thewastedwalrus's page

My gang of outlaws proposed using the Maw with its enormous range to take out the Gearsmoke and prevent the pyronite bombs from ever reaching the falls. Certainly not minimizing collateral damage for the many folks on the boat, and aiming/firing the cannon at that distance accurately would be tricky, but it might save Alkenstar/the falls with some dubiousness from the unknown boat teleport ritual.

I had Dunsmith convince them to follow the infiltration scheme as written, but it was an interesting, if callous, idea. One big aspect against would be that destroying the vessel could play into Loveless's ambition to militarize Alkenstar and provoke tensions with Nex by sinking a "Nexian" vessel with many citizens aboard.

The new policies seem great to me, allowing fans to sell homemade Paizo merchandise is something I haven't seen any company intentionally allow rather than just ignoring. The removal of registration for compatibility license usage is also a great change that could open a lot of smaller opportunities for folks who would be hesitant otherwise.

I haven't run this yet, but running Alkoasha (the 10-headed cave worm/hydra) as a trivial threat encounter seems like a wasted opportunity with how excellent the art turned out. Some really great visuals for them and Ymynsallion's corpse.

Here's my take on a remastered 9th-level version of the creature if anyone else finds it useful for a moderate encounter here, I'm thinking of removing two brimoraks from the arson demon encounter to keep a trivial encounter in the section:

The map for Nettleglens Clearing is pretty contradictory to the text of the encounter and larger map for Valmar's Burrow beneath, needing something like 15-foot squares to have the 2-1/2 squares of the well match up to 40 feet wide in the text. It's properly sized in the Foundry VTT version of the map, at least.

This does make the encounter against slow, tiny creatures a bit odd, but I actually like it as a chance to show off their ranged acid spit.

I'm curious about Zolivelli's LE alignment, not sure if that's some very deep corruption in Iomedae's priest in Egede or if it's just a typo.

Seems like nothing in the plot points towards her being more than a minor antagonist, but it would be nice if this was confirmed somewhere.

They made the DC of these crystals to unlock way too high. I have a maxed out Thievery with a Greater Skeleton Key and I haven't been able to unlock a single one without destroying it with six checks required. Basically made it impossible to unlock without destroying.

It'd probably be best to allow other agents to help with Aid, and with the broadness of applicable abilities someone should be able to give a +3 or +4 bonus at that level. DC 40 at around +34 shouldn't be too bad for 6 successes before 3 failures, especially with critical successes counting as 2.

For what it's worth the flooding taking longer to repair than reasonable is a plot element that Janatimo even comments on. Characters thinking there's something odd happening at the manor might be the intention, though actually investigating should be delayed until the party is ready for the threats within.

It's in the GM's control as to who experiences the dream and when. There's really only a recommendation that each character experiences a dream before the end of the book, you could have each of them have one for the first 4 nights of the campaign.

Refreshing my download today after hitting this issue last week reduced the file size to ~35 mb.

Cordell Kintner wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

A successful check after four days gets you the first half. Every day after that begins reducing the second half by an amount determined by the item level and your check result.

Determined by YOUR level.

Yes, we covered that already.

Cordell Kintner wrote:

That is the power of crafting. You get steep discounts on items you want, meaning your net worth can skyrocket above that of the rest of your party.

I'm a bit skeptical of that claim. I've seen loads of math experts* analyzing Craft over the years and it was often found that Craft usually ties up with Earn Income except for very specific situations.

Using your own level as the task level for Earn Income is substantially better in cases where you can't reliably find tasks of that level.

Depending on GM/campaign, that could be entirely pointless if such tasks are available everywhere or very strong if you're in some area where only lower-level tasks are available.

Ah, I never noticed that the damage on their Swallow Whole was so high when I was trying to figure out if I ran something incorrectly when I TPK'd my party there.

It's about double the average damage of an azure worm's Swallow Whole which is even one level higher than the Aukashungi. It seems like maybe the '1' in 15d6+6 might be a typo?

