Pathfinder Second Edition - generic DLC issue thread

[sciencephile]

Yeah, I can tell you with experience that in all the games I have ever been, the players hate the items all being just "Unidentified Item". It's hard to figure out what is what when there are 50 items all with the same name of "Unidentified Item". It gets pretty frustrating for the GM too. Not speaking of the Agents modules themselves (as I wouldn't know). That's how all the magic items in some of the core books have been in the past.

[sciencephile]

Name: The Slithering
Issue: Several items, images and maps have the wrong item not identified name
Impacted: All items with +1; Boots of Elvenkind; Bracers of Armor, Type I; Diplomat's Badge; Moonlit Chain; Rod of Wonder; Scroll of Nondetection; Traveler's Any-Tool; Dust of Appearance; Iron Cube; Feather Token, Fan; Murderer's Knot
Fix: remove Magical from not identified name

Impacted: Barkskin Potion; Healing Potion, moderate; Potion of Acid Resistance, lesser; Potion of Quickness; Salve of Antiparalysis;
Fix: rename to unknown alchemical item

Impacted: Darkwood Music Box
Fix: rename to Small Wooden Box

Impacted: Image: Wand of Teeming Ghosts; Map: Redcap Parade Map; Map: Rain of Ooze Map; Image: Kibwe Gazetteer Opener; Map: Irate Dinosaur Map; Map: Haunted Campsite Map; Map: Hidden Bridge Map;
Fix: rename to more innocuous sounding names. E.g. Rain of Ooze Map to Kibwe Market Street

Impacted: Image:Cursebreaker
Fix: Cursebreaker

You wouldn't believe my player's reaction when I opened the map Haunted Campsite.
It took a ton of discipline from them to ignore that.. :-)

I met you halfway on this...

I fixed all the map image suggestions and I did see that the music box was not due to darkwood but had an actual error in it (couldn't tell from message). I also changed all the alchemical items to be changed from "magical potion", etc. to "Unknown Alchemical Item". That seems appropriate.

The only thing I didn't change was the actual magical items, such as the +1 items to take away the "Magical" prefix as I believe that will vary from GM to GM.

This will be in the TEST system by Monday and will be pushed to the LIVE environment on Tuesday, 11/24.

Thanks for reporting the issues.
-Danny

[sciencephile]

Name: The Slithering
Issue: The item Red Cap has no description
Impacted: Red Cap
Fix: Use the description from the Bestiary Redcap​

Thanks for reporting. This has been fixed and will be in the TEST system by Monday and will be pushed to the LIVE environment on Tuesday, 11/24.

[Farnaby]

I'm not sure that I would classify this as a "bug" so much as a style difference between GMs. You obviously don't want your players to be able to tell the difference between a magical quality breastplate and a normal non-magical breastplate, for instance.

[snip]

I would also argue that the mere fact that a breastplate, for example, is "not identified" and missing most of its information due to being in a "not identified" state will clue in 99.9% of players that that item is not truly a mundane breastplate. They will then just cast the Detect Magic cantrip to see that it is magical.

Given that this is a style thing, if it is changed, there is a good chance that one or more people will report it as a problem to change it back. I can see some GM's and players then being upset that not distinguishing the "not identified" magic items may be harder to see in the party list because they are not tagged (or the GMs will have to go to the extra trouble of then writing "magical" in front of the item. So, as you can see, that can go both ways depending on the GM who runs the game.

I'll kick it around with the team to see which direction makes most sense: changing it as you suggested, or keeping it consistent with the previous standard that was used for all AP modules.
[snip]

Yes, I can see that but when you discuss it with your team please note the following:

You need the Read Aura cantrip to find out if an object is magical.

Pathfinder 2e detect magic is a completely different beast to 1st edition.
Lvl 1 detects only unknown magic. It's a yes/no scenario.
So e.g. with 3 magical effects going on within 30' the answer is yes, there is magic within 30'

Lvl 3 only states the school of the highest level magic.
So a +1 breastplate and a 5th level prying eye spell are within 30 feet.
Cast detect magic at 3rd and the answer is yes, divine. No location given, no sense of what is magical.

