclined to continue playing 5e. Sone aspects of the rules simply don't vibe with me (plus I was never interested in DnD lore). Mainly:

- Concentration feels far too stifling. So many natural spell combinations are impossible due to both having concentration. Spell choices feel very restrained because so many of them are mutually exclusive.

- Advantage and disadvantage are overused. And since they cancel each other and neither stacks, this leads to extremely silly and counterintuitive situations. (Two blinded people whaling on each other just do straight rolls to hit.)

- I just don't really enjoy bounded accuracy that much. This is more of a personal thing than the two points above, but I don't like how easy even high-CR foes are to hit even at a much lower level than them.

- I despise the design of the warlock. The fact that it is purely a short-rest class doesn't fit with the other classes and inevitably leads to annoying discussions about resting; its balance is way out of whack, with eldritch blast doing tons of damage while also pushing and pulling foes all willy-nilly; and its multiclassing exploitability is through the roof. 5e would be a better game if the warlock didn't exist.

- Feat balance is all over the place. For instance, I really don't know what they were thinking making their version of power attack -5/+10 from the get-go. I guess PF1 has some issues in this regard as well, but with there being as few feats as there are in 5e, it is much more jarring. Plus having to choose between an ability score improvement and a feat sucks.

- I don't like the official adventures all that much. The ones I played leaned into sandbox so hard that they basically lost almost all sense of a coherent story. It was mostly just 'pick a direction and see what you find'. Not my style at all.

The most closely analogous spell (at least the way I see it) is Hallucinatory Terrain, but unfortunately that spell is similarly unclear to me. It says you get an attempt to disbelieve when you touch it, but doesn't specify how repeatable that is. I would only allow one attempt for that spell also, and from then on other attempts would require to specifically Seek trying to suss out an illusion. Certainly moving inside the illusion should not prompt new saves since that would make the spell too weak. However, I also feel that entering the area, though a common trigger for other spells, shouldn't really enter into the equation for 'terrain illusions'. In my mind, the 'embedding' into the rest of the world is part of the illusion.

I would rule to allow it, though I could also see using the bonus just for adjudicating the results of the spell part and disregarding it for the weapon part (so you roll once but the actual result will differ for the two parts, or be compared to different AC values). Disallowing it completely is unwarranted, though, in my opinion, for reasons mentioned in the post above mine.

I would allow the character to do any action that moves away from the source of fear, just as if they had chosen to abandon all allies are preserve their own lives. Dodging fires avoiding AOEs, etc.

I agree that everything that needed to be said has been said, but I still want to point out that this exact wording necessarily allows the "three actions to step" situation.

Many talismans are free actions whose trigger you might have only met with your third action.

The way I would run it is to treat all cubes as a single illusion, so if you disbelieve it once, you disbelieve all of it, but if you fail to disbelieve, you do not get another free attempt. You would still be able to get another save to disbelieve by interacting with the illusion, but that requires an action and is not automatic.

This is just my interpretation though. What is RAW/RAI here is probably just unclear.

Cordell Kintner wrote:

That's probably the best way but the PC could just pick not to use it if they would fail anyway, which is metagamey

For this situation, I would say (as the GM) because the player is a halfling with halfling luck if there is even a chance they decide to use it, I will roll all rolls as secret rolls. That way the player can't metagame knowing what the values are.

That still skews the probabilities since they know that half the time, halfling luck will leave them with the lower die. But this is something that was already discussed here way back when the CRB came out, to no satisfying conclusion.

Edit: I looked up the old thread. The post with my opinions on the matter is this one, and there is also some discussion before and after that.

To be clear, none of those arguing to allow a step have ever said you can just make three steps. That was a straw-man argument put forth by the other side.

What has been said, is that they should be able to step out of immediate danger (AOEs) before fleeing and avoid other obvious dangers. If the cleric is 60 feet away from the source of the fear then yes than is a valid place to end up.

How is it a strawman when your second paragraph absolutely implies that two or three steps need to be allowed in the case of creatures with (obvious) reach? Just because you refuse to make it explicit, that doesn't mean it's not inherent in your argument.

