Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 2,437 posts (24,603 including aliases). 4 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 71 Organized Play characters. 40 aliases. 
I'm fine playing an existing class. :)
Just waiting on tier before choosing which character.
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If you want to play a rogue--and we want to play high--I'll play my cleric. I have a rogue (3rd) and cleric (4th) in that range. I probably have some blobs in range too. I've got lots of options for 1st-2nd, but I would expect the playtesters would want to play with as many feats and features as then can.
It would be more appropriate if you were going to do that to use 8 treasure bundles per scenario, which is what the organized play system has figure should be the average treasure bundles earned. At the very bottom of this page linked below is the official table you're looking for: Multiply the number in the 8 row by 3, and that's how much you have earned for that level.
With as much content that is sanctioned for Adventure Mode, and given that the credit is applied to a character not participating in the Adventure/AP, I'm not sure what the point of the policy is anymore. Most PFS scenarios don't have boons anymore, and they're more style than power now, so boon hunting isn't that same advantage as it was in PFS 1e, but if the OP kept the policy in regards to PFS scenarios, I could understand that. Adventure and AP boons, not so much.
I believe that I understand and fully support artists on the issue of corporations hiring actual artists to provide art for their products. However, as a private citizen who is looking for art to use in my personal hobby activities for which I make no money and, in fact have to shell out money in the case of GMing Organized Play, I don't believe that either artists or Paizo have any business judging me on my use of AI art for fun. The people playing and GMing in PFS are just private citizens, not employees, playing their hobby in a format open for anyone to join. And, to be clear, what I use is by no means prodigious: one of my own PCs here, an NPC there.
It seems OK to me. Crane Wing (or the other named monk stance attacks) is the "weapon" rather than the "attack," so it should be OK, but I can see where one might read it the other way.
I know it’s pretty droll to be in your 5th scenario with skeletons and having to wait for someone to RK to use your mace instead of your longsword. It’s a function of Organized Play that every time your character plays a scenario you need to act like this is your first time playing it because there’s no current way to track what your character has experienced outside of chronicles and boons. If Player Ted shows up at my table and just starts spouting off that his character knows this and that monster’s weakness and/or resistance and/or special attack, I’m going to wonder if they’re just using their player knowledge from reading the Bestiary. Even though I, myself, am annoyed by this function of OP. It can make my character feel so dumb.
I've not GMed enough 2E to know if this comes up as much Often enough, maybe more. PFS is frequently altering the way the rules work out of combat. The earlier the scenario, the more divergence you're likely to find because they were making up rules on the fly that Paizo later published rules for. E.g., when they were making up influence rules before GMG had influence rules to draw from.
I could not find a thread with this topic, so I apologize if I'm repeating someone else's idea(s). You are the interlocutor between the seen and unseen, the voice that connects the mortal and the spiritual. You may hold your powers as a sacred trust to be kept free of ego and personal desire, or you may see your unique abilities as a sign that you’ve been chosen as a champion of two worlds. Whether you advocate for mortals before the planes beyond or whether you represent the spirits’ interests, one thing remains certain: you provide the bridge between realms. I don't feel like the Animist meets the class summary's potential. I feel like the Animist has been pigeon-holed into the naturalist animist role, and this is done largely by the class basics (key stat and class skills) and to a lesser extent by the apparition themes. My gut suggests this is a side effect of trying too hard to "make a new class" rather than calling it a 2e version of Medium or/and Shaman. Currently, the Animist's Key Statistic is Wisdom and starts with Nature and Religion plus 0+INT in additional skills. The Custodian of Groves and Gardens, Stalker in Darkened Boughs, Steward of Stone and Fire, and Vanguard of Roaring Waters are all very nature themed. Four out of the six presented apparitions. However, there are far more ways to design a spirit-channeling character fantasy than just a naturalist animist. Even if you reskin your mechanics to be a refined, city dwelling Taldan speaker-for-the-dead medium from Oparra, you're still stuck with Nature as one of your very few class skills and most of the apparitions giving you nature-related Lores. Suggestion, which has precedent in Fighter and Monk and Psychic: Choice of Key Stat: Intelligence or Wisdom Starting Skills: Nature or Occultism plus <either (1+INT, preferred) or (Religion + 0+INT)> EDIT (for clarity): the 1+INT or Religion+0+INT isn't a player choice, those were two suggestions to the design team. Assuming significantly more non-nature themed apparitions are released with the book, you can then mix and match your key stat and starting skill to better fit different character fantasies. For example, you can be a learned scholar of the spirit world with Intelligence as a key stat and take occultism and society plus diplomacy and deception with your extra skills, a reclusive naturalist who speaks to the spirits of the wild with Wisdom as the key stat and take nature and survival or medicine with your skills, or a reverent adherent of the empyreal realm with Wisdom as the key stat and take occultism and religion with your starting skills. You could also be slightly less explicit in the description of what the spirits represent. The Steward of Stone and Fire could "spirits tied to stone, fire, or the souls who worked with them in life" rather than "near volcanoes and the
That’s true advice for many things in life: be clear and direct. I’m as confrontation adverse as anyone, so I don’t intervene as often as I should, but that is the more effective way to handle problems. By being clear, if they persist, you can better document the pattern and have the justification for limiting them from your program, if necessary. For youth, you might request that a parent always play at the same table. It is probably best to make that a universal policy than singling out specific individuals to be chaperoned. It can be hard to define when the youth is ready to be unsupervised outside of age. For adults with a disability or individual characteristics that negatively affects the other player’s due to the choices and actions of the person, you can ask them to modify their behavior just the same as anyone else. If the disability limits their decision making capabilities such that they can’t be expected to modify their behavior, then they may require a chaperone like a youth.