I moved onto 'Extinction Curse' and thought that running a circus would be far away from body horror right? But then I went to the player's guide on that path and saw the clown thing on page 5.

In general Extinction Curse is gorier than Strength of Thousands and probably wouldn't be best here, but for what it's worth based on the stats of that clown thing:

You can get +1 familiar ability from the Elementalist class archetype's Elemental Familiar, though it needs to be one of the elemental familiar abilities.

The numbers seem correct to the book, purchasing a wooden cottage typically costs 300 gp or it can be effectively mortgaged with a monthly cost of 6 gp for 10 years.

Renting it monthly would cost 20 gp, probably to incentivize the monthly payment plan option and to target the types of folks like adventurers that can afford the expanded cost for a month or two.

What gives it away is "that bear is acting strangely" not "that bear doesn't convincingly appear to be a bear". If a sentry sees a bear try to interact with a doorknob, they're going to know something is up.

Bears are pretty intelligent, definitely enough to figure out that messing with a doorknob might open a door if they wanted to get behind it and it was shut.

Now if they picked up a set of thieves' tools and started working away at a locked door then there's probably something up.

Elephant's are Huge typically according to their Bestiary description.

thewastedwalrus wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Note that this is all spells and magical abilities. So strikes with a magical weapon are not magical. The effect of the strikes is magical damage, but golems aren't immune to effects so they take that damage. All this damage, as the ability used was the strike. But to provide more detail I'll go on. The runes on weapons are magical. A flaming rune is magical. The damage is also magical because of the fundamental rune. So the extra fire damage from a flaming rune is magical fire damage. But the persistent damage from a critical is fire damage, but not magical fire damage.

Not sure why the persistent fire from a flaming weapon's critical hit wouldn't also be magical? It's still damage caused by the weapon, which a fundamental rune makes into magical damage.

Is it actually magical that matters? The immunity is to spells and magical abilities, and I'm not totally sure a rune is an ability. The harmed by section does talk about magic. But that is not totally equvalent.

This is only in response to you calling the persistent damage "not magical fire damage". Either way for Golem Immunities it's irrelevant.

But the rule for durations linked previously is:

Some spells have effects that remain even after the spell’s magic is gone. Any ongoing effect that isn’t part of the spell’s duration entry isn’t considered magical. For instance, a spell that creates a loud sound and has no duration might deafen someone for a time, even permanently. This deafness couldn’t be counteracted because it is not itself magical (though it might be cured by other magic, such as restore senses).

Persistent damage technically can be ongoing but desn't have a duration. A natural language reading might call that a duration.

That rule is under the section about spells, and only refers to spells, no reason it would apply to the persistent damage from a flaming weapon.

I can easily read the Harmed By section for a Wood Golem as as Harmed By all fire even non magical fire.

You definitely can if you ignore the rest of the ability, but consider reading the text above the Harmed/Healed/Slowed By and Vulnerable entries:

A golem is immune to spells and magical abilities other than its own, but each type of golem is affected by a few types of magic in special ways. These exceptions are listed in shortened form in the golem's stat block, with the full rules appearing here. If an entry lists multiple types (such as “cold and water”), either type of spell can affect the golem.

Golems taking extra damage from mundane persistent damage doesn't seem like an exception to their immunity to magic.

Wall of Stone covers that already, it fails.

The idea is that normally wall of stone would just be lost because of the line under its effect, but casting an earth spell with a golem in the area where the wall would be might trigger something like "Harmed By: earth" which causes the spell to have no effect to the golem beyond damaging it. The Golem Immunities might negate the effect that causes the spell to entirely fail.

Definitely more of a stretch, especially as it's not technically an area spell and instead just creates something that has an area.

Note that this is all spells and magical abilities. So strikes with a magical weapon are not magical. The effect of the strikes is magical damage, but golems aren't immune to effects so they take that damage. All this damage, as the ability used was the strike. But to provide more detail I'll go on. The runes on weapons are magical. A flaming rune is magical. The damage is also magical because of the fundamental rune. So the extra fire damage from a flaming rune is magical fire damage. But the persistent damage from a critical is fire damage, but not magical fire damage.