Also, I see you're putting a lot of weight on the word "expediently", so why not apply that same weight to other parts of the condition, say to the first sentence: "You're forced to run away [...]"? Stepping is not running.

A "fleeing" creature just carefully stepping three times for a total of 15ft against an enemy with a long reach feels off to me. Since there is no reasonable in-between (drawing the line at, say, one step makes zero sense when the whole point is avoiding attacks of opportunity and the enemy's reach is obvious), I lean toward disallowing steps altogether.

Not reading traits to find rules.

Since this is (I think) the biggest one, here are some important example (beside incapacitation, which was already mentioned):

- The attack trait and its interaction with the multi-attack penalty. In particular, this affects athletics maneuvers: grapple, trip, shove, and disarm.

- The open and flourish traits. These are very easy to overlook and appear often, including at low levels (for example on Sudden Charge). There are also some class-specific traits of similar importance, such as press for fighters or psyche for psychics; always make sure to read the trait sidebar in the class description.

- The splash trait, which I think is the easiest out of these to completely overlook (in fact I overlooked it myself when I was new to the game). The gist of it is that splash weapons do their splash damage even on a (non-critical) failure.

Yes, you get to decide the order (before rolling, of course).

As a side note, don't get too hung up on this. Advantage and disadvantage are very central in DnD 5e, but fortune and misfortune are far less so in PF2 since most stuff is handled by flat modifiers instead.

It sounds like by RAW, it does provoke. (I don't like the 'not an effect' defense since I would consider everything with a trait an effect by default.) However, this is definitely not how I am going to play it, not for mechanical but for RP reasons. There are many fights that involve villain grandstanding or even some measure of 'informative' banter and I would not want to curtail this fun gameplay component for mechanical reasons (as would surely happen once enemies notice speaking nets them a sword to the face).

IMHO, the main reason why there aren't specific rules saying that firing a "reload 0" weapon like a bow provokes AoOs because it has a built-in manipulate action is because, for the devs, this fact was blindingly obvious.

How anyone can claim that drawing a nocking an arrow doesn't require manipulation, even if it's not an additional manipulate action as such, is beyond me.

The existence of feats like Mobile Shot Stance just put another nail in the coffin of the "no manipulation for reload 0 weapons" camp. That feat makes it clear what the standard rule is, even if it isn't stated as clearly as some would like.

Somehow this sort of reply keeps cropping up in this thread and I'm just wondering... do you believe this is a productive way to participate in a debate?

Reload 0 exists because those weapons still require ammunition.

Reload feats mention Interacting to reload because they are built to improve the action economy of Reload 1 weapons and as such need to include the Interact as a subordinate action.

I also take issue with random claims of 'too good to be true'. One may as well argue that the converse position would be too bad to be true based on how it affects Mobile Shot Stance. I have also already mentioned Dual-Handed Assault way earlier in this thread, another action where provoking would, in my opinion, be too bad to be true, but I think having it provoke would be an inevitable consequence of the arguments used in this thread.

Everyone here realizes that we are moving in circles, but as has been pointed out, convincing the opposition isn't the only point of a debate. At the very least, it's an exercise in rephrasing one's own position.

painted_green wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

Since 1+ Hand weapons express reloading it identically to Interact, this means it's not any different from the type of reloading a Crossbow does except for the amount of actions it costs.

This is where it breaks down. Using descriptive text that is similar to what you can do with an Interact action does not automatically imply that you add the traits of an Interact action.

Why should we assume this is descriptive text instead of natural language rules text?

I am calling it descriptive text because it does not convey rules content. In my mind, there is really no distinction here the way you make it out to be. It tells you what you are doing (call it rules or don't, it does not matter); it does not tell you to add the manipulate trait.

Since 1+ Hand weapons express reloading it identically to Interact, this means it's not any different from the type of reloading a Crossbow does except for the amount of actions it costs.

This is where it breaks down. Using descriptive text that is similar to what you can do with an Interact action does not automatically imply that you add the traits of an Interact action.

