Official Lost Omens clarification, errata, and FAQ thread

[MithraMax]

Grumpus wrote:

PlantThings wrote:

Purifying Icicle has a fortitude save entry that isn't clear what it applies too.

It stumped us during a game the other day so we just played it like a regular spell attack. Are we missing something here? It reminded me of very similar spells, Searing Light and Chilling Darkness, that I looked back to for clues, but no luck.

It probably should have the ATTACK trait too.

Was this (fortitude vs. spell attack) confusion for Purifying Icicle ever answered? I added the spell to a PC in a Malevolence game and the GM decided (after wondering about the discrepancy) to use the spell as a Spell Attack.

During the rest of the week, I forgot about the trouble this spell causes and bought it w/ AcP for a different character I am playing tomorrow in a PFS game.
It would be nice to find out what the correct rules are before I start my game tomorrow evening. Any help is appreciated.
I could not find any Errata for LO:KoL (p. 94 in book).

[Brinam]

Grease is a 1st Rank Spell… however… (errata)

Greetings fellow Pathfinder enthusiasts.
Please know that I apologize in advance if this has been covered already… I have read the 2E Players Core Errata and I have searched the forums and do not see this topic covered anywhere.

In both my Hardcover version and my PDF version (released at the same time so this is to be expected) I have found the same “mistake”

On page 304 Grease is listed (correctly) as a 1st Rank Arcane spell.
On page 305 Grease is listed (in-correctly) as a 3rd Rank Arcane spell
On page 312 Grease is listed (correctly) as a 1st Rank Primal spell.
On page 312 Grease is listed (in=correctly) as a 3rd Rank Primal spell.

Now, clearly, I have figured out that Grease is a 1st Rank spell. I guess my question, if I were to have one, is, “Was there another 3rd Rank spell intended to be in these lists or are these simply erroneous additions?”

Looking forward to any clarification you may have

[menacing-woman]

I have a suggestion/errata that has to do with all Pathfinder 2e products, not only Lost Omens.

Bleeding/persistent damage needs a rework. There is far too much tracking in relation to handling this condition. For example, lets take a player using Hail of Splinters.

They can use it on many enemies. If an enemy crit fails, they take double damage from each rolling of persistent damage. If an enemy fails, they take the full damage, and so on. This means we need to remember the exact state of each specific creature and if they failed, succeeded, or crit failed each turn. Then of course, you need to roll all of those dice each turn and also do a check to succeed from the persistent damage. This gets worse and worse the more creatures are hit by this massive cone.

This is a gigantic slowdown at our table. I feel like it would be better if persistent damages were flat and werent modified by crits, successes, etc.

So in the example of Hail of Splinters, the spell would do 1d4 piercing damage and 2 bleeding damage. Then it would scale by 1d4 piercing and 2 bleed damage every 2 levels. The damage of the bleed damage would occur when the enemy doesn't crit succeed a save.

[Nujuju299]

Hey, I've not made many forum posts in a really long while, so... I hope all is good/this is the right place. (As close as I can tell..)
Regarding the GM Core page 56/57, it made a quick reference to adjusting encounter difficulty if the party had an extra player, and then I paused to look up the reference and.. Then I started to realize, I don't believe PF2 actually covers atypical party sizes! So assuming this is the "bug report" (or errata flag space..)

- page 56 GM Core has the topic on Party Size:
The rules for advancement assume a group of four PCs.
The rules for building encounters (page 57) describe how to
accommodate groups of a different size, but the XP awards
don’t change—always award the amount of XP listed for a
group of four characters. You usually won’t need to make
many adjustments for a differently sized group outside of
encounters. Be careful of providing too many ways to get
accomplishment XP when you have a large group, though.
Since they can pursue multiple accomplishments at once, it
can lead to the PCs leveling up too fast.

