glass's page

That all said, I do understand folks being frustrated about this.

To be clear; I am not frustrated with you - the decision you made is not the decision I would have preferred, but your reasons make sense.

My only frustration at this point is with other posters who keep trying to add an extra reason which is obvious nonsense. Posters who have, as they say on TVTropes, no sense of scale.

*Fails Will save*

Yeah, but the darklands under the entire world isn't very relevant if 90%+ of content is set in Avistan or northern Garund.

The Darklands just under Avistan and northern Garund is stil enormous.

Canonically, before the drow retcon, the drow controlled every single canon settlement in Sekamina with the exception of one serpentfolk city, one hryngar city, and one ghoul city.

According to PathfinderWiki, that's twelve settlments. That could be off by multiple orders of magnitude, and it would still be a negligible compared with the unexplored space in Sekamina.

If you said that we'd just not visit the areas of the Darklands where the drow are, so they don't need to be retconned, you would be unable to engage with the Sekamina parts of the Darklands (i.e, the bits that are classically the Darklands) under the following metaregions

Nonsense. There is space for unfathomably more tunnels/caves/settlements/points of interest under each one of those areas than ever could be described, let along already has been.

Think how much stuff is on the surface of Avistan, how much has been described, and of how they still have not detailed everything.

Then consider that Sekamina is three-dimensional in a way that the surface world is not, and 6 km deep. So it has vastly more space for stuff, despite having considerably less stuff already described. Admittedly, a lot of that volume is solid stone, but that works for us as much as it works against us - a pair of settlements could be 100 m apart in the Darklands, and each might not even know the other exists.

Continental scale maps do not show everything, even if they are on the same level. And Sekamina could easily have 12 or 24 separate continent-scale maps just under one continent.

Obviously, Paizo have made their decision. I while I might not like it, they may have good reasons (I think Mr Jacobs mentioned concern about drow being missed in freelancer submissions). But "there is no space to do otherwise" is not a good a reason, because it is simply wrong.

Responding to this briefly: personal recommendation for Titan Wrestler implementation into this class is give it to Daredevil as an early level bonus feat (level 1, 3 at latest) and include as text in the class feature that grants it that Daredevil feats that are restricted based on size are also affected by it. You can add an additional addendum saying that at 7 or 13 they can do an extra size over what Titan Wrestler allows for as part of the same rules text without too much issue I feel.

What's the advantage of doing that rather than including the higher limit (or none at all) in the affected feats directly?

I cannot speak for the very latest APs because I have not seen inside them. But for the Paizo products I have seen I haven't noticed any increase in cartoonish-ness. Of course, that might be because I have always thought Paizo artwork was pretty cartoonish.

I think that would end up making the Darklands much more complicated than the 3 levels we have in the setting.

It's already much more complicated than that (and more complicated than can be comprehensively represented). That's a good thing, because it means there is practically unlimted space for both Paizo and individual GMs to add whatever they want to. That was kinda my point.

glass wrote:

I don't see immunity to spirit damage mentioned there (unsurprisingly, as I don't think spirit damage existed prior to the Remaster). Does it inherit it from somewhere?

The definition of Spirit damage which explicitly excludes Constructs.

Well, that's a silly place to hide the rule...why is it not under the Construct keyword, with all the other stuff Constructs are immune to?

(Rhetorical question - I know you guys did not decide to put it there.)

You could not mention them by just not mentioning them - that would not have been what I meant by "gone gone".

I wasn't going to comment again because, while I don't like Paizo's decision on this, I have to respect that it is their business (literally and figuratively). But I'm sorry, his is hogwash.

The darklands is much bigger than north America, being under essentially the entire world. More fundamentally, it is also three-dimensional in a way that surface continents are not - it would be trivial to avoid showing the drow cities on future maps without overwriting them by simply shifting the cutlines they are taken at by a few 10s of metres (100s at the most).