Piling on the necro to say that it appears to me that graystone's interpretation is inconsistent with their cited definitions (this point may have already been made but I didn't see it while skimming through). They say the water raises only vertically, but if you consider any container that widens at the top, say a martini glass, raising the water level inside necessarily requires more than that. So I don't think it's quite that easy to discard the idea of horizontal "movement" from the spell (quotation marks because there need not be actual movement, but I think it's clear what I mean).

I'd probably leave out most comic-book heroes if I were trying to give someone examples. They have many different versions. I'd make an exception for Superman, because the overall impression is iconic enough.

The idea is what you convey to the listener. Robin Hood can be debated all over the map, but you will have better success conveying CG to most people with him.

I'd argue the opposite (from the perspective of someone who doesn't follow the comics closely, at least): comic characters are good examples because their specific manifestations change a lot, because this means that most people only have some impression of the characters' constant core traits or philosophies. These are much easier to classify than a complex character could ever be.

This is like someone asking me to prove that 1 is 1, it's mind boggling to me that you could argue that all draw actions take interact and thus manipulate EXCEPT in the case of bows, because they're special little things that need to be coddled.

At the point Mathmuse ascaphalus and painted green I'm going to have to assume that you're arguing in bad faith and in going to drop this subject because nothing can change you from thick locked in view you've taken, but this kind of bad faith arguing is just disappointing.

I'm 100% that you could ask any developper about this and they'd say that obviously it has the manipulate trait because a reload does occur.

We're never even gonna have an errata on this because the answer is so obvious!

You're free to houserule this in your games of courses but it's a dumb interpretation based on programming language intepretation bug that shouldn't take place in TOTM style TTRPG.

What the actual hell. This is incredibly disrespectful. Just because you don't like our position you accuse us of arguing in bad faith? And you don't even try to engage our arguments about RAW because you keep appealing to RAI (nevermind the fact that even if you want bow reloads to still have the manipulate traits, there are at least two different ways of doing it and it is not at all clear which would be intended; Mathmuse already pointed this out). But there's literally no point in arguing with you if you just resort to ad hominem, and the fact that people are favoriting your post is disgusting. I am out.

Ascalaphus wrote:

It's not about zero action cost, it's about there being zero of that action, which is the same as none of that action. Zero apples is the same as no apples. If you go to the supermarket and buy 0 apples, they don't print any apples on your receipt. That's the plain English understanding of zero of a thing being none of a thing.

If there was a free action, it would say something like "if a weapon has reload 0, the Interact to reload is a free action". Or it would have the actual layout for a custom free action. But that isn't there in the book.

It doesn't need to be there. It is abundantly clear that the arrow is not being teleported from the quiver into the bow. A reload is happening, even if it takes zero actions. That reload is an event that is happening. That event can be reacted to.

Zero action cost is not the same as it not happening. There are plently of things which cost zero actions that happen in the game. In fact 2 of the 4 types of actions in the game have zero action cost.

Your first paragraph is irrelevant. That's just your intuition and not something that's included in the rules. I'm also obviously not saying that the arrow teleports into your hand, but this isn't the question. Noone doubts that you 'manipulate' your weapon to attack someone, but that doesn't give a strike the manipulate trait in rules terms.

And again, all that the rules are saying is that reloading a reload 0 weapon does not take an interact action. I would argue that a 'free interact action' is still an interact action (with 'zero action cost', if you want). In any case, going from 'no action' to 'free action with the manipulate trait' is a huge leap that is not justified by anything in the rules and would break many other interactions, as pointed out by Mathmuse.

Zero is not the same as Null in this case. We know what weapons with null reload look like, they don't have the Reload trait at all.

There's no such thing. All ranged weapons have a reload entry, which is either a number or '-', but the latter is reserved for thrown weapons only.

painted_green wrote:

graystone wrote:

painted_green wrote:

In any case, the rules say that drawing and loading are baked into the Strike in this case, so the free action interact is out the window anyway, and the text doesn't say anything about this adding traits or a subordinate interact to the strike, so it doesn't.

"Subordinate Actions Core Rulebook pg. 461

An action might allow you to use a simpler action—usually one of the Basic Actions on page 469—in a different circumstance or with different effects. This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects, but is modified in any ways listed in the larger action."

