There's precedent for giving free feats in exchange for plot movements. Wouldn't be out of range to award your player with Additional Lore for their efforts.
Search Posts
Diverse Lore is power creep over weak abilities; they really should have buffed Bardic Lore to scale at the same rate.
This is the kind of thing devs aren't going to make explicit... It seems obvious that extra damage for stabbing someone in the kidney can be avoided by simply not stabbing their kidney. If your GM insists regardless then the solution is to do the sneak attack as a nonlethal punch.
If a beast starts devouring gods the first thing I'd check is if anyone's seen Achaekek recently.
I really like how much a primal dragon is "just" a big, scary lizard compared to the other types. The designs are very identifiable and you can largely tell what a dragon's deal is by looking at it.
Urgathoa being the first undead says "undeath is the best way to prevent your judgement at Pharasma's hand." If she is removed from the setting, it is redefined simply as "undeath is." Wait, I can take this even further. Urgathoa's death doesn't remove all conceptualization of undeath from the universe. Arazni exists. And if Arazni has custody of undeath, her conceptualization is that undeath is a torment inflicted upon you.
I wonder if Urgathoa's existence conceptualizes undeath as something desirable and worth pursuing. There are a lot of settings where undeath is something that just happens if you don't take proper precautions to consecrate the body, and in those the god of undeath isn't a party girl.
There are several medium sized mounts... including the horse, since that entry is supposed to include ponies as well. Of course you still have the issue of all of these inevitably becoming large. Really wish size increases were more optional in PF2.
The easy answer is Abomination Vaults for an AP where you interact with most things by fighting with it. I'm definitely thinking more along the lines of a classic dungeon crawl.
I do think something like this is both what PF2 would be best at and also what would be most reasonable to actually be developed with Pathfinder money.
I know the expectation is generally for a CRPG but I'd really prefer for a PF2 game to be more of a strategy RPG. PF2's grid-based combat system stands on its own and doesn't need the extra nonsense in Baldur's Gate. I would just want to have a video game that makes it easy to play as four characters, more similar to the upcoming Lancer video game.
"Prevent conflict through negotiation" just means you'll lose Gorum's favor if you pull a Chamberlain. If the other side decides that whatever they're fighting for isn't worth dealing with you, that's on them.
Shelyn definitely goes into the "more interesting alive than dead" category. Zon Kuthon is just an edgelord without her.
My current main theory is that Zon-Kuthon dies and Shelyn becomes more distant overall in grief or in pursuit of answers. I mean, Cheliax doesn't do slavery anymore in the sense that they call it indentured servitude now. PF2 hasn't exactly shied away from people being horribly mangled and tortured (get a lot of that in Abomination Vaults).
I can assure you however that I have taken everyone's advice on board and have removed them from my games swiftly and thoroughly.Removed what from your games? I probably wouldn't allow a Leshy in a horror game set in Ustalav either. Poppets though, creepy haunted dolls are a mainstay of the genre and would therefore be allowed with the right angle on it. Paizo publishes a lot of content and maybe half of it is expected to be appropriate for 100% of campaign pitches.
Getting blasted with divine juice so bad you no longer have a normal relationship with gravity is definitely closer to a sorcerer than a wizard.
I definitely agree with the sentiment here. The Age of Lost Omens is a campaign setting already built on the corpse of a dead god; for this development to have any impact it has to be as compelling as Aroden's death is. I question if Aroden Junior would cut it.
"The sun is always going to rise again" isn't something you can say with confidence in a setting that had a thousand year Age of Darkness. I don't think it'll be Sarenrae either but... don't count her out.
My first question is if the flesh suit is always conjured, or if it can be. Ahem. Prepared with proper materials.
Yeah it's hard to even say what I would want out of the PC2 Barbarian that isn't just copied from Barbarians+. It goes a long way to fix the things about the class that feel underwhelming.
