graystone's page

Requiring an at-table edit to the statblock of a creature to use its specific abilities as written seems like an oversight to me? But Paizo can decide.

What edit? the ability works 100% with Strikes and gets a bonus if it happens to have a magic item that matches the ability. I'm not seeing any "at-table edit" needed. Worst case, it's an unused ribbon ability that doesn't take away from its use with Strikes at Sense range. the change to remaster is only the lose of using Touch of Idiocy with the ability.

graystone wrote:

Yep, that thread goes over it with pretty much just Themetricsystem disagreeing. I stand that threads posts.

PS: by the way, you really mangled the link. As is, it's non-functional as you left the default link and just slapped on the new oneto the end of the default one.

I keep messing those links up.

I messed it up in other posts too.

It happens, the formating can get me too. I sometime wrongly attribute a quote when i copy/paste from multiple people. ;)

Yep, that thread goes over it with pretty much just Themetricsystem disagreeing. I stand that threads posts.

PS: by the way, you really mangled the link. As is, it's non-functional as you left the default link and just slapped on the new oneto the end of the default one.

Spellstriker staff actually has a shifting rune and so you would look at the shifting rune entry to see what a shifting rune does which tells you what remains when you activate it.

But, once again, it make NO mention of losing anything magical either for the item or the rune. As it's a specific weapon that can change its shape, it'd be logical to make a callout if using it would remove it's abilities, especially as the rune doesn't do so explicitly.

And as I argued before and have not been corrected by any rule the qualities of a staff are also being changed when the weapon changes its shape.

The WEAPON traits change, the Staff trait was not. The onus is on you to show something changes, as the base assumption is things don't change unless an explicit rule does so. So you haven't proved your theory and are using a Burden of Proof Fallacy (argumentum ad ignorantiam), where someone claims something exists and puts the onus on others to disprove it. It's shifting the burden of proving a rule [that the magic of staves mysteriously vanished when its shape changes] to others instead of actually proving that they do. Nothing about altering it's weapon properties infers that it's non-weapon properties changes: nothing says its Staff trait is removed or altered.

They are statistics of the item and now its a different item for a time.

It has different weapon stats: full stop. It in no way mentions anything else changing.

Just like the spystaff has to explicitly tell us it keeps its staff statistics even when it changes using its activation ability.

I don't think that's saying what you think it's saying. Note that it says the "The staff’s statistics don’t change" and not 'The Staff Trait don’t change.' This means you can change it into a Musical Instrument and it still counts as a staff weapon. What it does NOT say is that it keeps the Staff trait or that it retains it's magical abilities. You keep conflating staff and Staff: you can have a staff that isn't a Staff and you can have a Staff that isn't a staff.

Thing is the shifting rune description doesn't say you keep magical features of the items original form and there isn't a rule that tells us it should.

You that that backwards. It would need to tell you something is lost for it to happen: why do you think it vanishes without an explicit call out? it's like saying 'you lose your spell slots because you because someone cast Shrink on you'. There is as much rules to back that up as there is to say 'your staff loses magic because it changes to another weapon'. For there to be an effect in the game, there has to be a rule to back it up.

Shifting is explicitly describing its functions and makes no mention of other abilities: the fact that it doesn't go into things outside it's function doesn't point to anything but a narrow description of its effect: it HAS to mention runes and any precious material because those can change with its shape [a normally metal weapon can change into a normally wood weapon and runes can require a specific type of weapon to work on]. Nothing in shifting effects it's other magic, so its not mentioned.

EDIT: I also noticed that the Spellstriker Staff, the staff with Shifting in it, makes no mention of losing anything when shifted. You'd think that'd be an important call out if losing them was a stealth rule in the game.

Ok what I mean is the staff trait is a statistic of the item.

The shifting rune transforms the item to a different one. I am assuming all the statistics of the new item are adopted and all the statistics of the original are lost until it shifts back. That would include any traits it had, I dont see a reason why the staff trait should remain.
There is no mention about resitricting the statsitics of the item that are changeable to damage dice

Shifting is changing it's physical shape, not it's magic. The Staff Trait is tied to its magical properties, not its shape. Where did you get the idea that shape influences an items magic unless stated otherwise? I sure don't recall seeing that in any of the rule books.

