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Hello,
the Connection isn't mentioned in the additional resources.
While the Shaper is specifically mentioned not to be allowed.
Can i play it on my Shirren Mystic?
The issue has been up for more than 7 Months on the Additional Rescources Thread with several people asking for clarification.
The Adventure:
https://paizo.com/products/btq0216o?Starfinder-Adventure-Path-22-The-Foreve r-Reliquary
Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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The additional resources for Starfinder Society is found here.
Only those things listed is allowed. Hive Mind Connection is not allowed from what I see.
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As we saw in PFS1, consistent language across entries in the Additional Resources isn't feasible. Mostly due to word count. In some books, 95% of content is allowed. In others, only 5% is. You can't have every source listed as "X and Y is allowed, but not Z", because eventually you're going to run into spamming a wall of text.
If you ever have a question regarding an Additional Resource, check the online SRD. Right now, Hive Mind is not listed as legal, which aligns with what we're [not] told from the Additional Resources list.
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As we saw in PFS1, consistent language across entries in the Additional Resources isn't feasible. Mostly due to word count. In some books, 95% of content is allowed. In others, only 5% is. You can't have every source listed as "X and Y is allowed, but not Z", because eventually you're going to run into spamming a wall of text.
If you ever have a question regarding an Additional Resource, check the online SRD. Right now, Hive Mind is not listed as legal, which aligns with what we're [not] told from the Additional Resources list.
It is a little annoying not knowing if something was banned because it was intentionally banhammered or because the pages were stuck together.
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Seconding that more clarification is needed on this. The "checking to see if it's listed on AON" method isn't even internally consistent: here's an example from the next AP, Hive of Minds:
AP 23 brings us 4 new Magic Hacks for the Technomancer. Additional Resources is agnostic on these - there is no listing for Class Options, neither allowing nor disallowing them.
AON lists them as available for Org Play.
AP23 brings us a new theme - the Esper. AR is again agnostic - there is no listing for themes, neither allowing nor disallowing the Esper theme.
AON lists it as unavailable for Org Play.
Like BNW alludes to, it's not clear if this is intentional or not. Esper doesn't seem particularly game breaking - no obvious red flags in this GM's opinion, anyways. I'd wager it should be legal for OP, but it's just an accident or omission that it's not in the AR page.
Agreed that it's probably "safer" to assume that something is disallowed unless it's explicitly stated otherwise, but...it's also way less fun. In these situations where significant ambiguity exists, and barring any obvious game-breaking red flags, I'd rather, as a GM, come down on the side of 'fun' rather than the side of 'technically correct.'
I'm hoping the AR Task Force mentioned in the blog the other day helps to clean up some of these edge cases :)
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The additional resources for Starfinder Society is found here.
Only those things listed is allowed. Hive Mind Connection is not allowed from what I see.
That would be great if it were true, but there isn't any consistency, especially in the AP legality
Theme: The Cult Hunter theme is allowed.
Theme: The Diplomat theme is not allowed.
There are inclusive statements for individual books, but not for the document as a whole
All content in this book is allowed for play with the following exceptions:
I thought about going through all the APs and pulling out a list of character options that are neither explicitly allowed or disallowed, but I haven't done so yet.
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That's a different question, though, with an answer that Forum goers don't like.I think it's the same question. And it's not the answer people don't like it's the non answer answer.
That's.. not what I meant.
The reason for the "non answer" is because people didn't like the answers they were given. It used to be that Michael Brock and the Leaders before him would explain why something was banned. That led to arguments. Those arguments wasted work hours and escalated the disappointment to disagreement and eventually to negative PR.
So the vague, catch-all answer of "it could be this, it could be that, we're not going to elaborate" became the safest position for Paizo to take.
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That's a different question, though, with an answer that Forum goers don't like.I think it's the same question. And it's not the answer people don't like it's the non answer answer.That's.. not what I meant.
The reason for the "non answer" is because people didn't like the answers they were given. It used to be that Michael Brock and the Leaders before him would explain why something was banned. That led to arguments. Those arguments wasted work hours and escalated the disappointment to disagreement and eventually to negative PR.
So the vague, catch-all answer of "it could be this, it could be that, we're not going to elaborate" became the safest position for Paizo to take.
I think you misinterpreted my Question:
Mine was simply: its not mentioned in AR. Can you please clarify if its allowed or not.And not: Why is it banned. I need clarification why.
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And I answered that question in my first post.
What you qyoted is my reply to BNW about something different.
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It's pretty obvious that there's a decent amount of people asking for clarification on "did you mean to include/exclude X, or is this an omission, mistake, transcription error, something else?" There is good cause to ask those questions, since there's significant inconsistency on the AR page (and AoN, if that matters.)
So, while we get that this is a settled matter for some fora-goers, uh, it's far from clear for others? It's not really helping anyone at this point to keep pointing out that some options are not explicitly allowed on AR, while at the same time not addressing the wonky inclusions/exclusions/ambiguity on that same page.