Unicore wrote:

yeah this thread has gone down in a pretty unnecessary hypothetical train derailment. "How would rules we don't really know yet handle a situation that has never happened?"

It is a legacy creature from Age of Ashes that triggered the discussion

Animated Dragonstorms

I don't see immunity to spirit damage mentioned there (unsurprisingly, as I don't think spirit damage existed prior to the Remaster). Does it inherit it from somewhere?

Interesting. I initially thought "surely the Stalker has good Reflex" but you're right, it doesn't. Only Will.

rainzax wrote:

I do have a 4th level PFS character that hasn't purchased a single item yet.

So yeah, naked. And carrying nothing.

=)

Where do you put your Runes ?

Presumably they don't have any (since those would be items that they had purchased.)

Weakness wrote:

a weakness to something that doesn't normally deal damage

I think that does not apply here, as the spell does normally deal damage.

I think the "something" in that sentence is the Holy Tait, which is indeed "something which doesn't normally deal damage".

Add me to the list of people who want information to be provided as text, not videos!

Aside from that, 1-5 strike me as good ideas, that could happen (although AFAIK they haven't in the intervening three years - and Paizo have a bunch of other things they should focus on first). OTOH, 6-7 would be kinda weird.

So weird that a lot of my impactful action with my magus were with spellstrike spells that didn't have the highest damage but other useful effects.

Is this in response to me? Because I don't find that weird at all - but I would venture to suggest that most of those "useful effects" were aiding your allies in dealing big damage, or buying them (and yourself) more time to do so.

Anyway, AIUI what was being objected to is being relegated to mostly Spellstriking with Cantrips, which tend to have less in the way "useful effects" as well as less damage. So it's kinda moot.

The fact that in P1E you could reload as a free action with feats is sorely missed in P2E.

I always thought that that was kinda weird actually - I'd much prefer firearms that could not be reloaded that quickly, but with other rules around them to that made them competitive anyway. But it seems they did neither.

That's just moving the goalpost now. I'm done here.

I am not detecting any goalpost moving in Teridax's posts.

Okay I get it, the only way to play is to do big damage. Goodbye.

Kinda yes?

In a typical campaign, you are going to get into a lot of fights, and PF2 is very unforgiving IME. So either you do "big damage" to the enemy or you die.

Obviously it is possible to play in campaigns with a lot fewer combats than is typical, or with combats which are much easier than the guidelines recommend/APs include. But in those cases, how combat-specific features work doesn't really matter.

glass wrote:

]Are they actually gone gone, in the sense that former drow cities are now not!drow cities. Or are they just not mentioned?

We can't/won't talk about drow going forward in the game so they're indeed gone gone.

You could not mention them by just not mentioning them - that would not have been what I meant by "gone gone". What I was asking was whether you were going to do that, or deliberately overwrite them. From the rest of your reply (and the Archpaladin's), it seems like you are doing the latter.

I mostly play online these days, so I could...but I don't.

Oh wait, you meant the characters?

vyshan wrote:

I assume we are going to be getting information on the Cavern Elves? I assume that the drow cities are gone?

That said, drow are one of the things we left behind when we transitioned to the remastered rules, so they're not a part of Vaultlines.

Are they actually gone gone, in the sense that former drow cities are now not!drow cities. Or are they just not mentioned?

Maya Coleman wrote:

The team does not usually look over charts like this, but thanks for making it and sharing it here! And yes, Tridus is right, the errata is coming soon! I think it's while I'll be out for my surgery next month, but a comment section will still be made so everyone can discuss!

I hope that surgery goes well!

This!

ETA:

For most spontaneous casters this table would be identical to the spell slots one (with class features that add extra ones not included). Bard, for example. Premaster Oracle also worked that way.

I would not be at all surprised if they standardised on "repertoire = slots" because it saved a table's worth of page space (at least in part).

Precision damage is a result of striking precisely. Striking vital points.

It is the result of striking more consistently at vital points. It is not automatically getting your sword fully into said vital points with every attack - if it were, it would bypass HP damage and the subject would be dead or dying after a single Sneak Attack.