For instance, if your Wand got turned into a dagger, can you point to a book and page where it says that it loses its magical powers and traits because of that? IMO, the effect changing something would have to explicitly state that it loses things or no lose happens.

[Free-Hand] is indeed a specific exception to holding rules here, going by the wording.

Quote:

This weapon doesn’t take up your hand

Yes, but it does NOT say it's not held in the hand, just that it doesn't take it up. Those are 2 different things. You, by definition, can not wield a weapon that isn't held and you also can't change a weapon using the Shifting rune to a weapon with a different Hands, which is defined as the number of hands it's held in. So, yeah, you're holding a gauntlet in your hand.

Remember, holding an item takes up your hand(s), and as you pointed out, wielding an item means holding it. [Free-Hand] specifies that you can use the [Free-Hand] weapon's hand to wield other objects, which implies that free-hand weapons don't actually take up a hand (on the grounds that mechanically, you can only hold one item per hand, so [Free-Hand] weapons must logically be treated as "not held" when worn but not wielded). And most significantly...

I remember holding NORMALLY takes up a hand, but free-hand gives an exception to taking up the hand, but it doesn't give an acception to holding. All being able to wield another weapon proves is that you can hold more than 1 weapon in a hand, which isn't even limited to free-hand weapons. For instance, you can wield a hand crossbow in the same hand as you wield a Bayonet.

(Most relevant parts italicised.)

The trait kinda explicitly states that free-hand weapons are worn and not actually wielded, but are treated as if they were wielded when your hand is otherwise unoccupied.

So, yeah, the trait kiiinda explicitly states that you don't hold [Free-Hand] weapons. It's not even a house rule or anything, it's flat-out stated in the trait description. ;P

All that implies is that it's talking about wielding something other than the free-hand weapon. Taking up the hand isn't the same as held by the hand or preventing the hand from holding something else. For instance read Nimble Shield:

"You are so used to wielding a shield that you can do so even while using the hand that’s holding it for other tasks that require the dexterity of a hand. The hand you use to wield a shield counts as a free hand for the purposes of the Interact action. You can also hold another object in this hand (but you still can’t use it to wield a weapon)."

As you can see, you can hold multiple objects at once in a single hand.

EDIT: actually, you could hold 3 things with nimble shield, your shield, a shield weapon [like a shield spike] and a held item, like a torch.

Right those specifically have the staff trait which makes them staves.

right, and so too would a staff shifted into another form. Nothing removes the staff trait from a staff in another form. The Staff trait has nothing to do with it's weapon stats.

How does a shifting rune handle weapons traits, do they stay the same?

How do you mean? there is no 'weapon' staff trait. The magic item trait is "Staff: This magic item holds spells of a particular theme and allows a spellcaster to cast additional spells by preparing the staff." Why would anything change there?

As to it as a weapon, that changes with the form. If your staff is currently in dagger form, it uses dagger weapon stats. The answer is exactly the same as the answer to any other weapon with a Shifting rune on it.

I am curious though. Why would anyone still allow a staff to operate as a staff if a shifting rune was activated and now its an axe or a spiked gauntlet or any other weapons.

Its no longer a staff at that point right?

Entertainer's Lute is a lute that is a staff. Pipes of Compulsion are pipes that are a staff. Trickster's Mandolin is a mandolin that is a staff. Seer's Flute is a flurt that's a staff. Drums of War are drums that are a staff. Bagpipes of Turmoil are bagpipes that are staves. Musket Staff of the Void and Musket Staff of Force are a musket that's a staff. Spy Staff can change into a handheld accessory but keeps the same stats. Spellstriker Staff has the Shifting rune.

Having a staff shape sure doesn't seem like a requirement to me.

Wouldn’t that be the linguistic trait, not the auditory? It seems like part of the problem here is that the auditory trait includes the need for the caster to be able to make the noise, where as the visual and olfactory traits don’t have that same requirement.

"You might need to attempt a Deception or Performance check to mimic the creature, as determined by the GM."