The Subordinate Action retains all it's traits, so it's moot if the greater action has them as the Subordinate Action triggers them and in this case, the Subordinate Action happens before the strike which would trigger anything that triggers off Interaction.

"Hands
Source Core Rulebook pg. 279 2.0
Some weapons require one hand to wield, and others require two. A few items, such as a longbow, list 1+ for its Hands entry. You can hold a weapon with a 1+ entry in one hand, but the process of shooting it requires using a second to retrieve, nock, and loose an arrow."

"Wielding Items
Source Core Rulebook pg. 272
Retrieve an item from a backpack , sack, or similar container, action Interact."

Yes, activities inherit traits from subordinate actions, but there is no subordinate action here. The fact that the CRB uses the same non-rule term in two places doesn't mean anything. Yes, retrieving an item from a backpack, as a standalone activity, requires an interact action, but this doesn't automatically apply to any and all courses of action that involve some kind of retrieval. Otherwise, by your logic, Dual-Handed Assault would provoke an attack of opportunity, using the same table that you cite.

It technically does provoke, just like a Quickened Casting spell would still provoke when you remove an action from it....

I agree that having DHA provoke would at least be consistent, though I do not think that the rules support this, since the table in question is only talking about standalone activites. I also do not think it's fair to have DHA provoke, but that's another matter.

(As an aside, the case of Quicken Spell isn't really comparable because casting a spell with somatic components already has the manipulate trait. Of course quickening it does not remove that, and the only reason anyone would think that it should is experience with PF1, which really isn't a valid argument.)

painted_green wrote:

In any case, the rules say that drawing and loading are baked into the Strike in this case, so the free action interact is out the window anyway, and the text doesn't say anything about this adding traits or a subordinate interact to the strike, so it doesn't.

"Subordinate Actions Core Rulebook pg. 461

An action might allow you to use a simpler action—usually one of the Basic Actions on page 469—in a different circumstance or with different effects. This subordinate action still has its normal traits and effects, but is modified in any ways listed in the larger action."

The Subordinate Action retains all it's traits, so it's moot if the greater action has them as the Subordinate Action triggers them and in this case, the Subordinate Action happens before the strike which would trigger anything that triggers off Interaction.

"Hands
Source Core Rulebook pg. 279 2.0
Some weapons require one hand to wield, and others require two. A few items, such as a longbow, list 1+ for its Hands entry. You can hold a weapon with a 1+ entry in one hand, but the process of shooting it requires using a second to retrieve, nock, and loose an arrow."

"Wielding Items
Source Core Rulebook pg. 272
Retrieve an item from a backpack , sack, or similar container, action Interact."

Yes, activities inherit traits from subordinate actions, but there is no subordinate action here. The fact that the CRB uses the same non-rule term in two places doesn't mean anything. Yes, retrieving an item from a backpack, as a standalone activity, requires an interact action, but this doesn't automatically apply to any and all courses of action that involve some kind of retrieval. Otherwise, by your logic, Dual-Handed Assault would provoke an attack of opportunity, using the same table that you cite.

Mathmuse wrote:

I hold the opposing opinion. The Reload weapon statistic counts the number of Interact actions needed to reload a ranged weapon:

PF2 Core Rulebook, Equipment chapter, Weapon Statistics, page 279 wrote:

Reload

While all weapons need some amount of time to get into position, many ranged weapons also need to be loaded and reloaded. This entry indicates how many Interact actions it takes to reload such weapons. This can be 0 if drawing ammunition and firing the weapon are part of the same action. If an item takes 2 or more actions to reload, the GM determines whether they must be performed together as an activity, or you can spend some of those actions during one turn and the rest during your next turn.

An item with an entry of “—” must be drawn to be thrown, which usually takes an Interact action just like drawing any other weapon. Reloading a ranged weapon and drawing a thrown weapon both require a free hand. Switching your grip to free a hand and then to place your hands in the grip necessary to wield the weapon are both included in the actions you spend to reload a weapon.

A weapon with Reload 0 takes 0 Interact actions to load. Therefore, it takes no Interact actions and does not gain the manipulate trait from an Interact action. Drawing an arrow and shooting it from a bow are part of the same action and that action is a Strike that does not contain an Interact action and does not have the manipulate trait.

