ellindsey's page

I recommend adapting this Town Hall Fire hazard to suit your needs.

I've run it myself AND have survived a real fire; the encounter was incredible in how it emulated real life in terms of "act quickly and it's no sweat, hesitate, and everyone dies in short order."

There are also rules available for a forest fire or wildfire that might also serve as mechanical inspiration.

I hope that helps. :)

A modified version of the Town Hall Fire hazard looks like it will be exactly what I need, thanks.

My players are currently exploring a decrepit abandoned mansion in a homebrew campaign I'm running. At the end of the last session they were exploring a dressing room with rotted furniture, piles of old crumbling clothing, and a spider swarm that they have just discovered and will have to fight.

As I plan for the next session, it occurs to me that several of the party have fire-based magic and attacks and are likely to use them, while in a room that is full of flammable materials, in a crumbling wooden structure.

Are there any rules for running a house fire? Any suggestions for how quickly it should spread? I figure I can probably fudge something based on the environmental damage rules, but I'm curious if anyone else has every had to run a situation like this.

Ether Spiders can shift into the Ethereal Plane as an action. When ethereal, they are invisible and insubstantial to creatures on the material plane who don't have the ability to see into the ethereal plane.

What happens if someone throws Dust of Appearance on an Ether Spider before it goes ethereal? Does it remain visible to people not on the Ethereal plane because of the dust, or does it turn invisible anyway because it being invisible is due to it being on the ethereal plane rather than being simply invisible?

I only ask this because it may come up in the next few sessons of the game I'm running, and I want to know what the rules say just in case it does.

Here's a question that came up in my last game session.

Let's say a cleric is casting Talking Corpse to try and communicate with a corpse, but the corpse does not have a working throat and mouth. However, it does have hands, and the corpse when alive knew Sign Language, and so does the caster. Could the corpse answer the cleric's questions with sign language instead of speaking?

I know that by strict rules as written this wouldn't work, as the corpse "must have a throat and mouth to speak at all". But as a GM, I'd be inclined to allow it.

Let's assume that a character has a Aeon Wyrd familiar. The familiar can hold an Aeon Stone, and the character with the familiar gains the stone's benefits without using up one of their investiture slots for the day, as stated in the rules for that familiar.

Now assume that character gets a Familiar Tattoo (from Secrets of Magic), and has their familiar meld into the tattoo. Does the Aeon Wyrd carry its held Aeon Stone with it into the tattoo? And if so, does the character still gain the stone's benefits while the tattoo is merged?

Illusory Disguise changes how you look, and if you heighten it to second level it changes how you smell and sound. But does it change how you feel? If a human uses Illusory Disguise to disguise themselves as a lizardman, and someone touches them, will they feel like they have skin or scales?

In an upcoming homebrew campaign I'm running, I've decided to let my players use the third party Exotic Ancestry races. One of my players has decided to play a Centaur barbarian, and specifically wants to eventually take the feat that lets her trample enemies. I didn't realize initially that a centaur is a Large race, and now I'm looking to see what all the game mechanics ramifications of that will be.

From what I understand, a Large creature like a centaur occupies a 10x10 space, but as a "long" Large creature they only have 5' reach. Her armor will cost twice what normal human armor does, but unless I'm mistaken she will still use normal-sized weapons, on account of still having a normal humanoid torso. Moving through 5" corridors will require me to use the squeezing rules. This may be a real concern if there are any fights in cramped indoor spaces.

Are there any rules for centaurs making climbing checks? There don't seem to be any rules in the ancestry about it or any game-mechanics reason to penalize them, but realistically a centaur shouldn't even have a chance of trying to climb a cliff wall or something like that. I'm not even sure they should be able to handle a ladder. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of penalizing players with penalties that aren't even in the rules at all.

Are there any rules for having one player ride another, in case they decide that they want to put one of the other party members on the centaur's back?

Anything else I need to look out for when letting someone play a Large, non-humanoid character like this?

From Bestiary 3, the Radiant Warden has the Gatekeeper Aura ability:

"A creature that uses a teleportation ability within the aura’s emanation or enters it via a teleportation ability must succeed a DC 38 Will save or become sickened 1 and have its destination changed to a point of the radiant warden’s choosing within the emanation. On a successful save, the creature arrives as intended but is still sickened 1."

Questions on this:

Is the destination point of the teleport chosen once, or is it done on a case by case basis? Does the Radiant Warden simply designate a single place where all teleporters end up, or can it decide on a case by case basis for each teleport that happens?