Lie has Auditory, Concentrate, Linguistic, Mental, and Secret. Performance Act is Auditory, Linguistic, and Visual. If anything, I'd say the spell should add Linguistic, not remove Auditory. The thing to remember is that there is no need to speak in an identifiable language, the requirement for Linguistic. They could grunt, clear their throat, click their tongue, ect that doesn't require a specific language but conveys their meaning and/or fits their character. Linguistic would be a nested optional Trait that is only needed if another nested optional Trait, Auditory, is used So I can't see removing Auditory. The vast majority of things with Linguistic also include Auditory and I'd argue that the few that don't, should.

Illusory Creature: "The image can't speak, but you can use your actions to speak through the creature, with the spell disguising your voice as appropriate. You might need to attempt a Deception or Performance check to mimic the creature, as determined by the GM. This is especially likely if you're trying to imitate a specific person and engage with someone that person knows." This is why it has Auditory.

In this case, wouldn't the correct solution be to just rule that using a staff requires you to hold it in one hand? If players want to make it a gauntlet, then all power to them! They just can't actually use it as a staff unless it's actually a staff.

Gauntlet has Hands listed as 1, so technically it uses as many hands as a dagger does. This would NEED to be the case to use Shifting to turn anything into a Gauntlet because the Effect is "The weapon takes the shape of another melee weapon that requires the same number of hands to wield" and "You’re wielding an item any time you’re holding it in the number of hands needed to use it effectively."

You can't rule you aren't holding a freehand weapon because otherwise you could never wield them.

Looking at the new dragonblood stuff in the Codex, and I'm curious if you can use natural weapons from other sources to enable feats? ie; if I'm a werecrocodile and grapple someone with my bite, can I benefit from Energize Bite or does it have to specifically be the dragonblood's heritage jaws? Same question can be applied to claws, tails, wings, etc.

Unless something calls for a specific attack, any of the required type will work. Energize Bite asks for a Jaw attack only so any Jaw attack works.

For an instance with requirements, look at Lizardfolk Envenom Fangs feat. It requires Iruxi Armaments even if they somehow got Fangs from someplace else, they still need the feat that grants unarmed attacks [though technically you could opt to not take Fang from Iruxi Armaments if you had Fang already and pick another unarmed attack].

Focus spells are good!

Well SOME focus spells are good. Some are really, really bad and a lot more are just mediocre. There are focus spells that are more valuable for the extra focus point they give than the actual spell itself.

Is this correct?

Seems so. Assured Ritualist modifies a secondary check and Flexible Ritualist allows you to make one of those.

My takeaway is that Psychic Dedication needs to give Timber Sentinel.

Only if we can Amp it. ;)

i think cursebound status continues after a combat ends. So you go into the next encounter with whatever cursebound level you left at unless you lower it somehow inbetween.

So with the loop i described you could enter a boss fight at cursebound 4 and then decide how long to keep it up before consuming it all for the strong ability. Like maybe you want it at 4 for the scaling focus spell I suggested then next round consume your cursebound levels to unleash the powerful ability. Also you risk a bit too because your curse at level 4 can be dangerous, but you have a method to lower it too.
This conception of the oracle makes curse and mystery management at the adventuring day level across its multiple encounters.

It can continue but "You remain cursebound until you Refocus, which reduces your cursebound condition by 1 in addition to restoring a Focus Point." This means you aren't likely to walk into a fight with all of your focus points and cursebound 4 unless you aren't using focus spells which seems like a fairly big loss.

I don't want this.

Add me to the list too. They finally made an oracle with a curse that I don't mind interacting with so I'd rather not move it back to one I'd hate.

Why are bucklers just wrist-shields? Bucklers are not wrist-shields. They're small, light, dueling shields. You still hold them in one hand. They should not be "free-hand" shields. If anything, they should just be a +1 AC shield with an agile shield bash (so as to ensure it still has a niche.) If they need more than that, then maybe they can shield bash and raise as a single action, but I think that'd be pushing it.

If you want to preserve the niche of a free-hand shield, fine. Just call it a wrist-shield or wrist-guard, not a buckler.

Traditional bucklers would be more likely weapons with the Parry trait.

