dhemery's page

That said, the description of the corpselight does seem to assume that wisps are capable of feats of nigh-immateriality when it comes to fitting in close spaces.

A puzzle for me with the Corpselights in D1 Belcorra's Dining Room: Given that "ephemeral spirits gently shut any door left open for more than a minute," it seems likely that the doors to D2, D3, and D6 will all be closed when the party enters the room. If a Corpselight in wisp form is not immaterial, it wouldn't be able to get through the doors to claim the nearby corpses.

Once you’ve selected a specific familiar, you can’t change it without losing your familiar—this uses the same rules as if your familiar had died.

What constitutes "losing" a familiar?

Does it have to die? (Probably not, or the "as if it had died" text wouldn't be meaningful.)

Can a familiar simply be dismissed? Can a Witch essentially choose a different familiar each day by dismissing their current one just before daily prep?

The sidebar entry about how to handle that for Rejuvenating Spirits should apply equally to all of them, even though it only explicitly mentions the one for daily preparations.

That’s probably how I’ll play it, but it’s a poor fit with the “spirit-purifying final act of mercy” flavor text. If they’re going to re-form, the act isn’t final. And once they re-form, if they’re still going to thwack you the next time you pay them a visit, that doesn’t feel like an act of mercy from a purified spirit.

What happens if you use Spirit's Mercy to purify a spirit remnant with unfinished business?

The rules clearly state what happens if you purify a spirit remnant during your daily preparations:

Rejuvenating Spirits: Though all spirit wisps and most remnants can pass on immediately when purified, if a spirit remnant came from a creature with the rejuvenation special ability (such as most ghosts), a recurring haunt, or another entity who ordinarily doesn’t pass on when destroyed, its ties to this world are too strong for it to easily pass on. When a spirit remnant from such an entity is released as part of your daily preparations, instead of joining the River of Souls, it begins re-forming itself in the time and location noted in its rejuvenation ability. However, you learn a clue about the spirit’s unfinished business, which may help you put it to rest permanently.

So if the spirit remnant has unfinished business:

Spirit's Mercy is less clear about spirit remnants with unfinished business:

Spirit’s Mercy [reaction] (necromancy) Trigger You take positive or negative damage, or you take any type of damage caused by a haunt, ghost, or other incorporeal undead; Cost 1 spirit wisp or remnant; Effect You purify a spirit by having it perform a final act of mercy to lessen the damage caused by another spirit. This grants you resistance to positive and negative damage (or resistance to all damage if caused by a haunt or incorporeal undead) against the triggering effect. If you expend a spirit wisp, the resistance is equal to twice your level. If you expend a spirit remnant, the resistance is equal to three times the level of the incorporeal undead or haunt from which you gained the remnant.

If the spirit remnant purified by Spirit's Mercy has unfinished business, what happens after this "final" act of mercy?

I have two puzzles about D19 The Forever Stairs.

First: The description of D19 mentions a Will DC to disbelieve the illusory wall that obscures the alcove that leads to Belcorra's suite.

I thought disbelieving used Perception, not Will. Is the text a mistake, or am I misunderstanding the rules of illusions?

Second: Jaul Mezmin advises the heroes to keep their eyes closed if they ever want to escape the nightmare stairs.

I don't get how that helps. As far as I can tell, the two doors that lead out of the stairs are plainly visible, and so keeping eyes closed would not help with those.

And the illusory wall that obscures the way to Belcorra's suite is level 5, and so feels right to the touch, and so the heroes would be just as fooled by touching it as by looking at it.

What is the purpose of Mezmin's advice? How does keeping eyes closed help the heroes?

Spell Relay requires that you be in range of the ally’s spell. I think that means that the spell must have a range. But Burning Hands doesn’t have a range.

Expansive Spellstrike looks like a great example of a way to make a cone spell originate somewhere other than the caster.

I found another: Charged Creation.

Yes, some counteract effects describe what happens.

Others, like Chilling Darkness, do not. They just say that they attempt to counteract.

What happens to an Everburning Torch if Chilling Darkness counteracts its light?

As the GM in question, I'm also interested in this. I keep look at that "If you make a cone originate from someone or something else…" and wonder what kinds of spells or abilities allow you to make a cone originate from someone else. A few months ago I spent some time looking, and didn't find any. But there must be some way, or that sentence wouldn't have any application.

The section on Held Items (CRB 572) says that held items "need to be held to use them."

What does an everburning torch do when you’re not holding it? Does it continue shedding light? If so it seems like you can use it just fine even when you’re not holding it.

Okay, maybe the specific text of everburning torch overrides the general rule.

