patrickbdunlap's page

A thaumaturge in my party wants a mirrored shield so he can use it as his "Mirror" implement. His reasoning is the old medusa lore and the mirrored shield idea. Any advice or thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I get what your player is trying to do. The one thing I would tell them is that, first off, the mirror needs to be facing them. When they use the mirror, what they are doing is angling it and sending their reflection to the spot they see in the mirror.

Second, I would suggest that the first hit they get on that shield, they would need to spend time buffing it out to make it reflective again.

Third, the mirror shield is not flat, it is concave so it distorts the image it reflects and would be ill suited.

Fourth, the way I read it, and this is just my DM interpretation, it's not that you pick an object and make it your implement, you stumble upon one that just happens to become your implement. But that is JMHO.

Basically they want to min/max and, heck, I am not even against that. I would suggest if you allow them to have a shield AND a mirror or other implement, that you only allow a buckler as those are worn on the forearm.

Sorry, I am sure you get these questions all the time. Just did my first PFS game at a con, I see the participation info on my account now.

The Advancement Point Boons points seem pretty self explanatory. I now have 101 points, the items I can purchase have a cost associated with it. I choose what character I have registered to apply what boons to which.

The other two, Conical Boons and Game Rewards, all have a purchase cost of 0. So what do I do with these?

Ex: Society Connections - one time Downtime benefit. - Downtime, but what do I do with it?

Ex: To Seal and Protect: A destroyed NPC will have consequences. - OK, is there a reason to buy?

Ex: Help low-level PCs at your table by increasing their Hit Points as part of a Level Bump. Must be Liked by Radiant Oath to obtain. - I'm not sure how I would even be liked by Radiant Oath.

There really are not very good instructions telling you want you are suppose to do with all of this. I have been using Pathbuilder to build out my characters, the character profile on this site seems very vague. When I go to a in person Society play, do I just print out a copy from Pathbuilder and present that with my PFS ID?

Thank you for the replies.

Again, look at the illusion trait. Specifically in the remaster, since you're citing an outdated book.

Illusion
Source Player Core pg. 457 2.0
Effects and magic items with this trait involve false sensory stimuli.

It is FALSE sensory stimuli. They are hacking your senses. They no more generate light than they generate heat. A second rank illusory object of a torch might seem to give off heat, but it will never burn you.

Trying to cite how eyes and light work in real life is futile when you can become magically invisible without blinding yourself. Or use dark vision to see when there is literally zero light, and dark vision is equally fooled by illusions as well. Only exceptionally alien creatures like the froghemoth see through illusions.

Why does "false sensory stimuli" have to mean it is affecting your actual body, aka, your sensory organs? You are making an assumption there. Streaming out a fake image from a centralized point could also be "false sensory stimuli". For example the Illusions of self-motion is an illusion that is false sensory stimuli but is an illusion that happens in the real world.

Thank you for the rely.

IMHO, as a DM I would just allow the player to control the summoned creature. That way if they did do something that I thought wouldn't work, I would tell them before the action was committed. In that way, you are having the discussion BEFORE the action, not afterwards.

If a player commands their summons to do X and the DM has it do Y, that action is already spent in game, the player is pissed. In the end, this is a game that everyone is meant to enjoy.

In fact, if everyone in the game plays well, the DM could inform the player that the summons would be confused and a good player might do it anyway and allow the summons to be confused. This puts the power of the role playing and adding flavor to an encounter in the player's hand. You can even reward players for choosing compromising actions that enhance the game.

We are going a long way to define how this lights up, but my thought from the start was "so this is like a glow in the dark toy, right?"

It is visible, but it might not illuminate.

It could still be useful though. Like if you put a door in an empty doorway, you will see something that gets past it and stand between you and the door- obstructing your line of sight.

So I looked up Illusion and I am not seeing anything in the description that supports your conclusion. It does not state specifically that it affects your brain or such. Does not state that it is not a holographic.

Now in the above description it does clearly state that some illusions can have the "mental" trait, but figment does not, only the illusion trail. Is there a book or a supplement that goes into greater details about illusions that I am missing as I am mostly doing online searches.

And, again, going back to my example of a thousand people seeing the illusion, all a 100 feet away. If this were some AOE mental spell, that would be VERY POWERFUL. Occam's razor suggest the simplest solution is that it's a hologram only affecting that 5x5x5 area and disbelieving it is just using your wisdom (which will is based on) to understand that it is not real.