IMO:
Buckler
Agile, Finesse, Parry, Shove
Damage 1d4 B; Bulk L
Hands 1
Type Melee; Category Simple; Group Brawling

The current buckler is closest to a lantern shield, a free hand shield. As such, you can always call it that if you want a real life free hand shield.

From dev Sayre:

"the 9th-level liturgist ability is intentionally "a move action with style while you Sustain". (And as others have noted, it's not literally all Strides, because it won't work with e.g. quicken effects that let you Stride.)"

That ability is "Dancing Invocation (9th) The movement of your body grants power to your magic. When you Leap, Step, or Tumble Through, you also Sustain an apparition spell or vessel spell." The discussion was about Tumble Through and the ability to get jumps high enough to equal or exceed Strides.

It's 100% intended that Tumble Through can be just a Stride with style. here are some threads about Tumble Through about this very thing.

Reddit Tumble Through thread

Paizo Tumble Through thread

graystone wrote:

Cozened wrote:

Tumble Through:

Specifies that the player moves through a square occupied by an enemy who is unwilling.

It in fact does not say that. "You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy." They CAN try to move through an enemy, not that they must. You may use the Tumble Through action to simply Stride and never attempt to move through anyone's space.

pg. 422, PC2:

You can move through the space of a willing creature. If you want to move through an unwilling creature’s space, you can Tumble Through it. You can’t end your turn in a square occupied by another creature, though you can end a move action in its square provided that you immediately use another move action to leave that square. If two creatures end up in the same square by accident, the GM determines which one is forced out of the square (or whether one falls prone).

And? Just because it says "If you want to move through an unwilling creature’s space, you can Tumble Through it" in no way REQUIRES there be an unwilling creature to use it. It's a section named "Moving Through a Creature’s Space" so why would you expect it to mention uses that do not involve "Moving Through a Creature’s Space"? The ACTUAL entry for Tumble Through gives the actual requirements for using it. That says "You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy" and not you must try to move through the space of one enemy.

This has been confirmed by Dev posts: they described Tumble Through as a Stride with style and it can 100% be used as just a Stride and qualify for things that require Tumble Through.

Tumble Through:

Specifies that the player moves through a square occupied by an enemy who is unwilling.

It in fact does not say that. "You Stride up to your Speed. During this movement, you can try to move through the space of one enemy." They CAN try to move through an enemy, not that they must. You may use the Tumble Through action to simply Stride and never attempt to move through anyone's space.

Question: Is Tumble Through necessary; can it be done simply to gain Panache when the square is not occupied by a creature who can demonstrate willingness or unwillingness for the other to move through it?

"A corporeal and an incorporeal creature can pass through one another, but they can’t end their movement in each other’s space." This answers it all: there is no check asked for with this movement.

No archetypes have feats other than their dedication at level 2.

That's not true.

Aldori Duelist has Dueling Acumen, a skill feat, that's 2nd, meaning that they can finish it at 4th level without needing free archetype.

Curse Maelstrom has Familiar Oddities as a 2nd level skill feat.

Herbalist has Fresh Ingredients as a 2nd level skill feat.

Mind Smith has Malleable Movement as a 2nd level skill feat.

Martial Artist has Powder Punch Stance as a 2nd level feat.

Red Mantis Assassin has Twin Feint as a 2nd level feat.

Tattooed Historian has Agent of All Holds as a 2nd level feat.

Trick Driver has Express Driver as a 2nd level skill feat.

The result is that with Free Archetype you can buy your way out of many Archetypes at 4th level by spending your 4th level Class feat on an Archetype feat

Several don't even need free archetype: skill feats 2nd to 4th allow it too. In just the A's:

Alter Ego has a 3rd level skill feat, Archaeologist and Artillerist has a 4th level skill feat.

I know I always force my player monks to only use kick unarmed attacks when using Flying Kick and Fist attacks when using Elemental Fist and One-inch Punch. I wouldn't want to ignore flavor text cuz it would NEVER lead me wrong... What kind of madness would ensue if they could punch with a flying kick! :P

I meant that food definitely isn't free in the system, and firewood could be.