(HP damage is not serious injury. If being actually stabbed in something causes no consequences other than losing slight more abstract-stay-in-the-fight-points, then it is hardly "vital" is it?)

Let's extend MuthSera sera interpretation and see what happens:

A bowhead whale has 30 cm/12 inches or more of blubber, which isn't a vital spot. An opponent with a 12-inch or shorter blade can't do Sneak Attack on it, as the blade can't reach a vital spot.
That interpretation is totally against the rules, but it uses the same reasoning that is the basis of MuthSera sera's argument.

While I would not rule that way, that is a semi-reasonable GM call based on the Sneak Attack text. Certainly a lot more reasonable than MuthSera's position on Force Ward.

If the abstraction of HP and this effect is frustrating you, just repeat to yourself, "It's just a game, I should really just relax." ;)

And if that doesn't work, they can try repeating "Hit points are not meat points" instead.

Add me to the list of "Slayer does not seem to have any resemblance to the PF1 Slayer, so should probably be called something else". Either that or make it more like the PF1 Slayer.

Daredevil is fine as by me, though.

If you don't trust your players to not metagame

It is not really a matter of trust. Consistently making the same decision you would make if you did not know something when you do is basically impossible, so of course I do not trust anyone (including myself) to do that. And even if it were possible, it would be aggressively anti-fun.

It is obviously not possible for a player to completely avoid knowledge that their character does not have. But it is always worthwhile IMO to do so as far as possible, especially in cases such as these where it is super easy.

A lot of the time, just looking at the token/mini/listening to a description tells you that. Constructs are largely obvious from the description.

There is a world of difference between seeing something that looks like a Construct and deciding to assume that it is a Construct, and the GM effectively confirming (or perhaps more significantly, denying) it.

This seems like a step in the right direction, both for Weakness/Resistance specifically and the errata process in general.

I will look forward to seeing the full revised wording.

I agree the player can nominate multiple skills, no problem there. And if the player is vague (as in they say any skill I'm trained in) and are cool with the GM rolling whatever their best trained applicable skill is, then great.

Then I do't think we have any real disagreement.

But as a GM, you still have to choose 1 skill for that 1 roll that you're looking at. Because a failure means they learn nothing and can't try more

Sure, but that is mathematical, deterministic. I do not really consider it a choice, which is why was not thinking of the GM's side when I said you did not have to choose.

If what you're saying/doing is: "I have a macro"

No macros, I'm analogue!

At every table I've run or played at, it's been:

Player: "Hey, I want to ID this thing. What's the relevant skill?"
GM: "Arcana or Crafting."

The trouble is, by saying "Arcana or Crafting" you have pretty-much confirmed it is a Construct, and the player has not even committed to the action yet, let alone rolled the check. Not all combinations of Skills will be quite such a giveaway, but others will be worse ("Yes, you can use Vampire Lore").

I suppose you could roll multiple skills, but why? Unless you're using a macro it's a waste of time.

I don't use macros (or VTTs at all). It takes a second or two longer for the player to say for example "any Skill I am at least Trained in" orather than "Arcana", and it takes maybe a fraction of a second longer to look across the PC's list of RK/IM skills and apply whichever yields the best combination of bonus and DC, rather than just rolling a single skill.

Which is still much quicker (and less spoiler-ish) of negotiating over a skill.

And the rules literally say:

Quote:

You attempt a skill check to try to remember a bit of knowledge regarding a topic related to that skill. Suggest which skill you'd like to use and ask the GM one question. The GM determines the DC. You might need to collaborate with the GM to narrow down the question or skills, and you can decide not to Recall Knowledge before committing to the action if you don't like your options.

Okay, maybe my procedure is slighly more in the realm of house rules than I realised (I have not gone through the Remastered version of RK in detail, because I was happy with the procedure established beforehand). Nonetheless, whether or not what I do is strictly RAW, I promise you that it is possible. Because I do it, and it works.