It even states that the act of disbelieving does not make it go away, you just kinda see though it. It can still, say, give cover if its covering something.

So there's actually nothing about the maximum range it can be heard or seen. The range entry for the spell is how far from the caster it can be cast, and the only mention of 15' is in reference to a visual figment. And in addition, that mention is not how FAR it can be seen, but how CLOSE a viewer needs to get for the visual illusion to begin breaking down. Create a Diversion doesn't offer any help in deciding this either. Personally I don't believe there needs to be a limit to how far a figment can be heard or seen aside from the normal rules for senses

>it creates physical effects much like magical fire will light things on fire and create heat

Again, this is an ILLUSION. It's not a sound machine or a hologram. It doesn't CREATE any sound or light or objects. It causes observers to sense things that do not exist

Think about that. Say you are using one of those expensive spy glasses and you are 1,000+ft away. You look at the area that they 5'5'5 illusion of a bond fire. The spell effect would be 1,000+ range. If there were a thousand people looking at it, it would affect a 1,000 people. Etc.

Here is what I think "disbelieving" does. It simply means you still see it exactly the way it is, you just don't think it's real. Aka, it is less about actually affecting the mind, it more about how good of a hologram it was, how good the sounds was, and if you are wise or smart enough to realize it's just a hologram, aka, an illusion. This makes far more sense.

I seem to remember in D&D that illusions pulled shadow plane wisps of material to construct the illusion so you were actually seeing something. Being on the shadow plane is like standing on the Holodeck of the Enterprise.

Light trait: "Light effects overcome non-magical darkness in the area..."

Figment lacks the light trait, so it does not illuminate. It is an illusion: "Effects and magic items with this trait involve false sensory stimuli."

false sensory stimuli. As in a figment of imagination

Attempting to argue that it creates light because of the physics of sound is a dead end because it does not create sound. It creates the illusion of sound, just as it creates the illusion of a visible object without creating light

So if it only creates the illusion of sound, then it's AOE is not actually 5' because it clearly notes that beyond 15' it becomes indecipherable... but you still hear it, and from the wording I would assume beyond 15' as normal sounds.

So either the AOE is greater than 5' of illusionary sound or the illusion is only 5' but it creates physical effects much like magical fire will light things on fire and create heat.

Thanks for the reply.

Based solely on the fact that the Remaster replaced the Tangible Dream Psychic's cantrip Dancing Lights with Figment, I would allow it to give off the equivalent of candlelight. (Dim light in a 20 ft radius). Especally if you had built a character depending on that for visibility.

By strict RAW I would say it would glow (be itself visible in dim light/darkness) but not shed light in a radius.

Had not sound waves being specifically mentioned traveling well beyond the 5' AOE, it would make sense. As mentioned before, sound is just a kinetic wave, light a EM wave, both require ~equivalent amount of energy (not much, maybe a few volts) to produce.

But the cantrip itself has a 30' range so if you cast it in a darken room, not even pitch black, but just darken, and the illusion needed a light component to make it believable, it would have to produce light as there is nothing in the description that gives the observer any added ability to disbelieve it due to lighting conditions.

Thank you for the reply.

The stricter reading would be that you create an illusion of light, which wouldn't actually be able to illuminate anything. It might be "visible" but it wouldn't actually function as light, but more like a weird graphical detail in the darkness.

A bit like the "lights" we see when we close our eyes.

Well here is my thought, if you had an actual object, a light source would have to bounce off of it, back to the observers eyes, so it's the other light source that produces the light. But with the illusion, the illusion would have to produce the actual light as there is nothing for the light waves to bounce off of.

It's why I mentioned the sound since both light energy (EM) and sound (kinetic) energy are both just different wave. For the illusion to work, it has to actually produce both these waves.

The spell clearly notes that beyond 15', the sound is undetailed, meaning you can still hear it past it's 5' AOE, and, by assumption, beyond 15' like normal sound.

In the end, it's magic but I do like to try and understand what is actually happening with the effects to best use these abilities.

Thank you for the reply.

Question about the cantrip: Figment. If you are creating an illusion of something that normally would give off light, would the illusion give off light?

Ex: A torch in a dark room. Would you be able to see with the illusion, where you normally would not?

And if, yes, does that light end at the 5' area effect or is it considered an emanation from the effect, like sound is?

Thank you for any replies.

