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SuperParkourio wrote:
But how does a GM decide what size and shape to allow? And under what circumstances?

15-foot burst any and every time for maximum volume within the limitation and because it functionally lets the player pick a point where they want to look and see everything within a fair-to-the-rules distance. With the limiting factor being things that naturally block line of sight anyways.

One does not need to stress about this nor make it into a "but what are we actually doing?" question like the original version was written as being.


S. J. Digriz wrote:
It’s weird that they didn’t do that as a solution to the balance issue for more kinds of weapons. They did that for heavy armor, and they did that with bows. It would actually,she in game sense, too.

In the case of heavy armor it's not outright better than lower-level armor options because of the unavoidable speed penalty as a con to the +1 total AC pro.

And in regards to composite bows that's the opposite of a solution to balance because they do exactly what Paizo was largely trying to avoid with the weapon design of PF2 and create a clear best-in-class weapon because the downside of needing a few points of strength is offset by how easy it is to afford a few points of strength, especially given all the other benefits provided. So it's not a pros and cons situation, it's just a complete upgrade for characters that would use it.


Having to choose between the cone or the burst was a bad choice to put in front of players because if looking at volumetric area covered the sphere is always significantly higher than the cone, but if limited to a 2D plane the cone is better if you're able to aim it orthogonal and equal if diagonal - and then also the player might not even know any of this and is just going to say they are trying to Seek and the GM is going to ask "cone or burst?" and the player will go "uh... I dunno, I just want to check that area by those barrels over there."

So having the rule altered to be an area with a maximum size and no choice element besides where you're trying to seek smooths out the game-play of it all.


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Squiggit wrote:
This is why I think Fighter is kind of a bad idea for a class. Because it has no identity beyond 'fighting'

Technically the fighter class identity is that of the weaponmaster... they just kept the name fighter instead of dropping it, likely for the reason that if there were no class called "fighter" people would wonder where the class went.

The issue doesn't come from fighter as a class lacking an identity so much as it does from people wanting that identity for other martial classes, which I'll admit is a natural thing since the origin of all those classes if you follow it far enough back is "it's a fighter, but also..."


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PossibleCabbage wrote:

Yeah, I would prefer to just give everybody a free first level general feat than to allow classes who get shield block to represent "proficiency with shields" to trade that away for something

PF2 is decidedly not like PF1- you shouldn't want to make your character have fewer options in order to focus on the best ones.

Yup.

We don't want to make it look like "I gave up the ability to read for a +1 to hit" is a real thing people are supposed to be trying to find a way to make happen for their character.


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Ectar wrote:
Is an extra 3gp really breaking the bank?

It's not an extra 3 gp even. The point of buying a bastard sword is so you don't have to have both a longsword and a greatsword because it can cover for both, so it's only an extra 1 gp.

Secret Wizard wrote:
a "feels-bad moment" that should be avoided.

"Feels bad" is a hollow argument.

Firstly because even if someone genuinely feels bad about something, someone else can just not. In this case, me; I do not feel bad at all that if I don't choose to use a shield I can't make use of Shield Block. And I also don't feel bat at all when I make the choice to Shield Block and as a result don't get to Reactive Strike.

And secondly because there is such a thing as unwarranted feelings which we shouldn't do anything as a result of other than work on not continuing to have them. Which things like "I feel bad because I got free stuff with absolutely no downside" unquestionably fall into.


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Being mad that you get shield block for free is weird. It's free, and the alternative is that you get literally nothing so you're not losing anything by having it even if you choose not to use it.

On the topic of the bastard sword, though... game options exist to be game options. That's why we can't have a weapon have every possible trait that makes real-world sense for it; we'd end up with some weapons being hands down better than the rest. That makes for bad game-play even though it is mirroring the real world.

So we have to have the bastard sword have some disadvantages relative to both the longsword and greatsword to balance its advantage of being able to perform in a similar role to both while being just the one weapon. So it's more expensive but lacks the versatile trait and is only a single bulk where carrying a longsword and a greatsword would be 3.

Which, incidentally, is the smallest possible downside to give it since most of the time that slashing damage is undesirable so is piercing and slashing is more frequently able to trigger weaknesses so it's the better damage type of the two for the weapon to keep.

Thus it seems that both complaints are without actual point behind them and are just some kind of misguided "I should actually have even more cool stuff than I already do... but because realism, not because I'm asking for unfair amounts of cool stuff."