- Page 57 GM Core, per the redirected citation Group Parity and Party Level:
It’s recommended that you keep all the player
characters at the same XP total. This makes it much
easier to know what challenges are suitable for your
players. Having characters at different levels can mean
weaker characters die more easily and their players feel
less effective, which in turn makes the game less fun for
those players.
If you choose not to keep the whole group at the
same character level, you’ll need to select a party level
to determine your XP budget for encounters. Choose
the level you think best represents the party’s ability as a
whole. Use the highest level if only one or two characters
are behind, or an average if everyone is at a different level.
If only one character is two or more levels ahead, use a
party level suitable for the lower-level characters, and
adjust the encounters as if there were one additional PC
for every 2 levels the higher-level character has beyond
the rest of the party.
Party members who are behind the party level gain
double the XP other characters do until they reach
the party’s level. When tracking individually, you’ll
need to decide whether party members get XP for
missed sessions.

The *only* reference I see to party level between these two is "... adjust the encounters as if there were one additional PC for every 2 levels the higher-level character has beyond the rest of the party." And now that I've re-read that, I think that's its own errata fix that I think is meant to say "... For every 2 levels *higher* the character is beyond the rest."
For now I'm just borrowing from Starfinder's CRB 388/389 regarding the APL adjustments of -1 for every character below 4 characters and +1 for every character beyond *5* characters.

[Nujuju299]

Nujuju299 wrote:

Hey, I've not made many forum posts in a really long while, so... I hope all is good/this is the right place. (As close as I can tell..)

Regarding the GM Core page 56/57, it made a quick reference to adjusting encounter difficulty if the party had an extra player, and then I paused to look up the reference and.. Then I started to realize, I don't believe PF2 actually covers atypical party sizes! So assuming this is the "bug report" (or errata flag space..)

- page 56 GM Core has the topic on Party Size:
The rules for advancement assume a group of four PCs.
The rules for building encounters (page 57) describe how to
accommodate groups of a different size, but the XP awards
don’t change—always award the amount of XP listed for a
group of four characters. You usually won’t need to make
many adjustments for a differently sized group outside of
encounters. Be careful of providing too many ways to get
accomplishment XP when you have a large group, though.
Since they can pursue multiple accomplishments at once, it
can lead to the PCs leveling up too fast.

- Page 57 GM Core, per the redirected citation Group Parity and Party Level:
It’s recommended that you keep all the player
characters at the same XP total. This makes it much
easier to know what challenges are suitable for your
players. Having characters at different levels can mean
weaker characters die more easily and their players feel
less effective, which in turn makes the game less fun for
those players.
If you choose not to keep the whole group at the
same character level, you’ll need to select a party level
to determine your XP budget for encounters. Choose
the level you think best represents the party’s ability as a
whole. Use the highest level if only one or two characters
are behind, or an average if everyone is at a different level.
If only one character is two or more levels ahead, use a
party level suitable for the lower-level characters, and
adjust the encounters as if there were one additional PC
for every 2 levels...

Sorry, looks like there's no edit exactly. I discovered 20 pages later ish what the actual XP budget is. I struggled a bit to understand it but at that point I was awake at some 2-3AM so might just be me.. lol -- Sorry for the inconvenience. :/ I dunno, if anything make a reference to encounter building?

[Unicore]

Yeah the trick for more PCs is to give the same xp as you would for a 4 person party, but add enough extra creatures to adjust the xp of the encounter up by the amount on the chart. It does get more complicated when you have more PCs and their levels are not the same.

[Tridus]

The amount of XP you award for the encounter doesn't change, regardless of party sizes. ie: a moderate encounter gives every player in it 80 XP regardless of party size.

What you're doing is modifying the encounter for the party size so that it remains a moderate encounter. ie: If it's a bigger party you add more stuff.

The rules around that can be a bit confusing, which is why I suggest using an online calculator too help. There's a couple out there if you google "pf2 encounter builder". You plug in the party size/level, then can add creatures and it'll tell you things like what the encounter difficulty is, so you can tweak it to get it where you want.

[Scrip]

If anyone was wondering, by my count:

Looking at a quick Ctrl+F, Lost Omens The Mwangi Expanse has 49 "iruxis".
LO Grand Bazaar has 1 "iruxis" and (counting the glossary) 2 plural "iruxi".
LO Impossible Lands has 15 "iruxis" and (counting the glossary) 3 plural "iruxi".
LO Highhelm has 1 "iruxis" and 1 miscapitalized plural "Iruxi".
LO Tian Xia World Guide has one "iruxis" (no plural "iruxi").

