glass's page

I don't know about month, but the starting year for the Adventure Paths generally advances in step with the publication year IRL: Formula is real year +2700.

Shattered Star started in 2012 IRL, so the in-universe year should be 4712 AIUI.

The ability says it ignores total cover and total concealment.

No it doesn't. It says it ignores total cover or total concealment. It cost three ki points and a swift action to ignore the latter and two points and a swift to ignore the former. So unless you have two swift actions available, you are not going to be ignoring both with this ability.

So, if you need to shoot around corners you are going to be doing it with a 50% miss chance.

Mystique

Possibly silly question, but what class is this for? I think Mesmerist (because I think they have a Hypnotic Stare to replace), but AFAICT it doesn't actually say (apologies if it does and I missed it).

Phantastic Phantasms (Su)

A mystique can use a Full Round Action to cast an Illusion spell rather than a Standard Action. Doing so will allow her to enforce the illusion with more realism, making it more difficult to recognize as an Illusion. Anyone who attempts to disbelieve the illusion suffers a -2 penalty on the Will saving throw to do so. This penalty changes to -3 at 8th level. This does not stack with the Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus feats.

Less serious thing: I don't think "enforce" entirely fits. "Enhance" would normally be better, but given that that is a something of term of art in PF1 I would avoid that too. Maybe "bolster"? "Infuse"?

More serious thing: (Greater) Spell Focus does not impose a penalty on saves, it increases DCs. So if you want them to not stack (or rather, want their non-stacking to be meaningful) Phantastic Phantasms need to increase DCs too.

Or you could word it as "These penalties do not apply if the spell DC is increased by Spell Focus or Greater Spell Focus". That would have almost the same effect, but I would still go with increasing the DCs.

...Also you can view the current Guide as a single page if you want, and presumably make it into a PDF from there (if you really want a PDF specifically).

I am aware, but the "single page" format does not appear to be literal - at the very least, it does not appear to include the Remaster page. And where there is one extra page, there could be more.

For sure sharing the turn is against the rules

You may well be right (although I disagree that it is remotely as clear as you claim it is), but I literally said in my first post that "it is not strict RAW" so I am not sure why you are trying to turn this into a RAW argument.

The familiar can share the same initiative number as the wizard, but can't share his turn

I can assure you they absolutely can, unless I have been hallucinating the last couple of decades of gaming history, because....

every table I have ever played at has had familiars etc share their PCs' turns, to the extent that I had forgotten that that was not strictly RAW.

EDIT: Whether or not they should is a separate question, but they frequently do.

I support Paizo's decision to not grandfather in characters that new players are absolutely gated out from.

That excuse would hold more water if every other class in the game (apart from a subset of clerics), which is equally unavailable to new players, was not being grandfathered in. And honestly, if new players having all the options of older players was the real concern, they should leave the old options available for everyone. I understand why they do not want to do that, but pulling the rug from under existing players is not the way to fix it.

And pulling said rug from under a small (but not that small) subset of existing players is IMNSHO worse than pulling it from everyone.

And I say all that as (effectively) a new player myself. Although I played a lot of PFS1 back in the day, I have played two whole sessions of PFS2, both with pregens, and have no instantiated PFS2 characters to lose.

And I am a little sad that I did not get an old-school* wizard played before the cutoff, but I didn't and that's on me. Other people losing out do not make me feel better about that, they make me feel worse! Both because I have basic empathy, and because if I do get back into PFS** it could affect me next time!

_
* Pun very much intended. Always intend you puns!
** Which I have been wanting to do lately, although stuff like this is giving me pause.

There was a generic supplement put out by Wizards of the Coast called Primal Order that had a system for deities. This was a long time ago before they acquired the rights to D&D. It was not game specific and could work with any game system. They had rules for adapting it to most of the game systems that were out at the time.

More recently (but still a long time ago), and more-directly compatible, there was also the 3e Deities and Demigods. That (with tweaks) is probably what I would use if I was going to deify PCs in a game.

Back in the day we had a D&D system colloquially known as BECMI, that is Basic-Expert-Companion-Master-Immortal. Yes, there were actual rules on how to become Immortal (god) and god-level play. Paths to Immortality summarized here.

AIUI, the BECMI stuff was highly inconsistent as to whether immortals the local name for gods, or a separate thing distinct from them (IIRC one of the adventures even had immortals getting into trouble for impersonating gods IIRC).

Casting enlarge person to make a character large gives them natural reach, which stack with any reach they get from a Reach weapon. However, a spiked chain is not a Reach weapon (it was in D&D).