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The Gleeful Grognard wrote:
Again, happy to run it as intended, just find the insistence that it couldn't sensibly be read any other way is bizarre.

The text in PF2 being read to mean using the duration rules isn't sensible though.

Someone could have learned how to handle breath weapons back when the wording was "Once a dragon breathes, it can’t breathe again until 1d4 rounds later." or "A dragon can use its breath weapon once every 1d4 rounds" and it would be sensible for them to have not realized the change in wording so they were still working off the old actually reasonable to think means a 1 means next round (even though I always believed the intention was to skip at least 1 round because breath weapons do really high damage and having back to back breath is too much of a death sentence*).

But having that be the case and then also claiming the current wording isn't clearly a whole other thing? That's not sensible. That's putting the explanation for the situation on the wrong thing. With a side helping of being unreasonable if the conclusion is to continue on as you have been doing even after realizing that the text says otherwise and not in the "I've decided to house-rule that" fashion but the "this is what the book says to do" fashion.

*I should note that my opinion on breath weapons is colored heavily by having personally come in to using dragons via the old boxed set rules where they did damage equal to the hit points of the dragon so you could easily end up with a "save vs. breath; you passed!; you also died." situation so I've always been in a prepared to ignore "official" to instead insert "good" ruling.


OrochiFuror wrote:
It would have been much more clear if it was worded "this ability can't be used for the next 1d4 of the users turns".

The problem is that it already says that because each creature only gets one turn per round and does not go more than one round between having its turn.

So it's not actually any more clear, it just takes more words. Why it appears as though it would be more clear is because it doesn't use the word that confused people are blaming for their mixup of interpreting "you can't for 1d4 rounds" as "you can in 1d4 rounds". It's not the difference of rounds or turns that has resulted in confusion; it's the difference of counting when you can or counting how long you can't - leaving people just as likely to think the "I rolled 1 so that means I can use it in 1 turn" as they already are misreading the rules as saying.


Themetricsystem wrote:

Everyone, really quick, I have a question for you: When you count to ten do you start by saying "Zero, one, two..." or do you start with one?

There is the answer to your question.

That's not quite the right way to look at it because round 2 plus 1 round equals round 3, so counting starting with 1 isn't the only thing that needs to be done to get the right result.

You also have to be counting the right thing.

Some people are clearly reading it as "you can use your breath weapon again in 1d4 rounds" so a roll of 1 means next round. That's just not actually how it's worded, though. It's not how many rounds until we can use it that we're supposed to be counting, it's how many rounds that we can't.

That's what the text actually says and is why a count of 1 means "not next round" because this round you used the breath weapon so it can't possibly count, so if you could use it next round that can't possible be "one can't".


Ravingdork wrote:
It's a countdown. That by definition also makes it a duration.

Yes, but also no.

While it colloquially is a duration, it's absolutely not a game-mechanics-term duration. If it were it would be worded as something like "you have [can't breathe condition] for 1d4+1 rounds" and then using the duration rules would make it make sense.

But that's clearly not how it's worded because it's not a condition with a duration, it's just a plain English with no special game definitions "you can't do that" and a not-only-related-to-duration game definition of "for 1 to 4 rounds."

Ravingdork wrote:
This notion that it is not a duration and that you must skip a round, right or wrong, is absolutely a foreign concept in my (extensive) experience.

I have played dozens of different systems with hundreds of different people and conversed with thousands more than that, and it has been an incredible rarity - and relatively new experience - to see anyone not intuitively understand that "you can't use your breath weapon again for 1d4 rounds" meant that for the randomly rolled number of times that it is your turn after the turn you just used it on you don't have the option to use your breath weapon.

This whole "I rolled a 1 so that actually means 0 times that it's my turn and I can't use my breath weapon" thing is... well.. so ridiculous that it feels like the thing people do when they make a mistake that makes them feel self-conscious so they refuse to acknowledge it even though that means they'll be spending the rest of their life trying to convince everyone (mostly themselves) that they didn't make a mistake at all.


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The general case is that deities grant 3 spells of assorted ranks (almost always a 1st-rank, then one of 2nd- through 4th-rank and the third being 5th-rank or higher) unless "god of magic" or the like is an accurate description and then they grant a spell of each rank 1st through 9th.

Edicts and anathema are generally around 3 of each.


Lucas Yew wrote:
I always wonder why they never imported the Recharge 5-6 mechanic from the other game, other than lawyer shenanigans.