And I meant that you're talking about something that's LOWER than the smallest coin in the game. A poor meal is 1 cp so when you're talking about something that's just PART of that meal, it's a negligible price that is the equivalent of free for our discussion. It's like saying an earth kineticist couldn't make a piece of chalk because 10 pieces are a cp and that's a price. Are you really quibbling about fractions of a cp? The requirement is "Elements you create (using Base Kinesis to generate an element, for example) must typically be ordinary materials of negligible value" And I can't think of a better definition of that than LESS than a cp.

That again is only a matter of the general question: could they make exactly what they want and everything they want? If they can, they could as well make strawberries.

I can't see how they can't or else you'd be saying water kineticists wouldn't know if they are making fresh water or having a flame that can't burn normal items [cool flames can be as low as 212 F temp]. I've never seen kineticists have to create random items with the ability. But lets assume it's totally random [lets pull up that random chart]; it's a 2 action ability so even at 1% for what you want, you'll likely get it after 10 min.

graystone wrote:

As far as food, the inner bark of certain trees, such as pine, birch, and willow, is edible and contains carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins (e.g., vitamin C), and minerals (e.g., potassium). At 500-600 calories a pound, you'd only have to make @5 pounds per person. So 2 uses of Base Kinesis covers 1 person.

LOL! Adventurers listening are absolutely sweating bullets right now.

"They're asking us to eat eat 5 pounds of tree bark now? I thought the jerky was bad enough"

You're in luck, you can make bark into something like jerky! I will admit, bark isn't the tastiest food but it's better than starving.

So even if you allow Fresh Produce / Base Kinesis to make edible plant matter with nutritional value capable of sustaining the party, the players still have a finite amount of water.

I'd disagree as vegetables and fruit have high water content: cucumbers, for instance, are 96% water, strawberries have 92% and even at the low end, potatoes have 79% and bananas 74%. Even nuts can have 50% when harvested and even after that, nuts [and seeds] have 5-13%.

If they are eating enough fresh food to feed themselves, they should have no issue with water.

"You can spend 10 minutes emblazoning a symbol of your deity upon a weapon or shield."

Neither option is unarmed attacks, so no.

“I am the only one like me you will ever encounter can get very “protagonist energy” very quickly.

I mean, the game kind of does this already with Rare classes and ancestries. You can make a Kashrishi Reflection Exemplar with the Chosen One background gives off more “protagonist energy” than a Kasatha Mystic for example. Not everyone wants to start off with local connections or to be a cookie cutter fit in a campaign and they don't need Starfinder to get there. Heck, you could have a [human, android, ysoki, ect] Knight of Golarion or a Golarion Survivor Human anything might fit in better than some PF2 characters.

This particular problem regarding Eidolons has devolved into quibbling about whether an Eidolon can use a doorknob or not.

To be fair, it's actually a valid question based on the wording of various sections and can have "wildly different conclusions. It can be from 'can't interact with any object' to 'just can use some magic items.'

That is why this errata is not at the top of the queue.

I don't know that this is true: Minions out of encounter mode, instances of damage and other things have been questions since the game started and can impact all levels of play while causing issues and they still aren't fixed yet either. Some problems they just don't seem to want to fix.

Bulk specifically exists to simplify exactly that compared to the terrible old days of lbs, and I use it at my table. Notably, the way it's calculated, you only need about 20 things for it to matter on characters for which it'll matter (the smallest bulk is 1/10 and most people will have things with real bulk). The thing that comes up most often are low Str people (usually casters) wearing medium armour and trying to have a pile of consumables in easy reach. Trying to find the line for those guys is not easy without bulk!

But they replaced math with... math. It seems like a side-grade at best. people that didn't like keeping track of equipment still don't while people that do find Bulks lack of coherent measurement not what they want. It didn't get rid of fractions, multiplication, subtraction or division: they just lowered how big the numbers got. It left me wondering 'why?'. The only reason seems to be to punish low str players for a few levels until they get a way to bypass it. For myself, it seems like a lot of work to keep someone from having a few extra consumables on hand.

Unique is another case where people desperately need to read all the rules about rarity and RK, and not blindly use those AoN DCs. It is very important that the Unique DC is only used for what is actually Unique about the individual, not for information about any base creature type that they are a special individual of.