Regarding the Lore skills, I agree with the resistance toward changing what statistic modifies Lore. However, unless you're going all in on casting--and even then, maybe still--you don't have much to put toward Intelligence. So, I do feel like the granted Lores at {Level+2} are pretty unexciting and tough to hit at-level DCs. Maybe add a +1 or +2 circumstance bonus to the Lores granted by the apparitions/granted by the primary apparition to represent the spirit assisting in the knowledge.
However, that does not mean the Channeler needs a free sustain--I'm one person who suggested that as part of the Apparition's Whirl action--but it does mean that an apparition needs to give something more valuable to make a player want to whirl. Of that's the intent, it ought to be a feat rather than the starting feature of a subclass--like Meld Eidolon. EDIT: And, honestly, as much as I love my 1e Rivethun Spirit Channeler, it would be easier to ditch Whirl as part of a practice. Give both Channeler and Sage something different that's more defining and routinely useful.
My issue with the action economy is with the Channeler practice. If the only point to swapping during an encounter is to use sustained Focus Spells, then it's untenable. I was on healing duty sustaining my garden of healing and keeping everyone topped off but near the end I spent 3 turns to sustain, change apparitions, cast embodiment of battle, sustain twice, grip my bastard sword with 2 hands, sustain twice again and FINALLY strike...but when I did, that single strike actually did more damage than everyone else was able to do collectively due to the damage resistance cancelling out so much of the d8 attacks vs my d12. The above example, which the poster concluded was fun, does not sound appealing at all to me. Spending three turns until he finally attacked? And it's not a function of being a Channeler animist that let him do some awesome amount of damage, he wielded a d12 weapon instead of a d8 weapon with a +1 status bonus to hit and damage. Or you could have been a bard with Soothe and fighter MCD and accomplished the same thing except also given your allies +1 to hit and damage. PF2 doesn't support the old 1e playstyle of spend the first 3 rounds buffing yourself and then unleashing uber attacks because your team will get beat pretty hard while you stand around prepping. However, that does not mean the Channeler needs a free sustain--I'm one person who suggested that as part of the Apparition's Whirl action--but it does mean that an apparition needs to give something more valuable to make a player want to whirl.
Disconcerting Whispers is more of a defensive buff. You would cast it to protect yourself for the most part. If you pinned a creature between yourself and an ally for flanking, the two of you would be protected—if it cannot or is too dumb to move. So not a run in and blast/debuff. However, if you use it, you’re probably making it harder for your allies or at least forcing them to spend an action moving.
It's all anecdotal, but, in my personal experience, controlling effects are more common than the situation where I would need to swap any of the Focus Spells presented in the playtest. However, you've drawn my attention to what I perceive as a flaw in the Sage. It's another 1-action action tax, because it's something you'd want all the time. It works better as a Reaction, but that's a 4th level Animist feat already. I may be undervaluing the Focus Spells, but Garden of Healing is a pitifully small heal with the risk of healing your enemies too, Earth's Bile is OK because it also serves as crowd/zone control but it's not something I would necessarily need to swap to for a one-off blast when I have fireball, and Embodiment of Battle is heavy action price for personal range Inspire Courage + Reactive Strike + Critical Specialization (in the weapon that was in your hand at the time of casting). None of these are nothing, but they're much more useful sustained than as one-offs and not much more useful to stop one in order to cast another. So going back to the issue that the defining ability of each Practice is not something that will come up frequently and suffer from an action economy more challenging than the Thaumaturge or certain Invetor builds, I would like them to be more meaningful of a choice. Another way to make swapping apparitions more meaningful than adjusting the granted skills or granting a skill feat would be to grant an apparition specific spell. The spell is unique to the apparition and can only be cast when that apparition is primary. This suffers from increasing the appearance of complexity because you've got now a 3rd different kind of spell list, albeit a list of 1. Another thought, and I'm largely spit balling... Channeler: Channelers can Sustain an Animist focus spell as a free action once per round, whether they keep whirl or make whirl a separate feet. Sage: Gain a bonded item like ability to restore a used Apparition slot once per day.