If the latter, does this imply that the Radiant Warden can detect any act of teleportation within the aura? If it has to decide where a teleport is redirected to, presumably that means that it knows that someone attempted to teleport, even if it can't detect them otherwise.

Does the use of a teleportation ability within the aura apply to the source location of the teleport, the destination location, or both? The wording would seem to apply that it only applies if the creature using the teleportation ability is within the aura at at the start of the teleport, which means it wouldn't redirect someone teleporting from outside the aura to within it.

Alright. I think I'll go with first requiring some research to determine what's going on and how the effect works in the first place, then a heightened Dispel Magic to interrupt the effect, and then destroying or deactivating the magic item that's producing the effect in the first place to keep it from simply re-asserting the Dominate spell. A fun puzzle for my players to work through. Thanks!

For an upcoming game, my players may encounter a NPC who is under the effect of a homebrew magical item, that among other things is placing the NPC under a permanent Dominate effect. My players may want to free this NPC from this effect once they realize what's going on. I want to make this somewhat difficult, but not impossible. Something that a mid-level spellcaster could do.

In First Edition, this seems like it would be a clear case where a Break Enchantment spell would do the trick, but Break Enchantment somehow doesn't exist in 2E. What would be the 2E equivalent? Remove Curse? Dispel Magic, possibly heightened?

Taja the Barbarian wrote:

For Battledancer, the gain Panache text seems to refer to the Fascinating Performance feat that it normally grants, but you'd have to take that as a normal skill feat (the dedication does not grant bonus feats from the style).

You can Perform without the feat and still get Panache, Fascinating Performance just gives the action some benefit aside from Panache.

That's the part which I'm still not sure how it works. Does any successful use of Perform for any purpose count for granting Panache with Battledancer, or does it specifically need to be used for something like Fascinating Performance?

I love getting One for All as a Bard and having a ranged Aid on attacks to maximise support while minimizing spellslot expenditure.

It also allows you to gain Panache through Diplomacy and you get to utilise your reaction where you dont have a lot of uses for it either way as a Bard.

That is tempting, since my character's role on the party is mostly team mascot and cheerleader, but it would require me to take an additional feat in addition to the class dedication feat.

I've just started playing in an Age of Extinction campaign. We're one session in and still all level one. I am playing a Leaf Leshy Maestro Bard, and am aiming to make a multi-role character who can perform support/debuff/buff magic and also fight when required.

I am currently planning to take a multi-class dedication into Swashbuckler at level 2, with the goal of using it to gain panache for when I am in melee combat. I'm not sure which Swashbuckler style would be the best to take. Battledancer looks interesting, but I'm not really sure how the Performance check works or what triggers it. Fencer might fit better if I'm going to be doing this when going into melee with my rapier, or possibly Gymnast?

Any advice on which to pick?

This might seem like a trivial and strange question, but it occurred to me to wonder as I'm putting together a Leaf Leshy Bard for an upcoming campaign. If the party is all meeting at a tavern, or celebrating at one after a successful adventure, will my character even be capable of drinking with everyone else, and if so does he become intoxicated?

On the one hand, there's nothing in the Leshy ancestry about poison resistance, which is what I would assume would grant immunity to alcohol.

On the other hand, the Plant Nourishment ability implies that I don't even have the physical ability to imbibe food and drink like a normal person would, or at least I don't get any benefit from it if I do.

So now I'm picturing my character getting a drink with his pals, pouring it on his foliage, and then getting sick but not drunk as a result. Is that about how the rules say it would work in this case?

I haven't discussed this with the GM yet, I'm still trying to figure out what my options might be for forms in the first place. Honestly, all of us in our gaming group find the polymorph rules somewhat confusing.

I have a level 7 Star Shaman, took the 3rd level Polymorph spell, and am looking at forms to take. The Lurker in Light looks like a really interesting choice, but I'm concerned about the "Only in bright light" requirement on the invisibility and once-a-day Dimension Door.

If I activate my Starlight Form ability from Star Shaman, does that generate enough light to let me use those abilities?

And if I turn invisible, while generating the light that lets me turn invisible, what happens? Is there just a glow coming from nowhere, or do I start to flicker on and off rapidly in an endless paradoxical loop?

One of the players in my upcoming planned 2E campaign really, really wants to play a centaur.

I know, I'll probably have to homebrew it, even in 1E Paizo never gave us an official and properly balanced centaur race.

