wheatleymr's page

Comparing Detect Metal:
"You attune yourself to magnetic fields, becoming aware of the presence or absence of metallic objects, veins, and deposits within the area."

to Detect Magic:
"You send out a pulse that registers the presence of magic. You receive no information beyond the presence or absence of magic."

Does Detect Metal allow you to detect e.g. "there are 3 collections of steel the size & shape of armour behind that door" or "there is silver and gold clustered underground over there"?
Or is it like the remastered Detect Magic, and it just reveals that "yes, there is hitherto unknown metal (steel, gold, etc.) within 30' of you".

So - also with wands, staves, and spellhearts then.
*makes mental note*

All types of Minions should be able to use the Reactions "Arrest a Fall" and "Grab an Edge".

"All creatures have very basic ways to save themselves from certain life threatening situations that only work as reactions: namely arrest a fall and grab an edge. Minions should count as having one reaction (like any creature) when it is necessary to take a basic reaction to prevent harm to themselves. This is instinctual and does not require them to be commanded."

This needs to apply to Animal (& other types of) Companions, Familiars, and Summoned Creatures.

I second this:

"All creatures have very basic ways to save themselves from certain life threatening situations that only work as reactions: namely arrest a fall and grab an edge. Minions should count as having one reaction (like any creature) when it is necessary to take a basic reaction to prevent harm to themselves. This is instinctual and does not require them to be commanded."

The familiar ability that gives Fly could also give a reaction for Arrest a Fall, just like several familiar abilities give reactions that can be used to Aid specific skills.

That doesn't help with Grab an Edge, but for the fly case it's an easy fix using existing mechanics and won't cause unexpected issues like a general reaction would.

That works for Familiars, but not Animal Companion (including Mounts) - nor for Summoned Monsters.

It seems like the minion trait just needs something in the sentence about having 0 reactions to specify that they have 0 reactions except default reactions to prevent damage, such as from arresting a fall or grabbing an edge.

It doesn’t come up in play because only players tend to have to use minion rules, but if players could just push any creature that wasn’t the boss enemy into a pit without those creatures getting a reaction to not fall, it would be blatantly unrealistic and unfair. The same should be applied to animal companions and other minions.

It almost feels implied by the statement they will take actions on their own to avoid harm, but the “0 reactions” text does look so authoritative that many GMs would assume no exceptions.

Yeah, this.

It's something that's needed for Animal Companions, plus Familiars, plus Summoned monsters.

Otherwise an enemy with Gust of Wind is just ridiculous.

"Minions cannot use reactions listed in that monster's stat block, although they can all default reactions, such as Arrest A Fall and Grabbing An Edge.

Oh, and it needs to be explicit for PFS.

I think that Minions with a Fly Speed should be able to use the "Arrest a Fall" reaction.
This seems ... OC to make minions excessively vulnerable, and IC to make Minions act excessively dumb.
It's mostly the latter that bothers me, TBH.

From a "player & DM cognitive load" point of view, the DM doesn't need to engage in any decision making with this - if the Flying Minion gets knocked prone, then yes, it will make that DC 15 acrobatics/reflex check to avoid damage. Done.

Thanks for all your replies & thoughts!

"Do you have a group right now or is this just hypothetical?" - hypothetical.
I can't remember how I got onto this train of thought now, probably some YouTube videos, but it made me realise that the existing Darklands Pathfinder information is ... in the format of an above-surface gazette, without capturing any of the things that make a vast underground setting unique.

As Kaid says - navigation is a big problem. And as Ascalaphus says, it's most likely that "maps" are in the form of the London Underground map.

But I'm very aware that whilst I happen to like maps, and mapping - it turns out I'm in a minority - and most players don't.

Hence my realisation that I'd want a set of subsystems and plot approaches that I could use to "zoom out" of concerns that a given player group find boring (turn it into challenge their characters resolve "below the abstraction layer") - or alternatively, to "zoom in" to considerations that the players actually find interesting.

E.g. an interesting comment made in an OSR video was that instead of rolling to "find a secret door" you should instead roll to "get an obvious clue from the DM" - so that the player can feel clever for discovering it.

Some thoughts:
Navigation. On the surface you can head north, east, etc.
In the Darklands, there might be a tunnel that starts off going the direction you want. And after several days travel, it might still be going in that direction. Who knows if it ends up where you wanted to go???
In other words, it's a maze, with inclines so gradual that the paths can cross over, and there isn't any hedge to climb over.