One time running 4e I had a dragon encounter that used its breath weapon 5 rounds in a row.

That, to me, is an even better reason that lawyer shenanigans to skip that kind of a rule. Especially since with how potent breath weapons are in PF2 this kind of a recharge could easily cause a TPK with just a couple of recharges.

It's much better to have at least one near-guaranteed round that you're not going to have the heftiest damage from the creature pouring out on the party and the way in which it is not guaranteed be a critical hit - because that way even though it might randomly happen that a dragon can use their breath over and over back to back it is a lot rarer and also still gives a player a chance to do something because they know another breath weapon is actually an option instead of being left to guess if it is or isn't (whether by not knowing the number of rounds roll on the d4, or by not knowing how the recharge roll is going to turn out).


Ravingdork wrote:
I for one was really surprised and dismayed when Paizo opted to give you something borderline useless, such as spell rank, when they could have given you something both useful and interesting, such as traits.

Knowing the rank helps you make an informed decision about whether you want to try Identify Magic or to counteract the effect in some way. That's far from useless.

It is, in fact, more useful than the old version telling you what school. And while knowing the traits of a spell would be at least some kind of knowledge it's still potentially leading into not being able to make any informed decision as a result of that information.

For some examples: If you don't know anything at all about what you're detecting you're likely to choose not to enter the area or touch the object. If you learn it has a fire trait you know have some information, but you're not likely to be making a different choice than without the information.

If you pick up a detection trait you still don't have any idea what is being detected; it might be an alarm that is going to go off if you enter the area, or it could just be a privacy-concerned wizard's enchantment that turns a red light on in the room if anyone tries to scry into it. The information doesn't change what decision you're likely to make.


shroudb wrote:
I don't think that read aura can replace detect magic strictly due to cast time differences.

It can't replace the "I'm repeatedly casting this as an exploration activity" part, that's true.

But that's the part that is hardly of any use because there's really not much to find in practice by doing that.

You can't find magic traps. You'll only detect illusions if they are lower-rank. Line of effect blocks detecting items not already in plain view. Basically the main thing you can do is go "oh, there's magic nearby" when a creature carrying a magic item or under a spell comes within range. Because even active magical areas are either plainly visible (i.e. wall of fire) or are likely to have it not actually matter that you get a yes/no answer on the presence of magic (i.e. alarm or a wall of force).

So you can just skip all of that. Then use read aura after you've found things in the actual fashion that things are found to know what's what without having to do the whole hokey pokey.

Because, to put it as clearly as I can, what people expect from detect magic is actually mostly impossible according to the way the rules work and it seeming useful comes down to a GM (likely unknowingly) ignoring the rules to make it useful (such as carrying forward the assumption that it can detect through materials so long as they aren't too thick for the type of material)


Errenor wrote:

"Magical hazards with a minimum proficiency rank cannot be found with detect magic at all."

And that's all of them that are meant to be hidden at all.

This is the one part of how detect magic works that could use some errata in my opinion.

The spell itself and the exploration activity both suggest it's going to be helpful to be wandering about detecting for magic, but then the hazard rules make it so that only stuff that is out in the open but somehow also not readily visible (which as far as I've seen falls squarely into "the GM theoretically made this up" because there aren't any on the books) is caught by the spell.

Making the use case extremely limited and once someone gets to higher-rank spells (I think around 3rd) casting read aura is going to get the "is there magic here or not" job done faster since even if you did use detect magic to narrow down where something is you'd probably still cast read aura on it for the bonus to identify magic.


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Just teach wildsong as the last part of the initial teachings so that there's no way the rest of your order could see it as anything other than having taught wildsong to a novice druid and you're golden.

To put that in mechanical terms; they either learn wildsong as a result of taking the dedication feat, or you did it wrong.


Reading the riddle before checking the answer I felt that the answer would be a pair of numbers that if you reflected one would create the other and that the resulting image would appear symmetrical and add up to a prime number.

And I had no idea what number that would be other than getting really creative with something point something.

Then I clicked to see the answer and I found out why I didn't get the answer.

The first line is a misdirect because mirroring has nothing to do with anything. The second line does convey that it's going to be a number with 2 identical digits. The third line then narrowing that down to being 11 since that's the only 2-digit same-digit prime number - but then the mystery bit added to keep the rhyme structure could potentially mislead someone since it's just noise. The final line is a misdirect as well because the only way that 11 is symmetrical is if we arbitrarily write one of the digits backwards - which if you actually want just that, written as an answer rather than spoken, this and the first line have a purpose again - and the "secret in numerical lore" part being again a case of noise added to force a rhyme which could mislead the participant.


