Whoop, my mistake. Thought this was Serpent's Rise. Gotta bow out.
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This sounds interesting. I'm down.
Dope. Sheet in progress.
Very interested in dipping my toes into 5E. How does this scenario compare to PFS in scope or length?
Good luck to everyone. Sorry to flake out, Spooky--my real-life schedule recently changed, and I didn't think I'd have time to give proper attention to all my current games while adding any new ones.
No problem. You see what I mean by the front-loaded complexity--the original binder was complicated enough, but it took me like 45 minutes on my first read-through to figure out what the hell a "constellation aspect" was. I actually agree about the archetypes, come to think of it. The spirit binding is the cool part, and the occultist's other class features are mostly fiddly little number adjustments with no real roleplay potential. Most of the archetypes cut all that out, while gaining more recognizable class features that ground the class better in the world. Thanks for humoring, I'll get a character up within a day or two.
I'm not sure I get what you mean--some of the spirits do grant temporary familiars or weakened animal companions, but the spirit isn't like a summoner's eidolon that lets the occultist can just sit in the back lines and direct from afar. It's more like wildshape with a 24-hour duration, where you can pick from a variety of forms, but expose yourself just as much as any other class would to use granted ranged or melee abilities. If I missed the point, there are also pact magic archetypes for every base and core class. These grant a limited form of spirit binding, enough to get most of the flavor, but not so much that the player can ignore their other class features. (Ex: magus that trades spells for pacts, or a rogue that always makes poor pacts, but trades sneak attack for flexible skill buffs). I'm much more into the fluff than the crunch of pact magic for this setting, and would play any of these archetypes if allowed. That said, if you're just opposed to PC binders of any variety, no hard feelings, and I'll hunt down something else thematically appropriate.
On the subject of third party, how do feel about pact magic and the occultist class? It's a PF conversion of the 3.5 binder from the Tome of Magic. On the one hand, it's a bit complicated and doesn't really map to any Paizo classes. On the other hand, the complexity is front-loaded, so that once you've bound a spirit the class is very straightforward. It's also a great fit in both crunch (Cha-based jack-of-all trades type) and crunch (practitioner of forbidden magic that forges pacts with otherwordly being which influence its appearance and personality) for a dark, RP-heavy campaign.
Dotting for interest, heard a lot of good things about this AP. Just one question, and it's a longshot: does "Pathfinder product" include third party?
Playtest, I would guess, means the 10 hybrid classes from the Advanced Class Guide beta. Dotting for interest, there's a few from the ACG I'm interested in trying out.
Damn, that's a nice group. Best of luck all, as you live out your quiet, normal lives in a sleepy mining town that will definitely not become the nexus some sort of world-ending disaster.
So, I called a bit of an audible on the binder angle. I've had my eye on that 3pp Pathfinder conversion for a while, but only recently realized that all the rules material has been released under OGC, including both the pact magic rules and the vestiges (now "spirits") themselves. I'm aware there's no guarantee that 3pp material will make the cut, but after reading through it, it's too cool to resist. Radiance House added a few frills that weren't present in 3.5, but none of them are too complicated (or essential) and the basic model is the same. The stat block includes an example pact. Also, the name may be a placeholder. With that: Hobber Mallow, Occultist:
Male human occultist 1 NG medium humanoid (human, flannae) Deity Celestian Init +1; Senses Perception -1 Favored Class Occultist --------------------
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*The effects of this ability are already included in Hobber’s statistics.
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21 Patchwall, 594:
She’s watching me. From the inside. I can feel them eyes behind my eyes.