You don't necessarily have to narrow it down to a single applicable skill, but essentially you do narrow it down to which 1 skill you're going to roll.

I, as GM, narrow it down to one skill from those the player has nominated. The player doesn't have to - they can choose "any skill I am at least Trained in" or "any Int-based skill" or "Arcana or Occult" or even "just Religion" if they like.

And there's just no logical way to resolve multiple rolls for the same single roll knowledge action.

I mean, there would be. But that's kinda irrelevant, as I never said "multiple rolls" I said multiple skills (on the player end).

It's generally understood that if you fail a check to Recall Knowledge, you can't keep making checks to learn more information with that skill (sorry I couldn't find the source to quote it). But what if you have multiple related lore skills, such as Giant Lore and the more specific Troll Lore? Can you make new checks using the other lore skill after you've failed the other?

Like a few other people, I don't make players pick a single skill for RK, so it would never arise. But either way, failure means no more checks.

It's not strictly RAW, but I do allow a further check after a crit-fail (on the grounds that neither the player nor the character knows they've crit failed, so they don't know not to try again).

For you naysayers, how on Golarion do your players make use of things like hyperconition or true hypercognition at your table?

It has never come up that I recall (ha!), but I don't see a problem with it. The spell says you make six checks, so you make six checks (even if you fail some). Specific beats general.

But from a game mechanics point of view, we have to choose 1 skill to roll.

Why do we?

In cases like this where the relevant skills are unknown and unknowable until after the check is passed, why can't we pick any or all skills? That's what we do at my table, and it works fine. It may not be spelled out in RAW, but it doesn't contradict it either (unlike your "free-action size up" narrowing down creature keywords AFAIK).

Would anyone like to see Archetypes for specific Ancestries in 2e Pathfinder if there aren't any already? I honestly wouldn't mind seeing a 2e take on the Dhampir Kinslayer or Elf Treesinger.

I think an archetype should be locked to a particular ancestry if, and only if, it involves using a physical, biological feature unique (or nearly so) to that ancestry. Which is a high bar - as others have said, archetypes that rely on something common like wings can just say that.

Claxon wrote:

as a GM I like the secret rolls and the misinformation on critical failures.

As a player I hate this with a fiery passion, as a GM I "only" intensely hate it.

I am kinda the opposite - I loathe having to come up with plausible-but-false information everyone crit-fails a RK check (which happens a lot, because the DCs are so high).

I don't mind it so much as a player (although TBF I have GMed a lot more PF2 than I have played). The players in my Abomination Vaults game do not seem to mind it too much either (although I would go so far as to say I like it).

Part of me wants to house-rule it out. But I don't want to invalidate all the stuff that builds on it, plus I am wary of house-ruling things back to how they were in PF1.

A thing that I just noticed: The Bastion of Blasphemies product page says that it is the "perfect follow-up" for a completed Troubles in Grayce. But according to its product page the latter had six adventures worth 1 level each, putting you at seventh if you finish it, while Bastion... starts at level 5. Is one of the pages in error, or is there something else going on?

As someone who never interacted with the official Golarion setting until 2021 I have no idea what Bastardhall is.

I have been playing in Golarion a lot longer than that, and until this thread I had never heard of it either....

Bastardhall is a castle in eastern Ustalav that sits on an island in the middle of Lake Laroba. It is the seat of the Arudora noble family. Several hundred years ago (4213 AR), a mysterious visiter arrived at the castle, and shortly thereafter the Black Coach departed the castle and abducted nearby villagers. Every 100 years since then, the Coach departs the castle looking for new prey.

...so thank you!

Apart from the "black coach" bit, it sounds kinda like Scarwall from CotCT (which I would be continuing to explore tonight if the session had not been cancelled, *grumble grumble*). But I guess the specific will be pretty different.

BTW, it is "currently" 4726 AR, right? So 513 years ago?