If the familiar (or AC or eidolon) has its own turn separate from its PC, then yes it needs a standard action to deliver the touch spell.

But every table I have ever played at has had familiars etc share their PCs' turns, to the extent that I had forgotten that that was not strictly RAW. In which case, it is the same turn and IMO they qualify for the free action delivery.

glass wrote:

You do need to meet the CL of the item creation feat, and I don't think this is bypassable with +5 DC because it is not a requirement of the item, it is a requirement to use that part of the Bonded Item feature in the first place. But as I grok do u correctly points out that is always* going to be 7 for a ring.

CRB wrote:

A wizard can add additional magic abilities to his bonded object as if he has the required item creation feats and if he meets the level prerequisites of the feat.

You can't bypass that CL because it is a prerequisite for Arcane Bond to work like Craft Ring.

Without Arcane Bond you don't have the Craft Ring feat unless you take it separately when you get CL 7.

The tone of your post seems to suggest that you disagree, but AFAICT the content is just repeating what I said back to me. What am I missing?

With your interpretation, by your words, you get to attack an extra 8 targets. That is "claiming extra attacks by using two weapons".

That's actually a really good point!

Now I am kinda wavering. On the one hand, if you attacks with a longspear and IUS you are definitely making more attacks than you could make with the longspear or the unarmed strikes alone. OTOH, it is not more attacks than you could make if you attacked with the longspear, dropped it, quick drew a dagger, and attacked with that - and you obviously would not take TWF penalties in the latter case. I need to ponder it further.

Whirlwind Attack is decidedly not fighting this way.

"Fighting this way" is with two weapons, which you are definitely doing in the posited scenario. That is why I said in my previous post that if you go by the book and ignore the FAQ, you definitely take the penalties.

it is clear that you do not get any iterative attacks. you gave them ALL up. you get to make one attack, which is rolled separately vs each enemy in reach.

it's one AOE attack.

Not sure what you're trying to get across here (I am pretty sure we all know you don't get iteratives when doing a Whirlwind Attack). But it is definitely not an AoE - for example, it does not do extra damage to swarms.

I'm with you on missing the PDF though.

Since I said that, I have been poking around the website guide a bit and it is much more readable and navigable than the last time I looked at it (circa 2019). Although frankly it needed to be!

The advantage of the old-style PDF in theory was that you could read every page and know you'd read every page, whereas with a website there could always be another link you missed. But in practice the PFS1 guide almost never got updated between seasons, so there was a proliferation of important information not in it - if the website guide is updated often enough that it actually contains everything it needs to that changes the equation somewhat.

On the Remaster page, the staff of transmutation is listed as an example of something you can still buy, and in the Withdrawn table as something you cannot.

While I am not personally affected by this, I stand i support of those who are!

glass wrote:

It doesn't matter what the changes are. We were told that they would be optional, and now a subset of us is being told "except for you - for you they're compulsory". That's not cool.

Yep. It is how it goes.

It's not an immutable law of nature that that is "how it goes". Someone's decided that that is how it is going to go in this case, and they could (and IMO should) have decided differently, and could still change that decision.

glass wrote:

Obviously, Paizo wants us to buy the new books, but being heavy handed is the wrong way to go about it IMNSHO.

I think you are mistaken. The goal is for all characters to operate under the same rules. This is for ease of GMing.

Mistaken about what? That Paizo wants us to buy their stuff? I am pretty sure I am not!

As for ease of GMing, what difference does it make to the GM which version of a class a player is using? That's the player's responsibility to track, and 90% of the time the the GM doesn't need to worry about it (that's one of PF2's strengths relative to PF1).

Put me down in support of the revised text in the OP. Clearer and more positive language is always a good thing, even though I don't think it would majorly change how I approached things, should I get back into doing GMing (although it might slightly increase the chances of my doing so). That said, I probably would not have subbed in a different flip mat if not for the OP and the discussion around it, even though my hand-drawn maps often bear only a cursory resemblance to the original, so that's good to know. Which is ironic given that I draw for a living...but not by hand!

I agree with whoever it was who said appending "except to fix an obvious error" to the difficulty line. Even with the revised language in post Alex's post above. Take the example some have mentioned about enemy creatures not being able to breathe in the current environment: Fixing them so they can breathe and the players have to actually fight them rather than watching them suffocate on their own increases the difficulty "substantially". But should still be done IMNSHO.

A few responses to other posters in the thread (no quotes, because I read the thread on my phone earlier)....

