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I have a question that I haven't seen anyone else bring up before:

My players are at the end of Book 2, and about to start Book 3. As stated in Book 2, the info that they are potentially able to learn from the Skinner reveals the existence of the Twilight Four, as well as their pseudonyms. It also details the basics of the Skinner's role among the four.

Yet at the start of Book 3, the summary states that the players should have learned that the Twilight Four have the "basic aim... to remove the primarch and seize power for themselves."

Where is it stated that they could have learned this? It's not mentioned as something the Skinner would reveal, and Mobana did not appear to know anything about the group's higher plans. Asilia likewise doesn't mention anything about this plot point in her opening speech at the start of Book 3. It seems like a huge plot hole that Asilia, as head of Starwatch, wouldn't have put way more resources into the problem at the start had she known the Twilight Four's goals. She wouldn't have trusted newbie officers with a threat on the head of government. It seems like a huge plot hole for her to gloss over that fact.

Besides this, the PCs knowing about the target on the primarchy feels like a major piece of information this early. Knowing the ultimate goal this early, to me, feels like it would lessen the impact of dealing with the current threats of a gang war or a doomsday device bomb. It would give things away too quickly.

Did any of you let your players know about the Twilight Four's goals this early? How did your players react to the info if you did? Maybe I am overthinking things, but so far my players have been very keen to always go straight to the "big problem" and ignore the smaller problems along the way.


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I don't know that I have a full five favorite, archetypes, but:

1. Silksworn (Occultist) - So far, my favorite archetype, and the character who had it was my favorite one to play in PF so far. While I understand that there were some balance issues regarding it being stronger than the base class, overall I loved the theme of wearing fancy clothes being core to your abilities. RPG characters already rely on their magic items to survive their adventures - having a character who literally draws their personal power from magic items is a really cool take on something most people overlook as part and parcel for RPGs. Definitely a strong vote from me for this one.

2. Chosen One (Paladin) - This one is also great thematically. I've always loved the idea of a hero being called to his or her destiny by something greater than themselves. This archetype allows for a character to arise from simple origins, unaware that they had the potential to be a hero within them all along. Notably, I feel this archetype could be universally applied to any class - a familiar could appear to teach spells to a wizard or sorcerer, or to teach music to a bard, or be a conscience to a monk or paladin who is just learning justice. All in all, a cool archetype story-wise without being too powerful or weak gamewise.

3. Courser (Swashbuckler) - This archetype gives the swashbuckler the movement-based abilities it always wanted: running on walls, leaping huge distances, even jumping in midair. I like it mostly because it adapts the base class in ways that make it feel even MORE "swashbucklery," rather than being an archetype that makes major changes to the feel of the base class.

4. Fiend Keeper (Medium) - Haven't gotten to play this one, but thematically I like the idea of a character having something Evil inside that fuels their powers, with the PC having to balance using its powers vs. risking letting the Evil Thing take over. (It's a common trope in fiction, but rarely sees use in tabletop in my experience.)

...That's all for me.


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Chiming in as another voice that is interested in seeing this product come to light in some way or another one day. Seeing it in a humble bundle would be great, although I do understand the work that goes into the pdf formatting/layout.

I always liked the way the MANY different spirit choices (rather than the six you get in the final version) gave you more customization, both for build and story reasons. Picking your spirits based on NPCs or villains who died over the course of the campaign, literally drawing on your whole history over the game as you progressed, was always so cool to me.

While I would be very sad to never see the Harrowed Medium ever, if it does eventually turn up in 2E (as pixierose described above), that would make me super happy. Although seeing it in 1E would be the absolute best case scenario. :)


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I love love love the psychic classes. I love psychic casting. I love all the spells and skill unlocks that give you "psychic impressions" from places and objects, reading auras, etc. I love the occultist in particular, and object reading might be my favorite class feature of any class in the game.

However, none of my friends are very "poetically-minded" - lots of scientists, programmers, etc. So when I play as one of the occult classes using these features, I get very basic, straightforward info, nothing symbolic or with multiple meanings or what have you. Emotional stuff is just "angry, sad, etc." and not "exhilarated, tentative, anxious," or anything else with more nuance.