I agree! And if you read my posts carefully, you will see that I have the agreed the entire time. The problem is that my players don't, even after reading this thread.

So what's the problem? Tell them you're the GM and you're going with your interpretation of the rules (they can consider it a house rule if they prefer).

Or if you prefer, tell them you're going with their interpretation of the rules. If people occasionally have to come out of delay earlier than they would by RAW, that a minor annoyance at worst AFAICT.

Paizo could solve this problem in five minutes with a FAQ entry

FAQ entries take a lot longer than five minutes, and with their various tribulations lately, Paizo do not have the bandwidth address imaginary rules problems (they do not seem to have the bandwidth to address real rules problems in a timely matter). If the fact that someone somewhere could possibly misread a particular rule was enough to generate an FAQ entry, the FAQ would be near infinite. Because someone somewhere can always misread any given rule, no matter how clear you try to make it.

I do not understand how this sort of reception is supposed to help the game, or Paizo, but we should be trying to do better than "if it isn't a problem for me, then it isn't a problem."

What reception? People saying that you can Delay into the next round, and that the rules are fairly clear on that score? Given that you can and they are, I'd say that's exactly the sort of reception you should expect.

glass wrote:

Unlikely, given that the non-Vancian Psychic is pretty clearly less well regarded than the Vancian Cleric or Druid.

They're all running on fundamentally the same basic mechanics, so this distinction isn't really important.

The distinction between Vancian and non-Vancian casting is not "really important" to the question is whether Vancian casting is the root of casters' problems? I am lost for words.

Object: Part of the issue is general english usage & technical terms.

1) The wall is a spell effect and has a duration. If I had to use a phrase, at best it is a "temporary object".
2) Spell descriptions scroll down to Conjuration school and then creation. Creation: A creation spell manipulates matter to create an object or creature in the place the spellcaster designates. If the spell has a duration other than instantaneous, magic holds the creation together, and when the spell ends, the conjured creature or object vanishes without a trace. If the spell has an instantaneous duration, the created object or creature is merely assembled through magic. It lasts indefinitely and does not depend on magic for its existence. Here RAW considers the Wall of Lava held together by magic which makes it not the usual object.

(Bolding mine.) You appear to have inadvertently proved that the wall is in fact an object (it is certainly not a creature, and those are the only options).

It may not be "the usual object" but object possession does not care about "usual"-ness, just whether it is an object (and its size).

if this was a "Yes" it would have a lot of implications, like possessing Create Pit:C2.

What exactly is an is not an object is not well defined, and before I saw your post above I would not have considered create pit's pit to be one, but it seems like technically it is.

That obviously has the potential to lead to some oddities. But since the pit an absence rather than a presence, if you possessed it there would be no body to become an animated object, which would seem to aleviate most of them.

Quote:

The wall Once per round as a move action, you can direct the wall of lava to erupt. so it cannot be considered unattended.

I find that persuasive. Thanks one & all.

Whether it is unattended is a better question than whether it is an object. I'd love to be shown otherwise, but I don't believe there is ever a concrete definition of "attended". But ISTM that it is generally used to mean worn, carried, or wielded - being magically controlled from a distance does not seem to cut it.

As a GM, I would not let you possess the wall of lava.

You could attempt to possess the BBEG, but that's not what you meant.

Not with object possession, presumably? (Unless the BBEG is actually a construct.)

Wow, that generated a lot of discussion. It answered my question pretty comprehensively, so thanks everyone!

BTW, this should probably be in Rules Questions. Flagged.

The spell wall of lava is Conjuration (Creation), so I would say that its effect is an object. It is debatable whether it counts as unattended object, but I think it probably does. However, it is definitely not a construct.

Therefore IMNSHO, you can cast greater object possession on it, but you'll get the standard object-possession version with the CP, not the control construct version.

Back in AD&D 2e, the Monstrous Compendia were in 3-ring binders, so you could arrange them however you like.

