Philly-Specific News

January/February is a slow time for Philly PFS. Our next major convention will be in the spring, and I hope to have more information about that soon. However, while we aren’t having another convention for a couple months, our neighbors in New Jersey will be. They have DREAMATION 2015 coming up in February. Sign-ups will be open soon!

But of course, while we may not have conventions coming up in the immediate future, we’ll still be running PFS at all of our locations as usual. Also, there might be some modules or other events scheduled on the side – pay attention to the Redcap’s PFS mailing list for these opportunities if they come up! (I know I’m going to be working on getting a group together for the Seeker Arc version of Wardens.)

Pathfinder Society General News

Two new 64-page modules have been sanctioned. The brand new module Plunder & Peril has been sanctioned, along with the long-awaited Wardens of the Reborn Forge. Plunder & Peril is split into 3 parts with a bonus chronicle sheet if you apply all 3 sheets to the same character, and you can play it both in sanctioned module mode and campaign mode, much like Dragon’s Demand and Tears at Bitter Manor. Wardens of the Reborn Forge is also split up into 3 sections and can also be played in sanctioned module mode or campaign mode, but there’s a third way that you can play it – Seeker Arc mode. If everyone is 12th level, then you can play straight through the module, earning chronicle sheets as you go and leveling up mid-module. This is the way you get the bonus chronicle sheet for Wardens.

Plunder & Peril‘s sections are levels 3-5, 4-6, and 5-7, with the bonus chronicle sheet being levels 6-8. Wardens’ sections are levels 11-13. 12-14. and 13-15, with the bonus chronicle sheet being levels 14-16.

Pathfinder General News

RPG Superstar is in full swing! We are currently in the middle of voting, and I would encourage everyone to vote. Voting on items is a definite learning experience about what makes or doesn’t make a good item, and while Philly certainly had a good turnout of entries this year, I would love to see an even bigger Philly turnout next year.

FAQs

Now that Mark Seifter has gotten the reins on the Pathfinder Design Team messageboard account, he’s been issuing a new ruling every Friday for the past couple months. What follows below are the ruling that the account has made since the last news post. If you want to stay up to date, check in with the Pathfinder Design Team’s Paizo messageboard account.

Skalds have perform(wind) as a class skill and can use it as a versatile performance. Nothing was broken here, just that it was super unthematic that these were missing. (FAQ)

The skill bonuses that a slayer gains with favored target increase by level along with the hit/damage bonus. This wasn’t written clearly enough in the slayer writeup. (FAQ)

Pummeling Style only works with unarmed strikes. The intent was to give monks something nice for a change, not to give every weapon user pounce. (FAQ)

Untyped ability bonuses don’t stack. Compared to the previous three, this one is a little more complicated. What this means is if two sources add an ability modifier to something, and neither of those sources specifies a type, then they don’t work together. The clearest example of this is a multiclassed Lore Oracle/Paladin that has taken the sidestep secret revelation. When calculating his Reflex save, sidestep secret is replacing his Dexterity modifier with his Charisma modifier, and the paladin’s divine grace adds his Charisma modifier to all saving throws. Neither of these specify a typed bonus, so they don’t stack and the paladin’s Charisma modifier only gets added once. On the other hand, when you look at the paladin’s AC, sidestep secret also replaces the Dexterity modifier for Charisma, but this time smite evil adds a deflection bonus equal to the paladin’s Charisma modifier. Since one is untyped and one is a deflection bonus, they stack. (FAQ)

Dragon Ferocity and Tiger Claws work. Both of these feats were intended to add a stat more than once to something, but thanks to the previous FAQ they broke. The PDT promptly fixed that. (FAQ)

Grab, pull, push, rock catching and trip all work off of your turn. As written, these are free actions and therefore only work on your turn, but rock catching makes no sense if you read it like that, and the others should really be able to trigger off of attacks of opportunity. Now they do. (FAQ)

A reach weapon can be used as an improvised weapon without reach. Can you physically hit someone with the butt of a longspear? Yes. Is it designed to do that? No. But just because that the longspear is a weapon doesn’t mean that you can’t use it as an improvised weapon. (FAQ)

If an attack can bypass magic DR, then it can also harm incorporeal creatures as if it was magic. This was the bane of monks. Thanks to their ki pool, their fists counted as magic for the purpose of bypassing DR, but thanks to the wording not actually making the fists magic and amulets of mighty fists often getting special abilities before getting enhancement bonuses, the monk was often really sad against incorporeal creatures. Now they don’t have to be! (FAQ)

Sleeves of many garments are illusory. The sleeves of many garments state that they “transform her current garments,” but it was unclear whether it would physically transform the current garments or just the appearance. Many people were using these to transform into a swarmsuit whenever a swarm came up under the assumption that the sleeves transformed the clothes physically. This clarification says that it is not the case. It just transforms the appearance. (FAQ)

Boar Style doesn’t try to bleed a bleeding target. Boar Style reads like it does 2d6 bleed damage, but Boar Shred, a feat later up the feat chain, does 1d6 bleed damage, and usually bleed damage doesn’t stack. That’s because the damage that Boar Style deals isn’t supposed to be bleed damage, but rend damage and it was just written badly. (FAQ)

Hats of disguise don’t last forever, but you can reactivate them before the previous duration is done. Items like the hat of disguise and the ring of invisibility are command word items based off of spells that have durations. People play as if you cast it and they’re up all the time, even though technically these spells have durations. Basically, this FAQ says that we haven’t been doing it wrong, just as long as you renew the duration before the previous duration ends. (FAQ)

Despite the fact that a hat of disguise has a duration, when you take the hat off you are no longer disguised. The effect is still tied to the hat, not like if you cast the spell yourself. (FAQ)

Crane Wing now no longer requires you to guess which attack you’re blocking. When they errata’d Crane Wing, they changed it so that you had to declare it before the attack and it just gave you a +4 bonus to your AC against that attack. They’ve determined that they overdid it, and have decided to tweak Crane Wing a little to try to make it a little more powerful. Now you choose one target and you get a +2 bonus to AC versus all attacks made by that creature for 1 round. (FAQ)

A reach weapon can attack something 2 diagonals away. In 3.5, there was the reach exception, which said that something with 10-foot reach could attack something 2 diagonal squares away from it even though that square is 15 feet away. It’s a little ugly, but it’s better than reach weapons getting shut down by diagonal hallways and enemies manipulating the grid to close with a reach weapon user without taking an attack of opportunity. Pathfinder tried to fix that by creating an “invisible square” that the enemies provoked from, but that turned out to be super clunky. This is the PDT putting the 3.5 reach exception into Pathfinder. (FAQ)