monochromaticPrism's page

I personally find that when the main ways the players interact with things are skill checks and fighting and tactics, and they're expected to earn progress mechanically, they are very aware of when punches are pulled or when it feels like the GM is giving them a bone. Such freebies tend to make the players feel like their agency doesn't really matter.

I've seen this first hand and, while most tables are willing and able to play it off or ignore it, it's definitely a feels-bad moment. As far as pf2e goes an issue I've seen brought up on multiple occasions on the part of players is the meaninglessness of most moderate and below encounters. As long as the casters aren't forced to expend any of their highest 2-3 slots worth of spells then the ability to resourcelessly heal to full afterwards makes them feel like pity-combats that just serve to shovel exp into the players at the expected rate. This is particularly an issue because of how carefully balanced everything is within it's expected difficulty band, as once players get a feel for how the party is generally doing by turns 2-3 in a combat of each difficulty they can generally eyeball when the game is pulling it's punches to "make them feel powerful". I find that was one of the benefits of pf1e, the ability of a group of players to go all-out resource burn instead of pacing themselves and then punching multiple CR above their general maximum resulted in moments that left lasting impressions, in large part because they "knew" they were powerful in that fight, not just being manipulated to feel powerful by the game or GM purposefully sandbagging. It also helped that the game itself was comfortable with players feeling competent and powerful in those moments, unlike pf2e where the game is specifically balanced around players failing at their core action types over and over again in these kinds of high-stakes battles.

I just feel like there was such a homogenization of difficulty levels (and perhaps also of ways something can be difficult, though I want to think about that a while before I commit to it) that it went from a hard-but-doable task to a task I cannot really do at all.

Perhaps in a different vein, but I was really bothered by the locking of classic problem solving resources behind the uncommon and rare tags, presumably because Paizo didn't want people ruining their premade narratives with an unfortunate Speak With Dead or to have players bypass a puzzle or get somewhere "out of bounds" from the adventure using Dimension Door or Teleport. These were the kinds of options that enabled alternative, or even level agnostic, methods of problem solving.

On a personal note I strongly dislike how pf2e went out of its way to prevent players from being able to surprise the GM or subvert their plans without the GM specifically enabling them to do so. One of my favorite things, particularly when operating as a player, is to pull out a niche item, narrowly useful resource, or option of last resort and have a meaningful chance of overturning a bad situation. Even if the method only has a 1/20 chance of working, when it worked the game didn't have a dozen safety rails to ensure that it didn't work *too* well. If the party were all down and you exposed the still-not-bloodied boss to your single emergency dose of an expensive knockout poison/drug that they only have a small chance of being downed by, they weren't protected from being hard cc'd by the incapacitation tag, nor where they unable to be 1-shot by your Coup-De-Grace while they were down. Yes, this existence of these kinds of narratively disruptive tools could cause table issues if they were used too frequently, but that's something that you can solve with a solid session 0 rather than preemptively engineering the system to make it completely impossible.

Referring back to the first paragraph of this post, the removal of these kinds of options greatly contributed to pf2e's issue with removing meaningful narrative input from the player side of the screen by locking challenges into clear "you WILL find encounters at X point of the level band trivial/easy/hard/impossible and you WILL like it because you have no recourse to do otherwise". It's important that players have the ability to override the narrative flow the GM or AP author has pre-built by doing both better and worse than the game expects, but pf2e's purposeful design of putting PCs so close to the power ceiling means the only option mechanically available to players is to do worse than the rules expect (an unwillingness to abandon this design philosophy is a major contributor to why the Mythic rules and options were such a disaster).

Yes he is. Because Joe the Grunt Minion doesn't exist outside the narrative. Acting as though any of these things exist outside the narrative isn't at all how the game works. These things exist only as challenges against a party with clear guidelines for how to use them.

Technically, this scale breaks down past a difference of 4 levels in actual Pathfinder gameplay, but pretending that it keeps accurate, a home defense of 50 1st-level villagers or a town militia of 20 2nd-level soldiers would be able to overwhelm a 10th-level grunt who went independent.