Not sure why the persistent fire from a flaming weapon's critical hit wouldn't also be magical? It's still damage caused by the weapon, which a fundamental rune makes into magical damage.

It's worth noting that the 'Harmed By' section about persistent damage being replaced is underneath the broader 'Golem Immunities' ability, as a specific exception to the broad immunity to magical abilities and spells. So only the persistent damage from one of those would be replaced with the other damage, not any mundane source of persistent damage.

Moving onto persistent effects, those that go beyond a spell's duration are no longer magical but are also really no longer part of the spell. The wall of stone created by wall of stone is a completely mundane wall of stone and not part of the spell after its creation, just like how the deafness of a sound burst isn't a part of the spell after it has completed. So a golem's immunity to spells wouldn't apply to either of these persistent effects after the spell was cast.

What's really interesting is that casting wall of stone and trying to include a golem in the area would trigger the immunity to spells. As the limitation on putting creatures within the wall is part of the spell's effect, the golem might similarly be exempt from that.

Oggvurm is there in the arena before the party, so they might decide to investigate him directly and discover the bomb early. There's all sorts of ways the Irorium encounters could work out depending on how the party chooses to approach it, that statement just covers what happens if the party figures out who has the bomb beforehand.

One way to appreciate how strong pre-errata Scare to Death was is to consider it on a creature party level + 1 with a high-extreme Intimidation modifier.

- No MAP applied, doesn't affect other abilities they have
- Only requires the target to fail a single save, not even critically fail
- Only takes a single action to use, mixes with most abilities/routines

To be fair though, you do craft them in batches according to the number listed in their weapon entry (10 for arrows).

Well it does help establish the tone that the entire city is overwhelmed by the Radiant Festival and that they may just not have the personnel to follow up on every lead as soon as they get them.

A potential kidnapping is definitely a high-priority issue, but the involvement of a gang means that much greater resources would be required for the big bust and that even verifying the rumor requires some subtle investigation.

Minions exist as creatures outside of combat and can take actions, so they'd be able to help. They could also be a hindrance if the number of successes required hinged on the number of characters in the chase, so leaving them behind or tucking a familiar in a bag might be better depending on their skills.

The rule about eidolons being able to act as any other creature in exploration exists because they share actions with the summoner and would otherwise be limited because only one member of the bond could act over a given set of actions. Minions have their own actions and can just use those the same as any other character, only in an encounter are they limited to taking 2 actions a round when commanded.

My question would be just how you'd decide what gets inherited: for instance, bleed is physical damage but it never says it inherits materials or a particular type [S/P/B]. For instance, does a Giant Hermit Crab take an extra 5 bleed damage because it has Weaknesses bludgeoning 5 if it's hit with a mace? Or a soulforged Essence Powers Reflecting Spirit taking 5 more damage because the bleed was caused by an arrow? I just seems odd IMO.

Bleed is distinct from other types of physical damage, but it seems clear the crab would be taking 5 extra damage if it was taking persistent bludgeoning instead of persistent bleed.

Making cover on the battlefield seems like it could be useful in certain scenarios, as other creatures are also able to Take Cover using your raised tower shield.

Also I don't think writing off expanded tower shield options as never coming considering the developer insight offered in the basic armor options thread. Might just be that the game's only a few years old and the focus has been on other things.

Flip-flopping between 8th-level breath weapons as a 9th-level spell seems fine by me at that point in the game. It even costs an action each time, so 3 actions to get off a single blast each time.

Could be an exciting 1 minute of exploration time with 10 blasts, though using 3 actions a round outside of an encounter is generally not allowed. Even at 5 blasts that would be quite the damage over a minute.

Reactions and Free actions with triggers are actually unique in that they occur at the same time as their trigger, as described under Simultaneous Actions.

Free actions with triggers and reactions work differently. You can use these whenever the trigger occurs, even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action.