This interpretation defies how bows are actually used. Being grappled ought to interfere with using a bow. But that is not how the rules are written. As a houserule, the GM could declare that drawing an arrow gives the Strike action the manipulate trait.

Clearly reloading a bow is a zero action cost interact.

If you are arguing that no interact has happened then you are going to get no agreement.

If you are arguing that the reload...

How is it 'clear' when you are literally responding to someone who legitimately has an opposing interpretation? So, for the record, in terms of pure RAW I agree with Mathmuse. I don't see where you get the 'zero action cost interact' in that rules text. What is that even supposed to mean? There are no 'not-an-actions' in PF2. So you must be talking about a free action, but that's a huge leap because the text just says that you need 0 interact actions. That's not the same as an interact as a free action.

In any case, the rules say that drawing and loading are baked into the Strike in this case, so the free action interact is out the window anyway, and the text doesn't say anything about this adding traits or a subordinate interact to the strike, so it doesn't.

And just to reiterate, this is my take on RAW. Whether you think it's logical or realistic is irrelevant for my and Mathmuse's arguments.

breithauptclan wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

The reason why thrown melee weapons need to be Agile or Finesse is because non-Agile or Finesse thrown melee weapons get higher dice.

Being able to Sneak Attack with a weapon that also possibly does persistent damage, splash damage, or applies conditions would be more of a consideration. And don't some of the bombs also have 1d6 as their base initial damage?

Bombs definitely benefit from Sneak Attack in the current state of the rules. Is it the developer intent, no one can know but them, but it doesn't look like they spoke about changing anything about it. Also, Bombs deal less damage than bows at high level (and because Sneak Attack comes at level 6 as you have a better feat at level 4 for bombs, I tend to look at the mid to high levels where bows are definitely better). So, it doesn't feel like there's an issue there.

This is a rare case where we do actually have clear indication of developer intent - the alchemist multiclass archetype explicitly mentions sneak attacking with bombs in its description.

In my campaign, the shield being strapped rather than held has actually been an advantage so far, since noone wanted to drop their shield so far, but people have dropped unconscious with one and I let them keep it rather than dropping it like a weapon or other item.

Doesn't it state before the spell descriptions that 'you' always refers to the caster? I think I remember something like that, but I don't have the book on hand to check right now.

That being said, 'at the start of your turns' sounds like bad English to me. It would have to be 'at the starts of your turns', which also sounds bad. And I don't even see how either of those would remove the ambiguity you are talking about.

And the torch creates a 'shed' of light - whatever that means.

There you go then. A torch creates a 'shed' of light, while a glowing rope would clearly generate a shedload of light. Completely different things.

Yes, let us talk about protests, police brutality and the American justice system. This is definitely a good idea and also a very productive thing to do in a thread about mind control that was already going nowhere.

siegfriedliner wrote:

But moving back to my original topic, do people want a less dark golarian with less horrible monsters.

Or do people just not want to see extreme examples of human evil in aps and monsters are fine because they can represent our worst nature without being us?

I think the second is where we currently are.

The people I've see talking about wanting "a less dark golarian with less horrible monsters" are overwhelming using it as a slippery slope argument about what others must want.

Like I've seen dozens of posts claiming that if you want to get rid of slavery you must also want to get rid of charm and domination because that's like slavery, but I don't remember anyone actually seriously saying they wanted those spells gone.

Feel free to count me as half a vote for wanting them gone, I guess? I've explained my thoughts to some extent earlier in this thread. I wouldn't go as far as removing them completely, but then that's not what's happening with slavery either, is it, so it would be a bit much to expect that stance. I would definitely support alignment repercussions for using such magic, and I think not wanting adventures to focus on it is a reasonable stance. (This last part is pretty vague solely because I cannot think of an adventure that I know which has enchantment magic as a focal point, rather than just a thing that some antagonists do.)

As stated before, I think this would be a very interesting discussion to have, and both The Raven Black and Temperans gave some interesting input. However, looking at the state of this thread and the general quality of discussion within it, I feel forced to agree with The Raven Black:

Then we should all put it on hiatus to come back and discuss it later. When the ripples of Paizo's decision about slavery in their products have died down.