So I'm trying to figure out a good choice of forms for my 5th level Mystic when I take Polymorph for my new 2nd level spell known. I am not looking to be a melee combatant, more looking for utility and enhanced movement forms. I've picked out the following so far:

Tashtari
Size and type: Medium Magical Beast (Str +1)
Defense: Resist 5 Fire
Special abilities: Muzzle beam , Bristle flash, Bite
Sense: Darkvision 60 feet
Movement: Climb 20 feet

Skittermander
Size and type: Small Humanoid (Dex +1)
Special abilities: Hyper, Six arms
Racial trait: +2 to Grapple Maneuver
Sense: Low-light vision

Kalo
Size and type: Medium Monstrous Humanoid (Aquatic) (Str +1)
Defense: Cold resist 5
Racial trait: Stealthy Swimmers
Sense: Low-light vision
Movement: Swim 30 feet

Nuar
Size and type: Medium Monstrous Humanoid (Str +1)
Special abilities: Maze Mind, Gore
Racial trait: Horn attack
Sense: Darkvision 60 feet
Movement: 40 feet base move

Are these legal choices for Polymorph 2? The rules are somewhat confusing, and several of the pre-built forms appear to be illegal.

I am also under the impression that I also get 4 first-level forms to choose from, since knowing Polymorph 2 also allows me to cast Polymorph 1. I'm having a real problem actually finding anything worth polymorphing into at that level, as the rules restrict what abilities you can pick up really severely.

The one good option that sticks out to me is the Squox, although I'll have to be Small instead of Tiny. That looks like it gets me Climb 20, Low-light Vision, and Squox tricks, and I think a bite attack too?

Other than that, it looks like I just have to take Medium Predator and slap subtypes on it. Is there a list of what abilities I can choose? Is there a CR1 creature that has anything interesting like Compression or a Poison attack? Those would both be useful things to get through Polymorph.

I'm trying to pick out some forms to use with Polymorph 2, and the examples in the Alien Archive book have me confused as to what I actually get.

On page 145, the rulebook says that Polymorph 2 can grant land speed of 40 feet, climb of 20, or swim speed of 30 feet.

However, the pre-built 2nd level Kalo form on page 146 lists a swim speed of 40 feet.

Which is it? If I take the prebuilt form, do I get swim of 40 feet, or am I limited to the 30 feet specified under the Polymorph 2 rules?

The Polymorph rules are confusing enough, when the pre-built forms contradict the rules on what forms can have it's even harder to figure out.

You forget one thing: Starfinder is not science fiction, it's science fantasy.

Exactly this. You can't treat Starfinder as a science fiction genre game. It's fantasy in spaceships. It's even more space opera than Star Wars, which is already pretty much space opera. If you want a setting that depicts a realistic projection of modern technological trends, this is not the gaming system to use.

Star Shamans can make great Pilots, if you split your stat points between Wisdom and Dexterity. Which isn't such a bad thing to do, since Dexterity is just such a useful stat in this system.

I'm trying to figure out good choices for Polymorph 2. There seem to be painfully few.

The Tashtari looks fun, although the laser weapon is less damage than a good laser rifle does.

The Kalo is an interesting choice if you need to swim and breathe water.

Anything else worth getting with the level 2 spell? I'm almost considering not getting Polymorph till 3, unless there are some other good options I'm missing.

Is a Star Shaman immune to the effects of hitting interstellar dust grains while flying at half the speed of light, or is that simply something that we don't worry about in this kind of fantasy/space opera setting?

Am I the only one who saw the quorlus and thought "Oh, a Horta as a playable race"?

We had been using a handful of small plastic spaceships from a board game that one of our players had. This past weekend I spent some hours printing spaceship models on my 3D printer - some downloaded from public sites and some drawn from scratch.

Now that just raises the question of whether every world in the universe has a 24 hour day. If you're on a planet with a 26 hour day, do you still stick to the 24 hour clock, thus getting your spells two hours earlier each day?

Would it be legal to get a maze-core of two identical weapons with different, normally incompatible weapon fusions? Say a combination of a pistol with the Holy fusion and the exact same kind of pistol with the Unholy fusion?

How does this affect the price of the composite item? Is the cost for the fusion applied before or after the one and a half times multiplier on the cost of the less expensive item in the combo?

Can weapon fusions be applied to a weapon that is part of a Nuar Maze-Core?