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SuperBidi wrote:
That was preremaster. Now there's no more concentrate trait to Heal.

Yes, there is. That's why it says "(concentrate)" after both the 2- and 3-action icons in the description.


The remaster has, as far as I am aware (i scrolled through a few pages of both normal spells and focus spells, did not see any without concentrate) made it so that all spells have the concentrate trait by default.

That makes it very clear as to when a barbarian can cast them (assuming that the concentrate trait restriction isn't removed from the barbarian as part of the remaster).


Absolutely.

The game mechanics aren't so directly tied to in-world what-nots as for their to be any reason not to, especially given how this question is limited to a specific subset of characters and there's no "it would be unfair if they did get this benefit like everyone else" argument to be made since spell casters are not outright more potent than other characters.


The text in question is saying that the way in which the other conditions being talked about are different from stunned is that they do not change the number of actions you regain.

Stunned is fine to use as an example in the sidebar because it and slowed are the conditions which do that thing which the conditions being talked about do not do, and because the word "just" is used in the context of:

other conditions JUST
stunned DOESN'T JUST


Gortle wrote:

It losens the connection to the other conditions of the first sentence. It opens the door of meaning and allows all cases where it says "You can't act" not just "simply say you can’t act".

No it doesn't, that's not how paragraph structure works when no new subject is being talked about.

It is clear that it remains the conditions established in the first sentence of the paragraph and expanded by the second sentence, with the overall purpose of the paragraph being clarifying the difference between not being able to use an action of a particular type and not having that action.


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How does "If you are at least 11th level, you also become an expert in these weapons." appear not to include the advanced weapon?


Stunned does not deny that it says you can't act, where are you even getting that idea?

It's like you've read backwards and where the book actually says that some actions only say you can't act unlike stunned, which says more than one thing, you're seeing the non-existent claim that stunned isn't an action that says you can't act.

It's some actions only preventing acting rather than also reducing actions, not some actions prevent acting and stunned isn't one of them.


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Gortle wrote:
That is just false. Read the whole paragraph in the box.

It isn't, and I did.

I've read the whole of both paragraphs in the box and there is no contradiction with what they say either internally within the box or externally with other text in the book.

Specifically the text is talking about how "Other conditions" which say "can't act" are "unlike" slowed and stunned in that they "don't change the number of actions you regain; they just prevent you from using them."

There is no contradiction in that.


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Easl wrote:
Finoan wrote:
If you have the stunned condition of any value, then you can't act. And you only have the option of reducing the value at the start of your next turn.
That's not how I would read it. The "total" in "how many total actions you lose" means total. The count starts immediately. The first sentence is just a qualitative short summary of what stunned does in a vernacular sense; it is a lead-in sentence to the rest of the paragraph. So to take your example, you take an action, get hit with a reaction during your turn, and gain stunned 2. The 2 means 2. It doesn't mean your remaining 2 this round and then 2 more next round.

The game is explicit that you only lose actions at the time you would regain them.

It uses the language "In brief, these conditions alter how many actions you regain at the start of your turn; thus, gaining the condition in the middle of your turn doesn’t adjust your number of actions on that turn." specifying that you do not lose actions mid-turn - and that stays true even if you were prefer that you did lose actions mid-turn because the alternative, thanks to you not being able to act, is to retain some actions that you can't use (or are heavily limited in how you can use them if you get paralyzed mid-turn rather than stunned).

The stunned action is further clear when it says not just the "fluff" bit about total actions, but also the explicit bit of "Each time you regain actions, reduce the number you regain by your stunned value, then reduce your stunned value by the number of actions you lost." where it also says not in the middle of your turn but when you regain actions is when you drop the number stated and reduce your stunned value.

Yes, it can be argued that it is obnoxious to have a distinction between actions you have but cannot use and actions you no longer have. But it cannot be said that the game is not clear and consistent (after the errata removing the relevant erroneous bit) about that in fact being a difference.


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You've trimmed the text to make it seem far less clear than it is and invent a contradiction that does not exist.

The full sentence in the upper left is "Unlike slowed or stunned, these don't change the number of actions you regain; they just prevent you from using them."

It is referring to petrified and paralyzed which only have the "can't act" statement and don't reduce your regained number of actions.