This is why I referred to the rules of pf1e as enabling/supporting the tabletop simulation of a living world, in that game these things 100% existed "outside the narrative" and it made the world so much more vivid and engaging. In pf2e the scale breaks down past 4 levels of difference to the point that those 50 1st level villagers/militia don't have a prayer (I strongly dislike pretending that they do for the sake of narrative), but in pf1e such a defensive force has a credible chance of throwing back or killing such a high level creature (even if only armed with items available to creatures of that level), and the stories of pf1e work this narrative into their structure.

For example, the Wrath of the Righteous campaign includes demons invading a city and features street to street fighting of low level paladins and guards against demons of various levels. In pf2e this narrative is a complete farce, the lowliest of demon hangers-on to Khorramzadeh would be capable of wiping out the city with ease. In pf1e, however, a group of well-built level 1-2 paladins and a bunch of level 1 volunteers, between the benefits of smite and the less extreme AC ranges of pf1e, can absolutely win against demons in the CR 7-10 range, even if doing so has a terrible cost. Even a group of basic guards can consistently and meaningfully contribute with cold-iron weapons and the basic consumables available to level 1-2 creatures. The result is that the narrative of the city of Kenabres recruiting every able bodied citizen into the crusade to push out the fell forces after the initial defeat of their defenders, forces that were brought there in the same army that featured Khorramzadeh, but with such a steep cost to the population that it could be used as the reference image for the wiki entry for "Pyrrhic Victory", is a narrative that is fully supported and in-line with what is possible on tabletop. This is an inherent part of what I love about pf1e, I find that it encourages the creation of compelling narratives via the consideration and application of the system's inherent tools to said narrative, while in pf2e the game actively asks you to not think about how the rules interact with the narrative because it causes nothing but problems.

Hi Alenvire,

At this point you've got a lot of responses by individuals that enjoy this system, but in all the discussion there are a couple points that have been missed that likely factored in to why you originally dropped pf2e, including a couple genuine design failures that are worth openly and frankly acknowledging to a potential pf2e GM.

The biggest issue is that extreme low level play (levels 1-2 primarily) is fundamentally badly designed, so if you pick this system up again start play at level 3 and give everyone one guaranteed free rebuild of their character instead.

There are a few reasons that factor into this, but the biggest is that damage scaling vs hp totals is completely out of wack at those levels. At that level range a fighter is capable of 1-shotting 2 chump foes per turn with relatively little high rolling needed while a mage using cantrips takes an average of 2 turns to kill 1 such foe, meaning that even if the casters use their class features to either provide +1 / -1 adjustments or use a slotted damage spell to kill 1 foe in a round 2-3 times total per day, it's obvious that you could have just not shown up that day and it likely wouldn't have made much of a difference. This quickly stops being true (starting at lv.3 and becoming very clear by lv.5), but it IS true no matter how many posters you can find on reddit, or even in these forums, saying that it isn't. One of the single greatest design failures of pf2e is that levels 1-2 strongly imply that the game functions a certain way, with damage reigning king and utility being something of an embarrassment, simply due to everyone being complete glass cannons.

The next issue (connected to the hp issue but not solely caused by it) is that the encounter guidelines don't function as smoothly as you have likely heard people insist they do across all level ranges (as you could likely infer from the previous paragraph). For example, a party "should" be capable of facing a level+4 foe (severe encounter) and winning (with great difficulty) if they both play it out well and the dice favors them a little. In reality a party of level 1 characters are getting murdered by a single level 5 foe 99/100 times and a level 15 party is likely stomping the face in of a level 19 foe. Meanwhile said level 1 party can consistently fight an equal difficultly (severe encounter) made up of 8 level-2 foes (with some variance) simply because many such foes will likely die in one melee attack or a high-rolled cantrip, meanwhile a GM running eight level-2 creatures at 15 could pulp the party if they aren't purposefully pulling their punches when it comes to enemy team composition and tactics used (also because between these two they went from a hp total across all foes of around 50hp combined to 1900hp while baseline martial weapon damage went from 1dX+4 to 3dX+5). In reality pf2e suffers from the same fundamental design issue that pf1e and 5e suffer from, that of having a "functional" level range where the recommended rules work as advertised, only while pf1e stretched (arguably) from 1-11ish(9-13 at the top depending on team comp) in pf2e it is stretched from level 3 (arguably 5) to somewhere from level 14-18(depending on team comp). Just like in pf1e you *can* run successful well balanced combats outside of these level ranges with extra GM effort, but it requires familiarity with the system's shortcomings.