I dunno how long I been in here. Feel like it was less a day ago when Bipli and Munt and the baker’s twins and me was all sneaking out to the Cairns, but my belly don’t agree. They said I was a chicken if I didn’t go into that big dark barrow, and the old lame halfing what begs around the Rusty Bucket told em he went in round 10 years ago and he was fine, and he’s only got the one foot, and I wasn’t gonna let some little cripple say he was braver than me was I? Well, maybe he ain’t, but he’s got least one foot back in town and I’m still here with both feet, so I dunno who’d say he ain’t the more clever. If I do get out of here Lessa gonna know I’m brave though, and her stupid twin brother ain’t gonna have nothing to say but kick some rocks. But nothing for that now I guess, I expect they all long gone back home. They’s the cowards, but I’m the one who got lost in this barrow with no food and no compass and didn’t even bring no roll of twine behind me. I do have this here book though. Found it lying on top of a sack, next to a big pile of bones. I didn’t think they was bones at first or I wouldn’ta touched em, but nothing for that either. Decided to camp out in this room, it’s pretty big and only has the one entrance so least I can’t get even more lost. Dunno if I should rightly call it a book, since other than this what I’m writing here now, I can’t read none of what it says. There’s all these little shapes scrawled across the first pages but they don’t look like any letters I seen. The page it was open to though (when I found it on the sack it was open already, like if the same fella who owned these bones didn’t think to close it up before he died) one of those pages had the only proper words I seen in the whole book, but they was all the same thing, just “Morigan” over and over again. I guess the bones guy had a teacher who made him practice his name too. The other page was just this big circle thing with a bunch of shapes inside. It don’t seem right to try to describe it with words somehow, like something that oughta be drawn and looked at, and then you don’t talk about it. Well, I drew it. It wasn’t hard, had all this dirt floor to work around. Once I got working I noticed I was just drawing on a shape that was already there, like maybe that fella whose book and bones these were had drawn it here too and it got washed away just a bit. But I been in here for a lot of hours judging by my aches and hungers and nothing like that caught my eye when I was looking around for food before I looked in this here journal. I got done and I was checking it out, and it looked alright, but I was still cold and hungry. Wasn’t nothing in that sack but a little pouch of ashes, no wonder the fella starved in here. My torch was still good so I stacked up some planks in the middle of the room over the drawing and lit it up. Course the smoke didn’t have nowhere to go, and next thing I know I’m coughing up like I’m drowning in the air but then it’s all swirling about the middle of the room. If I wasn’t half-mad from not eating nothing in a while it looked like people dancing and moving about in that camp smoke. I know I’m half-mad though, cause then that old woman was talking to me. All the other smoke-people went away and there was this big woman standing there, looked like she was about 200 years-old if she was a day with all these wrinkles. But I didn’t have nothing better to do in this barrow, so we talked for a bit, and she told me she could help me get back out of here, and I said that I supposed that would be okay. The fire went out, but she didn’t. She went into me. I know I ain’t got room for two people, but there it is, dunno how else to say it. I got her all around, and now my hands got the same wrinkles she got. I’m scared. I dunno if I should write that, since when they find my body here next to all those other old bones they’re just gonna see some kid who got himself lost and then went all fear-boggled in the dark and started seeing smoke women and such. If I think I’m done for, I’d better just rip out these pages and toss em in the fire, or just the whole book. She can see me writing this. Maybe if I close my eyes. Nope. Still there. She says she knows where to find food. I said where’s that, and then I looked down and there was this big acorn in my hands. I ate it, and damn if that ain’t the best thing I ever ate since ever, I ain’t even ever had Diamond Water but I dunno how it could be better than this. My rumblings have stopped right quick, so I guess there’s something to this smoke magic after all. Guess there’s nothing for it now. I don’t know I can find any more magic nuts, so I best get moving while I still got my strength. She tells me north is over this way, and I know that we got in this barrow from the west and I didn’t see no other exits, so if I keep going over here that should lead me out. Don’t want no one else to find out anything about what I been doing here with the smoke and the shapes and everything though. I better take this book too. Background:
As a young man, Hobber stumbled across a tome of pact magic in an ancient barrow among the Cairn Hills. Through some combination of luck, fate, and intuition, he successfully performed a binding ceremony and contacted his first spirit, the Cave Mother. The spirit lent Hobber her skills of survival and navigation, which allowed him to escape the labyrinthine barrow in which he had become lost.