...in theory. In practice, I would often struggled to arrange them as I wanted because they were often quite wide-ly spaced creatures on either side of the same sheet. I'm not sure if the OP's project will have the same issue.

A cat is a quadruped.

Yes, but it cannot usually stand on its rear feat. It could maybe pop up and swipe with both front claws simultaneously then immediately put them back down, but it certainly isn't biting while it does that.

Unless you think it attacks with diagonally opposite front and back claws? Which would be covered by my "or at least make them weird".

Do you think that a Thunderbird would stand on its wings to claw with its legs?

No, I think it attacks with one leg, puts it down, and then attacks with the other. Remember that the cat example was in service of not adding an unstated requirement for full attacks to be simultaneous.

Apparently, Paizo thought that you had to use at least some of your legs to stand.

The one silver lining to PFS's (otherwise quite sad) decline is that I no longer have to worry about what random nonsense Paizo decide to put in the FAQ. I'll just stick with the actual rules in the actual rulebooks.

We finished chapter 9 (I think) of Savage Tide last night, and will be rotating back to Strange Aeons next Sunday. Meanwhile on Thursdays, we are continuing to explore Scarwall in Curse of the Crimson Throne.

I am a player in all those. I am running Abomination Vaults on Thursdays and we will be rotating back to that after we finish the current chapter of CotCT. But that's PF2.

As I see it, it breaks down like this:

Defending says "the weapon's enhancement bonus" in the singular and doesn't address multiple overlapping enhancement bonuses on the same weapon (even though almost every defending weapon will be masterwork so will have at least two). So the solid RAW answer the OP was looking for probably does not exist.

You could read "its enhancement bonus" as "one of its enhancement bonuses" or "its built-in enhancement bonus" (in which case the GMW trick wholly or partly works, respectively) or you could read it as "the enhancement bonus it is actually applying to attacks" (in which case it mostly doesn't). GM's call either way.

That in turn has a knock-on effect on how it works with the AoMF. If it is "built-in" then such an amulet is useless. Either of the other calls make it functional.

Personally, I would go with "the enhancement bonus actually applying to attacks" except that I would allow user to keep the masterwork enhancement if they completely traded the magical enhancement bonus(es). But that last part is straying into house rule territory, however you read the RAW.

Amulet of Mighty Fists CL5 Alternatively, this amulet can grant melee weapon special abilities, so long as they can be applied to unarmed attacks.

Defending CL8 (+1) This ability can only be placed on melee weapons.
there seems to be a RAW disconnect in the verbiage.

Not seeing any disconnect there. Unarmed strike is a melee weapon.

Consider a Thunderbird.

2 claws attack, 1 bite. It requires a full round action to use its attacks, but with your interpretation, it needs to land to make a full attack.
If it lands, it is standing on those two legs, so even with a lenient interpretation, it can make only 1 claw attack. They aren't iterative attacks, so they are done at the same time.

While I agree that hovering is not (and should not be) an action, I don't think this really illustrates it. I am not aware of any requirement for attacks within a full attack to be simultaneous, and it would break a bunch of things if there were (or at least make them weird).

For example, cats cannot usually fly, and also need their paws to stand on. Does that mean a cat can never use both their claw attacks?

This is getting exhausting. I am not going to waste time or the energy doing yet another point-by-point response (it mostly the same mix of true-but-irrelevant and utter nonsense that I have already debunked, so you can just look at my previous posts for the rebuttal). But there were a couple of things I wanted to respond to specifically:

Pointless sniping about capitalization of words at the start of sentences as per standard English punctuation aside

I decide how my name is spelled, not you. You got it wrong, and I corrected you. That is not sniping, and it has nothing to do with punctuation.

I do not believe I have ever got your name wrong, but if I ever did and you called me on it I would not accuse you of "sniping". Instead, I would apologise and try to get it right in future. I guess that illustrates the difference between us pretty well.

a commitment to take a feat later is not a dedication feat.