Stunned happens to do both the "can't act" part and the "change the number of actions you regain" part, but nothing anywhere else says that it doesn't so there's no contradiction. In fact, the new wording provides clarity as to what happens if you get a "can't act" while you're already on your turn.

Even the errata you're mentioning is saying that text on page 462 of the core rule-book that read "When you can't act, you don't regain your actions and reaction on your turn." is what is being removed because it's wrong and the text on page 622 (which is incidentally the text now found on the upper left of page 446 of Player Core) is correct.

The issue the errata is fixing is that not only was there a contradiction, but the erroneous text made it so that while Paralyzed says you can use mental actions that's actually impossible because you didn't regain your actions on your turn because you can't act if you followed it.


Ascalaphus wrote:
thenobledrake wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:
I feel like DCs scale just a bit too fast for trained-only skills to really keep up. It's not so bad at low level, but by the time Master skills roll around it really becomes noticeable.

Level-based DCs go up by 25 in the span that proficiency goes up 19 from level alone.

That means 6 points to make up between attribute boosts and item bonuses to stay equally relevant, which is fairly easy to manage if you make it a priority since that's just 2 boosts and a typically mid-level item.

I don't really agree. 2+1 or 2+2 is not 6. Ability boosts slow down after getting to +4, and when you start picking up skill items you start running into the investment limit.

Because of how priorities work, it's rare that it's an ability someone isn't boosting at every possible opportunity that hits the partial boosts necessary to make what I said not true.

You're likely to already be planning on the boosts and skill increases to cover the +6 (and then some more on top) for stuff attached to the scores you're starting at +3 or +4 and running into those partial boosts with.

It's just the scores you start in the +0 to +2 range that fall into the "I could use a point of Int to get a skill training... but that would fall off in usefulness, unless" and you can use 2 full boosts on those, easy.

Yes, investment limit is a thing and you can run into it (though you can also just not depending on which items you happened to have prioritized). But that's still a matter of priority. You can, if you actually care to, invest an item or two to keep a trained-only skill relevant.

Like, genuinely. You can have your armor, a hat, some shoes, two rings, a cloak... and then still have 4 investment slots to stick items in. You might already have plenty of skills boosted just by the prior list of items, but you might also be limited there because those items are mostly for their special functions and not skill boosts, but we've got likely our apex and everything fundamental covered plus some fancy things for the heck of it and 4 items left just for "eh, why not?" selections. Plus you can get a few more slots for a feat.

So yeah, if you want a trained skill to stay relevant it's absolutely doable. Wanting other stuff more doesn't disprove that, it just shows you have some other thing you'd rather do.


Ascalaphus wrote:
I feel like DCs scale just a bit too fast for trained-only skills to really keep up. It's not so bad at low level, but by the time Master skills roll around it really becomes noticeable.

Level-based DCs go up by 25 in the span that proficiency goes up 19 from level alone.

That means 6 points to make up between attribute boosts and item bonuses to stay equally relevant, which is fairly easy to manage if you make it a priority since that's just 2 boosts and a typically mid-level item.


Every time someone mentions the perceived lack of strength to Intelligence, I can't help but think of how much more work they are putting into downplaying the impact of languages and the benefits of skills even if they are redundant with other party members, and how that level of effort is already greater than fixing the problem being experienced but a solution that requires even more effort is sought.

I bet Finoan is onto something though. Many groups if given this proposal would be like "meh, those suck too" and continue not to care about Intelligence.

What I bet would be hilarious though is seeing how many people would take Intimidating Glare with a bonus feat granted by this rule.


SuperParkourio wrote:
That still leaves the question of how severely a rest can be interrupted before it is ruined and must be restarted. For instance, if raiders attacked the town at midnight and the adventurers had to spend the whole rest of the night fighting them off, how much could the PCs push it before needing to restart?

I believe the rules are left in the vague state that they are because the purpose of rest being something that can be interrupted is to prevent undesired player behavior more than it is to create scenarios that players are going to encounter during "normal play."

By which I mean I see basically two cases I'd ever even hypothetically interrupt a rest. The first being when it's a narrative thing I'm doing and that would be handled as favorably toward the party as it can be so that the players don't come out of it feeling like I'm being a jerk and leaving them fatigued or without refreshed resources just because I can. Though this basically would be a case where I'd say "...and then you complete your rest" after whatever the planned interruption was, no matter how long it took.