Hobber shared only the vaguest details of his adventure with his friends and family, but few nights passed after that he did not spend hunched under a blanket, with a candle in one hand and his plundered tome in the other. As seasons passed, he eventually managed to decode and complete each of the four ceremonies detailed in the tome, establishing or regaining contact with the spirits Aza’zati, the Cave Mother, General Hessant, and Sevnoir. He realized the connection between the spirits and the stars that speckled the night sky, which led him to devour all books he could find on astrology, which were very few, and to learn all he could of the nearby Twilight Monastery. The same streak of recklessness which once stranded him in the barrow, however, also fueled his ill-considered dabbling. A poor pact with Aza’zati inflicited upon him the Green Wyrmling’s influence and insatiable lust for gold, and a chaplain of St. Cuthbert caught him red-handed on his second attempt to steal from the offering box. To Hobber’s surprise, when the chaplain pulled back his hood, she seemed unsurprised by the appearance of the green-scaled boy that stood before her. She offered him, instead, a deal of sorts, the irony of which did not pass the amateur binder unnoticed: he would work off the gold he had already stolen in a mining gang, and he would tell her where he had obtained his unusual appearance. In exchange, she would not call the guards. As fearful as any town resident of the corrupt and arbitrary Sheriff Cubbin, Hobber was ready to accept the bargain—but his captor had one more condition. At some point in the future, he would be summoned to the Twilight Monastery, and meet with its ellusive Mistress, Izenfen. He agreed, incredulous at this sudden surge of good and ill fortune. The chaplain, he never saw again, but he faithfully fulfilled his end of the pact, finding a job in Gelch Tilgast's crew. A month later, he received his summons to the Monastery, and what he saw there he has never repeated in words spoken nor written. Description: A furtive, sharp-jawed flan with dusty hair and a clean smile, his dabblings with pact magic often alter the finer details of Hobber's appearance, such as the texture of his skin or the presence of scales. He disguises these details as best as he can under a light hooded cloak of cheap sackcloth, but the sudden shifts in personality are sometimes harder to conceal. When not under a spirit's influence, Hobber is a gregarious man with a deep well of bravado, which can spoil to recklessness at the wrong opportunity.
Whatever his current mood, his hunger for exploration can be suppressed, but never sated, and he is never able to shake the feeling that the next tome of hidden lore might lie just beyond the next hill.
Glad it's proving useful to everyone, it's certainly been helpful to me so far. Google brought be straight to the PDF link, but following the URL, it looks like to came from this forum (warning: InvisionFree nostalgia) with a grand total of 9 posts. No idea if someone there made it, or if they copied it from somewhere else.
EDIT: I noticed that nobody so far put up a Rogue. With that in mind, I'm considering having Carina dip into Rogue for a couple of levels before straight out leveling up as an Alchemist for the rest of the campaign. If you haven't considered them already, there's always the cryptbreaker and vivisectionist archetypes, which crib trapfinding and sneak attack, respectively. I've finished reading through the player's guide and class material, so I'll have my character up soon.
I stand corrected. Thanks for providing the sources, Joe. That's definitely a more logical ruling than my earlier impression. With the links provided, Copycat should definitely count as a mirror image SLA. Continual flame and darkness both fulfill the 2nd-level arcane requirement. For Samsaran, I'm not sure. None of their SLAs are above first level, and their crazy bonus spells ability doesn't help as far as I can tell.
You'll have to wait until at least 3rd level to do that, since Dervish Dance requires 2 ranks in Perform (dance) and fighters don't bypass preqs.