I'm not aware of any navigation spells that would actually help?
Casting Know Direction as an exploration activity - I'm not sure it actually helps much? If the tunnel is snaking left & right, there's no way to know if it is going more left than right. And even if tunnel turns the wrong way - you either keep going and hope, or backtrack a lot and hope there's an alternative.

But - is this actually entertaining for players, to engage with this sort of logistical problem?

This is a question primarily for the players, either directly, or what DMs have noticed about their players:
What specific attributes of playing in the Darklands made it more entertaining, from a player's perspective?
And, conversely, what reduced the entertainment value?
Or perhaps there was something that nearly worked, as a game concept, but failed in execution?

And I'm particularly asking about things specific to the Darklands:
- Not so much "mega dungeons" in general. (But please do mention significant play experiences.)
- Not so much overland travel or exploration mode in general. (Again, please do mention significant play experiences.)

Off the top of my head, this could be a location to add OSR style concerns to a campaign that doesn't normally care about such things. ...
...But what have you actually experienced in actual play?

...

Wanshou, Post-Apocalyptic Kraken-Ruled Swampland

This and Shenmen - both have a very powerful but disengaged police state, with locals having a lot of autonomy - providing they keep their heads down.

A new Darklands source book:

- Rules for the environment, treating it almost as a different plane of existence.
-- E.g. without a day/night cycle you don't know what time it is, so you don't know when to sleep, and what that does to your sanity.
-- Dead air, explosive air, etc. (Imagine the twist of a partly flooded necropolis, inhabited by undead, where the players can use water breathing spells to get oxygen whilst under water, but have to hold their breath out of the water because the air is all stale?)
-- Getting lost as the tunnels twist around.
-- How do you even know which tunnel to try and follow?
-- Advice for a high-fantasy/low-fantasy "slider", adding or skipping rules depending on the style of game you want to run. E.g. What Exploration mode movement rates do you want - and what effect does this choice have?

- Spells that can help - but make them Uncommon, so the DM can choose when to allow them - and getting them feels significant, because you had to manage without them before.
-- E.g. a group amphibious breathing spell with a duration for Exploration mode, allowing the party to explore those miles of partially flooded tunnels.

- Absolutely *no* complete map. It's a mystery, or at least a secret. Instead, tiles that the DM can lay out as desired - or randomise.

A book of subsystems.
Some of the existing ones are a bit clunky, and could be improved.
Advice on using subsystems in non-standard ways e.g. doing an infiltration using the Chase mechanics, and advice on *why* you might want to do it like that.
There are others that could be created.

Some ideas for campaign subsystems:
- The player's group castle/hideout/village.
- The player's group trading ship in down-time.
- Naval combat in up-time.
- Nation building. (E.g. Kingmaker campaign.) -> this probably needs several subsystems within the concept. "Law & Order", "Economy", "Diplomacy", "Militia/Defence", ...

I'd like to see some Wizard schools for Tian Xia. The lore for the existing ones is tied to the Inner Sea region or Mawangi, and there are several places in Tian Xia that should have distinct Wizards Schools.

The Water Sprint skill feat is here:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=6515

"Experience and training have taught you that water has just enough surface tension for a master sprinter to traverse the surface. When you Stride in a straight line, if you move at least half your Speed over ground, you can move any amount of the remaining distance across a level body of water. If you don't end your Stride on solid ground, you fall into the water.
If you're legendary in Athletics, as long as you start on solid ground, any part of your Stride can cross the water's surface, even if you aren't moving a straight line, though you still fall into the water if you don't end your movement on solid ground."

Leap is this:
"Leap
The Leap basic action is used for High Jump and Long Jump. A horizontal Leap lets you jump up to 10 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 15 feet, or up to 15 feet horizontally if your Speed is at least 30 feet. You land in the space where your Leap ends (meaning you can typically clear a 5-foot gap if your Speed is between 15 feet and 30 feet, or a 10-foot gap if your Speed is 30 feet or more)."

***

The Water Sprint skill feat refers to "Stride" which is a game term, and means a single action to move up to your (land) speed.

So for a move speed of X, then Water Sprint (before legendary) requires:
X=20': 10' over ground, 5' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.
X=25': 15' over ground, 5' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.
X=30': 15' over ground, 10' over water, ending on 5' of solid ground.

