Two questions re: Sarishan Sorc-Priests and Psionics

Unless I’m mistaken, you can become a Sorcerer Priest of Sarish either via arcane or Divine. Both use Charisma as the casting stat, and both are equally viable paths for later priestliness.

Undisciplined Psion (ba) gives you Ch for casting, thou you still need the min insight to get the Arcane Spellcasting talent.

Combining the two. . . you cannot have any spellcasting with Undisciplined Psion at character creation (even Prestidigitation), but with an Expert Build you could get both eventually.

Unless I’m mistaken, you can become a Sorcerer Priest of Sarish either via arcane or Divine. Both use Charisma as the casting stat, and both are equally viable paths for later priestliness.

Undisciplined Psion (ba) gives you Ch for casting, thou you still need the min insight to get the Arcane Spellcasting talent.

Combining the two. . . you cannot have any spellcasting with Undisciplined Psion at character creation (even Prestidigitation), but with an Expert Build you could get both eventually.

??. The background says, “Special (Restriction): You may not take this Background if you possess ANY spell casting ability.” I thought that was at step 6 of character creation. So you couldn’t be an arcane or divine archetype and take that background. But it seemed clear that step 9 of character creation occurs after step 6. Can’t you take prestidigitation and ASC at step 9 still? It seems very weird to gain access to a talent from your background, and not be allowed to take it later in character creation. Is there errata?

You are not allowed to have Prestidigitation or the Arcane or Divine spell casting talents at all during character creation if you take the Unsdisciplined Psion background. That was the official word from Pedro on the old forums

Agreed.

If you were patient enough you could double down on Undisciplined Psion and being a Sarishian Sorcerer Priest if you went Expert (or Martial) and then took a relevant path like Initiate Itinerant to get SP spell casting. Though IMO your talents gets spread *really* thin if you try to do double casting from the expert archetype.

Thanks so much! I incorrectly made the assumption that you had to be Divine to become an Anointed Priest (and then Sarishan Sorcerer-Priest).

I don’t have my books in front of me, but check the Path requirements; you need a specific background or Path for access (which may restrict your construction even for Sorcerer Priest).

You are not allowed to have Prestidigitation or the Arcane or Divine spell casting talents at all during character creation if you take the Undisciplined Psion background. That was the official word from Pedro on the old forums

I thought it was squishier than a firm ruling. I thought he was considering if you could take it in step nine or not. I thought an actual change would be put in a more official announcement, since it is a change, rather than a clarification. Either way doesn’t matter much (unless you really want unravel the thread), except that it seems to me there should be a better way of finding changes to the rules than, “someone said something once on the board.” IF this is an official change, shouldn’t this be in the errata, or at least in the “things to go in the next edition of the errata” thread?

It was a clarification of intent. Just in case you guys don’t know StatMonkey is the lead rules designer for the system. His intent was that that background be someone who was awakened only a week or two before game play starts.

That being said it along with any other rules changes that haven’t made it into the official errata, lets consider them intended errata, should be documented here. There are 2 good spots for it already, the Ask a StatMonkey and Official Answers to Rules Questions. I’d say this one should probably go into the latter as the Ask a Statmonkey is more a discussion of rule changes and questions.

I understand that. I fully accept his authority for issuing errata on the documents he wrote. Its just that I was under the impression from when I read the thread awhile back that it was no where near that cut and dried. I’m pretty sure the thread ended with him “thinking about it.” (though which way he was thinking about: to change or not to change I’m not sure) It seems to me that even the rules designers can use being able to talk about something and get player input in the forums without it being word of god, so it seems safest that it not be considered “official” until it makes it into and official document of some sort that people know they should reference, rather than trying to keep up on anything ever discussed on these boards. The “ask the stat monkey thread” is certainly a start in the official chain, but I would still not necessarily expect all players to have read that, while I would expect them to have read (or be able to show them a printed copy of) the errata.

And while I now understand it was his intent when it was written, it isn’t how it is written currently. I can certainly understand them changing the wording/requirements, as I do think it is probably an overpowered background in the options it opens up. But to have background restrict talent options like this seems to require a very large exception to the rule of how things are done in character creation, since you are essentially moving step six until after step nine. Oddly, it ties into the other discussion up-thread about how the two talents (ASC and prestidigitation) not only need to be taken together in character creation, but also in the same step. That implies that each step is a different slice in time. This requirement that you need to not do something in step 9 to qualify in step 6, seems to imply that everything in character creation “happens at once,” which conflicts with the talent ruling above.

Again, not really a big deal either way, but it is important to clarify since there is nothing in the background expressing the immediacy of the awakening, just the method.

Toni, you have to box Pedro around the ears to get things done then, and I fully encourage you to do so.