The second being the players have decided to take a stance of refusing to engage the game in good faith and are intentionally over-resting in an attempt to only ever face an encounter with their best resources fully available, and right before I tell them "this isn't the kind of campaign I'm interested in running, so we're done here." would be the period of time in which I'm trying to feel out why they are trying to play this way, and having interruptions come along so they can see that the world will not sit in stasis waiting for their arrival. But even then they will eventually finish a rest since the goal is to show the players they can handle plenty of adventure in a day and still survive so they have less incentive to over-rest, not to keep their characters from resting just for the sake of it.


Reksew_Trebla wrote:

There is an entire large community dedicated to playing Mario games with as little "A" presses as possible (A typically being the jump button in Mario games).

So uh, bad example there dude.

It's really not, though.

Because that's actually exactly analogous. Some people are into it and dedicate time to figuring out how to squeeze even fewer jumps into a run - but if you tell the majority of people that buy a Mario game to play like that they are going to respond with "...but... why?"


Constantly.

It's why I started avoiding spellcasters in general and tend to play extremely recklessly... and quit playing with a particular GM who would always run the GM-as-antagonist style and basically just hard-counter, or worse just ape, my character (and unsurprisingly have "we're just not going to play that anymore" be the "good ending" for their campaigns).

It's a big part of why I don't play certain systems anymore, PF1 included. I absolutely hate having to deliberately avoid options because they have too much impact on game-play. I know some people like the feeling of being able to sandbag until some crazy moment and then pull out their actual power to win, but for me it feels like sitting down to play Super Mario Bros and trying not to push the jump button.


...do you really need to have the rule for improvised weapons repeated?


"the feedback I got wasn't constructive because I already insisted the downsides aren't downsides" isn't actually making the feedback about the issues a rule can cause any less constructive.

Not wanting to hear it and it not actually being something important for you to hear are not the same thing, especially not when you're asking what the impact of something is going to be and you're just trying to per-emptively say "but don't actually tell me the impact if it's going to be a negative one."

So even though the OP has claimed that this doesn't do anything bad because a player can just ignore the rule, it absolutely is constructive feedback to say "that's probably not going to fly well with players because the incentive is heavily present to do all that research and track all the feats and find a way remember the dozens of free bonuses they've been given - and likely to produce either a resentment that someone putting that effort in gets benefits you don't get if you try to skip it, a resentment that someone isn't putting in the effort so their character isn't pulling their weight like everyone else's are, or both." because the OP's claim is dismissive and potentially extremely wrong.

Sometimes, saying "this is a poorly thought out rule" is the best possible criticism - no matter how much it might feel like that's bad feedback. And if someone isn't open to hearing that their rule proposal might not actually be a net gain for their game, they definitely shouldn't post it in a public space.


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The implication that "this would spoil the game" is not "constructive" feedback when someone asks how a house-rule would affect the game is nonsense.

"just don't play with it" isn't at all relevant because the thread isn't about the OP convincing others to adopt this house-rule. It's about analysis of the impact of the house-rule so the OP can decide whether they actually want to use it or not.

If "this rule should probably be avoided" were actually non-useful feedback to the OP that would indicate that the OP shouldn't have bothered posting in the first place because using the rule is a fore-gone conclusion, not a discussion, so they can "just play with it" like is being suggested should stop anyone else at "just don't play with it."

The whole act of trying to police "constructive things to say" is just a thinly veiled attempt at making it so that the house-rule forum is a back patting circle where every suggested rule gets treated as an inherently good idea.


Casting a spell to benefit you during your watch makes the scenario seem like the player's intent is genuine. Especially if they weren't deliberately holding back that slot for watch time and genuinely just hadn't had a reason to use it sooner.

It's when the player starts trying to make sure they are the last one to take watch and other forms of trying to wrap one day's resources over into to the next that things become a problem. And whether they ask for having cast something near the end of resting on a downtime day because the following day is an adventure day is usually where it's the most clear that a player is looking for something extra rather than just casting spells when it makes sense to cast them.


Ectar wrote:
Unfortunately, the Flying Broom was printed in the Player Core, whereas vehicle rules were printed in the GM core.

Player Core does not include any magic items, they are all in GM Core.


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SuperParkourio wrote:
So even though PF2e encounters are balanced around the party going in with full resources, rest casting still falls under "too good to be true?"

There are two kinds of "balanced around"; The "balance is achieved only by doing this" which PF2 doesn't utilize, and the "doing this will not impact the balance in an unpredictable way" which is how PF2 is set up.