There is no need to switch to lighter armors unless you're worried about bulk, you don't get any more AC out of doing so. I don't know how that misconception is still around.Increasing both Dexterity and Strength is not really useful, so it's more optimized to increase only one of them. And if you do, then you switch to lighter armor to remove the armor check penalty when you increase Dexterity and dump Strength. Hard disagree. A Barbarian's choice for fourth boost is Int/Cha/Dex, which means that if you aren't making the extra investment for Intimidate then you may as well raise Dex. Sticking with your breastplate over full plate also saves you a feat (arguably two since you need Mighty Bulwark to really replace dex investment). Investing in full plate is the right choice for many builds but to claim one choice is superior to the other is just false.
There is no need to switch to lighter armors unless you're worried about bulk, you don't get any more AC out of doing so. I don't know how that misconception is still around.
Your rage bonus gets cut in half if you use an agile weapon. The classic concept of a Barbarian also includes a Viking with a battleaxe and shield, so that concept is not penalized.
I'd also really appreciate the Superstition Anathema to be revised-- saying you can't be part of casting spells or rituals, would be a real restriction, but it would lubricate their ability to function in a normal party to a great degree. I like the Barbarians+ version of the instinct where you pick two lists you hate and can work fine with the other two. It means that the class can at least work in premade campaigns where you know what your support caster is. B+ also fixes the issue with the Fury Barb by making it the general "Barbarian even harder" instinct and making Giant Instinct a different thing.
I don't have the book myself but I do recognize the developers. Team+ has a good reputation, one of the 3rd parties that many groups will just accept their work by default (mine included).
There's also the fact that what we call the Trip Maneuver is describing any action that knocks an enemy prone. The Knockdown feat is clearly just hitting your opponent in the chest hard enough they tumble over.
The Fighter Dandy is a good idea... A Flurry Ranger might be a good alternate take on that concept, giving you more low-value attacks to potentially give up for the Intimidate check. Celebrity has some interesting tools in Upstage and You're an Embarrassment. The most common skill checks enemies will make are athletics and intimidate, so a STR/CHA Ruffian Rogue makes a lot of sense for exploiting that. Rogue is a class that lacks high value reactions too so you're not giving up as much investing them in the Celebrity reactions.
A single level+4 monster is one of the most difficult and frustrating types of fight possible in PF2. Personally I would never make a solo Extreme encounter, if you want to hit that number you should make the boss +2 and add minions.
The end result of this is that skill feats are transformed into base mechanics; Bon Mot is now a function of the Diplomacy skill the same way Demoralize is a function of the Intimidate skill. I think this is an interesting idea for a very experienced group but is obviously way too much mental load to consider incorporating into the base game. I know my group tends to just complain every time the issue of selecting skill feats comes up because they are either must-takes or extremely niche.
The first sentence of Desna's blurb on AON is "the night didn’t know beauty until Desna came into existence" so I'd say she has a pretty strong association with the night sky. It does have a strong connection to her primary focus on travel (the guiding light of the north star and all that).
It's a plot development that's been teased as part of War of Immortals. She'll be replacing whichever core deity dies.
I wouldn't be surprised if she would want to allow holy sanctification for the purpose of destroying Tar-Baphon's armies, but it's a question of if she can. She is still an undead god, presumably holy damage would be inherently anathema to her regardless of her own moral proclivities.
There is theoretically a balance where DEX/WIS/CON are generically good while STR/CHA/INT are great if you invest in them... this generally holds true for strength and charisma, while not every character is required to have them the reward for making that investment is huge. I think it'd be fixed if they just changed the per point bonus from +trained skill to +Additional Lore. Giving auto-advancing normal skills is obviously way too much, but if you give the 18 Int character a bunch of lores then they can have Lore: Undead, Lore: Beast, etc. and be the dedicated knowledge character without being undercut by the wisdom skills.
