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Johns quote from the thread I linked earlier:
From John Compton from a thread I created in the Pathfinder Society Facebook group:
"Looking at the animate dead spell, there is no reference to the bloody skeleton, flaming skeleton, fast zombie, or plague zombie alternates; those appear in the Bestiary, which does not list those "sub-templates" as legal. By a strict reading, they're not available in the organized play campaign. However, I think there's a case to be made for them being added. I would like to make sure that the paizo.com community weighs in on the matter, too, so I encourage someone to create a thread in the organized play general discussion. That is also where I am more likely to look when I am at work and updating the documents."
Sounds like a discussion of that would be a good subject for a new thread.
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Johns quote from the thread I linked earlier:
From John Compton from a thread I created in the Pathfinder Society Facebook group:
"Looking at the animate dead spell, there is no reference to the bloody skeleton, flaming skeleton, fast zombie, or plague zombie alternates; those appear in the Bestiary, which does not list those "sub-templates" as legal. By a strict reading, they're not available in the organized play campaign. However, I think there's a case to be made for them being added. I would like to make sure that the paizo.com community weighs in on the matter, too, so I encourage someone to create a thread in the organized play general discussion. That is also where I am more likely to look when I am at work and updating the documents."
That does not sound like an official ruling, more John's opinion. Clearly there needs to be discussion, assuming it has not already happened. It does look like the majority feels they should be legal, but giving both sides a chance to talk it out is good.
Edit: Also per the Season 8 Role Playing Guide, official rulings come from Forums, Campaign Clarifications, Additional Resources, or the Guild Guide. No mention of Facebook.
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John is the PFS lead developer. If you don't think his view is likely to be determinative in a case of doubt then I am not sure anything will convince you. Variant undead are not legal at my table nor, I suspect, many others. You keep referring to the majority accepting them as if you have conducted some sort of scientific poll which I rather doubt is the case.
Edit: Also per the Season 8 Role Playing Guide, official rulings come from Forums, Campaign Clarifications, Additional Resources, or the Guild Guide. No mention of Facebook.
I am not ON Facebook.
Therefore, this alleged quote from a site that I am not on and have no interest or desire TO be on is about as valid as a text message I may or may not have gotten from someone in campaign leadership on a given topic.
Despite the fact that the quote is of dubious provenance, it should be noted that it also indicated that discussion should be had on the topic, so it felt more akin to a developer 'shooting from the hip' than an actual rules declaration?
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Despite the fact that the quote is of dubious provenance, it should be noted that it also indicated that discussion should be had on the topic, so it felt more akin to a developer 'shooting from the hip' than an actual rules declaration?
You don't NEED facebook to reach that conclussion, but it helps.
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John is the PFS lead developer. If you don't think his view is likely to be determinative in a case of doubt then I am not sure anything will convince you. Variant undead are not legal at my table nor, I suspect, many others. You keep referring to the majority accepting them as if you have conducted some sort of scientific poll which I rather doubt is the case.That does not sound like an official ruling, more John's opinion. Clearly there needs to be discussion, assuming it has not already happened. It does look like the majority feels they should be legal, but giving both sides a chance to talk it out is good.
Edit: Also per the Season 8 Role Playing Guide, official rulings come from Forums, Campaign Clarifications, Additional Resources, or the Guild Guide. No mention of Facebook.
Yes, and John has many times in the past said his opinion on something but it was clearly not an official ruling. He is human, and therefore has how he thinks things should work but that is not always how they work. Official rulings tend to be worded as such.
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The next time a Paladin wants to Smite your undead, inform them you will sunder there gear. My animated undead absolutely have a gold value attached to them, so it is no different then me destroying your gear. I have thankfully been lucky that all the GMs I play with have not allowed a undead kill happy Paladin or Cleric to try and murder my pets.I can almost see their point on temporary summons or raised undead not being PVP (though it still clearly violates the "don't be a jerk" rule), but familiars and companions??? Those are permanent class features that cost gold to replace.I've had this same experience, and they cite that the PFS anti-PVP rule only applies to "Player Characters" and not their summons, companions, familiars, or raised undead. PFS devs could stand to clarify their stance on this. Definitely sounds against the idea of Cooperation in my eyes.Doesn't matter in PFS, your characters have taken an oath to cooperate with each other. The Paladin player is still breaking the rules.I'm pretty sure those kind of actions violate PFS's anti-PVP rule.Probably, but at the time, it happened, under the guise of 'destroying the evil creatures'. I observed a similar thing happen with the same players at a 5e table, involving a Necromancer...racial prejudice, in an RPG!
For the record, companion animals do not actually have a cost to replace (surprised me too). And cost isn't really the issue here, it's just a matter of interpretation of the PVP rule for PFS. I completely agree that it doesn't seem reasonable, to me, for players to be attacking the "things" that belong to other players.
Regarding sunder, I've been told that Sundering is considered PVP if an attack roll is required against that player's CMD. Still a jerk, but not PVP, to attack unattended gear that isn't yours.
In any case, despite a somewhat harsh understanding of the PVP rules, it really hasn't come up much, locally. Mainly seems directed at Undead, specifically.
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I don't think it is reasonable to say zero variants are allowed. No it is not explicitly spelled out as allowed, but virtually nothing in the Bestiary is specifically called out as allowed (including all the monsters on the Summon Monster list). Celestial Eagle isn't specifically called out and even though it is a variant of an Eagle, no one says I can't summon one of those.
The creatures in Summon Monster are spelled out because the spell text itself is allowed by the Core Rulebook.
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Whilst I agree that variant skeletons and zombies are not allowed by Animate Dead as things stand (I concur with Nefreet's argument) a post on Facebook is not a campaign ruling, no matter who it comes from. That is not an established precedent, nor should it become one. There are already enough places to have to check for rulings and Campaign Clarifications should be tying all of those together.
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Generally speaking, a F/B post may not be an official ruling, but it's certainly a strong influence and clearly insight into the thoughts of those who make rules. As a player you do yourself a disservice if you ignore said insight. And with that information being available, if you choose to balk don't be surprised if/when that leads to an actual official rule that will invalidate a good portion of your PC's build
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Generally speaking, a F/B post may not be an official ruling, but it's certainly a strong influence and clearly insight into the thoughts of those who make rules. As a player you do yourself a disservice if you ignore said insight. And with that information being available, if you choose to balk don't be surprised if/when that leads to an actual official rule that will invalidate a good portion of your PC's build
That's a totally fair point Bob.
I'd just like to know that campaign rulings, clarifications etc can all be found here. I think it would be unreasonable to expect players and GMs to maintain an up to the minute awareness of every public or social media statement of every member of the campaign leadership team.
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That's a valid point and one that even Paizo has acknowledged. They have said and continue to say those outlets are not official and certainly no one is required to follow them. It's just another tool in our arsenal. Sometimes it can take quite a while to see an official response if ever. I've just seen too many cases of people stubbornly ignoring said insight simply because it's not official and then complain when it becomes so.