GM Core has 1 "iruxis" (no plural "iruxi").
Monster Core has 4 "iruxis" and 1 plural "iruxi".
Howl of the Wild has 4 "iruxis" (no plural "iruxi").
Player Core 2 has 3 "iruxis" and 1 plural "iruxi".

GM Core has no "kholos", but 3 plural "kholo".
Monster Core has 25 "kholos" and 2 plural "kholo".
Player Core 2 has 5 "kholos".

GM Core has 2 plural "tengu".
Monster Core has a bunch of plural "tengu" and 2 "tengus".
LO Tian Xia World Guide has tons of plural "tengu", as expected.
Player Core 2 has tons of plural "tengu" and 1 "tengus".

[Darrell Impey UK]

Scrip wrote:

If anyone was wondering, by my count:

Could any of them be a case of dropped possessive apostrophes? (God that sounds grown-up.)

[Ed Reppert]

In PC2, I found 18 matches to "Iruxi" of which 3 included the plural "s". 4 were references to the language. 10 arguably refer to the species as a whole (e.g. "Iruxi Armaments").

[Xethik]

Spirit Warrior brings up a question of the intent of fist Strikes and needing a free-hand, as well as using the parry and disarm traits added to a fist when both hands are occupied. I won't regurgitate the whole discussion but it would be good to have clarification on the general intent.

[Matheren]

Clarification Request
The two new Magus Hybrid Studies in the TXCG both come with Conflux Spells that include the Manipulate trait, unlike all prior Conflux Spells.

Can we get clarification for why these two in particular are given that trait (opening them up to reactive strikes)?

More specifically, how does the Aloof Firmament's passive benefit - specific move actions not provoking a reaction while in Arcane Cascade stance - interact with their Conflux Spell's Manipulate trait? Does one override the other?

[Cordell Kintner]

Matheren wrote:

Clarification Request

The two new Magus Hybrid Studies in the TXCG both come with Conflux Spells that include the Manipulate trait, unlike all prior Conflux Spells.

Can we get clarification for why these two in particular are given that trait (opening them up to reactive strikes)?

More specifically, how does the Aloof Firmament's passive benefit - specific move actions not provoking a reaction while in Arcane Cascade stance - interact with their Conflux Spell's Manipulate trait? Does one override the other?

4 Magus Focus spells use somatic actions, which have the manipulate trait. Those 4 are:

Force Fang
Cascade Countermeasure
Runic Impression
Hasted Assault

These two new spells having manipulate instead isn't an issue.

As for Aloof Firmament, if one were to Cast Sky Laughs at Waves while in stance, the manipulate action of the spell would trigger a reaction (with the possibility of being disrupted), but the Fly action afterward would not (so you can't use Stand Still, for example).

[Cordell Kintner]

Xethik wrote:

Spirit Warrior brings up a question of the intent of fist Strikes and needing a free-hand, as well as using the parry and disarm traits added to a fist when both hands are occupied. I won't regurgitate the whole discussion but it would be good to have clarification on the general intent.

I agree, I see far too many people saying that "Fist" strikes can be made with any part of the body, which is 100% not the intent. The rules say you use the stats of a "fist" strike when making strikes with other parts of the body, and I think it needs to be explicitly spelled out how that works.

[pauljathome]

Xethik wrote:

Spirit Warrior brings up a question of the intent of fist Strikes and needing a free-hand, as well as using the parry and disarm traits added to a fist when both hands are occupied. I won't regurgitate the whole discussion but it would be good to have clarification on the general intent.

As far as I can tell, Spirit Warrior works just fine with a Thaumaturge, his implements, and his Implements Empowerment as long as his sword is one of his implements.

Which would be just absurdly overpowered. A d8+2 per damage dice combined with a d6+2 damage dice secondary attack, all benefiting from weakness.

[HammerJack]

pauljathome wrote:

Xethik wrote:

Spirit Warrior brings up a question of the intent of fist Strikes and needing a free-hand, as well as using the parry and disarm traits added to a fist when both hands are occupied. I won't regurgitate the whole discussion but it would be good to have clarification on the general intent.