Everyone rolls initiative at the same time, so the trigger of "when you roll initiative" would be exactly when your enemy rolls initiative. If the attempt succeeds and the enemy would become frightened while rolling, it seems that the condition would apply to the roll.

Also remember that an equal-level enemy would be a extreme encounter for just one character. Such a fight is designed to be roughly a 50/50 without circumstantial help and hero points, so around 60% success/10% critical success seems right.

And that's sorta the whole reason pf2e feels balanced from the GM's perspective. Making the players feel more powerful can be done by using lower-level opponents more regularly or just giving out a bonus level in a premade adventure.

Stone structures are listed as having 14 hardness and 56 HP per 5-foot cube of material, so depending on the attacker/width of the bridge it might take a while. If the bridge is supported by something it might be easier to just take out the support and let gravity pull down the bridge.

Using downtime to just mine the bridge using appropriate tools like a pickaxe would probably still take quite a while, maybe a day per 5-foot cube being removed with a few people working on it.

Carving through stone isn't easy in the slightest, even with reasonable strength and determination, but smaller or already vulnerable bridges could be broken faster if you want to justify a particular timing. Or they could have magical/otherwise specialized tools to destroy the bridge beyond brute strength.

EDIT: Also worth noting that the bridge would be broken at half-HP, so they wouldn't need to completely destroy the thing if they just wanted to stop folks from using it. Particularly with breaking the supports, as that'd be enough to prevent the supports from working and might collapse the bridge.

Could be that the Sleepless Suns were able to piece it together as part of their own investigation into the Copper Hand, and offered the tip to the agents when they showed up asking to raid their hideout. Maybe there were reports of a man matching his description around the location or the kidnapping a few weeks ago left some clues suggesting the Copper Hand were responsible.

Also, I said the game punishes you for sleeping, not that you can’t. And it does.

This seems particularly far off.

Bringing back the options of PF1 with the balance of PF2 would be great, though things like numerical boosts run into direct conflict with keeping things balanced.

Stat replacements in particular tend to devalue whatever's being replaced and encourage more lopsided ability scores as one is dumped, so I'd be wary about making these adjustments.

Big fan of picking up old specific abilities that were actually interesting rather than just powerful, like how a spellslinger could get benefits for firing a fireball through their gun or how a siege mage could fire and eventually reload a Hotchkiss 6-pounder at range and by themselves using their magic.

Many of the old options do exist in some form now with broader archetypes, skill feats, etc., but they're occasionally more limited to stay within the design of the new edition and avoid invalidating other character's niches.

Today I've been thinking about a similar potential general feat.

Mental Ward
level 7 general feat
Requisites: 16 INT or CHA
Either through intense study or sheer strength of character, you are able to set up a mental barrier against hostile effects. You can treat your Wisdom modifier as +1 against Will saves with the mental trait. At level 12, you can treat it as +2 and at level 17, as +3.

Reasoning is, a general feat seems like a good investment to me (more commitment than a single level 2 class feat) and INT or CHA requisites are a good way to ensure people don't use this to go nuts on physical stats early on (it is also good flavor wise IMO). I would prefer to keep an effect like this between +1 and +3 so it never gets to the point on competing with the WIS of someone who boosted WIS every chance they got (starting with both 10 or 12 WIS max out at +4).

Wisdom as a +1 at level 7 would be pretty rough as you've got that feat currently, as that really only opens up one boost out of 8 that are completely floating. Definitely a solid option by level 17, but it'd probably be reasonable to just give +3 Wis on saves at a default and even reduce the feat's level to 3.

Spending a 3rd level general feat to specifically help builds with low-Wis and high-Int or Cha defensively seems impactful enough to be taken while not an automatic include or default to build around. That it doesn't take up an item is a huge benefit as an implementation in my mind.

The outer gods and great old ones lack anathema and generally don't care what their followers do with the power given to them, so they seem like an entire list of deities that would condone such a rebellious cleric.

EDIT: Then again, what would there be to rebel against?

Seems a bit predetermined as you've presented it now, and this chapter as written is interesting for being very open as to how the agents actually achieve their goals.