We use Warhorn to schedule our games, and lately we've had an increased (and still increasing) number of just plain no-shows. No notice, don't even bother to delete their signup (so someone else could use the slot) - just not showing up at game times.

Yeah, I just did a in person con and decided to ditch the last Sunday but a day before I emailed the GM and gave them an apology notification as the scheduling software did not have a way to cancel my RSVP.

Did my first organized play for Pathfinder Society at the recent GrandCon in Grand Rapids, MI and I submitted my sheets at the end of each game with my Society number.

Have not seen anything show up here. Just not sure how that works, I have the sheets they gave back with the post game results, treasure, XP, etc. So my character would have raised a level. Do I just increase it, apply the treasure and it's ready for the next organized play?

I am sure this question has been asked a hundred times, sorry for the repetitive post. I did try and search the forums but didn't see anything.

Thank you for any replies.

Thanks everyone for the replies, just wanted to be a 100%.

The description of the Chalice even says it can be anything, even a skull, so roleplaying I imagine it fills with black ichor of stagnate blood.

patrickbdunlap wrote:

Can a undead Thaumaturge character drink and heal from their own Chalice?

At first I would think "yes" but then in the Drain it notes (healing, positive).

Thank you for any replies.

The Chalice specifically says that it converts to Negative if the creature has Negative Healing.

A better question would be if a skeleton can drink from a chalice or potion at all, since they lack the musculature and stomach/veins to do so, to which point I would argue that it can be the same as using an Oil of Unlife, which is just doused on yourself. Changing it from Sip/Drain to Drip/Drench shouldn't be very hard, since both take the same number of actions and have the same traits.

Now I imagine a skeleton with some really dry bones and has to constantly douse themselves with [insert liquid of choice here] to stay nice and fresh.

It's all magical, I figure the magical fluid just kinda disappears and is absorbed by whatever force is keeping the skeleton undead in the first place.

patrickbdunlap wrote:

Can a undead Thaumaturge character drink and heal from their own Chalice?

At first I would think "yes" but then in the Drain it notes (healing, positive).

Thank you for any replies.

May I suggest reading through the entirety of the Drain ability?

Oh, I read it and though, yeah, this would work, but then saw that "positive" tag. Like I noted before, Paizo is at times a bit sloppy with things like this. Why even put that tag there? It should be "positive/negative", if tagged at all.

The full text of the drain ability reads

Quote:

Drain (healing, positive) Drinking deep instead heals the drinker 3 Hit Points for each level you have. After the chalice is drained, it's left with only its slowly collecting dregs; the chalice can't be drained again, though it can still be sipped from. If 10 minutes pass without anyone drinking from the chalice, it refills itself and can be drained again. If the drinker has negative healing, it can still heal in this way, and the effect has the negative trait instead of healing and positive.

The bolded bit confirms that yes, it works fine.

Yeah, I thought so but the "positive" tag through me off. Sometimes Pazio are kinda sloppy, contradictory with their wording.

Thank you.

Can a undead Thaumaturge character drink and heal from their own Chalice?

At first I would think "yes" but then in the Drain it notes (healing, positive).

Thank you for any replies.

Hi all. I am using Pathbuilder 2e and, I think this is a new option but I am not sure if it was there before, being able to choose a mixed race heritage.

I am currently rolling up a Goblin but now I see I can choose Aiuvarin (Elf) or Dromaar (Orc) mixed race heritage.

I like the feature but I just want to make sure I am using official core rules and not something non-core as I want to play this character at a convention and possibly official Society play. I assume with the resent updates and such that this is a rule update.

Thank you for any replies.

Thank you for everyone to pipped in to comment. I think I should be good for my first game.

Thank you for the detailed review. :)

Just trying to be sure I understand the wording of Quick Bomber:

The way I understand it...

Without Quick Bomber:
You pull a VV from your bandolier (a free Action) and spend 1 Action charging it. Then a 2nd action throwing it or consuming it.

With Quick Bomber:
You pull a VV from your bandolier (a free Action) and then charging with the bombing agent and throwing is all one Action.

The limitation is that it is restricted to only bombing 4 elemental agents.

You COULD, theoretically, do this for all three Actions but the 2nd and 3rd throw would incur that repeated attack penalties.

How about wood shields? One made from a beholder's eye? Etc?