Re Reducing the Difficulty
I disagree that it is unclear that reducing is allowed - this is a rules document not a logic puzzle, so exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis is in full force.

That said, it might be wise to give some guidance on how much the difficulty can be lowered (even if only in broad terms).

Re Consistency
While a certain amount of consistency between tables is good, absolute consistency is neither desirable nor possible. In particular, it should not be perused to the detriment of playability or fun. Random anecdote time...

In the dim and distant past of 2013, at Paizocon UK, I played #4–19: "The Night March of Kalkamedes" and everything went almost perfectly. A few months later, a good friend played it at a different con and his group screwed basically everything up.

EDIT: To remove spoilers, since the spoiler tags did not work for some reason.

I am not saying that to flex (my friend has a PhD, and is much smarter than I am). The point is that our experiences were far from consistent, but we both got fun sessions and great war stories out of it.

Re Abuses
They're going to happen, whatever the team does or says. So personally I would not spend too much time worrying about it. Especially as the best bet for minimising them IMNSHO is to give the same clear guidance that benefits everyone else (ie what the team should be, and is, trying to do anyway).

Re the Title of the Section
I agree with those posters who suggest avoiding anything which can be abbreviated as RAW or RAI. Instead, I think "Run the Adventure the Players Signed Up For" would work, and avoid any unintended implications.

So, what's the difference in class chassis for Clerics?

It doesn't matter what the changes are. We were told that they would be optional, and now a subset of us is being told "except for you - for you they're compulsory". That's not cool.

There's also the factor that to keep playing the former cleric of Gorum as a cleric now potentially comes with a 40ish quid price tag (I know it's core assumption or whatever it's called now, so you can look it up on AoN but not everyone has Internet during their PFS sessions or suitable devices). Obviously, Paizo wants us to buy the new books, but being heavy handed is the wrong way to go about it IMNSHO.

The answer to 1) is no, as no clerics may be built using the CRB chassis as of the release of Player Core 1.

That's...really bad.

By all means mandate that new characters must use the new rules, but we are not talking about new characters, we are talking about extant characters. And my understanding was that all existing characters were grand fathered in (as they absolutely should be). That should apply just as much to (former) clerics of Gorum as to anyone else.

It doesn't affect me directly, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. And I would imagine those who are directly affected will be (rightly) livid.

Also, seems odd to complicate the PFS1 system of leveling after 3 scenarios by adding an XP award when it all comes out to the same effect. 3 sessions = a level is simple and straightforward.

There are several things in PFS1 that give fractional XP, so they multiplied all the numbers so everything in PFS2 is a natural number. I really don't think that made things less straight-forward.

I'm with you on missing the PDF though.

I disagree that the mechanics of the feat and its interaction with reach imply only one weapon. If anything, they imply the opposite:

If you have a standard Reach weapon (say, a longspear) but no* natural reach (or other extra flange affecting how you can use that weapon), you could have up to eight targets who are "within your reach" but which you cannot attack with your spear. Per the text of Whirlwind Attack you may attack those eight creatures, but per the other relevant rules you would need to use a different weapon from those further away.

As for whether you need to take TWF penalties to do so. Per the CRB you take penalties the whenever you wield two weapons at the same time, but they were FAQed to only apply if you claimed an extra attack from TWF. Most people go with the FAQ (knowingly or accidentally).

(* Or more precisely, the standard 5 ft natural reach for a Medium or Small creature.)

Generically, you only have to meet the items CL spell completion and spell trigger items (and three times the plus for weapons and armour). For rings, you only have to meet the CL if it specifically says "you must have a CL of (whatever)" under the Construction Requirements. Neither the ring of wizardry nor ring of transposition have any such text, so CL is not a requirement. So, whether you can bypass a CL requirement with +5 to the craft DC is moot in this case: You don't need to, because no such requirement exists.

You do need to meet the CL of the item creation feat, and I don't think this is bypassable with +5 DC because it is not a requirement of the item, it is a requirement to use that part of the Bonded Item feature in the first place. But as I grok do u correctly points out that is always* going to be 7 for a ring.

(* Theoretically it is possible for an item to require Forge Ring and another item creation feat, but I cannot think of any OTTOMH and in any case the most of the other CL requirements are lower - an item requiring Forge Ring and Craft Staff seems unlikely.)

Pizza Lord, where are you getting the requirement for an Aid Another rool from? AFAICT, the feat just works.

Oooh, good question.