Conversely, I'm about to be the GM, and none of my players are going to play an occult class. So my grievance is that I don't get to enjoy the full depth of these abilities and spells, and I don't get to provide that depth for anyone else to enjoy. It sucks. :(


Hello all who have run or are currently running Crimson Throne:

I am about to start running the revised AP in a few weeks. I have already ran this adventure before, though in the old 3.5 version, and while I'm fine with most things, there is one aspect that I'm worried about. Namely, the Brotherhood of Bones.

It's a long story, but the short version is that the first time I ran this AP, the party was very "detect evil, kill it if it's evil, ask no questions and ponder no consequences." So, when the party encountered Laori at Salvatore Scream's house, they immediately attacked her. I barely even got the words Zon-Kuthon out of my mouth before they were on her. I never got the chance to introduce her "character" (that she's a bubbly, happy masochist - much fun could have been had!). Any time she so much as came near the party, they went at her like rabid dogs.

So, needless to say, I pretty much backed off on everything related to her, as well as the later Ally/Enemy angle in Scarwall (I later had Sial approach the party by himself; things went more civilly since the main problem player had left, but the party still wanted nothing to do with him. I kinda' just quietly removed him from the scene and handwaved the whole encounter as being a weird non-sequitur.) Clearly, my previous party had no taste for "enemy of my enemy" situations.

Fast forward several years to now. This is an entirely different group, one that has a better handle on roleplaying and being open to alliances with NPCs. However, I predict that at least one of our players will have a problem allying with evil - not so much for the sake of "Kill all evil," but more for the fact that he tends to play very justice-oriented characters and is unlikely to find much value in the Brotherhood's reasoning for an alliance.

SO, I want to make absolutely sure I do my best to give the Brotherhood a good argument for working together. Ultimately if the PCs decide not to work with them, that's fine - but since this was a prior failure for me, I want to give it my best shot this time, so that it's at least the party's decision to not work together, and not me failing to explain myself properly.

From what I understand, the Brotherhood's argument for wanting the Crown of Fangs is because they want to collect the relics of Kazavon for themselves, in order to keep Kazavon from being resurrected because the church of Zon-Kuthon/the country of Nidal considers Kazavon a dangerous zealot who will draw a lot of unwanted attention to the faith. They might even hate Kazavon just as much or more than the PCs do, given the political ramifications to Nidal (and their faith as a whole) should he ever return.

So, my questions are:

1.) Is this interpretation of their desires correct? Is there anything else I can add that might make it more believable for appealing to PCs? (I'm considering having them be okay with the relic's destruction instead of recovery, though I'm not sure if the Brotherhood is actually okay with that?)

2.) How honest are they with sharing that goal? Should I have them make up a lie instead first, and only reveal their true motivation after some prodding?

3.) For those of you who successfully got your parties to work with the Brotherhood, is there anything in particular that you think helped facilitate that?

Thanks for any input you may have. Again, I'm okay with the party not allying with this group if they ultimately don't want to. I just want to make sure I give it my best.


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Everyone else here has already made a lot of the points that address your concerns, especially regarding the math and probability and whatnot. I just wanted to address one thing that no one else seems to have touched on: that you say you need both Dex and Str on par with melee types to do damage with a bow.

I would like to point out the feat Focused Shot. It is a standard action (so no machine gun fire using the feat), and it's only within 30' of a target, but it lets you add your Int to damage. This makes archery way less MAD for classes like investigator, alchemist, and occultist (what I used it on). Heck, even a wizard can get appreciable damage using this feat if you absolutely needed to shoot an arrow rather than cast a spell.

You do lose out on multiple attacks this way, but 3/4 BAB classes can't get Improved Precise Shot until level 15, so you'd likely be using your move action to get a clear line of fire on foes anyway.

It doesn't exactly help your situation directly, but it does prove that not all archery builds need exactly the same feats to be "effective."


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I was interested in giving this a try, as I've always been a fan of the Harrow. But, rather than just as a means to generate stats, I was more interested in the character building aspect and the ways reading into the cards could help define a character.