So even if the breastplate is unidentified casting detect magic might not even detect that.

Perhaps we need a different solution e.g. a flag on a normal item that only the GM can see and turn on/off?
Then we wouldn't need ID/no-ID
Or an ID/no-ID flag on every single item and the same name for both states for mundane equipment?
I don't know, I'm only throwing a couple of ideas out there,
but that way we GMs can hide a +1 sword without having the players having to metagame.

I hope you see where I'm coming from.

[Farnaby]

BTW, thanks for changing the map, image and the potion names.

[sciencephile]

Farnaby,

I get your pain and you are right, it would require a new mechanism to account for this situation as the non-id part identifier would just be metagamed into knowing something was special about it. I did create an extension 6-7 years that added a "GM Only" text box to items. Someone since added that functionality from my extension into their larger set of extension tools. I can't remember what it is and to be honest, I'm not sure if it is still around, post-Unity. I needed that functionality for a specific game and haven't needed it since. I always considered it a "nice to have" but not a critical feature.

It makes most sense for Cursed items as you can have it non-identified, a person can identify it (wrongly) as a +1 longsword, only for it to really be a cursed longsword with the details of the curse in the "GM Only" field.

I had added this to the idea informer about 6-7 years ago right before creating the extension but it hasn't generated much interest. Perhaps with the new rulesets like Pathfinder 2, it might generate more votes and therefore could get into the vote range to be added as a feature.

For convenience, below is the idea informer link so you (and others) can vote for the "GM Only" information feature for items and get that functionality added.

https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/proj/?ia=81222

[Stargrove]

Name Of Product: Pathfinder Advanced Players Guide

When I opened up the guide in the Library I noticed there is an entry for "Classes" and an entry for "Classs". The "Classes" entry works as expected but "Classs" throws the following error:

[ERROR] Script execution error: [string "ref/scripts/ref_groupedlist.lua"]:141: attempt to index local 'rList' (a nil value)


EDIT: I also found the same problem with the Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rules which gives the same error.

[ShadeRaven]

We are definitely different there, sci I've done too many games over the years to segment any group of players in all or most categories, but I've had a good share that prefer the mystery of the unknown over the obvious magic crowd.

Magic and it's identity is a complex thing. If you like the Lord of the Rings, magic is rare and mysterious, type play... you want most things to feel mundane and the surprised when something proves to be more. In those cases, keeping the magic in magic items is difficult because of detect and identify spells. MMOs, on the other hand, are enormously popular and tend to be - here's your Staff of Power, see if it has better stats. It could very well be that your everyone wants to know experience is closer to being the norm than my magic should be mysterious crowd.

If I get enough of an outcry that say "Hey Shade! What's the deal? We want only magic items to be unidentified, and we want them to be obviously magic so we know they need to be identified ASAP!", I'll definitely shift my style to accommodate the preferred method. I honestly want only what's best for those using the products. Same goes with all the Automation. The only goal is to find a path that's overall the best... I have no problem doing things different if it's not working for others.

[Weissrolf]

Every player out there tries to workaround Detect Magic's limitation by stating, I place each item 30 ft. away to see if I get a "yes" ping. It's lame, but Paizo knew this when they decided that Read Aura takes a minute to cast. The distinction becomes mostly relevant in combat and when the party is in more of a hurry.

[Trenloe]

Name Of Product: Pathfinder Advanced Players Guide

When I opened up the guide in the Library I noticed there is an entry for "Classes" and an entry for "Classs". The "Classes" entry works as expected but "Classs" throws the following error:

[ERROR] Script execution error: [string "ref/scripts/ref_groupedlist.lua"]:141: attempt to index local 'rList' (a nil value)


EDIT: I also found the same problem with the Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rules which gives the same error.

Thanks for reporting. Previously reported and logged as CR2.072. Will be fixed in a future release.