Making the devices able to be stopped and giving the agents a big advantage in part 2 if they manage it (perhaps reducing the amount of support Scathka gets) or a further complication if they don't disarm that many might be more engaging in this respect.

For sure the most valuable of Dex/Con/Wis in a world where bulwark exists for Reflex/Will would still be Wisdom.

Con of 10 would be pretty bad on a melee martial now, but with a free +3 for Fort saves that's not nearly as bad. Take Toughness and wear full plate to match your Dex of 10 and you should be fine.

Damage boost for ranged = Strength on thrown, or half that if a bow. Seems pretty competent at a base Dex 16/Str 18, particularly with a fighter's proficiency.

Also, it's not a +3, averaged over your career it's +1. It's hardly high.

It's +3 for your entire career if you never boost them over 10, which you can do for your choice of 2 of them. And with a built-in +3 for saves, why not just have Int/Cha to be more useful out of combat (or in combat with skills like Intimidation)?

thewastedwalrus wrote:

roquepo wrote:

Of course optimized builds would use this kind of items. The thing is that none of the strong and optimized builds we have now would need them. At all.

An item that just boosted saves in line with bulwark would be extremely strong, definitely pushing those optimized builds even further beyond by allowing them to focus more thoroughly on offense. Doesn't matter that they don't "need" them, having even higher saves is incredible because of Crit Successes/avoiding Crit Failures against higher-level DCs.

Unless this item had similar penalties and requirements to wearing full plate and/or only worked against damaging effects, this would be one of the best items in every build just like magic armor (which of course, already boosts saves as a cloak of resistance did).

I'm yet to see posted here any build that is strong currently and would get "too good" with effects like that.

Let's take the same good 'ol polearm fighter I mentioned before. Now they boost STR, CON, WIS and CHA. Not having to boost WIS would mean they could afford to boost DEX, not for saves, because they are already covered by bulwark, but to be able to fight at distance. Badly.

They can also boost INT for... They can also boost INT!

Come on.

Boost Charisma even higher? Also thrown/bow ranged attacks with 18 Strength doesn't sound that bad if you swap Dexterity for Wisdom. Could also drop Con as well if it isn't needed for Fort saves.

Something like Str 18, Dex 16, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14 or swapping Dex with Cha, or leaving Dex and instead actually having a few trained skills with some Int like Str 18, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 16. Who cares about Dex/Con/Wis if you take a +3 on saves that matter?

But then, even without changing anything they could just have higher saves depending on how the hypothetical item works. And all it would cost is item diversity.

There are some spells like divine wrath that deal alignment damage to folks that aren't directly opposed. Could run it as something similar to that where anyone takes lawful damage other than lawful types, or quite probably this was just a miss and they shouldn't have taken damage.

Perpdepog wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

Yeah, same here. Why does there need to be personal attacks so frequently on these boards.

And on top of that completely missing the point as this whole discussion is about making non functional builds functional, optimized builds will not use it as they already maximize their save stats.

I've got no dog in this race one way or another, but I did want to point out that, depending on how such changes were implemented, optimized builds may totally utilize these items. That's the point of optimization; if it can give a character an edge, then it'll get used.

Of course optimized builds would use this kind of items. The thing is that none of the strong and optimized builds we have now would need them. At all.

An item that just boosted saves in line with bulwark would be extremely strong, definitely pushing those optimized builds even further beyond by allowing them to focus more thoroughly on offense. Doesn't matter that they don't "need" them, having even higher saves is incredible because of Crit Successes/avoiding Crit Failures against higher-level DCs.

Unless this item had similar penalties and requirements to wearing full plate and/or only worked against damaging effects, this would be one of the best items in every build just like magic armor (which of course, already boosts saves as a cloak of resistance did).

The yaganty from this adventure path might make sense, if only for the eventual payoff later and because they have associations with helping others out of charity and fires with their candle fingers.

Definitely shouldn't introduce another required item like a cloak of resistance—moving down to only 1-2 required items (armor, weapon if needed) in PF2 compared to PF1 was a great choice.