For this purpose, I tried building a kitsune vigilante, a character I'm going to be playing in an upcoming Hell's Rebels game. I've already built this character using 20 point-buy, but wanted to compare the results as well as use the exercise to develop the character's backstory.

Stats Generated Using Point-Buy (before kitsune racial modifiers):

STR 14 DEX 13 CON 12 INT 12 WIS 14 CHA 13

Stats Generated by the Harrow Method (again before racial modifiers):

STR 15 DEX 13 CON 13 INT 12 WIS 13 CHA 15

... nearly identical. I realize this is just luck, but I thought it was very interesting nonetheless. I used the 25 point-buy equivalent for the Harrow Generation upon the recommendation of the document.

More importantly, though, was reading into the cards, which helped me define areas of the character's backstory which I was having trouble with previously.

Card Interpretation Breakdown for Those Interested:
The cards I ended up pulling were:

Nature - Desert
Spirit - Uprising
Body - Crows
Mind - Forge
Nurture - Big Sky
Str - Survivor
Dex - Vision
Con - Tyrant
Int - Paladin
Wis - Avalanche
Cha - Twin

So starting off, the character grew up in an environment that was difficult to survive without help (The Desert). I interpreted that as being part of a trading caravan, living life on the road. Then they were caught up in something they couldn't control (The Uprising) which upended their life - agents of Thrune, posing as tax collectors, who sought to keep undesirables out of the city. There was a big fight, which resulted in the character's family being killed (The Crows)and leaving the child an orphan. The ordeal left the character devastated, yet the event hardened her rather than broke her, and left her with great resolve (The Forge). She was taken in off the streets by a local merchant, but it wasn't until years later that she was given the opportunity to stand up to House Thrune - when she discovered the church of Milani (The Big Sky).

As she worked to improve herself through the church, she kept her resolve by focusing on the terrible ordeal she had survived (The Survivor), and convinced herself that she had lived through that day to pursue an important purpose. She practiced her natural shapeshifting abilities in order to befuddle foes used to more human methods (The Vision). Her experiences living under Thrune rule keep her from giving up - she won't let herself fail until others are safe from their evil (The Tyrant). She refuses to back down, as she feels that anyone with firsthand knowledge of Thrune's secret atrocities has a duty to act on that knowledge (The Paladin). Yet at the same time, she feels that secrecy is best, as she knows what can happen when innocents are caught up in violent emotions and wants to make sure that no one else has to experience disaster (The Avalanche). Finally, living her dual life is liberating, as she can express aspects of herself that she must keep hidden, both from the Thrune government and from human society as a whole (The Twin.)

Reading the cards like this was very helpful, as it gave me an idea of why a character might want to become a vigilante class in the first place. I like the idea of a character who outwardly wants to be a hidden agent to keep the masses safe, but inwardly just wants to be their true self in a world they feel won't accept them just yet.

I also really appreciated the Avalanche's placement in the spread, as it could be read with two very different meanings - that the character is wise enough to avoid disaster, or that they are willing to forego patience if it gets the results they want. I considered both options for the character, and think it could be an interesting conflict point as the stakes are raised.

TLDR; I think this method is worth it just for the character exercise, even if you don't use it for the stats. I know I will be using it going forward. Thank you for making this.


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Hello, this is my first time actually posting on the Paizo boards, although I read them often.

I just wanted to be another voice giving support for seeing the Harrowed Medium one day. When I first saw that class, I really liked how imaginative all the abilities were, as well as the way the different spirits could interact with each other. I could definitely see players giving each spirit its own persona as they acquired them through the story.

There's another player in my group of friends who also fell in love with the class. It's telling that we both love it so much that we plan to homebrew out the rest of the spirits, for use in an (eventual) Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign. I ran that campaign several years ago for a different group, and the way the harrow is threaded throughout the story resonated with me greatly. Knowing that, I would really like to take the Harrowed Medium through that campaign.

We're over a year out from playing that campaign, and if push came to shove, we would probably manage with a basic homebrewed version or the playtest version. But I can definitely say that the two of us would be more than happy to play the "real" version of the class. :)

I know you folks at Paizo take comments as a gauge for player interest, so hopefully my two cents (and my friend's) can make a difference. :)