As far as I can tell, Spirit Warrior works just fine with a Thaumaturge, his implements, and his Implements Empowerment as long as his sword is one of his implements.

Which would be just absurdly overpowered. A d8+2 per damage dice combined with a d6+2 damage dice secondary attack, all benefiting from weakness.

One of which can benefit from weakness. I won't say that isn't a lot of damage, but the Strikes are combined for weakness/resistance if both hit.

[Matheren]

Cordell Kintner wrote:

4 Magus Focus spells use somatic actions, which have the manipulate trait. Those 4 are:
Force Fang
Cascade Countermeasure
Runic Impression
Hasted Assault

These two new spells having manipulate instead isn't an issue.

As for Aloof Firmament, if one were to Cast Sky Laughs at Waves while in stance, the manipulate action of the spell would trigger a reaction (with the possibility of being disrupted), but the Fly action afterward would not (so you can't use Stand Still, for example).

Those listed 4 are all optional spells you take with feats though. The Conflux spells granted by the existing five Hybrid Studies all lack the somatic/manipulate traits; they're verbal only.

To me, that's still an issue worth clarification, because it means the existing five studies all have built-in ways to recharge spellstrike in combat without provoking a reaction, a benefit the two new studies lack. Even Laughing Shadow's spell, which is a move + strike, gets to avoid reactions because it's a teleport.

[Scrip]

1. In Tian Xia Character Guide's cultivator archetype, two sanctification feats have some potentially funny behavior: Three Pecks of Dew and Ghost-Path Epiphany apparently let characters gain sanctifications that their faiths wouldn't permit. For example, holy/unholy Gozrens and Pharasmins can be seen as slightly odd. Nor do the feats mention disallowing such faiths as unholy Caydenites, Desnans, Erastilians, Sarenites, Shelynites, and Toragdans, which will strike more people as odd.

I'm aware that this might all be perfectly intentional, which sounds interesting! It just raises questions that some players will be asking their GMs about, like what if a Gozren/Pharasmin character takes cultivator sanctification at 10th level and then takes Champion Dedication at 12th level:

Quote:

If the deity lists “none,” you can choose only options that don’t require the holy or unholy trait.

Then I'd conclude that RAW the character is holy/unholy, but still isn't allowed to select holy/unholy causes like Grandeur, Redemption, Desecration, and Iniquity.

So I'm just interested to see if we might ever get confirmation on whether or not it was specifically intentional for PF2e to allow, say, holy Norgorberites, Kuthonites, and Lamashtans, as the new canon begins to introduce us to the concept of sanctification and flesh out what its lore is.

2. On a completely unrelated note, TX Character Guide page 112 seems to introduce the concept of a "magus" to the ORC. But this page doesn't seem to articulate that magus is a "class", or even mention the fact that I need to refer to another book (presumably Secrets of Magic) to learn about it.

[Errenor]

Scrip wrote:

1. In Tian Xia Character Guide's cultivator archetype, two sanctification feats have some potentially funny behavior: Three Pecks of Dew and Ghost-Path Epiphany apparently let characters gain sanctifications that their faiths wouldn't permit. For example, holy/unholy Gozrens and Pharasmins can be seen as slightly odd. Nor do the feats mention disallowing such faiths as unholy Caydenites, Desnans, Erastilians, Sarenites, Shelynites, and Toragdans, which will strike more people as odd.

Well, these feats are simply incompatible with these faiths. That's ok and normal. There were other incompatible options before. All paths of cultivation aren't compatible with all gods.

If PCs don't have mechanics dependent on gods their gods would probably be irritated or forsake them narratively. If PCs do have mechanics they have very high or definite chance to lose them.

[Scrip]

Errenor wrote:

Well, these feats are simply incompatible with these faiths.

Ah, I was saying the feats as written are apparently not incompatible with these faiths; the people I've polled in the community interpret the text of Player Core to not state any such disallowance, so RAI may or may not be in line with the seemingly permissive RAW here. That's why I made the post, to just make sure that the dev teams are aware: GMs do not know whether or not to assume that there is an undefined disallowance.