Right now, this kind of topics are just putting unnecessary fuel on a raging inferno that makes many people's days a living hell, especially the brave moderators.

No need for that.

painted_green wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

To me it feels disengenuous to claim to not understand the difference between "squicky things go bump in the night" or "let's got beat up Dracula" and stories about cruelty and oppression.

What feels disingenuous to me is this sort of reductive misrepresentation of the original question. In fact, this thread did not have to be about slavery at all, and clearly both sides are to blame for this derailment.

Yes. I am sure the timing is pure coincidence.

As is the title BTW. I could guess the way it was going even just reading the title. I went and read it nonetheless because I honestly thought maybe it was about a real new topic. I was disappointed on this part, but not surprised in the least.

It is not a coincidence and I never claimed it was. The op specifically states that he came up with this thread because of the recent focus on such topics. But that doesn't mean that this thread is about slavery.

painted_green wrote:

...

To this whole post what I have to say is that the Mesmerist will likely never get ported over to PF2. Nor will any of the spooky, weird, and sometimes evil archetypes that were created. If Paizo does decide to port them over, it will be a miracle given the direction they are taking.

The Charm and Dominate spells are basically enough already to do everything I touched on. I also just noticed that Dominate lasts a long time, so my example argument about it being a combat spell is invalid (I must have misremembered that).

I would compare and contrast enchantment with necromancy, which has evil written all over it in all of the books, but in some respects could be fairly, if somewhat polemically, called 'enchantment with extra steps'. To me, there are some strong similarities between animating a zombie (for a limited time) and dominating a person. I don't quite see why the first should be evil and the second not, but I am open to explanations.

To me it feels disengenuous to claim to not understand the difference between "squicky things go bump in the night" or "let's got beat up Dracula" and stories about cruelty and oppression.

What feels disingenuous to me is this sort of reductive misrepresentation of the original question. In fact, this thread did not have to be about slavery at all, and clearly both sides are to blame for this derailment.

Returning to the original topic, I don't think it's bad faith or a 'dogwhistle' at all. The question of mind control is complicated and interesting on its own, even without alluding to recent events.

First off, I don't think the argument that this sort of domination is pure fantasy holds all that much water. Sure, we don't have magic, but we do have indoctrination, miseducation, false pretenses - many things that parallel enchantment magic in some respect or other. I recall some adventure specifically mentioning that the villain casts Charm Person on this one NPC every day. It's not that difficult to imagine substituting a non-magical alternative here.

Second, I am not personally familiar with trauma but I would assume that it doesn't generally need superficial operational parallels for a trigger - emotional states can suffice. And if you think about, say, a magically dominated person who still has some mental acuity left to be conscious of their situation, though unable to change it... It's definitely not the same as just 'squick' horror. There is more to it.

Finally, I think what sets magical enchantment and domination apart is that the PCs can benefit from it. There aren't even alignment repercussions. It's considered perfectly fine, in game terms, to take away other creatures' free will by magical means. There are, of course, arguments to be made for that. (One could say, for example, that Dominate is a combat spell, so other standards of morality apply by default.) But it's worth pointing out.

So what's my position? I don't know. The one thing I want people to recognize is that this is a difficult subject, and accusing people who want to talk about it of slippery-slope fallacies and bad faith arguments is unhelpful.

bitter lily wrote:

Leomund "Leo" Velinznrarikovich wrote:

I find it easier to simplify it to this:

You and your eidolon get a total of 4 actions between yourselves.

Rules:
1) Each has to use at least 1 action.
2) Only 1 two-action activity can be done. If a two-action activity is done, the other two actions can only be one-action activities.

This is a GREAT simplification. *sigh* I wish they'd said just this.

This is a mechanics heavy game. They needed to iron out how the action economy would work so that it could be seamless with the mechanics of the system. Such things are an inevitability.

Luckily, us players can find the shortcuts to help games run efficiently.