This is an excellent example of what I meant by "true but irrelevant". It is obviously true, we all know it's true, I never suggested otherwise, and it has no bearing on the argument. So why say it, other than to make an already-long post longer and more tiring to respond to?

The second part is an inference with no textual support from the rules.

And this is an example of the nonsense. It is an inference, from the rules that make them incompatible. There doesn't need to be an extra rule that says "it is illegal to take these incompatible options" for this combo, any more than there is for any other pair of incompatible options you could name. The fact they are incompatible, according to their own rules, is sufficient.

"It is illegal to combine options with incompatible requirements" is the default (a default I am sure you would agree with in the vast majority of cases), not just for PF2 but for any rules system where you select options. You are the one claiming the default does not apply here, so the burden of proof is yours. I don't have to produce a citation to prove it is illegal, you have to produce one to prove it is legal. And you have not done that (because, I strongly suspect, you cannot do that).

I suppose I was the first one to use the word intent so that must mean it's automatically a non-sequitur on my end though.

No, not just because you were the first to use the specific word "intent". Because I never talked about the concept of intent using any words, except to tell you more than once that that had nothing to do with what I was talking about. Even in the paragraph you tried to cherry pick to make it look like I had said intent mattered, I didn't actually say anything of the sort!

I have used the word "know" from time to time, but I already acknowledged that that was an imperfect shorthand at least some of the times I used it. And anyway, knowing is not the same as intending.

Yeah... Magus has this weird thing like the Gunslinger where playing the subclasses as intended can actually just make you weaker than if you just didn't. The subclasses tighten your options rather than expand them.

I wanted to ask for more details on this, but it would be drifting off-topic so I started a new thread for the question. If Kitusser (or anyone else) would like to follow me over there, that'd be great.

Not being overly familiar with magi or gunslingers in PF2, I wanted ask about something from the Psychic Support thread. Since it doesn't really have anything to do with psychics, I thought it was better to do so in a new thread (although I will link this thread from there once it is up).

Yeah... Magus has this weird thing like the Gunslinger where playing the subclasses as intended can actually just make you weaker than if you just didn't. The subclasses tighten your options rather than expand them.

So, which subclasses are we talking about? And what are the issues with them? What do they do and/or not do?

Glass, my point about class archetypes is that when you actually take the class archetype, at level one, you do not receive the dedication feat.

As previous covered multiple times, this is true but irrelevant. You don't get the Dedication at L1, but you do have to commit to it at L1. And it's "glass" not "Glass"!

There’s nothing that prohibits gaining an ability that says you must later take a dedication in the dedication rules.

Look at you own wording there: "must". If you take the archetype, you "must" take the Dedication feat at L2. Therefore, if you cannot take the Dedication feat at L2, you cannot take the archetype. That's pretty basic!

“Dedication lockout” doesn’t do shit until level two.

In most circumstances, it doesn't do anything until L4, but that is not a hard and fast rule. In this case, it matters right from level 1.

And as for the new player thing, that’s my point exactly. It’s useless to argue about intent or whatever because we both know that if someone without any intent did it you wouldn’t think it was fine then.

You don't get to say "that’s my point exactly" when your point has nothing to do with mine. I never mentioned intent, so your bringing it up is a non-sequitur. If your point was really exactly my point, obviously you'd be agreeing with me! EDIT: I mean, obviously you literally can say it (you did). But it doesn't help with communication or advance your position.

ETA:

SuperParkourio wrote:

I think the heritage should allow a class dedication feat in addition to multiclass feats.

I agree and that is how I intend to run it should it ever come up at my table.

I might actually do the same thing.

Anyone insisting that this should result in an illegal build is looking for a problem rather than a solution.

Obviously, if you house rule it to be legal, it's legal. Were you expecting someone to argue otherwise?

I do not get how asking for an incompatibility to be more clearly delineated in the RAW is bad for the people who already get it.

Is this aimed at me? Because I don't think it would be bad per se, I was just pushing back against the idea that it was necessary. There is no rules problem to fix.