Sadly I have only been involved in four APs that made it to completion so far (although several more are on the way). Of those, Rise of the Runelords and Shattered Star stopped just short of 20th (as PF1 APs often do), and Age of Worms went to 20th and beyond but I was the GM.

Which just leaves War of the Burning Sky, which went to 30th in 4e (which is kinda equivalent to 20th in PF1). So my only 20th level character by any either metric was Harman Samm, my 4e Bard.

Of the campaigns I am currently involved with, I think Savage Tide gets to 20th level, and AFAIK Curse of the Crimson Throne does not (not sure about Return of the Runelords, but that one's parked until after CotCT anyway). There is also the Sunless Citadel adventure path, but again I am the GM of that one.

Granted this is now 2023, going on 2024, but I'm curious how Eldrua, a 1st level Fighter/6th level Wizard/7th level Lore Master is able to cast the level of the spells that is listed in her stats in Dungeon Magazine #89:

(5/7/12/7/6/5/4/3) (which indicates she's capable of casting 8th level Wizard spells as a 6th level Wizard (highest level of magic they can cast is 3rd level. Unless it's some serious typo. Other than that, it's a great adventure.

Rather LTTP, but in case anyone's reading:

Loremaster adds to a previous spellcasting class, in this case allowing them to cast as a 13th level wizard. The number of spells at each level still looks a little high (especially 12 at level 2) but capping out at level 7 spells appears correct.

Maybe there will be errata to corral it some.

I have not been paying attention to recent errata: Is "corral it some" something we can expect from errata these days? If so, that would be a welcome change from the PF1 days, when the approach to errata was more "nuke the site from orbit".

I think most of the time, direct sequels should just have been the 6-parter in the first place. Which is not to say that you shouldn't ever do it, but it should be the exception not the rule. So add me to the "echo".

Aside from that, I think when writing a higher-level AP, some thought should be given to how well (or badly) it would work as a sequel to existing and planned lower-level APs, and some space in the Players' Guide dedicated to those thoughts (as is apparently happening for Spore War?)

Not sure where that falls on the Indirect - Not spectrum.

(I am not familiar with Curtain Call - the only PF2 AP I have played or run is Abomination Vaults. My group still has a few PF1 APs we want to do!)

Interesting. I was going to ask about the Paladin in the first post apparently not giving anything up, but I see that has been asked and answered. A couple of other questions if I may:

What do you mean by Unchained in the headings of several of the archetypes (for classes like Paladin which did not get unchained)?

From the Illusionist (Summoner): "The summoner may add any Wizard/Sorcerer spell from the Illusion School to their spell list." AFAICT, you do not actually say how they do that, just that they can. So, how?

Summoning the Oliphaunt is... probably not a good idea. Be careful what you wish for. :-)

It does say "a manifestation of..." which doesn't necessarily make it a good idea, but its not the actual Oliphaunt itself AFAICT.

Well, they've already talked about mythic proficiency which is a flat increase to numbers and comes with an increase in damage accordingly from critical hits, saving throw failures, and probably weapon expertise.

Have they?

AFAICT, they have only talked about Mythic Proficiency with regard to skill checks and saves, not attack rolls or DCs, and it would (mostly) need to be the latter to increase expected damage. Unless they have talked about it adding to attacks and DCs, in which case I missed it.

William Ronald wrote:

So, will the mythic rules be used at all in Pathfinder Society? I imagine that we will hear soon about what will be sanctioned from the book.

Unlikely, though there might be specific scenarios that allow PCs to dabble in mythic in a limited, controlled manner - there was a two-parter module for 1e PFS that did something along those lines, if I recall...

Three-parter: Destiny of the Sands. IIRC, you only got to be Mythic for the last part.

That kind of thing (except hopefully more than once) is the only way Mythic-in-PFS can really work IMNSHO. Well, unless Mythic ends up so popular that they do a whole parallel campaign for it, but that seems...unlikely.

steelhead wrote:

Actually, if you’re talking original APs, then Age of Wyrms is the first. However, a republishing is not going to happen for all the reasons given above.

Shackled City predates Age of Worms!

Indeed it does.

And the unnamed 3.0 AP that starts with The Sunless Citadel predates all of them. (And even before that, the likes of Masks of Nyarlathotep, The Enemy Within, or the Grand Pendragon Campaign could possibly lay claim to the title of first AP depending on where exactly you draw the lines, but they were never officially called that.)

glass wrote:

(the other is Abomination Vaults, but obviously that is outside the scope of this thread.