If so, does the effect of the weapon fusion apply to all of the modes of the maze-core, or only one of them? What if one of the modes of the maze-core is something not a weapon, like a laser pistol/computer combo? I expect that a fusion that changed or enhanced damage would do nothing on the computer, but if it was a Calling fusion, would it make me able to call my computer to my hand?

How does it affect the cost? Would the cost of the Fusion be based on the highest level of the items in the maze-core, or just one if it can be only applied to one?

We're still early in the decision stage. One player has decided that he wants to play a Skittermander Solarian. One other player who wants some kind of dual gun wielding concept, but I don't know if they've picked out a class or race yet. And,maybe two others that I have no idea what they'll play. We're still early in the decision making process, nobody has ship roles picked out yet other than me. I expect I'll probably be the only caster as I seem to be the only one in the group with a taste for full spellcasters.

Oh and I would do STR 11 CHA 12.

I was planning to get CHA 13 in case I wanted to get one of the feats that requires that to qualify. What advantage does 11 STR give?

I am planning to put both DEX and WIS to 18 when we hit level 5. I'm pretty sure the campaign will go on for at least that long.

Looks like Longarms proficiency is going to be the way to go. I may also go with Specialization for my level 3 feat to get the extra damage bonuses. Pistols just seem kind of weak for damage, and it seems like everyone's expected to shoot things in combat even if you're also the team mystic.

I have been invited to a Starfinder game starting soonish. None of us have much if any Starfinder experience at all, although most of us have a lot of Pathfinder experience.

The GM is staring us off at level 3, and is allowing use of the Alien Archive races. I have decided to play a Drow, mostly as a roleplaying challenge and for variety, and playing a Mystic as I've decided to try that class out.

Drow don't get a WIS bonus, but they do get a DEX bonus, so I've decided to pick Ace Pilot as my theme and Star Shaman for my Connection. Starting stats are:

STR: 10 (+0)
DEX: 16 (+3)
CON: 8 (-1)
INT: 10 (+0)
WIS: 16 (+3)
CHA: 13 (+1)

I'm hoping that CON penalty won't be as painful as it would be in Pathfinder.

My role in starship combat is cemented, I can max out Piloting and have a pretty good time there. I'm trying to figure out what my role outside of starship combat will be, and what feats to take.

In-combat healing is pretty terrible, and HP healing seems to be very limited even with magic. I get a few nice damage spells and some nice save-or-die/save-or-suck effects, but my spells per day are painfully limited.

Should I just get Longarm Proficiency and shoot things like everyone else seems to do? It's probably my best option for dealing damage, but I'll never be as good at it as the combat classes are.

I'm really tempted to get a needler pistol and shoot people with poison darts, as it's especially appropriate for a Drow, but poison is so damn expensive.

I'm also strongly tempted to get a poison spur augmentation as a holdout/surprise close range last resort, but my CON penalty is going to make the DC on that a joke.

Skittermanders have 6 arms, and gain a +2 racial bonus on grapple combat maneuvers.

Can the free upgrade slot that Androids get as part of their body accept the Jump Jets upgrade? It says on the description of the slot that it can be installed only in light or heavy armor, and the android slot can take any upgrade that can be installed in light armor, so it seems to me that it should work.

Does the "Capacity:20" indicate how many times the Jump Jets can be used? If so, how does recharging it work?

Get a Familiar, through dip or feats. Give it the Valet familiar archetype. It gains any crafting feats you have plus the Cooperative Crafting feat. This doubles the amount of crafting you can do per day.

andreww wrote:

I don't believe you can stack Tattooed and Sage as both affect your first level bloodline power.

But they have the exact same effect O.o and i thought the sorcerer's class archetype was different from her bloodline...

Sage Bloodline is gotten by taking the Wildblooded archetype, so it counts as an archetype that modifies your first bloodline power. Tattooed Sorcerer also modifies your first bloodline power, so this is not a legal combination. If your GM allows it anyway, cool, but it's not permitted by the rules as written.

If I have an Ioun Wyrd familiar, with multiple Ioun Stones incorporated into it, what happens to the Ioun Stones when I cast Merge With Familiar? Are they now orbiting me, or are they merged into me along with the familiar? Do they still keep providing their benefits to me? It would seem to me that they should, since they are incorporated into the body of the familiar rather than merely orbiting it, and the familiar is certainly still within 30 feet of me when merged, but I want to know if there's an official ruling.

I suspect it will depend on what level range the campaign runs over. Most of a Witch's Hexes are unlimited use per day abilities, which can come in very handy if your GM is throwing multiple encounters at you per day at low levels. Wizards are very powerful at higher levels, especially as they have a much more varied spell list, but at low levels it's easy to run out of spells for the day quickly.

