Pathfinder Second Edition - Bestiary - Inquiries, Issues, Development, and Updates

[ShadeRaven]

Hey Minethulhu! Thanks for the input!

I am currently doing a revamp of the automation for the Bestiaries (some need it more than others) and have gone in and looked at that naming convention (having already made some adjustments there). The main problem was that the ruleset was new at the time, and I was also new to the conversion process, and it took a little while for me to settle in and for there to be a generally accepted standard to follow.

Hopefully, you'll see less confusion and more consistency as these changes are enacted.

[scottbrown]

Pathfinder Bestiary 2:
Creature: Adult Crystal Dragon
Traits: 'Unique' trait when it should be the 'Uncommon' trait.

[Trenloe]

Pathfinder Bestiary 2:
Creature: Adult Crystal Dragon
Traits: 'Unique' trait when it should be the 'Uncommon' trait.

Thanks for reporting the issue, and sorry we missed it when you first reported it. We'll get a fix queued up for the next release.

[GuMaTo]

Hello,
Recently I was preparing an encounter for my next PF2E session, and I noticed that one of the monsters I've selected, the scarecrow from bestiary 2, doesn't have any automation regarding it's special abilities, like "Scarecrows's Leer", "Baleful Glow" and "Clawing Fear". I would like to know if it is suposed to be like this or if the implementations are in fact missing.

[Muagen]

I know the question is whether or not it should be automated, but I thought I'd offer an explanation as to why these abilities weren't automated. It might be the case that Clawing Fear was overlooked because of the difficulty/impracticality of automating Baleful Glow and Mundane Appearance.

There are some things it is easy for the client to check, like whether or not a character currently has an Effect attached to them. Clawing Fear should be easy enough to automate because an Effect can be applied to the Scarecrow that will apply bonus damage to its attacks if the target has the Frightened condition Effect on them.

No Effect currently exists that would determine whether or not a target Has Acted or Has Not Acted. Thus, Baleful Glow isn't easily automated, as part of the ability requires checking whether or not another actor on the Combat Tracker has already acted in that turn (note: the light should be achievable as an Effect). Similarly, Mundane Appearance requires checking whether or not the Scarecrow has acted to determine whether it is getting the automatic result for DCs and checks--and even then, the client has no way to do much of anything useful with that information. You would set the DC to detect the Scarecrow at 32 and then secretly roll another creature's Perception against that value or compare the Scarecrow's Deception to the appropriate defending DC.

Edited to add:
You could create a custom Effect condition that you apply each turn to each relevant actor on the Combat Tracker called, for example, Has Not Acted, and then remove that Effect each turn from each potential target as they act. Then, you could write an effect for the Scarecrow that would check whether or not the actor has the Has Not Acted condition for the remainder of the automation. I suspect that would get bothersome by halfway through the first turn, though, and would definitely tip your hand to the players that something was going on.

[GuMaTo]

Thanks for your answer, Muagen!
I was thinking more about simple things being automated than the whole special ability itself. For example, "Scarecrow's Leer" involves a DC 18 Will save, and different conditions would be applied depending on the degree of success. I was hoping to have the option to apply these effects right from the combat tracker, like what happens for some other monsters, where the text of the respective condition is "clickable". In addition, the lighting effect of “Baleful Glow” could be “clickable” from the combat tracker. “Mundane Appearance” has no need to be automated at all, since it is more related to a direct and simple perception check, as you mentioned.

[Muagen]

Happy to get a chance to participate in the conversation!

I can't see a reason Scarecrow's Leer wasn't automated. There's nothing particularly tricky about that one, and the automation for pushing the Frightened and Fascinated according to the correct Success level is straightforward. I'd bet this was just the sort of oversight this thread was made to address, and now we'll have to wait for feedback from Trenloe/ShadeRaven.

[Trenloe]

Hello,
Recently I was preparing an encounter for my next PF2E session, and I noticed that one of the monsters I've selected, the scarecrow from bestiary 2, doesn't have any automation regarding it's special abilities, like "Scarecrows's Leer", "Baleful Glow" and "Clawing Fear". I would like to know if it is suposed to be like this or if the implementations are in fact missing.

Welcome to the FG forums. There's no specific "reason" for the missing automation, purely that it got overlooked. We'll make a note to look into adding that for a future release. Thanks for reporting the issue.