Going into an encounter with all your resources isn't the only scenario the game works in, it just also isn't going to make GMs go "I guess I'm supposed to actually prevent that from happening if I want a balanced experience".

But getting the benefits of spells that cost slots without having paid that cost in a practical sense? That's no kind of balanced. That's free stuff, extra bonuses, having your cake and eating it too, and then pretending that "actually, I paid for it earlier, retroactively" makes any sense because no one is actually pre-spending a slot so they can't use it should anything else come up to get the benefit, they are keeping that slot on hand ready for any use that comes up and then when one doesn't are trying to get an effective do-over on having chosen "I'll save that in case I need it more later"


It certainly seems better, to me, than a 1 level higher item giving a similar flight speed but only for up to 5 minutes each hour... which since the higher level item does literally only that and this lower-level item actually also goes even faster in exploration scenarios.

I am open to being convinced that the issue there is the winged rune being too weak for its level... but considering a fly spell is also similarly limited at such levels, it seems the broom might be what's out of sorts.


I'm not sure I think it is balanced. I'm also not sure I think it isn't.

I just know that the first thing I looked up to compare it to (a winged rune for armor) is leaving me thinking there's definitely something not working as intended.

Level 12 vs. Level 13, you'd expect the higher level to come out ahead.
No investment vs. investment, you'd expect the investment to come out ahead.
Yet the broom gives flight Speed 20 as long as it is held in one hand for you and a second passenger plus having an entire separate self-driving vehicle function... and the rune provides 5 minutes of flight Speed 25 (or your land speed if slower) per hour, with any passenger-style situation being more hand-occupying.

So whether because the broom is arguably too good or the winged rune is arguable too bad, there's seemingly something off about the balance of these items.


That's a good point about the wording being even more convoluted than I was reading it as.

I thought the errors were just inconsistency between some details, but you're right that it can simply be held in one hand and fly... but that's even worse than the way I was reading it as just not applying to combat at all because now you're in combat moving at least 20 feet every round since you are only given ability to "guide" the broom not actually control the speed, and since no number of actions the broom uses is specified it's unclear whether "speed of 20 feet" means just the 20 feet or means up to 60 feat like it would be if actually giving the user of the item of fly speed of 20 feet.

So it's an item with one clear usage (the activation part) and a whole paragraph of almost saying you can do something else but not landing on anything generally useful.


Where I would normally be a "don't interpret things in a way that screws the player if you don't have to" sort of GM, I think Ravingdork has a point here.

The way this particular item is worded is that you tell it where you want to go when you activate it and it flies you toward there to the best of its stated-as-limited ability for up to 4 hours.

So if you're trying to use it for in-combat flight you're going to have to reactivate it repeatedly, 2 actions each time, to give it a new "right over there by that" destination. And you'd have to have dismissed the prior activation to not just keep going along its path (which maybe you want to do as your attacks may have trouble keeping up and attacking you).

Incidentally, this does mean that if you're just letting the broom keep on going toward the pre-selected destination during a combat you don't actually need to spend any actions keeping it flying... you just also have to have both hands on the broom to be riding it, so your combat options could be limited.

Lots of edits from a re-read in the GM core instead of on Archives: The wording is actually inconsistent as to whether you can have just one hand on the broom or need both.

And i was wrong about re-activating the broom for combat flight because of the clause that the broom can't be used for an hour after the activation ends.

It's also unclear whether the broom's speed is 20 or 40.

Altogether a roughly-written item, but one that is definitely not a fly speed you can use in combat. It's a kind of magical 2-rider train that doesn't need a track, it just needs you to tell it where you are going and hang on while it heads there.


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Finoan wrote:
How does Hustle add tension?

It is technically a choice between travel speed and ability to notice hazards, besides the other ways already addressed by another poster.

If you have somewhere you are going and there aren't enough obstacles or other involved parties for it to make sense as a chase, it can still be a situation of choosing between going slow enough that someone can be Searching and be checking for hazards along the way, and going full speed.

Even without actually encountering a hazard, the reality that you could have makes the choice one not made lightly.

The same concept can be applied to other exploration activities, though their benefits are often of smaller impact than whether or not a hazard was notice before it affected someone.

So the tension is basically coming from the choice of risk; do you risk something along the way in order to arrive as soon as possible, or do you risk that conditions at the destination worsen in order to make your trip less dangerous?