You said earlier that 3-action activities are handled by your rewrite as well, but that may not be strictly true. If the Summoner is quickened (this would need to be without restriction to Strikes etc., which I am not sure is something that's in the game at this point), your rule would allow a 3-action and a 2-action activity, but that's not actually allowed. However, two 2-action activities and one single action would be possible. Your rewrite can be modified to make it precise and I do prefer that way of looking at it, just wanted to point this out.

You can prepare as many of the same spell as you have spell slots for it. No need to put different spells in different slots.

I could see allowing it, but to me Flurry just doesn't satisfy the requirement of, "Your last action was a successful Strike," in good faith. Because your last action wasn't a strike, it was beginning Flurry of Blows. At least by my reckoning.

Basically I don't see Subordinate Actions as "counting" as actions. They are freebies more or less, and don't count as or against your Actions that you get every turn.

This is an issue I made a thread about way back when. There's no real conclusive ruling that came out of it, but for me, even though I would have agreed with your ruling from the rules text alone, the examples I cite from the Bestiary (among others) have convinced me that the restriction concerning subordinate actions is not meant to be quite as tight as it seems on a first reading.

My personal GM ruling to deal with the fringe cases would be that entering the fire and then exiting the fire on the same turn counts as crossing the wall. Arguments about the difference between the same side and other side run into the Jordan curve theorem, which is very difficult to prove.

For the circular wall, the Jordan curve theorem is massive overkill (it's a simple matter to prove the result for circles). For the line version, it's not even applicable since that's not a closed curve – unless you just concentrate on a strip around the wall and extend the line through the area you don't care about, but then it's again very easy to prove the result.

Generally speaking, what makes the theorem difficult is the fact that curves that are only continuous can be very pathological. If we require the curve to be smooth or piecewise smooth, the proof already simplifies quite a bit. And in this case, we are even looking at circles and lines only.

I would say Gozreh probably has the most going for them in terms of the story. Gozreh worshippers play an explicit part in the first volume, and the whole theme of environmental decay is a perfect fit to get a Gozren cleric motivated to get involved.

I'm starting an Extinction Curse campaign in two weeks but have noticed, like many others before me, that the economy of the circus doesn't really make much sense. The payouts are so small compared to the cost of upgrades that it would often require dozens of performances to get a return on the investment. And in the case of advertising, it's just throwing away money, plain and simple.

Rather than rework the system entirely, I've been thinking about a simple fix and am curious to hear your opinion on it. The fix is as follows:

Every PC, as shared coordinator of the circus, obtains a bonus of 20% of the payout, paid directly to them and to be used as they please, even for adventuring needs, after each show. (Excluding the very first show, where they already obtain a bigger bonus from the professor.)

My rationale is that this gives the players a much-needed way to turn circus profits into PC wealth. Since payout is tied to anticipation, this gives them an incentive to raise anticipation using circus money, rather than just having it sit around. And I feel that the payouts themselves are low enough that this fix won't throw the general wealth-by-level significantly out of whack.

Thoughts?

Why would "but you haven't rolled yet" mean that the effect happens after the roll? To me, it's the same thing as the other version "before rolling". This also makes me think that it's supposed to be before rolling for comparable effects, like Nanite Surge, and they just forgot to put it.

I personally don't concider oozes as having blood, they aren't cells they are a living mass of (usually) acid. If they were like cells and had a membrane, effects like engulf wouldn't work. They're more like living jelly.

Engulf could still work by endocytosis.

I think the fact that Quickened, Slowed and Stunned only start working at the next turn might set a small precedent to only let the speed bonus count starting with the next action. But I don't think there's any RAW that clarifies it.

Can confirm: The community here is great. :) I am still in the process of finding my own "PbP legs" but I felt so welcome here from the start, so a big thank you from me as well.

In my view, the last section cited by Aratorin also implies that you can get formulae for runes from the Magical Crafting feat. While feats are not explicitly mentioned as sources for formulae on page 293, I would consider the "can be acquired in the same way as an item formula" part to stand on its own.

I recall reading in a blog post that 7 player tables are no longer a thing. Can't find the post right now, though...

I would like to join on a new bomber alchemist I will be making later today (ancestry not yet determined). I am also in Europe (Germany).