My take on the "you don't need to learn a higher level formula" means that everything you needed to make the higher level item was already in your original, 1LV formula. In fact it really isn't a 1LV at all, but as you progress in levels, you learn how to perfect the formula, tweak it as your knowledge grows.

I'm a home brewer. My club will have brew days where we will use the exact same recipes, ingredients, etc but the expert brewers will make a better beer.

So... what about Alchemy Familiars? The feat is vague at best, but my assumption is that the feat just gives you the knowledge of how to create one, more of a construct.

Alchemy items are typically not considered "magic" (I assume they don't radiate it) and there is no link. So if your familiar is destroyed, can't you just make another?

IMHO, if I were to "fix" this feat, I would make it higher level and then just let the alchemist create a single Homunculus from the Beastiary 1 book. By making this separate creation item, you just complicate the rules.

Complete novice but my assumption with this feat is that it simply eliminates the action cost of converting a Versatile Vial into something else during a turn.

The confusing part is that is seems from the wording that you can ONLY do this for "bomb" like alchemy items.

Throwing more than one bomb typically is a waste, the value is gaining that extra action. So now example... 1)Move, 2)Quick bomb a enemy with a fire bomb, 3)Put up your shield

As the subject says, new to PF and trying 2e. Have played D&D since AD&D1E to 3.5 so experienced, mostly with Wizards so uses to complicated characters, actually enjoy them.

Going to GrandCon in Grand Rapids, MI this weekend and, if allowed, plan to play this character from 1LV and advance him through the 4 Friday PF2e low level games, up to 3rd or 4th.

I think my biggest issue with the Alchemist is that there is a LOT of errata for them in 2e so I have watched a lot of videos on updates. Just want to make sure I have things right. Here are my assumptions, please correct if I get something wrong.

Crafting:
1. Alchemy: You can use regular crafting with the regular rules to create alchemy items that have no time restriction and no quantity limit. These cost money to make, take X amount of days to do. You can even sell these if you wanted to.

2. Advanced Alchemy: You can use reagents to cook up [4 + Intelligent mod per day]. These only last till your next daily prep (aka, ~24h). Use them or loose them. These are best for handing party members healing potions and such.

3. If you have an Alchemy Familiar, they can produce 1 extra reagent per day.

4. Quick Alchemy - Create Consumable: During your daily prep, you can create [2 + + Intelligent mod per day] of "Versatile Vials". This is the MAX you can hold per day. These last ~24h and can be used to create potions on the fly (1 Action).

5. Versatile Vials: After using X number of Versatile Vials, you can spend 10 min foraging to gain the components to create 2x more vials. You can never go past your MAX allotment.

5. Quick Alchemy - Quick Vial: You can create a alchemy items that must be used in 1 Turn. The duration of it's effects cannot last longer than 10 min. These have 0 cost, are unlimited, takes 1 Action to create.

6. All Versatile Vials are acid by default until a reagent of some sort is added.

Formulas:
7. When you advance in levels, you can automatically transcribe the higher level formula for one already known, "figuring out how to improve it".

Research Field - Bomber:
8. On the fly, you can change a Versatile Vial from acid to either fire, cold, electrical without a Action cost

Feat - Quick Bomber:
9. This feat allows you to bypass the Action cost to prepare a Versatile Vial or Quick Vial. Not clear but assume this ONLY works for bombs and no other alchemy item.

OK, that was a lot, and this is just 1LV. Thanks in advance for any feedback/corrections.

Is there so much gold on Golarion that they can just make into a currency? Same for Platinum, Sliver, and Copper.

You are looking at the amount of gold from a player character respective. The average person might never see a gold coin in their life.

And also in fantasy world you have creatures like Dwarves, millions of them, spending almost their entire life living underground, happily digging out gold.

The L9 Feature Double Brew allows every Alch to make 2 items in the same action.

You are talking about something from Level 9. You have to compare what other classes can do at that level, say, a Wizard. Frankly the Alchemist becomes a weaker and weaker class the higher level you go compared to other classes, they kinda need a boost.

My problem is consistency. Totally fine with healing bombs, they really add to the class. But just use the same rules as other bombs.

The "willing" part is odd, is that giant spider "willing" to be firebombed? No, damn-it, likewise, you will take my healing bomb, I'm not asking!

And then just treat splash like splash. Unless you take the Bomber feat, you get the same type of splash on adjacent squares like you do for other bombs. You could end up giving minor heals to enemies.

This really simplifies the rules.