That particular combo doesn't work. According to the FAQ, if the base spell appears on the sorcerer/wizard list, as bear's endurance does, the SLA is arcane, and arcane only. The method posted above is invalid for the same reasons--mirror image doesn't even appear on any divine lists, and a stingy GM might tell you that the Copycat ability doesn't explicitly grant the spell as an SLA anyway, only an ability that works similar to it. It's predictably more difficult to get divine SLAs, but not impossible. You could take the Fate inquistion with your 1 level of cleric, which grants augury (this may have been the method Joe M. was thinking of, mentioned in this thread), or you could be an Agathion-blooded aasimar, which grants summon nature's ally II. There may be other ways. Is the monk dip solely for Wis to AC? I like the synergy with the cleric and Empyreal sorcerer. However, while I've never rolled up a MT myself, I imagine those who have would make sure you realize the risks of further slowing your already-gimped casting progression. The +4 AC will be nice at low levels, but it won't be as fun when you're a 5th-level character still casting 1st-level arcane spells.
As silly as it seems, I gotta go with fatchuck on this one. It seems that when a spontaneous caster gains a bonus spell known from a class feature, they also gain the ability to cast it. So yes, a gnome haunted oracle 10 could cast reverse gravity as a 5th-level spell. That said... Second, for the purposes of official Pathfinder Society play where house rules aren't used, if this Favored Class Bonus isn't recognized, then no +1/2 Favored Class Bonuses should be recognized. Picking & choosing which ones are OK and which aren't is Chaotic Evil if a given player has spend 6-12 months using a +1/2 FCB and wants to use it at Gen Con, Paizo Con, or a local con. Take it down a notch. Pathfinder is a game with an uncountable number of variable elements, and not all of them play nicely together. Even if the combo happens to work here, avoiding anti-synergy is not an argument for legality. The human monk favored class bonus buffs the ki pool, useless for the martial artist archetype which never gains one. The dwarf druid FCB buffs domain powers, useless for a druid with an animal companion. The half-orc alchemist FCB buffs bomb damage, useless for the vivisectionist archetype which doesn't get bombs. The are many more examples. GMs should be auditing their PCs and keeping an eye out for clashes like these, but ultimately it's the players' responsibility to make sure their characters works like they want them to. If someone shows up at your PFS table with a character built around an illegal combo, setting them straight isn't Chaotic Evil--it's Lawful Neutral.
Can also recommend this module. The creature in question also does not seem to have originated there, since its stat block cites an AP. I don't own the referenced adventure, so I can't confirm whether that version of the creature is evil or not, but based on its fluff I strongly suspect that it would not be. Jade Regent and Dragon's Demand minor spoiler: AP #53 - Tide of Honor
That forum conversion seems pretty fair, though I don't know if some of the crazier Pact Augmentations are necessary. I do like that Suppress Sign comes at 3rd rather than 2nd, since being forced to deal with the vestige baggage is one of my main draws to the class. Anyway, if you're open to the idea, I'll roll one up.
If 3.5 material is at least up for consideration, GM, do you have any thoughts on the Tome series classes, particularly the Binder from the Tome of Magic? Links to the binder and their vestiges. For anyone not familiar, the short version: the binder has a list of these pseudo-divine patrons called "vestiges." Once per day, you pick a vestige to summon, and it grants you a particular package of 4-6 supernatural abilities. This is more or less their only class feature, and there's a ton of cool fluff tied into it.
Yes, but it can be only used in one mode at any given moment. This is getting pretty far afield of the original debate, but I would allow this method to essentially substitute size penalties for improvised weapon penalties. A large creature could wield a medium earth breaker in its normal weapon mode, taking a -2 size penalty, or as an improvised large club, taking a -4 nonproficiency penalty. This is a bad idea, unless the creature is not proficient with the base weapon. In that case, using it normally would impose both the size and nonproficiency penalties for a net of -6, but improvising it would only impose the latter at -4. And if the large creature tries to wield this medium two-handed weapon as an improvised one-handed weapon in two hands to get 1.5x Strength to damage... Because what this topic really needs is to tack on effort-to-wield questions. but no, really... where was that quote from JJ for 16 pages? I'd be thrilled to see this question laid to rest, however it's only fair to point out that JJ was answering a question about the monk of the empty hand, which includes the following feature:
In other words, the archetype explicitly allows/restricts the monk to using normal weapons as improvised ones. Those who believe there exists a rule prohibiting the improvisation of a normal weapon could view this feature as a special exception, and JJ's response as speaking only in that context.
