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I have seen far too many FAQs that aren't FAQs but rather Errata at best. FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. It can include clarifications of rules, abilities and items (you know, things that answer questions), but not changes.
One example is the "FAQ" in the Pathfinder Ultimate Equipment for the Courageous weapon enhancement.
To quote the FAQ: "A courageous weapon was meant to help only on saves against fear (either adding its enhancement bonus as a morale bonus on saves against fear, or adding half its enhancement bonus to your existing morale bonus on saves against fear, whichever is best for you). However, the wording is in error. The last sentence should say “on saves against fear” after “any morale bonus.” This change will be reflected in the next errata."
The original text: "This special ability can only be added to a melee weapon. A courageous weapon fortifies the wielder’s courage and morale in battle. The wielder gains a morale bonus on saving throws against fear equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus. In addition, any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon’s enhancement bonus (minimum 1)."
And crafting requirements: "Craft Magic Arms and Armor, heroism, remove fear"
If the ability was intended to only apply to saves against fear then it could have been worded far better. Additionally, there would be no need for Heroism being a requirement to craft in addition to remove fear.
I'm fine with changes being made when it is found an ability is more powerful then intended or its cost would dictate, just don't lie about it. This is a good way to piss off customers.
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Considering that they said in the FAQ that it was a change to the rules and will be reflected in the next errata, I fail to see how it is deceitful -- they told you in quite explicit terms it was errata. If you don't like it, don't use it in your games (PFS notwithstanding). I think shackling the devs to only being able to issue clarifications in the FAQ and being unable to issue errata until the next printing of a book comes along is simply limiting and hurts the game as a whole. Instead, if you view the FAQ as a source to get clarifications (which may include errata) to the rules to help the game run "better", with full knowledge that if the changes are not to your liking that you can simply ignore them, everyone would be in a much happier place.
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Paizo, please DO NOT STOP improving the game via FAQ's that include clarifications, wording changes, OR changes to mechanics and requirements. Sometimes during the creation of feats, class abilities, or other game mechanics unintended effects happen which you will realize are best left out of the game as it is your game. Please fix these ASAP and without restriction.
I will in turn realize that if the change is not what I want or, when I am the GM, not what my group wants we will work to modify the game as fits our needs as we do any of the rules in any of the books you publish. I appreciate seeing your modifications and updates of already published material to better understand there may be issues with rules including balance, unintended interactions of mechanics or fluff, alignment of items that are illogical or silly, or any other possibilities that I should like to be able to review and think about. Thanks for efforts and please keep the FAQ's coming.
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"Improving"
Some FAQs are good.
Most "FAQratas" are not. They add nothing to the game in most cases, neither options nor balance. In many cases they take away both.
FAQs are for answering questions. Not changing mechanics.
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I agree—we really don't need any more clarifications, Paizo. We get it. +2 Bluff, +2 Disguise, +4 at 10 ranks. Seriously. I refuse to believe these questions are being asked that often.
The faqratta is sometimes neccesary because actual errata needs to wait in between printings (for some reason)
One silly business practice doesn't excuse another made necessary because of the previous.
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I have seen far too many FAQs that aren't FAQs but rather Errata at best. FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. It can include clarifications of rules, abilities and items (you know, things that answer questions), but not changes.
One example is the "FAQ" in the Pathfinder Ultimate Equipment for the Courageous weapon enhancement.
To quote the FAQ: "A courageous weapon was meant to help only on saves against fear (either adding its enhancement bonus as a morale bonus on saves against fear, or adding half its enhancement bonus to your existing morale bonus on saves against fear, whichever is best for you). However, the wording is in error. The last sentence should say “on saves against fear” after “any morale bonus.” This change will be reflected in the next errata."
The original text: "This special ability can only be added to a melee weapon. A courageous weapon fortifies the wielder’s courage and morale in battle. The wielder gains a morale bonus on saving throws against fear equal to the weapon’s enhancement bonus. In addition, any morale bonus the wielder gains from any other source is increased by half the weapon’s enhancement bonus (minimum 1)."
And crafting requirements: "Craft Magic Arms and Armor, heroism, remove fear"
If the ability was intended to only apply to saves against fear then it could have been worded far better. Additionally, there would be no need for Heroism being a requirement to craft in addition to remove fear.
I'm fine with changes being made when it is found an ability is more powerful then intended or its cost would dictate, just don't lie about it. This is a good way to piss off customers.
Am I understanding correctly that you are getting pissed off about terminology? I don't really see the issue.
Paizo mean something different from what you expected by "FAQ". Now you know, what's the problem?
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The whole "only Real Ultimate Errata can fix rules problems!" philosophy is exactly what makes 3.5 so mind-numbing to discuss rationally online. You get situations where people throw out a book called "Rules Compendium" because it doesn't have the word "errata" on the cover, despite its entire purpose being nothing but a book of errata for the game. Or you get situations like Tome of Battle, where the errata got borked all to hell through a clerical error and WotC's devs were powerless to do anything about it because of all the Hasbro red tape. We even got situations like Complete Warrior and Tome of Magic, where Mike Mearls and Ari Marmell respectively knew exactly what was wrong with the classes they designed, but could do nothing besides make forum posts suggesting unofficial ways to fix them, which the playerbase has been circulating like Betamax holy writ ever since their forums were shut off. It's madness.