The final category I will mention is somewhat less mechanical, but if you were to make a sliding scale that goes from simulationist (rules serve as an intermediary to a living world, placing rules second to fidelity) to gamist (rules serve game balance first, fidelity of concept is sacrificed for this goal) then pf2e is way WAY further across the scale towards gamist. There are a million little ways this is expressed, such as: minions of all types (undead, animal companion, etc) require sacrificing player actions for their own actions regardless of intelligence (they just stand around like morons if you don't micromanage them) nor can they use items that aren't "specifically" keyed for minion use (npcs that have minions, however, get to break both these limitations as much as they want), the Aid action specifically only exists while in combat and cannot be used outside of combat (RAW), many many features and spells that used to have durations of minutes/level were reduced to lasting a single minute (shapechange, once one of the coolest spells around, is absolutely heartbreaking now), and on you can go down the list. Because of this the GM either has to play up certain things as threats even when they aren't or give monsters abilities that are arbitrarily more potent than players.

For example, in pf1e a single high level caster could easily terrorize a city and eventually destroy it in a single day if not stopped by using a combination of long lasting effects and certain summon options, meanwhile in pf2e the wizard would be out of slots before even 1/10 of the surface area of the city was razed because things like aoe size and effect duration (even for 9th and 10th level spells) are heavily balanced around single-instance combats occurring on a single small-to-medium sized map. Therefore the narrative can "say" that the BBEG wizard destroyed the city in a single day but everyone then has to either ignore during the actual showdown that he doesn't have anything close to that capacity or the GM has to invent a McGuffin that he used to do it instead of his own capabilities. An extension of this is that players don't get the experience of seeing a high level NPC do something and thinking "I can't wait until I get to do that" because they either never get to do that or they do but it's HEAVILY nerfed.

An extension of that point is that many spells claim to do something extremely impressive, like the 10th level "Summon Kaiju" spell (level 19-20 character feature) "You briefly conjure a kaiju, a massive, rampaging monster with a unique name and legendary reputation.", when in actuality it's just two different aoe-spells stapled together that occur over two turns, being either one effect that doesn't deal enough damage to 1-shot a level 9 foe on an average roll and either another such effect or an aoe debuff. Still useful, sure, but not anywhere CLOSE to the concept of what anyone would consider when stating that they are going to "summon a kaiju". This is a case of the "concept" of X (simulationist) being sacrificed for the sake of the careful balance of X (gamist). Paizo is often critiqued on this point, I believe quite fairly, for trying to have their cake and eat it by pairing flavor descriptions that, as you reach higher levels, rapidly fall out of line with the actual effects taking place to an eventually absurd degree.

As a final item to mention, one more expression of this design choice is the +4/-4 level band. In pf1e you could get away with characters coming across and having meaningful competitions with, be it in a combat capacity or socially, creatures from a wide range of CRs/levels, but in pf2e the adding of level to AC, trained+ skills, weapon hit chance, effect DCs, etc, makes almost all interactions with creatures below -4 trivial and inversely nearly impossible above the +4 mark. The extreme nature of this range has very strange implications for the nature of the world (for example, a level 10 grunt minion at the very bottom of the level 18 BBEG's organizational hierarchy could conquer a substantial portion of the world and live like a king as long as they only attacked parts of the world that are in "low level zones", so why are they putting up with their current situation?), an implication which the APs and general pf2e lore never ever ever investigates or addresses because the rules don't exist to enable the narrative of the world first, but the rules exist for and foremost to enable balanced gameplay and the world has to fit into whatever gaps remain afterwards.

This Is my personal argument on why companions are lame/bad.

2- they're lame as hell, companions have practically no customization, with construct literally having none at all, and every item Is utterly useless; if you wanna focus on your companion there's literally nothing you can do (Napoleon meme), they're Stuck with being the same from level 1 to level 20.

The one is a huge issue for me. The way Paizo hobbled companion flexability by limiting them to only using items that are "specifically" tagged as being usable by companions continually grinds my gears, particularly since the list is STILL so ridiculously small after so much time and opportunity for them to add items to it. It's just another area where Paizo chose to throw out the simulationist roots of why ttrpgs work in the first place by adding yet another way that one aspect of player creatures functions fundamentally differently and worse than npcs.