Devil's advocate: If the target of the Diplomacy check starts out as hostile or unfriendly, you can improve their attitude without changing it to friendly or better. That's the point of the extra text. Making a hostile creature indifferent would be a successful Diplomacy check. I'm in the no-AoO camp, but the Betrayer comparison is not valid.
I'm not familiar with jiu-jitsu terminology, but in Pathfinder that's a grapple-move, not a trip.
There's no need to accuse folks of spurious motives. It's possible for an otherwise reasonable person to adopt an unreasonable paradigm, and reach the wrong answer for the right reasons.
Happy to help. The Throw Splash Weapon rules should explain in detail what happens with missed bombs.
Yep, that's how it works. The discovery that allows the alchemist to exclude squares from their blasts, Precise Bombs, doesn't apply on misses. The solution: talk to the player. If the player is simply inexperienced, ask them to moderate their behavior and take better account of their allies' positioning. If the player fails to improve, and the GM feels that they are not acting in good faith, they should remove the alchemist from the table.
Greensting Slayer, from Bastards of Golarion You can't meet prereqs with impermanent abilities. The Greensting magus' arcane pool ability does not qualify you for arcane trickster.
fretgod99 has been perfectly civil throughout this entire debate, their communication doesn't need any work. Stating ideas clearly is one thing, but more fundamental than that is the ability to avoid alienating the other participants while doing so. I'm on the same side as you are on this question, but these and similar statements of yours come across as patronizing. You may intended them to be sincere displays of camaraderie, but that's not what ends up on the page.
A normal attack consists of two game events: hitting the target with your weapon, and inflicting damage. They're part of the same larger action, logistically, but the game distinguishes between a) attacks that miss, b) attacks that hit and inflict damage, and c) attacks that hit but do not inflict damage. B and C are successful attacks, A is not. For tripping, there are only two categories, special weapons notwithstanding: a) trips that don't make the target fall prone, and b) trips that do. There's no c) for trips. Pathfinder doesn't distinguish between trips that whiff entirely, and trips that whack into an opponent's legs but fail to topple them. B is a successful trip, A is not.
The text you copied for your homebrew feat was copied directly from the Thunder and Fang Feat. Well, yeah. That was the point. Does it say it turns the Earth Breaker into a one handed weapon, or merely using it as one?It doesn't say that you can do it either, just that you have the ability to use a weapon a certain way. Jumping to sliding the scale of the Size disparity or dual wielding weapons when the feat does not say "You can wield two Earth breakers, one in each hand" or "You can wield an oversized Earth Breaker (in two hands)" is, at best, selective reading of the rules or, at worst, ignoring complete sentences and cherry picking phrases and ignoring "fluff." For this purpose, those things are one and the same. Using your mini example, TaF splits the five-square track into two separte tracks. One of them is titled, "Handedness for the purpose of wielding," and the other is titled, "Handedness for all other purposes." The mini starts in the one-handed square on the first track.