One other thing worth noting is that patching up between fights with medicine or other free healing options like a champion's lay on hands and refocusing for spellcasters with focus spells should be the standard.

Going into fights while wounded can really amp up the difficulty, though it'll depend on the circumstance as to whether it makes sense to take a rest between encounters.

Persistent damage is damage, but inflicting persistent damage to someone isn't the same as damaging them. They'll likely be damaged by the condition at some point in the future, but they could just put out the fire on their turn before reaching the point where they would actually take damage.

All the good champion reactions trigger on an enemy damaging your ally, so they wouldn't trigger on inflicting persistent damage.

Probably the easiest solution would be to just give the party a bonus level and award exp as though they were one level lower. This comes with the benefit that it doesn't require your effort of re-balancing every encounter as you go.

Do you think that it would be in bad form to have an NPC coming along who can do some fighting and healing (like a Champion) that can also demonstrate good tactics (like I'm going to trip, demoralize, etc. instead of taking a 3rd attack)? Or do you think that would look like a GM trying to take center stage?

You'd probably be alright to more directly suggest such actions to players rather than making it something in-universe, pointing out that grabbing/tripping a character makes them flat-footed to everyone or that the frightened from demoralized gives a penalty to just about everything they can do.

This could also be something from the enemy tactics—having less intelligent NPCs go for the -10 Multiple Attack Penalty checks and emphasize that they miss by a bunch, while more intelligent enemies spend their third action repositioning or taking a more likely successful action.

Another option might be to just play the NPCs less optimally, focusing on narrative events rather than tactical ones. Things like charging the champion that taunted them rather than focusing on the wizard they're in melee with.

For example, if you throw a lesser acid flask and hit your target, that creature takes 1 acid damage, 1d6 persistent acid damage, and 1 acid splash damage. All other creatures within 5 feet of it take 1 acid splash damage. On a critical hit, the target takes 2 acid damage and 2d6 persistent acid damage, but the splash damage is still 1. If you miss, the target and all creatures within 5 feet take only 1 splash damage. If you critically fail, no one takes any damage.

Persistent damage is still another type of damage, and so the double damage dealt on a critical hit applies. To the original point, combustion doesn't call out persistent damage as being excepted so the 2d6 would increase to 3d6.

AlastarOG wrote:

Moment of Renewal already does pretty much what you're saying Heals (CON*LEVEL)*2 so on average for a level 20 character with 18 cons 160 hp

Where's this 2 from? It's (CON*LVL) by default, so only 80. And 160 for Fast Recovery.

Moment of renewal heals targets as though they had 24 hours of rest, and a full day resting effectively doubles the natural healing rate.

There's still the point that this is an 8th-level divine/primal effect, but it is another healing spell that could be reliably duplicated by miracle/primal phenomenon.

Spells across the board are less niche-negating than they used to be, so if you want to heal the most to a single target it would help to play a divine or primal caster rather than an arcane one at the least. But there are built-in GM exceptions to the rule allowed for each of the capstone spells, just that there might be side-effects or consequences when wishing for too much.

I think it'd depend on the 'someone' being restored. Healing the 20th level barbarian for ~350 damage if they were dying feels like it's pretty well over the duplication of a 9th-level heal standard maximum of 144.

I'd probably still allow it, but maybe with a cost of damage to the caster as some of their life flows into the target. That damage would probably be much more-so if using wish where there's no healing analogue on the spell list. Or less so/none if the character had abilities like a life oracles d12s for healing.

Tangentially related to this, there's a similar situation with the undead adjustments where they only add traits like Undead/Mummy/Zombie/etc. instead of removing them or requiring the base creature to be living.

So you could make zombie animated brooms for example, or more classically something like a ghost animated ship.

Sounds pretty good to me, though Biting Lash does have some minor influence on the next book depending on if she sends aid with the party or not when they travel to Neruzavin.

Might want to think about how that interaction could play out, particularly if the first time the party met her she didn't know anything about helping Lowls on his expidition (because of the time-travel).