[Errenor]

Scrip wrote:

Errenor wrote:

Well, these feats are simply incompatible with these faiths.

Ah, I was saying the feats as written are apparently not incompatible with these faiths; the people I've polled in the community interpret the text of Player Core to not state any such disallowance, so RAI may or may not be in line with the seemingly permissive RAW here. That's why I made the post, to just make sure that the dev teams are aware: GMs do not know whether or not to assume that there is an undefined disallowance.

When a god forbids some sanctification and a PC still does it - it's incompatibility. GMs are full in their rights to provide consequences, including or starting from removing any mechanical options which are given by the god, as is normal for this case. You don't get out on a technicality 'a feat made me do it'. It's just common sense and using a rule concept of gods with anathemas.

If you want a bit more, there is: "Many actions that are anathema don’t appear in any deity’s formal list." No, you don't get to argue "if there isn't explicit 'taking forbidden sanctification is anathema' it is not". It clearly is anathema, or there wouldn't be any sense in forbidding sanctifications at all. It's not even a single offence - it's a continuing state, there's nothing to count. I'd remove all god's abilities instantly and wouldn't give them back until such feat were retrained, and then Atone conducted, of course.

[Violet_Jade]

I have a clarification question about the Yaoguai's Morphic Strikes feat for the Born of Elements Yaoguai heritage from the Tian Xia Character Guide.

The feat states that the unarmed strike gains the "same elemental traits" as the cantrip chosen for that heritage. However, while Ignition, Needle Darts, Timber, Scatter Scree, Slashing Gust, and Spout all have traits corresponding to an element, Electric Arc and Frostbite do not.

Do the unarmed strikes gain no traits if the player selects Electric Arc or Frostbite? Are those two supposed to be associated with elements despite not having any elemental traits? Or, are the energy traits for those two spells meant to be gained by the unarmed strike when Morphic Strikes is selected?

[Scrip]

Errenor wrote:

When a god forbids some sanctification and a PC still does it - it's incompatibility. [. . .] It clearly is anathema, or there wouldn't be any sense in forbidding sanctifications at all.

Oh, well I meant that genuinely in my best-faith understanding of the intent, Gozreh and Pharasma don't "forbid" sanctification--they just don't happen to grant sanctification. Arguably the single thing that Pharasmins are most famous for is hunting undead, so sanctifying yourself as holy to make yourself an avowed undead-slayer actively supports Pharasma's edicts, you know? The point I was trying to explain in my earlier posts is that while Pharasma won't do the sanctifying for you, both common sense and the lore can seem to actually agree that she would take no offense if your character seeks out his own source of holy sanctification.

Yes, some given combos are absolutely disallowed by a given deity's anathema; I never meant to suggest otherwise, because specific trumps general and your deity gives you a specific code! At the same time, there exist some individual combos that seem able to be perfect for your individual deity's edicts. But yeah, I hope to convey that I never meant to pull any "gotcha" on a GM or to claim to be the authority for any tables other than my own.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

It's worth noting that...

Cleric Anathema wrote:

Casting spells with the unholy trait is almost always anathema to deities who don't allow unholy sanctification, and casting holy spells is likewise anathema to those who don't allow holy sanctification.

Casting holy spells (which one must imagine is a major point of becoming holy sanctified) is explicitly anathema to Pharasma in as much as 'almost always' applies as a general statement. One might argue that 'almost' is intended to mean "you can do if it you can appeal to the deity's sensibilities" but I expect that this is more corner-case language, not "one of the top deities of the setting is actually holy-lite, but only if you go around her back and get holy through another channel." If Pharasma was cool with her followers not remaining neutral to the war in heaven, she'd allow sanctification.

Mind you, there's only a handful of ways of becoming holy in the first place, right now. It's pretty much exclusively 'cleric/champion with deity', follow the path of cultivation (somewhat against the gods' wishes), or be hit with a chunk of exploding godstuff and join the fight as a micro-deity. If you want to play a cultivator champion of Pharasma who vows to end the plague of undead in the world, I am not the one who is going to stand in your way from doing something cool.