It doesn't say that you can do it either, just that you have the ability to use a weapon a certain way. Jumping to sliding the scale of the Size disparity or dual wielding weapons when the feat does not say "You can wield two Earth breakers, one in each hand" or "You can wield an oversized Earth Breaker (in two hands)" is, at best, selective reading of the rules or, at worst, ignoring complete sentences and cherry picking phrases and ignoring "fluff." Imagine that there exists a feat called "One-Handed Earth Breaker Wielding." The rules text of this feat consists of only the following: "Benefit: You can use an earth breaker as though it were a one-handed weapon. Normal: An earth breaker is a two-handed weapon." This feat would allow you to dual-wield EBs, or two-hand an EB that is one size larger. Thunder and Fang adds a few additional abilities, and some restatement of the rules as they otherwise exist. It does not add any additional restrictions on how the EB can be wielded. TaF was obviously written in order to allow the EB/klar TWF mode, and only that mode. As printed, it happens to allow the other modes. RAW and RAI are different things, and it is only the former that matters in PFS.
And yet it says right there, "subject of a successful attack," and "if the attacker hits." That sounds like the attack should be considered a success.
The examples illustrates how "attacked" differs from "tripped" in common use. The latter implies a specific outcome, the former does not. 2 is the least incorrect restatement, but I wouldn't say there was "a successful trip attack." Because of the difference stated above, the two example situations do not follow the same structure. If you attack a target with concealment, beat their AC, but fail the concealment roll, is that a successful attack?
Lastly, for those arguing that it's not fair you don't get to benefit from the prone you inflict with your trip when you get your Greater Trip AoO, keep in mind that Trip can be used in place of any melee attack. Trip them as the first attack of your full-attack and they are prone for all the rest of your full-attack. The AoO is more to let you recover that damage you would have otherwise attempted and for which the target wouldn't have been prone anyway. Balance isn't proof of legality, and the alternate interpretation is hardly gamebreaking. If we were talking about Vicious Stomp, that order of events would be correct. The trigger is "Whenever an opponent...," so it's similar to moving out of a threatened square. The AoO is made before the move or fall is completed. Greater Trip, however, triggers off of the feat's holder successfully accomplishing an entire task. The AoO takes place after the full sequence of trip events. The formatting of Greater Disarm is identical to that of Greater Trip. When you disarm a foe with that feat, does their weapon somehow land 15 feet away before it has even left their hands? If not, then the maneuver must have taken full effect before the feat trigger occurs. (To be clear: "target drops weapon"::disarm, as "target falls prone"::trip. I could see someone arguing that redirecting the fall of the weapon is the same as interrupting the fall of an enemy, but that wouldn't be correct because the disarm has completed once the weapon is has left the target's hands, regardless of where or how it lands.)
"...as long as your ally is wielding a shield." "...can be wielded by the wearer as if it were a heavy shield." Checks out, I'd say.
It's not any rule I'm familiar with. The usual mechanism for representing book learnin' is granting a circumstance bonus on Knowledge checks when the PC has access to an appropriate tome. If you want a more permanent reward, just give them some XP.
This question is not really worth a dev response on its own. As far as I can tell, Malachi is basically the only person still defending the negative position. There's nothing wrong with stretching the rhetorical muscle on a good ol' fashion forum debate, but it hardly merits launching a FAQ campaign just to sway one person. Paizo employees have responded to smaller disagreements about rarer issues, but in those cases there's usually some mutually recognized fogginess to the rules. On the other hand, the question of whether the written rules of Pathfinder circumscribe the totality of actions permissible in the game's universe, in every possible case and in every possible condition, or that they are intended to do so, would be worth a FAQ had it not already been answered many times over.
Related question: Can a broken weapon have an improvised condition? Can you take a splintered longspear, and use it as an improvised club? To both questions, I reply with an emphatic yes. If you snap a leg off a table at the joint, you have both a piece of a broken table, and an intact table leg. As a weapon, it's would be improvised, but not broken--say, as a medium club. If that leg is then sundered, should it retain the same effectiveness? Of course not. Then again, if the breaking involves actually snapping off another part of the leg, should it even be considered the same type object? There's no quantum of table leg on the books. Maybe the player decides that instead of a wielding a broken, improvised, medium club, they'd rather toss the leg to their gnome companion, who then wields it as an intact, improvised, small club. Adjudication of improvised weapons already treads that fine line between science and art, and throwing another condition in here doesn't make it any easier, but I don't see anything wrong with the above scenario. Improvised weapons can be broken, and the breaking should impose some penalty--but since the improvised condition is there to stay regardless, I'd allow a player to reduce the damage dice and ignore the broken penalty instead.