The way it is phrased, the rules apply to each Stride Action, so you can't "Stride 3 times" to cover a wider body of water. Each individual Stride has to start with "at least half over ground" and "end on solid ground".

Compared to the basic Leap action that covers that gap, no feat needed.

Or someone of level 7 and Master in Athletics doing a 2-action Long Jump, who will cover 13+1d20 feet, with at least 10' of a Stride action beforehand.
I can see occasional situations where Water Sprint saves an action, if the destination is exactly 1 Stride away, with a water barrier of no more than 10', immediately before the destination.
Or if your land speed has been significantly boosted.

...Is it just me, or is this *really* niche?

Or perhaps I have I miss-understood how these rules apply, and it works better than this??

(Or is it a gag, they are just doing a long jump and deluding themselves?)

I like the idea of the Wandering Chef archetype, but I suspect I'd be better off just taking the Alchemist archetype and learning the Alchemical Food recipes first?

I think it boils down to:
is Pack With Flavour [https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=7058] sufficiently better than Alchemical Power [https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=6189] as to be worth the loss of flexibility?

Or are there some other benefits that only the Wandering Chef archetype has?

Conjuring a Genie and binding it into a lamp or ring actually seems a very on-point thing for a ritual to be able to do, don't you think?
Possibly have separate rituals for "Bind Genie" vs "Bind non-Genie elemental" though? They seem to work quite differently.

One of the rules for minions is that if they even attempt cast a spell of a rank equal to or higher than the rank of the spell (=> ritual rank) used to summon them, then it overwhelms the summoning spell and both automatically fail.
This is probably enough for game balance, IMHO.

The Commander archetype could probably also be a good basis for someone who likes to summon elementals.

Similar for the Familiar; You get as close as mechanically feasible for the feat/familiar-abilities spent on it. So yes, there could be a balanced version where you pay a higher level feat. PF2 stripped a lot of immunities from the game, so it'd be costly and I doubt people would pay for it, not on a Familiar.

Actually it's the Familiar that does get the immunities and the "animal" companion that doesn't.

And I would rather like to have a feat to grant the appropriate resistances & vulnerabilities to both Companions and shape-shifted forms, if Paizo are looking for content for a future product?
;-)

But I'm glad I have correctly understood what the rules are now, thanks.

I've been checking my assumptions about what traits various things have, and what effects they have, and as far as I can tell, the "elemental" trait is actually very limited.

E.g. consider a druid with a fire elemental companion, a fire elemental familiar, who summons a fire elemental, and then shifts into elemental form as a fire elemental.

All 4 "don't need to breath" but only 2 of these 4 have immunity to "bleed, poison, sleep, paralysis".
Because those keywords are not built into the "elemental" trait, they are just things that (summoned) elementals all have, but are built into the familiar "elemental" ability.

Is this correct?

Are there any feats that allow companions with the "elemental" trait to have these immunities?
Likewise, are there any feats that allow shape shifted druids to have these immunities?

Is this something that would make sense for a future product? Would it be balanced?

MAP applying to both Strikes is certainly the intent. Hunted Shot technically avoiding it since only the subordinate Strikes have the attack trait is definitely a troll ruling, but an errata would be nice.

"If applicable, the readied action takes and contributes to your multiple attack penalty as though you performed it on your turn. This is one of the few times the multiple attack penalty applies when it's not your turn."

Back from vacation now:

(1) The Remastered rules for Multiple Attack penalties are clear that MAP only applies to your own turn, so we don't need to remember it if [for example] making a Reaction Strike.
(2) The specific rules for Ready Action make state that this is an exception, and you instead use the MAP penalty you had at the point you used the Ready Action.
(3) Unless I'm missing something, one can spend 2 actions to Ready an Action to make a single action Hunted Shot. (Ranger feat.) This is 2 ranged strikes in one action balanced by the MAP penalty applying "as normal".

"As normal".

It is not clear to a new player if Hunted Shot is a specific case of Ready Action, or Ready Action a specific case of Hunted Shot. And maybe debating specifc-vs-general priorities isn't the most helpful & clear way to go about this?

I'm pretty sure that optimal game design is to apply the MAP penalty to the 2nd shot of a Readied Hunted Shot, even though it's not happening in your turn.

[Edit: Hunted Shot is a Flourish action & you can only make one Flourish per turn anyway, so no need to worry about multiple off-turn Hunted Shots.]