[Errenor]

Scrip wrote:

Errenor wrote:

When a god forbids some sanctification and a PC still does it - it's incompatibility. [. . .] It clearly is anathema, or there wouldn't be any sense in forbidding sanctifications at all.

Oh, well I meant that genuinely in my best-faith understanding of the intent, Gozreh and Pharasma don't "forbid" sanctification--they just don't happen to grant sanctification. Arguably the single thing that Pharasmins are most famous for is hunting undead, so sanctifying yourself as holy to make yourself an avowed undead-slayer actively supports Pharasma's edicts, you know? The point I was trying to explain in my earlier posts is that while Pharasma won't do the sanctifying for you, both common sense and the lore can seem to actually agree that she would take no offense if your character seeks out his own source of holy sanctification.

It seems you are a big fan of a certain Dark Prince, not a bad attempt at finding loopholes. On the other hand I still think that when they were writing this: "Deities that list “must choose” mandate gaining the trait and those that list “can choose” give the devotee the option to choose the trait or not", they were the only acceptable outcomes in mind for those deities. If they wanted for some deities to not really care, they probably would have written exactly that and introduced more sanctification variants. Or used 'can choose holy or unholy' for everyone.

I can imagine not caring for some deities in lore. But definitely not for Pharasma, for example. Holy is much more than just better hunting undead and pharasmins just shouldn't get into that mess at all. And most other deities wouldn't want to listen to appeals to difference between 'not giving' and 'forbidding' in this case. Desna, Cayden Cailean and Erastil would just love their Unholy clerics with 'devotion to victimizing others, inflicting harm, and battling celestial powers', I'm sure.

[Scrip]

You don't need to morally compare me to Asmodeus, man. I wasn't making an "attempt at finding loopholes"; I just thought I was having a conversation with you and explaining the logic that I said led me to make my best-guess interpretation of good-faith intent, as I was trying to support and agree with the exact points you made about valuing the importance of edicts and anathema.

[Xethik]

In Divine Mysteries, the Azlanti deity Elion has the 'weather' domain, which doesn't exist. It probably should be Lightning or Nature?

[Patrickthekid]

So out of the deities in Inner Sea Faiths, Naderi is the only one unaccounted for. Is she among those deities lost/missing or is she still around via God's & Magic?

[Mangaholic13]

Patrickthekid wrote:

So out of the deities in Inner Sea Faiths, Naderi is the only one unaccounted for. Is she among those deities lost/missing or is she still around via God's & Magic?

*Looks up Naderi*

Well... I guess it would make sense for the goddess known as "The Lost Maiden" to pull a vanishing act.

[Scrip]

Patrickthekid wrote:

So out of the deities in Inner Sea Faiths, Naderi is the only one unaccounted for. Is she among those deities lost/missing or is she still around via God's & Magic?

Nothing says that she is lost, so she is not lost. Also, you'll want to keep an eye out for Divine Mysteries's digital Supplement PDF that Luis says Paizo is planning to release in the coming weeks!

[Patrickthekid]

Scrip wrote:

Patrickthekid wrote:

So out of the deities in Inner Sea Faiths, Naderi is the only one unaccounted for. Is she among those deities lost/missing or is she still around via God's & Magic?

Nothing says that she is lost, so she is not lost. Also, you'll want to keep an eye out for Divine Mysteries's digital Supplement PDF that Luis says Paizo is planning to release in the coming weeks!

Is that the PDF that will be available le on the 20th or will that one have additional information?

[Scrip]

Patrickthekid wrote:

Scrip wrote:

Patrickthekid wrote:

So out of the deities in Inner Sea Faiths, Naderi is the only one unaccounted for. Is she among those deities lost/missing or is she still around via God's & Magic?

Nothing says that she is lost, so she is not lost. Also, you'll want to keep an eye out for Divine Mysteries's digital Supplement PDF that Luis says Paizo is planning to release in the coming weeks!

Is that the PDF that will be available le on the 20th or will that one have additional information?

Divine Mysteries is the book, available on the 20th.

A digital Supplement PDF is a separate PDF, containing content that is not in the book.