I was going to ask "how come?" and then realized this is supposed to be for PF1 campaigns.

Meanwhile I've been posting about using a non-Pathfinder system, but using PF1 PFS scenarios to create the campaign soooo.... I'm just gonna keep posting my updates every once in awhile anyways :)

I think if you're using PF1 adventures with a different system (or vice versa), that's close enough for government work. Whereas AbV is neither designed for PF1 nor being run with it.

I, at least, would be like to keep hearing about what you're doing....

glass wrote:

IIRC, it was better/worse than that: It granted an extra Standard action, which you could trade for a move (or not).

In effect, yes. In 3.0, a standard action allowed both a move and an attack/spell/etc. (a full-round action would omit the move portion). Haste granted an extra "partial action", which is basically a PF standard action, so a 3.0 Hastened caster could indeed cast two spells (or use the partial action to move or partial charge and then make a full attack with the regular standard action turned full-round action).

Oh yes, you're right! I should have said it granted what would now be called a Standard Action.

The 3.0 action economy was kinda weird.

Once upon a time, the Haste spell granted an extra move action, but that was back in D&D3.0 and that particular mistake hasn't been repeated since...

IIRC, it was better/worse than that: It granted an extra Standard action, which you could trade for a move (or not).

Toshy wrote:

Example:

Player "I want to commission a +2 flaming burst earthbreaker made out if cold-iron. How much would that run me?"

HeroLab says 34,380 GP, and took me less than a minute to put in the stats

I get the same answer long hand (using Windows Calculator), so that appears to be correct.

It probably took about the same amount of time, but that was because I knew all the components OTTOMH except how much an earthbreaker costs - a different item with more to look up could have taken significantly longer.

(I did check that I was right about flaming burst being +2 equiv, but I was so I needn't have bothered).

On Sundays, we finished "Deep Horizon" a couple of weeks ago and agreed to continue on to "Lord of the Iron Fortress" in that campaign, rather than rotating back to Savage Tide.

On Thursdays, we rotated back to Curse of the Crimson Throne a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, two of the players (a couple) who had been sharing a single PC for a while decided they wanted to go back to having one each. But in the meantime, another player joined, so now we have seven PCs (plus an Eidolon and a Cohort). Things are getting a bit crowded!

I cannot remember if I mentioned that we were starting Return of the Runelord, but having done so we have mostly decided to park it until we were done with CotCT. So we only have two campaigns in rotation in Thursday rather than three, and so can spend a little longer on each (the other is Abomination Vaults, but obviously that is outside the scope of this thread.

I honestly don't get what makes this ambiguous. A combat maneuver requires an attack roll. An attack roll succeeds on a natural 20. Where is the grey area?

My thoughts exactly.

The most multiclassed character I can think of OTTOMH was Henric Istran, my character in Shattered Star. He was a Theurge/Warlock/Mystic Theurge/Eldritch Theurge. So four classes, and lot of theurgy going on!

To unpack that a bit more, Theurge is a third-party class (from Kobold Press IIRC). It is basically Mystic Theurge as a base class, but it suffers from the opposite problem - it keeps up on spell levels, but is perennially short of spell slots. It has a similar number of spell slots to other full casters, but has to split them more-or-less evenly between arcane and divine spells.

Anyway, the upshot was I could not prepare nearly enough attack spells for a day's dungeon crawling, so I found myself resorting to acid splash at level 11. That is a waste of everybody's time, so I had a chat with the GM and he agreed to a bit of retraining and 3.5 content (we still do "3.P" so this was not an unreasonable request). So I swapped out a few levels a level of Warlock and then levels of Mystic Theurge, primarily to get Eldritch Blast. Then I took Mystic Theurge levels until I ran out, and then Eldritch Theurge until the end of the campaign - that was actually a mistake, and it should have been Eldritch Theurge before Mystic, as it would have advanced more Warlock abilities. But either way, it made the character much more fun and useful.

(3.5 Warlocks have a special rule whereby they can be picked to advance with a PrC which advances arcane spellcasting, and it will advance their invocations instead).

Andion Currain, my PC for Savage Tide also has four classes (Psion, Warder, Warblade, and Paladin) but he is gestalt so it is a bit easier for him.

If we go beyond PF1, I had Harman Samm, my 4e Bard from WotBS. I forget how many classes he eventually counted as, but it was a lot (apart form Bard, he was at the very least a Cleric, a Druid, a Warlord, and a Mageblade, but I think there were more). But multiclassing works rather differently in 4e (being feat based), so he did not have actual levels in any of those. And being multiclassed a lot is kinda Bard's hat in 4e (which I just realised was probably a call back to AD&D 1e Bards having to dual-class first).