You can improve the wording of just about anything, and sometimes it is worth heading off potential misunderstandings even if not structly necessary. If enough people genuinely believed they were compatible, then that would be something to look at (but note that that is not happening in this thread - the people I have been arguing with acknowledge that they are incompatible, but then bafflingly insist that you can take them both anyway).

Anyway, let's be honest, Paizo does not have the bandwidth at the moment to be tweaking the wording of things that already work when there are things that literally do not. (How many spells does an oracle know?)

EDIT: Wow, that's a mammoth post. Lets see if I can do something about that....EDITX: Spoiler tags were behaving weirdly, but I think it's working now....

I do think your (and others') demand for a specific rule telling you that you cannot take incompatible options is unreasonable, which is why I keep trying to show you that it is the default. My analogies have been imperfect (or in one case, flat out wrong), but the underlying point they are trying to convey is solid.

TLDR: While I have not always expressed it perfectly, my position has always been and remains that class archetypes and Ancient Elf have incompatible commitments that you enter into when you select them at level 1. As such, they are an illegal combination. Illegal combinations not working together is not a rules problem, it is a normal part of the rules. Asking for this specific combination to be explicitly called out as illegal when the incompatibility already makes it so is unreasonable special pleading.

glass wrote:

There is no paradox, there is no rules hole, there is no problem. The unsupportable claim that there is does not become any less nonsensical with repetition.

A legal 1st level character can become illegal at 2nd...

No, it cannot. Because you select both the class archetype and the heritage at first level, and you know at first level that they are incompatible. So it is already an illegal combination when you select it. How and when that incompatibility would manifest is irrelevant, because you can never get to that point.

All I have been arguing for "you cannot take two options with mutually incompatible requirements". It should be obvious and uncontroversial. It is the opposite if nonsense.

glass wrote:

Good thing I never said "Just don't use it" then, eh?

That's exactly what you said.

glass wrote:

It is trivially solved by not taking the illegal combination in the first place.

Please stop deceptively editing my posts. Yes, I said that you cannot take two incompatible options on the same character, and I stand by that. "It" in context was the singular option you straw manned me as saying you should not take so you could pretend my argument led to ridiculous conclusions; a distinction I further clarified in the sentence immediately after the one you quoted.

EDIT: I have just had a look through your other recent posts and they all look pretty reasonable. What the hell happened to you in this thread?

I would not say I am worried - Paizo have had some pretty bad issues recently, but there are reasons to be cautiously hopeful that things will things will improve (now that the Remaster process is finally pretty much done, hopefully things should be a bit less rushed).

If they do, I will continue to buy their products as interest and cash flow allows. If not, I'll spend my money elsewhere. Either way, it's not something worth worrying about.

OTOH, I will admit to being a little sad about what has happened to PFS. And that aspect doesn't seem likely to turn around any time soon.

glass wrote:

People keep talking about "two conflicting rules directives" as if this is an unsolvable problem, but it just isn't. It is trivially solved by not taking the illegal combination in the first place.

'Just don't use it' is a terrible argument that could be used excuse literally ANY error or needed errata.

Good thing I never said "Just don't use it" then, eh? Indeed, I could not have, because there is no singular "it" for me to tell people not to use. We are talking about a combination of two things (which AFAIK are unproblematic individually), not a single item.

My arguments in this thread are unlikely to have any general applicability, because these arguments do not come up often. Not because the situations don't come up often: "Options A and B are perfectly legal individually but illegal in combination" is common as dirt. But normally everyone just accepts that and moves on, rather than pretending there is some terrible rules problem with that incompatibility.

And if people do start talking about there being a problem with selecting incompatible options, I am fine with "don't" being general advice for those cases.

Ascalaphus wrote:

I don't consider this an error needing errata.

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing for it needing errata, just that there is an odd hole in the rules that can cause a paradox.

There is no paradox, there is no rules hole, there is no problem. The unsupportable claim that there is does not become any less nonsensical with repetition.