I'm still at a loss to find a story that is Law vs Chaos where the two sides aren't just Good and Evil in masks respectively.I guess SMT, but law in that is mostly "authoritarian hellhole" and chaos is mostly "Might makes right hellhole" so 9/10 times the game wants you to go neutral for the ending where everything doesn't turn into a hellhole. Going neutral in SMT just ensures the next SMT game happens since you're kicking the decision to the next guy, for the record. Centrism at its finest. Diablo is another Law v Chaos setting where "Good" is just the normal humans trying to survive in the mess of the Eternal Conflict. Warhammer 40k's Long War is another good example. Generally a Law v Chaos setting works best when there are two overwhelmingly powerful sides that are both very evil.
The question there would be the ability for Asmodeus worshipers to acquire power that targets a demon's weaknesses. You could make a Bomber Alchemist with alignment ampoules I suppose.
Do you think they should have just invalidated the longspear as a choice for Ruffians? Because that's what would have happened if they got martial d8 weapons. I genuinely do not see what the obsession is with giving Ruffians access to outright stronger weapons than all the other Rogue rackets.
A d6 martial weapon is, obviously, better than a d6 simple weapon, and equitable with a d8 simple weapon. An open hand is probably a more relevant benefit to a ruffian than a thief rogue; picking the longspear locks you out of the maneuver game, so it does make sense for many characters to use a breaching pike instead.
one should not expect much fixing with monkI'm desperately hoping for a unique upgrade to Flurry of Blows that is not available from multiclassing, at least. Yeah like... Unarmed characters other than Monk don't need the ability to work. An unarmed thief rogue with just wolf stance is still a very good character, it's just by poaching flurry you get to have your cake and eat it too.
No, the cap exists so that the Rogue is prevented from using Fighter-quality weapons. Rogues are good with weapons that other classes are not. This is good design.
Devise is weird because in theory it should be a free action in a decent number of fights (especially fights against major villains) but it's a bit unclear how much of a subject of a lead they have to be to make it a free action. My group found that it was easier to just treat Devise as being a free action at all times. It's obviously not a balance concern given how frequently you'd have it if the Investigator was actually harassing the GM about changing their lead every time the plot changes.
That sounds like Light Sensitivity, which was something that orcs had in PF1 but dwarves etc did not.
What part of these new schools feels like a good idea? I get that some people like the new flavor but I really question what there is to like about these new schools beyond that.It's hard to tell how many of the decisions in the Remaster are deliberate conscious decisions on the part of the writers and how many are a product of a short deadline. The new schools definitely feel like a good idea they didn't have the space to properly expound on, especially when put next to the far more pronounced patrons. The flavor is pretty much all there is to like, yes. The flavor, notably, is the one thing that would not have been crunched by a surprise deadline.
It's hard to tell how many of the decisions in the Remaster are deliberate conscious decisions on the part of the writers and how many are a product of a short deadline. The new schools definitely feel like a good idea they didn't have the space to properly expound on, especially when put next to the far more pronounced patrons.
So are we supposed to just see the list of school spells as nothing more than a suggestion for what should go there then, and all your school selection really means is what focus spells you have access to?
Any change to summoning spells to make them more palatable?
The funny thing about living in a world with demons is that you never have to worry about running out of just wars.
I've heard the wording on Spell Blending hasn't changed at all, which would imply that Spell Blending away your low level school slots is still a thing. So there's that, at least.
Would be interested in the variance in rulings on this scenario: "I'm a 5th level wizard and the 1st level spells for war magic are becoming unusable; they're evocations that rely on heightening to function, which would leave me with nothing in my 1st level school slot. I would like to put true strike in that slot instead." I think there's a nonzero number of GM's that might balk at a player asking for a notoriously strong spell that isn't on the base list... perhaps forgetting that True Target is on the list at a later level, making it obvious that True Strike should be considered "on theme". The player is pretty solidly in the right here IMO, but there are definitely less clear cut cases and I generally prefer to avoid this game of Mother May I if at all possible.
If you want to minimize resistances shock is your best bet.
Well that's simply not going to happen.
|