But then, the Constant Abilities section (CRB 531) says:

Some magic items have abilities that always function. You don’t have to use any actions to do anything special (beyond wearing and investing a worn item or wielding a held item) to make these abilities work. For example, an everburning torch always sheds light, and a flaming weapon deals fire damage every time it deals damage.

Does that parenthetical bit mean that an everburning torch sheds light only if you’re wielding it?

The counteract rules (CRB 458) say, "Successfully counteracting an effect ends it unless noted otherwise."

What if the effect is a constant effect from a magical item? Does the effect end permanently? Or does something else happen?

For example, does counteracting the light effect from an Everburning Torch turn it permanently into a mundane torch? Or does something else happen?

Will the astoundingly awesome Foundry edition be updated for Foundry v10?

Has anyone gotten anywhere with the secret that Erik was teasing on Know Direction and Paizo LIVE? I know which NPC he's talking about, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. (Hopefully it'll be easier once the physical book is in my hands.)

I think I’ve solved it, partly by comparing a date associated with that NPC to a date mentioned in The Inner Sea World Guide.

I would also like an answer to this question.

I think this is a fine strategy. It seems to support the "lean startup" idea of starting small, with robust, high priority features, and focusing early on learning what works and what does not.

I have a request for the blog: Add an RSS feed.

Here's the thread with the guides to all the classes:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/advice/guideToTheGuides

Very handy! Thanks!

I would recommend Hero Lab.

I'll have to wait for the Mac version, which is due "later this year" (though I don't know what year that was written). Looks interesting. Thanks for the tip!

One good place to start would be with the Optimization Guide for your class (a lot of classes have them now, they can be found floating around.)

Ah, "optimization" is a word I didn't think of. That leads to lots of advice. Thanks!

What class are you playing?

As it happens, I'm okay with my existing characters. The challenge is when I need to create a new character (especially when I need to create one in a hurry), and you never know what I'll want to roll up.

Also a challenge for some friends who are new players. I don't know what they'll want to do either.

honest to tell you i suggest using pfsrd and hitting ctrl f and type in key words on the feats page.

That would work if I knew which keywords to search for. Of course I do know some (maybe most, at least the most common ones), but I'm likely to miss some relevant ones.

And I'd like something I could point even newer players to, so they can roll their first character without having to read 150 pages of feat descriptions. Those folks will probably know even less about the relevant keywords than I do.

Is there somewhere a "feat calculator"? Some software (web, iOS, or Mac) where you can indicate feat-relevant facts about your character (class, level, class features, current feats), and it displays the list of feats for which the character qualifies?

I'm new-ish at Pathfinder, and when I roll a new character, I still find the smorgasbord of feats overwhelming. The alphabetical listings don't guide me to the feats relevant to my character. I'm hoping for a quicker way to narrow down the list, so I don't spend all of my time scanning and reading feats I don't qualify for.

Thank you Jeraa. That should be easy enough to remember ;-)

If I understand right, Detect Magic reveals only a spell's or magic item's school and aura strength. It does not, all by itself, reveal other details of the spell or item.

But a successful Spellcraft check, made while applying Detect Magic, identifies "the properties of a magic item" (emphasis mine). Which properties, exactly, does this reveal? Full details of the spell or item, as shown in its description? The general nature of its effects? How to use or trigger it? Something else?

The fact that the wording changes before "any weapon with 'elven' in its name is not an accident -- it's not on the list of free proficiencies.

The specificity of the language was the big clue for me. Those Paizo folks are very precise with their language.

I'm a GM starting a new campaign. I'm trying to parse the rules about racial weapons--e.g. "Elves... treat any weapon with the word 'elven' in its name as a martial weapon."

One player in my game insists that the rule automatically gives all Elves proficiency with such weapons. For example, he thinks that any Elf would, by that rule, be proficient with the Elven Curve Blade, normally an exotic weapon.

I interpret the rule differently. I read it as saying that the Elven Curve Blade is, for Elves, not an exotic weapon, but a martial weapon. But that does not, in and of itself, make every Elf proficient with the weapon. In order to use the weapon proficiently, the character would have to gain the required martial proficiency in some other way--either by via a class-granted proficiency or by taking the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat.

So the level 1 Elf Magus in the group would be proficient with the Elven Curve Blade by virtue of Magis' proficiency in all martial weapons. But the level 1 Elf Rogue in the group, not having (by class) any special proficiencies with martial weapons, would not be proficient, unless he took the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat.

Of course, being the GM, I could decide this by fiat, regardless of the rules. But I would like to know: What is the intention of the rule about treating racial weapons as martial weapons?