SuperBidi wrote:

But new players need to start with less complexity. At level 1, you have at most one feat to choose from, your character is simple and mostly limited to its class abilities. At level 4-5, your character starts fleshing out due to your number of feats and such. The choice of level 1 is a choice of simplicity, so I understand why Paizo chose it as first level.

For me, the bigger difference is in the numbers, not the complexity. That's around when things start stabilizing and the encounter guidelines become more accurate.

I agree with your overall argument , although I would place the cutoff point as level 3 instead of 5. It’s negligibly more complex than level 1 but avoids how the 1-3 experience sets a very warped baseline, meanwhile 3-5 still feels weak initially but by level 5 between increased options, hp, and core feature growth players really start to move past those perceptions without internalizing them.

It also solves most of the issue of low level caster play being heavily unrepresentative of the actual experience by starting them off with 5 slots and quickly reaching 8 slots (along with the critical rank 3 “now you can *really* start doing interesting things” slot). Starting play with a non-insignificant chance to whiff your 2 slots at level 1 and spend the rest of the adventuring day as a worse ranged martial is a major contributor to negative player perceptions, particularly since those two slots feel so precious and limited that seeing what their class received “instead of playing a fighter” accomplish less than a fighter striking twice at the same level can be deeply demoralizing for them.

To remind everyone what this looks like, I once saw a Kingmaker campaign that started at 1st level in the manor, as is the common setup. After the attack started the fighter and magus each consistently dropped 1-2 assassins every round while the two casters, working together, dropped 0-1 assassins per round using cantrips. One even tried using their 1st level attack roll spell but low rolled 3 damage total to an assassin and, after using 2 actions and one of their two spell slots for that pitiful showing, was followed by the fighter to moving up, one shotting the assassin to the left of the first for 1 action, then finishing off the other with their second strike. Another low rolled their cantrips and ended up spending 3 back to back rounds to drop another.

I couldn’t even blame them for being upset after the session, that was an objectively poor play experience, and one that had absolutely nothing to do with conflicting expectations from prior game systems. In a game that is “lauded” for its tight balance it was painfully obvious to everyone at the table that the martial and caster characters weren’t anywhere close to balanced in capabilities.

Considering how these kinds of early play experiences stick with people and shape how they view the game going forward it’s no wonder “casters suck in pf2e” ends up being a common opinion floating around the internet, the early gameplay experience is extremely warped compared to what’s actually normal once gameplay stabilizes.

You are not going to use disguise self to make your halfing look like a choker. It doesn't matter that you fit the height requirement exactly. The spell cannot do that for you. It doesn't matter whether you know what a choker is, or whether you know it's an Aberration, or whether you're under some delusion that you yourself are an Aberration or secretly a choker cursed to look like a halfling and you just want to appear as your 'true form'.

It's statements like this that make this discussion feel like you either don't understand what is being discussed or that you are jumping to unwarranted conclusions. A Choker is an abomination, not a humanoid, and so would be an invalid target for disguise self.

I have been very clear that my opinion on the matter comes from what would be the simplest, easiest to explain and fairest ruling (in my opinion) among all tables to avoid table variance or game-shock (which is how rules should be rated and balanced, obviously in your game you can have Humans with wings and snake hair and Spell Resistance, and they can turn people to stone... but then, you can just allow disguise self to turn you into a demigod. Hell, two demigods! Go ahead.

Again, this is fundamentally wrong, the rules around polymorph spells are very clear that they don't automatically give the creature abilities or even inherent attack effects like a poisonous bite or sting.

I don't know what kind of players you have had to deal with that cause you to assume that I am approaching this with a lack of respect for the rules or a desire to "turn into a demigod", but you shouldn't make assumptions about the character of an individual based on previous traumas. Double so online where we only have the written word, stripped of tone and tempo, with which to communicate.

What I am doing is the same as when I made a poison character based around pitted bullets and a self-harvesting Vishkanya or a siege weapon based character using high-str with muleback cords carrying around a heavy ballista + a low level custom magic item that creates unseen servants. I like reading character options and using any unusual capabilities I come across to create strange or unique builds, but if the RAW says that the build isn't possible I will try again from a different angle or accept the idea as unworkable and give up.