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Just for clarity, DKO, BNW, and I are all saying the same thing:
“Hey, because of the inconsistent language in the Additional Resources document, we can’t tell if this was deliberately disallowed or if it just got overlooked completely. Can you let us know which one it is?”
That’s it. We know the Additional Resources document is the one and only official source. We know Archives of Nethys is helpful (though sometimes delayed and not always 100% accurate). We aren’t asking for anything to be made legal.
If Thursty chimes in and says “if it’s not listed as allowed, assume it is not allowed” we’ll drop it. If he chimes in with “I think we missed that one” I’ll go through the APs and make a list of everything that isn’t mentioned one way or the other within a week for Thursty’s reference.
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Since I pointed out that consistent language is an impossibility, which we know to be true, complaining about the impossibility is useless.
It's the people reading the AR that need to adapt.
There is no reason to treat the reason behind a banning like its a nuclear secret.
Saying that its deliberately banned causes no more debate than any other deliberately banned item. Nor would saying "whoops, pages were stuck together"
PFS2 also seems to manage to distinguish things being banhammered for reasons and things being held for cool boon.
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Sit down and honestly consider what I'm saying, here, because it is fact. We know it is fact, because 10+ years of the previous Campaign showed us it is fact.
Imagine a book where literally one option is legal.
Imagine another book were everything but one option is legal.
And imagine a book where 50% of options, scattered throughout the book, are legal.
And lastly, imagine all three of the above where Society-specific adaptations need to be mentioned.
Can YOU think of a consistent way to list all of those? If you can, Paizo needs to hire you as an editor pronto.
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Can YOU think of a consistent way to list all of those? If you can, Paizo needs to hire you as an editor pronto.
Perfect consistency is unnecessary. The current system would work fine if the AR had included
Starfinder Adventure Path #22: The Forever Reliquary
Equipment: All equipment is allowed with the following clarification and exceptions: Hoop of Perspicacity and Book of Predictions are not allowed. The Robe of Communalism can only benefit a single creature in a 24-hour period, regardless of whether or not the creature uses a different cloak.
Theme: The Diplomat theme is not allowed.
Connections: No connections are allowed.
Or "No connections, artifacts, or anything else is allowed"
Looking at the connection, it looks like its possible to bring three creatures into your link , share your senses with the enemy, and stagger them for most of the fight, multiple times per day, with the DC of your maximum spell. Something that was intended to be a restriction on a buff to an ally turns into a really nasty weapon (considering how deadly staggered is in SF) If I'm reading that right at 2am that is definitely banhammer worthy.
(though bonus points for putting grandma rat in on the connection, given how communal rat colonies can be)
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Can YOU think of a consistent way to list all of those? If you can, Paizo needs to hire you as an editor pronto.
...you mean, like AoN? Which lists every item, option, rule, and, well, thing? The fact that it's not consistent and seems to be inferring admissibility from the ambiguous AR page notwithstanding (I mean, aren't we all, mirite) it does a bang up job of listing everything with an icon. (Again, correctness of those icons notwithstanding.)
This is not an unsolvable problem. Heck, even a blanket statement to catch all exceptions would solve a lot of these. Like, you know, the one in COM's AR entry:
"All content in this book is allowed for play with the following exceptions:"
I continue to hope that the AR Task Force will solve a lot of these problems. In the meantime, it'd be cool if we could any kind of clarification on the specific themes/connections/spells/etc brought up here.
Either way, continuing to argue "well they didn't justify things for 10 years in PFS1, therefore there is no ambiguity in the AR page and its intent is perfectly clear" is not helpful.
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If you have never read my posts in this Forum or the PFS Forum, including my first post in this thread, then let me clarify for you here that I not only believe AoN has the answer, I tell people it is the indisputable answer.
That notwithstanding, people want consistency in the AR. I am not against that. I simply see no way to do it. If you know of some miracle answer, I won't argue against it. I wholeheartedly support you telling Paizo how it can be done and championing it until it is complete.
Until that impossible day comes, right now, we have one entry saying "Everything except this and this", another entry saying "Nothing except this and this", and another entry saying "This and this".
The fact that nothing else works means that people need to adapt to that format.
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The fact that nothing else works means that people need to adapt to that format.
Just because a more overt statement isn't used doesn't mean it won't work or is unworkable.
I not only believe AoN has the answer, I tell people it is the indisputable answer.
And yet we just found an error with it 15 minutes ago regarding a vehicle.
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IIRC, that was an instance of the downloadable PDF having the correct list, and the online version missing material. Goes to show how few people utilized the PDF, and why we probably don't have one for 2E.
But, either way, the point is that the AR is not infallible. People tout the inaccuracy of archivesofnethys, but the document they want to use isn't 100% accurate itself.
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IIRC, that was an instance of the downloadable PDF having the correct list, and the online version missing material. Goes to show how few people utilized the PDF, and why we probably don't have one for 2E.
But, either way, the point is that the AR is not infallible. People tout the inaccuracy of archivesofnethys, but the document they want to use isn't 100% accurate itself.
I'm not faulting archives of nethys for human errors.
Just saying that a few extra words per additional resource makes it easier to cut down on them.