Paizo's process is much more straightforward - if they think something needs fixing, they fix it. That's how design for a complex game like this should work. I consider it akin to patches and hotfixes for a CRPG like Diablo; some stuff gets bundled and waits until the big patch issuance (a second printing in this analogy), and some (the easy fixes, or very urgent ones, or both) can get hotfixed in the interim, which is analogous to a FAQ. And yeah, not all the fixes are popular in our "players first" mentality, but being popular was never the same as being beneficial to the game as a whole.
Instead of dumping all over this necessary process, lets talk about ways to make it better. Blizzard has a PTR where big changes can be publicly tested. Not everything they plan to change makes it there, but most of the big swings do, and players get to provide feedback and playtest data. Rules-heavy systems like Pathfinder could benefit from something similar before a major FAQ or errata release, at the very least as a way to "pre-detonate" these kind of changes so no one is blindsided by them. But abolishing it entirely is a nonstarter.
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How to make the process better:
Step 1: Make a separate Errata process, entirely different from the FAQ one. Put all rules changes here, and call them what they are: Rules changes. Not "clarifications".
There is no step 2.
Honesty is all I require. Errata are not "clarifications". Yes, you ARE making "incremental changes via Errata" when you make them, even when you call them FAQs, stop claiming you don't want to do that whenever someone brings up you changing something. No, you do not need to wait until the next printing of a book to make an Errata. You have been doing it without that non-stop for the past 2 years.
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Rynjin summed my feelings on this up pretty well. Calling errata "FAQ" feels disingenuous.
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Eh, it feels reasonable to me. For example, my question was "Why is courageous so good? My player's Wizard carries a courageous dagger with him just to boost his saves." The answer was "We goofed. It only applies to saves against fear, and we're fixing this in print soon."
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Eh, it feels reasonable to me. For example, my question was "Why is courageous so good? My player's Wizard carries a courageous dagger with him just to boost his saves." The answer was "We goofed. It only applies to saves against fear, and we're fixing this in print soon."
And what the answer should have been was "Because we wrote it that way." perhaps followed by "We plan to change this".
Of course either way they've made it into yet another one in a long line of completely worthless weapon special abilities, but the second is more honest.
To be fair, they slightly address that in the FAQ itself, but it's still passed off as a FAQ, which should not be making that sort of change.
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Rynjin summed my feelings on this up pretty well. Calling errata "FAQ" feels disingenuous.
The FAQ is not errata, and it doesn't claim to be.
Here and there they say something to effect of "rule A is not what we want it to be after all, we would rather like it to be B". This is usually joned with "This change will be reflected in the next errata." Note the next errata – this clearly indicates that the FAQ itself is not the errata, just the indication of an upcoming errata that will usually be released along with the next printing. It is a declaration of intent, so you know what will be coming.
What you do in the meantime is up to you. Well actually, it is up to you even after that, of course, but you know what I mean.
To be fair, they slightly address that in the FAQ itself, but it's still passed off as a FAQ, which should not be making that sort of change.
The FAQ does not make the change. It just says "this change that will be coming with the next printing."
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What you do in the meantime is up to you. Well actually, it is up to you even after that, of course, but you know what I mean.
Almost - PFS GMs are required to treat the FAQs as law even before the next errata is issued.
But yes, home games are and have always been able to ignore any rulings, clarifications or whatever else they see fit to ignore.
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Rynjin summed my feelings on this up pretty well. Calling errata "FAQ" feels disingenuous.
If instead the "FAQ" was viewed as a place to get official responses on rules questions, where those responses can be both clarifications of existing rules as well as errata to rules, then there wouldn't be a problem on the whole terminology side of things. Considering that in OP's example they explicitly used the word errata, the only thing I can think of that people have an issue with is that it was posted in the FAQ section instead of waiting for an errata document coinciding with the next printing of a book. I see Rynjin's post wanting a separate errata process where errata can go so that FAQ remains clarifications only -- is there any particular reason why you want two separate places to check instead of a single place to check that is defined and advertised to contain both clarifications and errata? Genuinely curious here, as I'm having a difficult time understanding why having two distinct processes and all the overhead that entails is advantageous to lumping them both together.
There are a number of issues with the current FAQ system, and I think Paizo should take steps to address them. I'm going to summarize the ones I know of below, but outside of #1 it is probably best if the others are discussed in their own threads as to not derail the topic and discussion introduced by the OP.