I think it's more a case that the game shouldn't use the same tag if it's not meant to be used in the same way. The literal rules for Unique tell you to increase the DC of Recall Knowledge checks related to Unique creatures. The rarity system itself is to blame here with it having double or tripple duty [hard to find vs game disrupting vs unique creature vs unique npc...].

IMO;
RAI: a cube 5' per edge
RAW an 18" x 18" x 27" rectangle or five 1'x1'x1' cubes

A low level Commander has what, 5 tactics known and 3 active? If they've invested 2 known and at least one active one into that and it happens to come up, then that's their class investing a chunk of power into being able to do that.

Mountaineering/Naval Training are ones I'D take if I thought there was any chance I'd run into those checks if I was playing a Commander as just preparing it allows the use of your Warfare Lore for Climb/Swim checks so you don't have to worry about low Str and/or Athletics. You can also swap out tactics in 10 min, so as long as it's not an Immedient need, you can swap them in.

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

2) There are Pathfinder ancestries that also get flight at level 1. I recognize that the Dragonkin has a longer flight speed, but I still don't think that this is game breaking. What was game breaking in this context was having the PC ferry the other players. There are rules for PCs being mounted by other PCs, and as a GM I would have applied those rules to the challenge.

Carrying someone across a gap sounds far more like using the Bulk of Creatures rule than PCs as mounts rule.

OP didn't mention those being carried trying to take actions mid-lift.

I do think OP's story is a good cautionary tale about mixing PF2 and SF2 not being quite as harmonious as top level discussions have indicated.

Yeah, this. We have bulk rules so a princess carry is possible that wouldn't give the carried person the actions they would if in a mounted position. I can't see enforcing mounted rules UNLESS the character is actually mounting the other PC in some way like a Sprite on a Dragonkins shoulder.

Hi all

I'm double checking rules because the description for the transcendance ability for the Exemplar Horn of Plenty is confusing me, and my local GM slightly. If I used "feed the masses", would it be a single action, or a pair of actions? Both myself and the GM agree it's a max of two, and we would both like to figure out whether we're reading it wrong.

Single Action - Feed the Masses

Quote:

The horn of plenty allows you to transfer the effects of potions and elixirs to your allies. You Interact to draw a consumable from the horn and then Interact to drink it. Rather than nourishing yourself, the item’s effects are transferred to a willing ally within 60 feet, as if they had consumed it themself. If the consumable restores Hit Points, you can choose to divide the amount it restores between you and the ally freely (after rolling dice to determine the amount).

from AoN

It has the 1 action symbol, so it's one action: it DOES have 2 subordinate actions, but that doesn't impact how many actions it takes to use.

Subordinate Actions

"The action that allows you to use a subordinate action doesn’t require you to spend more actions or reactions to do so; that cost is already factored in."

As mentioned, a free-hand weapon is mostly an action economy thing for characters without an unarmed attack from ancestry or class; not having to draw or stow a weapon can be very useful. The "can't be Disarmed" can also be a nice feature.

Even for ancestries with unarmed attacks, a free-hand weapon can offer some things an unarmed attack can't: for instance, some things only work on weapons like alchemical blanches, poisons, ect. Have a Bladed Gauntlet on your off hand and now you can hit weaknesses to any physical types [B/P/S], can be made of a special material to trigger another weakness, can add a blanch or poison while Blazons of Shared Power can keep it competitive with your main weapon.

Say you're a dex build with a main weapon that is an Elven Curve Blade. You run into a monster with B or P or the special material you have your Bladed Gauntlet made out of and you can just drop the hand off the Bladed Gauntlet hand and attack.

Or another case is for unarmed builds, especially non- 9th+ monk ones. In the earlier levels especially, there isn't a lot of variety in damage types and a free hand weapon can bring that to the table when that static damage bonus matters more than the loss of the damage die. Plus if you have an alchemist friend that like poisons, now you have something to add them to.

Another is the alchemist, which had double brew making 2 items at a time: free hand weapons can let them do that without dropping something.

If this has already been answered could someone please send me the link.