For example, I tried making a vital strike character that worked with a familiar to get once-per-turn true strike so my single attack had the best available chance of hitting, however after looking at many options I had to decide that it was functionally impossible. I never made any posts trying to get a "look GM this totally legit and unbiased rules post supports my interpretation of this ability", because that would violate the social contract, break the "rules" of good-faith character building, ruin the fun of digging through character options to find legitimate and legal interactions, and be a generally despicable thing to do.

I also don't approve of explicitly OP combos outside of pure theory crafting. For example:

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/s/skinsend/

This is a personal spell with no save, one that can be put into a potion spear or injected with poisoners gloves via alchemist infusion rules, and which automatically deals massive damage to an enemy and allows you to instantly kill them with a extra or swift action attack depending on how you exposed them. I would, at most, use this interaction a single time during an entire campaign or character's lifetime (whichever is longer) because the ability to instantly kill any enemy with skin in an single round with very high odds of success would ruin the game for both my GM and my fellow players.

...

Regardless, I have gotten my answer for this question. After seeing both your and Mysterious Stranger's replies it's clear that many of the limitations being insisted upon for Disguise Self are just common homebrews, not actual rules related to the spell itself or the functionality of glamours or illusions. If a GM decides the interaction is overpowered they are free to alter or ban it, as mentioned above it wouldn't be the first time a RAW interaction is ban worthy in pf1e.

I'd say it's why I didn't allow fictitious aspects, since the possibility of somehow creating or stumbling on a shadow illusion (which doesn't exist, but some variant of shadow conjuration that worked on illusions) or other effect (something that made the illusion at least partially real) would be vastly abuseable.

Hold up now, that means your earlier posts weren't good faith discussion. This is the "Rules Questions" 1e forum, not the "Advice" or "Homebrew and House Rules" forums. I'm asking about how the spell actually works, not how you would preemptively balance it for your own table.

And now to pull back the veil on why I *personally* wanted an unbiased discussion of what disguise self is allowed to create with purely the visual portion of the spell:

https://www.aonprd.com/MysteryDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Intrigue

Assumed Form (Sp): You can change your appearance at will, as disguise self with a caster level equal to your oracle level. At 7th level, you can choose to actually transform, which works the same way but counts as a polymorph effect instead of an illusion and doesn’t allow a Will save to disbelieve. At 11th level, the ability lasts until you dismiss it or use it again, allowing you to even keep it active while you sleep. At 15th level, when you use this ability as a polymorph effect, you can gain the size bonus to your ability scores and additional racial abilities as if using alter self.

The reason I didn’t mention this earlier is that I didn’t want personal perceptions of how this interaction might play out to color interpretations of the Disguise Self spell. I mention it now because, while some might consider this cursed knowledge, I think this is far too much fun to keep to myself.

The potential applications of this are fascinating to consider, as you genuinely transform into whatever you set the illusion to appear as. Naturally you aren’t granted special abilities or what have you from appearing as another creature since the spell doesn’t grant you any, but it’s still an at-will nearly complete creative freedom physical transformation.

You make yourself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment—look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your creature type (although you can appear as another subtype). Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person or gender.

People have been paying attention to the or, but ignoring the fact the description actually states that other than the listed limitations the extent of the change is completely up to the caster.

This is what has been confusing me. As far as I can tell there are no limitations on what you can do, illusion wise, outside of “cannot change creature type” and “appear +1/-1 feet tall”.

Mysterious Stranger is correct, as far as I can tell, in pointing out that outside of those restrictions the spell is incredibly flexible. After reconsidering it, it’s even more so than I first thought, as I was artificially limiting it to small and medium creature options when that isn’t an explicit limitation of the spell.

Thus while you can’t appear as an inorganic material, like a statue, because you don’t have the construct type, you could, for example, appear as a size large or above giant species but one that (for reasons magical or otherwise) is shrunk to within 1 foot of your true height. Tieflings and Aasimar could appear as any outsider of their choice, even the ones that are mostly just geometric shapes, as long as their illusion of that creature is scaled down or up to their physical size.

1) I think you are misreading the spell by cutting away half of that phrase:

Disguise self wrote:

You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person or gender.

The spell isn't limited to changing a minor feature, the spell can go from changing a relatively small feature to making relatively large changes.

But that has a caveat, see 2).

2) The relevant line is:

Disguise self wrote:

If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check.