I briefly played a witch inspired, not so much by Nanny Ogg specifically as by Discworld witches in general. Hedge Witch, healing and support, but I also played with the general attitude of "I'm the smartest one here, these men are strong but stupid and it's my job to guide them because they wouldn't know what to do with themselves otherwise.". It didn't hurt that I was the only one in the party who didn't take INT as a dump stat. Ended up being the party face in addition to the healer and only one with useful non-combat skills.

My grievance is that nobody I know will GM Pathfinder. All my players love the campaign I run, but when I hint that I've been doing this for 3 years and could use a break from being the GM, nobody is ready or willing to take up the reigns and run something. There's one guy running a Savage Worlds game, and one of my players is willing to run the occasional Star Wars session, but nobody will run Pathfinder.

I'd like to actually play a regular character of my own, not just NPCs in my game.

Oh, there are the Pathfinder Society games run at the local game store, and I join those sometimes, but it's just not the same as an actual ongoing campaign.

+perception. Those little yapping lap dogs were bred to be burglar alarms (among other uses). Not guard dogs, but their yapping would wake up the guards and guard dogs that would actually do something about intruders.

Actually, the specific scenario I have is that there is a NPC who knows about the spell, and who wants to make his ancestry appear to be something that it is not for plot reasons. Furthermore, this person is already going to have the spell cast on him, due to plot reasons, so just skipping them is out of the question. But I've decided that a modified form of Misdirection will work well enough for this.

ellindsey wrote:

It notes that a Will save negates the spell, but I assume that would just result in no reading, rather than a specific, carefully tailored false reading.

But what does the spell do?

It reveals the target's complete geneology - name and race going back ten generations of each ancestor. I imported the version from the BOEF into my Pathfinder game, but it appears that the exact same spell also appears in the Book of Divine Magic, which is a third-party Pathfinder sourcebook.

The misdirection spell might allow this villain to fool the heroes.

Yeah, I think I'm going to decide that Misdirection will cause the spell to instead give the ancestry of some other person within range. That works well enough for my purposes.

It notes that a Will save negates the spell, but I assume that would just result in no reading, rather than a specific, carefully tailored false reading.

I generally dislike having my NPCs have access to plot-breaking, custom magic items or spells that the players will never have access to. If there's a way to do this within the rules, I'd really prefer to find it. Too much GM fiat pisses off the players.

Being able to ignore the gold cost of the item with a sufficiently high Spellcraft check would make crafting even more abuseable than it is. Why not just take the next step and allow the crafting time to be ignored for an additional +5 DC while you're at it? Instant magic items for free!

I suppose a third-party spell will require a third-party/homebrew answer to counter.

I have an ongoing plotline in my Pathfinder campaign involving the use of the (third-party) Analyze Ancestry spell to try and find the lost heir to a kingdom. There is a NPC in the game who has a strong vested interest in making this spell read something other than the truth when cast on them. Is there any spell or other method that can be used to falsify the results of this spell? I don't want to block it entirely, but instead have a set of false information that will be provided instead of the truth. I had considered False Vision, but I'm not sure that it will quite have the right effect, since that seems to be for the purpose of making an illusion that is only seen by someone trying to scry on the target.

Kind of cheating, since it isn't Pathfinder, but it's the Savage Species campaign I've just joined. It's in a very strange homebrew post-apocalyptic campaign world. The party consists of:

My character, a gun-toting giant insect larvae in a trenchcoat.
An uplifted gorilla, trained as a knight but exiled for a crime he didn't commit.
A dryad-ish character with clairsentience and precognition.
A palette-swap Drizzt clone - sun-loving dual-sword sort-of elf with a pet tiger.

We desperately need a party face - the elf is the only one who doesn't have a Charisma penalty, and his first response to every interaction is "We should kill them."

If you take a one-level dip of Tattooed Sorcerer, and buy a Ioun Wyrd familiar (or talk your GM into letting you start with one), do the Ioun Stones orbiting the Ioun Wyrd also merge into your tattoos when the familiar is in tattoo form? If so, do they still grant the normal effects? That would seem to be a really secure way to store your Ioun Stones.

I house-ruled the Aspect Mirror from Complete Scoundrel into my game for this purpose. Possibly a bit underpriced for what it does: 4000gp per mirror, unlimited range on the same plane, transmits image and sound in both directions, no limit on uses per day.