For an Alchemist with the Bomber research Field; do all the feats and research field benefits affect the Bomber's Versatile Vials the same way they do Quick Alchemy bombs because they have the Alchemical, Bomb, Infused, and Consumable traits?

Example: could I turn an Acid Versatile Vial into a Megabomb?

Additive trait, Player Core 2 pg. 61

Quick Alchemy, Player Core 2 pg. 59
Quick Vial: You create a versatile vial that can be used only as a bomb or for the versatile vial option from your research field (it can't be used to create a consumable, for example). This item has the infused trait, but it remains potent only until the end of your current turn.

So nothing with the Additive trait works. For example, Mega Bomb has that trait, making it incompatible with quick vials.

Can you point to me where it says that.

Follow the link you provided for Proficiency Bonus. Read the last line.

graystone wrote:

Mangaholic13 wrote:

exequiel759 wrote:

Tridus wrote:

I think this discussion in general is really going sideways. Assurance was never meant to be "you succeed at things that are supposed to be a reasonable challenge without any failure risk". And people are proposing exactly that.

I have the feeling you think the difference between rolling and using Assurance is higher than it really is. Let's say you are a Strength martial that takes Assurance on Athletics at 6th level. Your Athletics modifier is +14, while your Assurance result is 20. A 5th level DC is 20, which means you need a result of 6 or higher on the die to succeed. You can reduce this a bit if you have an item bonus on Athletics or if someone aids you on the check. Yes, Assurance would be an auto-success, but unless you were to roll a 2 or 3 on the die you would also succeed with ease, plus the have the chance to crit succeed as well.

A character that maxes out a skill is pretty much assured (heh) to succeed on CL-1 or even CL+0 DCs with ease, while having a decent chance to crit succeed as well. Assurance removes the chances of failure (for CL-1 DCs) but also removes the chances of crit succeding. I agree with you that Assurance is tricky to buff because its really easy to make it too good of an option, and while I don't think the Assurance we have is bad but rather situational, I feel it could be a bit stronger and it would be perfectly okay. If you can already auto-succed on CL-1 DCs with Assurance, the next logical step would be CL+0 DCs. I think that beyond that it would be too much.

...Um, Exequiel, where are you getting 20 from?

The result of Assurance is 10 + your proficiency bonus without any other modifiers.
At expert proficiency, it would be +4, which makes it 14...

Plus level, which is 6.

You don't add your level to it... right?

Proficiency Bonus

"If you're trained, expert, master, or legendary, your proficiency bonus equals your level plus 2, 4, 6, or 8, respectively."

I prefer having the many options that Ancestry Feats allow, over the few automatic things 1E gave us.

This really isn't true as PF1 had Alternate Racial Traits so you could trade out any of those starting things for other things you might want AT 1st level instead of to a level you might not see before your game ends. For instance, a wyvaran could replace their wings with knowledge skill bonuses and/or their tail attack with other skill bonuses. IMO, it's a losing argument to say you have more interesting things or more options in PF2 in regards to race/ancestry vs PF1. PF1 was much more customizable at 1st and still had racial feats you could take after that. The only thing PF2 has in its favor, IMO, is that it had bespoke ancestry feats for 'free/extra' customization.

I'm confused. If I'm likely to succeed anyway, why am I wasting a valuable feat slot?

Well, I'll push back on "valuable feat slot". For quite a few skills, there is a dearth of skill feats for some levels or even interesting/useful ones in total. So how valuable that slot is can be questionable and vary depending on the skills picked. I often find myself picking the least awful skill feat for some levels and picking between niche feats which could include assurance.

I'm sure by 2024 we'll get a reprint of the book and the errata that comes with it... :P

I was being a bit facetious/snarky but even my sarcastic estimation was missed. Paizo doesn't disappoint with not answering basic questions. :P

I much prefer the "use your Class DC" approach.

This would make Kineticists and Commanders disproportionately better at using items than others for no logical sense as nothing in their kit suggests improved magic item use.

Battlecry! pg. 54

The Aldori Duelist's Dueling Acumen archetype feat should probably be level 4 instead of level 2, as it is only obtainable at that level when using the free archetype rules.