What does it mean?

a) You can use the spell without disguising yourself. Results: you look different, but you don't look like anything specific. Practically useless besides trying to hide your original features.
It is similar to people using president masks to rob banks.

b) You use it with the Disguise skill. A skill that can be used untrained by anyone.
The skill defines what you can change and how hard it is to spot the change.

3) The spell has a limit when used with the Disguise skill:

Disguise self wrote:

You cannot change your creature type (although you can appear as another subtype).

That means that when you try to pose as a different Type of creature you don't get the +10 bonus to disguise.

The full text of the spell is:

"You make yourself – including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment – look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your creature type (although you can appear as another subtype). Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person or gender.

The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form, nor does it alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of you or your equipment. If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check. A creature that interacts with the glamer gets a Will save to recognize it as an illusion."

The latter portion, which includes the if-statement "If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check" occurs after the spell description of what it does. It wouldn't change / constrain what the spell is actually capable of accomplishing, it provides a condition in which the spell could be used and the benefit the spell would provide if used for that purpose.

To clarify, I don't particularly care about how the spell factors into disguise rolls because I am only interested in the first portion of the spell, the portion that defines the glamour effect. If choosing not to use the spell to create a disguise results in a very-clearly-an-illusion form, I can accept that. My primary interest is whether turning into a significantly different but still, spell as written, valid form such as Strix or Kasatha is a valid target.

As for a use case, maybe a player wants to use disguise self to create a visual representation of a humanoid (or outsider for races like Aasimar) they saw but didn't recognize to someone more knowledgable. In that case they don't care about disguising themselves or preventing the illusion from being recognized as such, they just want the initial glamour effect covered in the first paragraph.

I can't give you a hard and fast official rule. I can only comment on my own perspective. I don't think the issue is claws, tails, wings, or hair (snakes or otherwise). I think it is the extent of the change. And that will always fall to GM interpretation.

What is or isn't a minor feature kind of depends. Are a catfolk's claws as obvious or obtrusive or visible as an owlbear's? A strix's wingspan is about 12 feet across. Some GMs might rule that their wings aren't a 'minor' feature, meaning they can't hide them even if they look like an elf or human (they'd still have wings, though minor features of the wings might still be changeable, like feather-type or coloration). They might be perfectly fine with allowing a different winged race with much smaller or less prominent or pronounced wings to conceal them magically.

This is the bit I don't get: "What is or isn't a minor feature kind of depends."

I see this a lot but the spell doesn't limit itself to minor features, it gives you the option of making minor changes OR looking completely different. The text reads: "You could add or obscure a minor feature OR look like an entirely different person or gender." The OR is clearly positioned as an if-else in the statement, meaning that while you can choose only to add or remove minor features using the spell you can also instead choose to look completely different. To be blunt, given the end referenced ability to appear as a different gender, even if only creating a glamour from one average human to another, a shirtless male to female disguise will feature the very prominent addition of a pair of breasts.

You mention many potential body parts a creature may possess, but my point is that, purely by the spell's description, there is no limitation that states "you cannot take the appearance of any qualifying subtype that possesses physical characteristics that are substantially different from your own". From what I've looked up that limitation is entirely homebrew / house rule. I'm only asking here because I saw so many comments insisting that to be the case that I want to check whether there are any actual rulings or clarifications I am unaware of. I have already looking into whether illusion magic or glamours have any such limitations, but I still haven't found anything.

Instead I only have what the spell clearly states: "You cannot change your creature type (although you can appear as another subtype)".

There are multiple humanoid races that have wings, tails, and in the case of the Kasatha 4 arms. All legitimate targets based off the spell's description and explicitly listed limitations.

...
...

On the matter of my SLA example, I was incorrect on the Disguise Self for Medusas. I had them confused with another stat block.

The relevant portion of the Text:

"You make yourself – including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment – look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your creature type (although you can appear as another subtype). Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person or gender."

My reading of this is that you can select a creature subtype that is in the small to medium size range (assuming their max/min height range overlaps with your height +/- 1 foot), and as that creature you can appear as either one that looks similar to yourself or as a completely different individual.

From my reading there don't appear to be any limitations on the natural characteristics of the subtype selected, as the only limiting phrases are "You cannot change your creature type" and "You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller".