That's a false comparison. Making an attack and dealing damage are distinct game events, with distinct rolls. A trip is a single event, with a single roll. Consider: Monster 1: "I was attacked by an adventurer today!"
vs. M1: "I was tripped by an adventurer today!"
He can if it has been awakened. Mundane animals only have HD, not class levels, and can't gain experience. Keep in mind that awakening basically turns the animal into an NPC. I'd read the Intelligent Animals page before allowing it in your campaign, especially if you would be hesitant to permit Leadership and similar feats.
Messed up the quote tags on that one, hopefully it's clear that the last block was my words.
We, as a group, are biased against rules finagling to effect an outcome that is not in line with the intent of the rules. (This talks of TWF, inappropriately sized weapons and such as well as the feat itself) Perhaps this is the root of the problem.
Checking out the Object Hardness and Hit Points table, the Break DC for objects ranges from 13 to 23 for hardness 5, and 26 to 28 for hardness 10. If you want a quick and dirty estimate, you could set the DC to hardness + 15. That makes the sword DC 45.
HangarFlying: Yes, that's what those examples were intended to demonstrate.
It's a similar question to: If you accept that the AoO from someone standing up occurs prior to them standing up, why is it so difficult to accept that the AoO from tripping someone could occur before they actually hit the ground? I'm going to factionalize this whole debate further and say that the AoO from greater trip does occur before the opponent has fallen prone (and could therefore be used on another trip, I suppose). They're in the midst of the action of falling prone when the AoO happens, however, which means the attack can't happen unless the target will be falling prone from the original trip afterwards.
And you can kill without reducing HP. Dropping Con to 0 kills without reducing HP to -Con, etc. But it still reduces hp by some measure, so that doesn't get around anything.
The fact that this matters also seems quite arbitrary, but we're getting pretty far afield of the original question. I maintain that denying reapplication of staggered and unconscious, but allowing it for prone and stunned is inconsistent, especially when prone is the only condition of those four that is always applied indefinitely. If you don't see why that position is unsustainable, then we're at an impasse.
You become staggered at exactly 0 hp, so staggered is as much a function of hp as unconscious is. Color spray, slow, and similar effects can cause staggering or unconsciousness without touching hp totals, but there's no way to cause death without reducing hp.
A better reference would be like the Stunned or Staggered conditions. That's a rather arbitrary distinction. I can see how death would be different than other conditions, since it's inextricably bound to a continuous scale (hp). This is not true for (un)consciousness. You can retain hp if knocked out by a spell, but if you are killed by a death effect you immediately drop to -Con. Conditions are binary, as far as the mechanics of Pathfinder are concerned. You cannot be kind-of-stunned or extra-staggered, it's all or nothing. Putting prone, stunned, and staggered into one pile, and unconscious into another, is not consistent. We're also not talking about abilities that apply conditions "as a rider." No one is saying you can't cast Grease beneath a prone target. The question is whether you can meaningfully apply a condition to a creature that is already suffering from it. You said: Prone never says you can't be prone already to apply it. If you can't knock unconscious a creature that is already unconscious, then I don't see why you should be able to knock prone a creature that is already prone, when the rules provide no insight into either interaction. If you are extending the duration of a temporary condition, such as repeatedly demoralizing the same target, that's one thing. I'm not actually sure if repeated Color Sprays would extend the duration of unconsciousness, but prone is only removed by the victim's action, so that wouldn't work for tripping.
For the sake of argument, pretend there's no helpless clause in Born Alone. Does that change the answer? Or if you prefer an actual example:
Does this work?
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