Reading back through this thread, most of the answers (understandably) assumed the user of the feats in question was not a spellcaster.

Granted, we're talking about pretty niche stuff here, but, e.g., a paladin can cast Blade Tutor's Spirit to eliminate all or almost all (depending on the caster level) of Power Attack's attack penalty. I feel reasonably confident that such a character would benefit more from whipping out a pair of 18-20 crit range weapons (especially if the off-hand weapon is already keen) than if he were using a single two-handed weapon with Power Attack.

Interesting spell. Anyone know, or care to guess, why it mentions Charge amongst things which cause voluntary attack penalties?

A friend and I had a similar idea for a pair of characters for PFS: Worthing and Jake Staughton ("of the Amanantar Staugtons don't you know").

The conceit was that my character was the perfect noble scion of his family, despite being adopted (and a wayang). Whereas my friend's character was a natural born son, but much more at home in the wilds and with little patience for courtly manners. Mechanically, they were a Cavalier and a Hunter respectively.

Sadly, we did not get to play them together very often.

It was possible to gain entry into mystic theurge, then a FAQ came out, over a decade ago I think, and made this impossible.

It is still possible if you take a "Nick Fury" attitude to the FAQ ruling!

To (belatedly) answer the OP: In the case of the Mystic Theurge, it specifically says it provides Spells per Day, Spells Known, and Caster level, so it does. I would heartily recommend treating all caster PrCs the same even if the exact wording suggests otherwise (I am not sure if any actual PF1 PrCs have that issue, but I know some 3.5 ones did).

Personally, I agree with those who said it could have been worded better, whichever interpretation they intended. Both "beast shape II overrides the whole of the first line" and "beast shape II only overrides beast shape I, the other restrictions remain in place" are defensible, based on the actual text.

(Less defensible IMNSHO is that it overrides the size but not the type, or the type but not the size, although I don't think anyone was seriously arguing that).

I guess I would say that, given two defensible interpretations we have to go with the weaker of the two is the actual RAW for whatever that's worth. But I would probably go with the stronger interpretation at my (home) table - anything which encourages people to take familiars and remember they exist is good in my book.

Of thing mentioned already, I am currently running "The Sunless Citadel" and its sequels (up to "Deep Horizon" so far) - although I would barely count it as a conversion. For stuff I cannot pull from the Bestiary, I mostly just use the 3.0 stats as they, and work out CMB/D if they are required. Sometimes I give them an extra feat or two, but I don't always bother.

I have not run The Enemy Within or Night Below yet, but I have both and would like to run them one day in a more recent system (possibly PF1). Since the level ranges about work out, I am toying with the idea of making a campaign of Night Below and The Rod of Seven Parts back to back.

Scimitar looks like a sickle?

A bit. Not a lot.

There is already an actual sickle, so that statement is a bit confusing to me.

Now there is. Back in the seventies when the tradition of druids using scimtars was established, I don't think there was.

And even if there was, it would still have been an agricultural implement with combat stats rather than a proper weapon.

Yes! One of my regular groups only has two players and a GM, and one of the modifications we make to compensate for having only two PCs is to give (slightly more than) one feat per level. Also gestalt and fairly generous ability scores.

But I'm also wondering if there would even need to be a concentration check if he's ignoring the somatic components entirely, as the jacket isn't exactly yanking him around or doing anything to disrupt his concentration beyond binding his arms in place.

(bolding mine.)

Bingo! No Concentration check required IMO. Admittedly it would be better if the item explicitly said that, but it sorta implies it by giving no way to calculate the DC.

- Weapon and Armor Proficiency as Druid (except no scimitar -I don't know why a druid gets that at all).

Because scimitar is the proper weapon which looks most like a sickle, and druids are associated with sickles.

Anyway, I agree with most of the posters above: Some of the wording is a bit vague, and the bits that are not vague are extremely strong. Also, "druizard" is not a great name.

Sorry to be so negative, but there isn't really any way to sugar coat it!

LTTP, but I generally go with "Yes you drop the weapon, but you can pick it up as part of the same Move Action as standing".

(As suggested ciretose 13 years ago, although I am pretty sure we came up with it independently).

Apparently, my first post was in April 2007. So, a while.

Although I did not do much in those early days, as I found the forums really hard to navigate. I am sure if they have got better or I have just got used to them, but they definitely seem easier now.