However when looking this spell up many people seem to insist that you can only create permutations based on your physical form (referencing the +/- 1 foot limitation I assume), stating that final shape too different from your own is apparently outside of the spell's scope. However, this limitation would immediately remove many races from being able to use this spell or being targets for the use of this spell. It would also clash with entities like Medusa being designed to disguise their snake hair using their sla Disguise Self castings to pass as a normal humanoid.

Since this isn't directly stated I want to know if there is an Official limitation, and if so where the line is drawn (on a scale going sharp teeth, claws, tentacle arms, tails, extra arms, wings, etc ideally), or whether this limitation is just a result of being how the spell is "generally" run but not an actual hard requirement.

Not a RAW reply (I don't think there is one), but an Alchemist infusions, abilities, and talents are powered up by the Alchemist aura. I, as a GM, would say that the ability timer (if they have one) starts clicking as soon as the Alchemist's soul leaves the possesses body, If the ability doesn't have a timer it simply ceases to function for the possessed body.

Note that most abilities and co have a variant of "If an alchemist" in their description text. So they don't work when the target isn't an Alchemist anymore.

In pathfinder does targeting conditions and effect package remain one constant unit? I know that they are considered separate in 5e (why polymorph snail + power word kill can kill creatures with over 100 hp) but I am unfamiliar here. If a creature went from humanoid to monstrous humanoid or something else temporarily due to a class or racial feature, for example, would that end/negate an ongoing charm or dominate person spell, or would the spell persist for its normal duration because the target was valid when the spell was originally cast?

I’m certain this has been answered before, but for the life of me I haven’t been able to track it down. Do features that allow a player to modify their body persist after a possession / mind swap / magic jar spell ends?

I began wondering about this due to the Toxicant feature “Toxic Secretion”. The Toxicant can brew a potion which modifies their body and causes them to permanently excrete a poison, which they are immune to, with effects and dc based on the Alchemist’s level and feature selections at the time of ingestion.

The second feature is the Eternal Potion discovery, which makes a potion effect permanent for an alchemist that consumes it. Since alchemists don’t have actual spellcasting, but instead have their features occur through alchemy affecting their body and/or creating spell effect, is the potion effect attached to the alchemist’s soul or their physical body at time of potion consumption?

My third question would be about a Cyclopian Seer using flash of insight while in another creature’s body while drinking Strange Fluids in order to trigger the extraordinary outcomes (100 on the d100).

When looking up other discussions about Possession and buffs, a lot of people mention physical spells/effect staying with the body and mental spells/effects staying with the soul/mind, but there weren’t any references given.

My primary question is whether or not there is a rule/faq for features that can be used to permanently modify the body followed by the origin feature being lost.

If not, my next question would be how the above should be ruled based on normal rules.

I've gone around in circles with this and can't seem to resolve this question.

If an alchemist converts an infused poison from ingested to injury, how does that interact with sticky poison? My main question is about RAW as, logically, one might expect it to be expended in an activated magic item based off potions would intuitively be single use with all future sticky poison strikes purely using the base poison, however I can't find a specific rule stating that. Instead, the language used seems to indicate that the spell effect is added to the fundamental properties of the poison, with poison immunity preventing the spell effect from taking place. This of course would be a very powerful combination with sticky poisons and even a basic damaging spell like Inflict Light Wounds, much less more creative spell selections.

As Derklord pointed out, the wondrous items are the more diverse bunch when speaking of activation and the need to wear/own them. You need to check each one to know how they work.

A Flying Carpet can be activated and directed (as long as it is in voice range) without touching it (and that poses the interesting question if I can deactivate it while an opponent is using it if I know the command word),

Wings of Flying can be activated only by the wearer.

An Instant Fortress is activated by a command word, but the door faces the owner.
It can be activated only by the owner?
Do you need a receipt to prove that you are the owner? ;-)
Or it is "attuned" to an owner after a few days of possession?

Yeah, the diversity of activation descriptions was why I was wondering about this, particularly since in order to make these items the feat is called Create Wondrous Item. Under the magic item creation rules it references "use activated" and "command word", but most of the context we have for when and how those terms can be used come from either the use rules, like how wands are always wielded, or in reference to how all the different wondrous items function.