1. The perception of what FAQ is and what sort of content it contains. Currently the FAQ is positioned as a place to get non-errata clarifications in the eyes of many people on these forums; there is likely dev posts to that effect as well. If there was a policy shift to allow FAQ sections to contain errata (or if the policy never shifted and it was supposed to be that way all along), this should be communicated as such. And per Zaister's post above, if the FAQ is allowed to contain errata, it should be clarified if the errata is to take effect immediately upon FAQ being published or if it is an announcement of an upcoming change that won't be truly official until the next errata document. Perhaps the FAQ could have some introductory text explaining how to use the system and what sort of content it has, perhaps a blog post is in order, but communication is key in order to align expectations with reality. If the policy is for non-errata clarifications, then I implore that the policy needs to be changed to also include errata (and if that is not desired for whatever reason, then keep to your word and stop posting errata on the FAQ).
2. FAQ (even clarification ones) often have unintended consequences or are seemingly half-baked. I think this is a symptom of how FAQs are developed -- communication is only one-way. The devs may read through the thread that prompted the FAQ to get community opinions on it, but then the actual discussion and iteration that leads to the FAQ all occurs behind closed doors until the official word is posted. This leaves all of zero opportunities for the community to find issues with it until after it's official and is actually causing those issues. I believe a good solution to this would be increasing the transparency of the FAQ process somehow -- perhaps by posting drafts to the FAQ threads as discussion progresses to get additional community input on whatever is being proposed, as well as back-and-forth between the dev team discussing the merits and reasons behind it. Additionally, after an FAQ already becomes official, it'd be nice to have an easy way to flag problems with an existing FAQ such that it can be re-clarified or amended to address an issue that cropped up later down the road. There is no reason that FAQ need to be set in stone upon being posted on the page, and if a bad FAQ is causing problems, it is a disservice to players to leave it up there after those problems are acknowledged.
3. PFS needs to play by the book, and I believe this includes all FAQs (I do not play PFS personally so I don't know all the specifics on it -- I far prefer to be able to houserule on things as necessary to make things run smoother for any particular playgroup). However, while clarifications simply make more clear the words as written on the rulebook in front of everyone, an errata FAQ may change things without the players or GM being aware of it, causing table variation in a way that was not intended for PFS. Asking PFS GMs to stay on top of all FAQs in case they have errata, remembering that errata, and being prepared to argue with their players about it should it come up seems to me to be very onerous. This may be best resolved by PFS stating that "FAQrattas" do not take effect until the errata document coinciding with the next printing is released. If #2 is addressed in a satisfactory way, this may not be required because it would mean the chances of a bad FAQ negatively impacting PFS are minimized.
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Faqratta: This exotic blade deals 1d8 damage at medium size and has a crit range of 9-20 x4.
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For the record, this thread talks about the running dispute over Hero Labs and Paizo saying that the bonus only applied to fear effects while many took it to instead apply to all morale bonuses.
So... it really is a FAQ. Clarifying, not changing, the intent.
Entire premise of thread goes *poof*.
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Can we talk about what a nightmare it is to actually sift through the FAQ for a moment? I like that the devs are able to make reasonably fast corrections to rules via FAQ however the lack of any real organization and sheer number of FAQs makes finding the ruling you are looking for nigh impossible, even if you know exactly what question you are looking for. The only way that I've ever been able to find a FAQ on purpose is by getting lucky with a messageboard search to find a person who made a post with a link to the specific FAQ.
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Sorry, as publishers of books, Paizo knows that Errata means "a list of corrected errors appended to a book or published in a subsequent issue of a journal."
Thus, errata is only issued on reprints.
People demanded a way to get corrections between printings, or more particularly for softcover books that will never be reprinted, so they have included corrections in answers to the FAQs.
I don't think anyone will be happy if they go back to not correcting things without a reprint. And it's not worth the hassle for them to have a third section of the website for "pending changes" to have yet another place to look for answers.
So tough. The current system is the best you're going to get.
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While there are surely some FAQs that are like errata and personaly i don´t like or understand all of them, i think overall it´s a good thing.
As a non-native speaker, some phrases in rules texts are sometimes difficult to understand for me, since i myself see multiple possible interpretations.
Now a designer writes that stuff, deeply involved in his imagination and the creation process. There´s also probably a set field of people around that person and probably they have similar views and interpretations on rules and how things work. It´s very easy to oversee some stuff there, even though there is a process to avoid that.
As a next step, i have to say, that even in america there is no clear line and common ground on the meaning of many words, so different people understand different things in totally different ways.
Just last week i have been laughing about the pronounciation of the word "cache" from two americans that come actually from the same state, but spoke it totally different, leading to me not understanding it first.
Then there is the limited text space...
All that makes me think, clarifications are really needed.
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I can completely see the wording's original intent was still to apply only to fear. The first word "any" after "in addition" would have been better written as "a", and it is understandable we thought it applied to other bonuses besides saves vs fear.
But to say they "lied" and nerfed an ability because they changed their mind is not supported by the text, but flies in the face of them coming out and saying "this was too powerful we will change it" when they DO make those decisions, and disproven by the fact that others did NOT interpret the ability only the way you did. To claim otherwise involves quite a bit of mind reading.