Dueling Acumen is a skill feat so there is no issue with non-free archetype characters as all characters get a skill feat at 2nd.

Can you choose to not apply a Hightened Effect?

"Read the heightened entry only for the spell rank you're using or preparing" Player Core pg. 297. The Rank it's cast at sets the heightened effect.

Can you choose to use a lower the maximum Rank version of a Cantrip or Focus Spell?

"Focus spells are automatically heightened to half your level rounded up, just like cantrips are" Player Core pg. 298. Both are always at max Rank.

Can you choose not to apply a Fundamental Rune, Weapon Property rune or flat bonus to a Specific Strike?

Activated runes can be turned on and off. Fundamental Rune, for instance, have no Activation so they are always on. It's kind of like asking if you can turn Silver or Cold Iron off your sword off.

I mostly dislike that implementation, let me list some reasons:

I don't see how the ritual requires an undo cognitive load or loss of agency because it requires both DM buy in [it's a RARE ritual so the Dm HAS to allow it in] and player buy in [by hunting down and using the ritual]. At worst, if a player feels bad after using it, then they don't use it again. As far as the DM, they just have to pick what they'd have picked if they were the PC and since the DM presumably knows or has access to the PC's spell list and should have a good idea what they can do: they'd just have to pick useful spells, not check each and very spell for the perfect loadout.

Just to get some objective numbers out there.

Arcane (including legacy spells like Power Word) has 17 unique spells on its list. Notable ones are Summon Construct, Disintegrate, and Contingency.

There is also the intersection of the Arcane list and individual classes to think about. Between bloodlines, deities, mysteries, and/or other such things, even those 17 unique spells aren't unique to arcane classes, in paticular the Wizard; an Imperial Sorcerer can pick up Divine Decree [Divine unique] or unfathomable song [Occult unique] or Tree of Seasons [Primal unique] while a Phoenix sorcerer gets Contingency and Disintegrate added to their Primal list. This leaves the class that's JUST the Arcane spell guy [Wizard] out in the cold without a way to poach other lists spells while seeing their own Lists unique spells usable by other Lists users. It'd be nice to have a solid set of actual unique spells in each List.

For myself, Arcane would feel better if it had a few good spells per spell rank that are unique to the list. It has Contingency and Power Words [all 7+ power words are uncommon] and... nothing else jumps to mind. It'd be nice have some lower rank common spells that are just Arcane.

The Familiar Master flavor description says "the clever monkey that picks the lock of the thief's cell", but that monkey can't actually use thievery to pick locks even with the Skilled ability any longer.

Well, considering the rules continue to say that Companion Items are the "only items a companion can use", there is an issue even if they regain trained skill use. The familiar/minion rules have always been a bit of a mess; we still have no guidance on out of combat use after all this time for instance.

Hi all,

Interested in the new PF core books but I have an allergy to errata.
Is there any indication of when 2nd printings will be done, and if they will include errata?

I know it's a work in progress and future printings will continue to recive updates.

the original core rulebook had 4 printings with errata added each time. Waiting for the second printing isn't a guarantee you'll have a book with all the errata in [or even the majority of errata it will eventually have in total]. The only way to make sure you'll be able to have something without worrying about errata is to get a PDF as that allows you to download the most current version with errata added.

And as a side note, even with the PDF, there are some things in the errata that will not show up in the books/PDFs. For instance, there is a core rulebook printing 4 clarifications that acts as an actual FAQ and isn't printed in the PDF/books.

So good luck with that allergy.

Finoan wrote:

pauljathome wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Basically, if you're mounted and want to move anywhere, you must command your mount to move.)

This is pretty much contradicted by the mature Animal Companion text

Which makes it a textbook case of Specific Overrides General.

No. Does the Specific text on animal companions override the General text on mounts? Or does the Specific text on mounts override the General text on Animal Companions? I've seen people argue both and it is totally unclear to me which wins.

But it's not worth having the discussion here. It's very unlikely a resolution will be reached and, even if it was, it wouldn't affect other tables.

It is, in practice, something that IS handled differently at different tables. No argument will change that fact.

EDIT: lol I typed out an almost identical post and I noticed yours.