It made me wonder, for example, if you could make a slotless suit of armor that casts Dominate Person on the wearer because it, like the Mirror of Mental Prowess, uses the language "The controller" to refer to the person who is actually attuned to it. And then, if that is viable, if you could instead use the targeting language that many items use, aka "on the wearer", to create a magic item that casts a spell "on the wearer" in exchange for another person's standard action. And then, most forbidden of all, if THAT was true, could you make an item that casts a personal spell on "the wearer". After all, abilities like the Wizard's Share Spells doesn't work with wands or items because the magic item, not the wearer, is casting the spell.

That was part of why I was looking for a specific rule, although when I asked it wasn't clear to me that only 1 person at a time can access a magic item's abilities, instead of anyone who knew it's activation conditions. Just looking at the items descriptions for activation input and targeting output, it seemed like you could use both of those lines of text, or any of their many variations, on the same magic item to enable this kind of interaction.

Relevant citations:

CRB wrote:

To use a magic item, it must be activated, although sometimes activation simply means putting a ring on your finger.

...
Command Word: ... A command word can be a real word, but when this is the case, the holder of the item runs the risk of activating the item accidentally by speaking the word in normal conversation.
...
Use Activated: This type of item simply has to be used in order to activate it. A character has to drink a potion, swing a sword, interpose a shield to def lect a blow in combat, look through a lens, sprinkle dust, wear a ring, or don a hat.

CRB wrote:

Slot: Most magic items can only be utilized if worn or wielded in their proper slots. If the item is stowed or placed elsewhere, it does not function. If the slot lists “none,” the item must be held or otherwise carried to function.

CRB-Scrolls wrote:

Activation: To activate a scroll, a spellcaster must read the spell written on it.

CRB-Staves wrote:

To activate a staff, a character must hold it forth in at least one hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures).

CRB-Wands wrote:

To activate a wand, a character must hold it in hand (or whatever passes for a hand, for nonhumanoid creatures) and point it in the general direction of the target or area.

Thanks for these references. Looks like it primarily comes implicitly through a series of other specific examples instead of a direct statement. Still, it is consistent across those examples, so that's that.

When using magic items, the one activating them is the one using them. So activating an item that heals "you" generally heals the guy activating it, not the guy wearing it.

Some items can target another creature with the healing effect and so heal a companion.

There is the matter of wearing an item, too. If the item uses a body slot, it can be activated only by the person whose body slot is used up by the item.
Most items that aren't worn need to be in your possession, so you need to spend a move action grabbing it and then a standard action using it.

Is this stated or implied somewhere? Or is it in a faq I missed?

RAW question. I have spend a bit looking and can’t find the answer.

I know the reason you can’t interfere with enemy magic items is, at least in part, because this is the first time you have ever come across that particular item and so you don’t know the details of it’s use, but I don’t know if there is another detail that prevents interaction with allies.

Example: If my ally is down and unconscious wearing a magic item that casts a cure spell on the wearer, can I spend my action to touch the item and activate it if I was familiar with how it functions? Would I need to touch it if it was command word activated and I they had shared the word with me? Would my ally being conscious alter either of these?

Any help would be much appreciated.

The price is at least 8.000 gp (4.000 if they craft it themselves) plus the masterwork shield price. And that makes it a shield with a +1 to attack and damage plus the Training ability, without defensive enhancements.

Ah, that was my bad. I knew it needed to be a +1 first but I mis-remembered the second cost as 4k.

Also, thanks for the clarification.

The theoretical setup: The party finds a +4 total enchantment level weapon, but its exotic and no one has proficiency. Putting the Training weapon enchantment on it with Exotic Weapon Proficiency would represent a significant investment. Instead, the party problem solves to instead enchant the fighter's shield as a weapon for 6k.

Training: Popular among those who seek to impersonate skilled warriors, a training weapon grants one combat feat to the wielder as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand. The feat is chosen when this special ability is placed on the weapon. That feat cannot be used as a prerequisite for any other feats and functions for the wielder only if she meets its prerequisites. Once chosen, the feat stored in the weapon cannot be changed.

Specifically I am focusing on how Training "grants one combat feat to the wielder as long as the weapon is drawn and in hand", which seems to indicate that as long as the wielder is capable of performing a slam attack, it should work.

Does it work or have I missed something? I have looked around but haven't found an answer to this specifically.