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Deriven Firelion wrote:
It is a trap. It's supposedly be wildly dangerous. That's the fun of it.

No other trap is as complicated to deal with. Arguing for "wildly dangerous" when nothing else is even comparable comes off as a "who cares if the game is balanced or not"

Deriven Firelion wrote:
If you players hate it, don't use it.

Also known as inflicting predictable and avoidable bad experiences upon your players just to check that yes, it did in fact produce a bad experience.

Deriven Firelion wrote:
If you think your players will have fun with it, then make it fun.

There's the "get good" mentality. "Make it fun" as if that wasn't the responsibility of the writer of the hazard, too.

Deriven Firelion wrote:
You'll remember the experience.

Memorable does not mean enjoyable.

With a few decades of memorable experiences already in the "remember how much it sucked when..." and "remember that stupid rule that..." category, I see absolutely no reason to leave this kind of tripping hazard laying out for people that haven't already had a bad experience with it just because of some nostalgia-blurred memory of some other time (likely with some other rules) when, best case, fun was had despite the bad mechanics.

This hazard is the kind of thing that if it weren't in the book and someone rolled up to the board with a post about their cool new home-brew they'd be told to tone it way down because it's out of line. Literally the only reason behind any defense of it I can see is "but it's from back in the day" as if having been thought up a long time ago means it is inherently good.


Karneios wrote:
Does smashing the mirror even return taken allies?

Nope.

Smashing the mirror is only a solution if it is noticed as a hazard before anyone is duplicated by it. Well, that and it's easier to smash the mirror if you've recovered all your allies (or waited for them to reach the mirror dimension and be able to return on their own) after defeating all their duplicates than to succeed at the DC 39 check to disable the mirror with Thievery.

That's part of why the hazard is such a mess.


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To me it reads as though the intention were a hard limit on doing the activity that would have to be reset by some period of rest, rather than a thing which you could elect to keep doing but would have a penalty for choosing to do so.

Of course said period of not hustling to reset your ability to hustle is unmentioned. I'd guess it'd be an until your next daily preparations kind of thing, though.


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I think it's best to play PF2 with an approach of "if you think you found a loop hole, no you didn't." Which is my own summation of the guidance provided in the game convention sidebar about ambiguous rules that seem overly beneficial.

So basically as soon as a player starts to think in terms of "am I technically allowed to use a spell slot I didn't use before choosing to rest to benefit me after the rest is finished and I've replenished my spell slots?" I'm saying "stop doing that and play the game in good faith."

It's the same reason I insist that rest casting in 5e is not actually a thing people should allow because the argument for it is "well I had the spell slot left over, so why can't I benefit from using it? It's like I'm losing the slot otherwise" is assuming that we're not actually starting with the character having rest cast on the day the campaign started and every day since, effectively having gained a free benefit, or even just dove in to what is effectively "we had a day of downtime, so now I've got benefits of spells I cast and all my spell slots."


Deriven Firelion wrote:
Working real hard to get spun up?

I had been wondering how long it would take being back on this message board after such a long absence for me to be reminded why I left in the first place.

I bet you didn't even hesitate to throw this "your arguments are invalid because I have interpreted you as in an emotional state" kind of horse-apple.

And then keep going about "abuse" and "incompetence" as if you're not actually describing the completely likely outcome of a GM just making a genuine effort to use the trap because it's in the book. 2 of the party being replaced by duplicates is as simple as one got duped as the reaction that happens to trigger initiative and then a second gets duped as the routine of the hazard with it having rolled better initiative than the rest of the party.

It's not that the encounter can't be beaten; it's that how hard it is to beat the encounter is far more variable than any other hazard on the books while also trending toward being one of the hardest given the high probability that it's the "front-liner" of the party got duped meaning usually the highest overall defenses and ability to persist through damage.

Plus hazards are meant to have one extreme trait by design and some notably easier part of dealing with them, but this one happens to be extreme on multiple fronts because disabling it if you don't do so in the "there was a mirror, and then nothing happened" fashion requires beating down a boss-level threat.

It shouldn't take anything more than this to convince everyone that this hazard is not worth including even though theoretically someone could think it was really fun to encounter because the general result of "I put the hazard in the game and wasn't even trying to be a dick" is this: If a full party faced an equal number of enemies of an equal level it would be worth 160 experience to them, yet even if this hazard does manage to duplicate 2 party members and the other 2 fight them off and smash the mirror returning their allies, their by-the-book reward for doing so is 40 XP.

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