I think Possession's value shows up more frequently than an opportunity to swap Focus Spell in the middle of combat. However, taking it from the perspective that they're both niche then--that the 1st level abilities, which you would think would be build defining--then the practices need to resorbed back into the main chasis with Whirl and Possession becoming feats, the practices need to be more impact-fully distinct, the apparitions need to do more to make them unique from each other, or some combination of all that. The Whirl limit of once per round becomes misleading as it appears like something you'd use more than once per combat, but you would very rarely want to whirl to a third as an "Oh s#!t" action (but the focus spells are rarely going to save your bacon). Make it one-action once oer 10 minutes, and it tells you it's a once per combat ability.
A way that swapping apparitions in the middle of combat might be useful--with the caveat that this could be too powerful: Each apparition would need a unique combat use outside of their focus spells. Swap one of the lores for a skill with use outside of Recall Knowledge and Earn Income. Grant a skill feat tied to the non-lore skill useful in combat. Please forgive me for using the 1e Medium spirits as a scaffold.
Since they're going in a direction of more varied themes than the 6 mythic paths, there's a lot more diversity and interesting pairings that could be designed. And the Sage benefits from the more robust skill and the combat useful feat gained, too.
I love the 1e Medium--especially the Rivethun Spirit Channeler and the Spirit Dancer archetypes--because I love complex classes. I really like the things Michael has produced. However, I wouldn't call the Animist "perfect." It has a lot of promise, and there are probably several builds that make perfect use of the class features, but there's a lot of pieces where I start to get excited but then finish reading the class feat or focus spell and am left feeling disappointed. I'll start with the Channeler practice's 1st level ability. As a fan of the above 1e Medium archetypes, I was very excited to see this. However, I can't find a way to use this practice to any benefit over what the base class provides. Ostensibly, you can switch your primary attuned apparition in the middle of combat. Cool. But then, why? You already have access to all of the attuned apparitions' spells. Swapping lores int he middle of combat--especially the available lores--is not going to benefit me enough to warrant the action use. You could cast the first apparition's Focus Spell, swap, then cast the second apparition's Focus spell the next round, but each of the Focus Spells real benefit is in their sustained nature. They certainly don't scale well enough to cast as a one-off. Then you're sustaining 2 spells per round, leaving you with 1 action per round. I start Imposter in Hidden Places and cast Discomforting Whispers as a defensive buff then swap to Witness to Ancient Battles in order to cast Embodiment of Battle the next round and use my 6th action to sustain Discomforting Whispers. Two rounds to buff up, no action other than casting spells. Unless you take the virtually mandatory 2nd level Feat Sustaining Dance so I can squeeze in a Step or Leap. Yes, if you happen to have any apparition other than Steward of Stone and Fire as primary and stumble upon a troll, then being able to switch to an apparition that will grant you fire damage/fire spells is a boon... but that is a pretty niche situation. You're certainly not going to be swapping avatar forms. That's just my first concern, and I would be happy to have someone show me a truly useful way to take advantage of the Channeler practice. Possibly if Apparition's Whirl was a Free Action--limited to the start of your turn to balance it or not--it might make it slightly more useful, but I still think it needs more.
Obviously, start with a Str of 19 and go to Str 20 at level 15. I've found it more useful to maximize Dexterity since battleforms have fixed damage bonuses and Athletics modifiers. You'll get the same attack bonus as if you maximized strength and your Reflex saves and Dex-based skills will be higher.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no Rarity or Access restriction on the size of your equipment/weapons. You just pay the higher price as outlined in the table for non-standard size weapons in the Equipment chapter. A large dagger is still common, for example.
That damn international customer, cheaping out with the 36.22 us dollar shipping option instead of getting the most expensive 36.22 us dollar shipping option and delaying your theoretical future product delivery, with this kind of user experience it's truly a mystery to me why US customers are the majority but evidently nothing could or should be done or discussed about it and really I should help out by just never buying so that majority can feel more reassured that nothing will change I'm not sure why my feelings on the issue should bother you since my feelings and opinions don't dictate Paizo procedures. You're more than welcome to advocate for change in the appropriate Forum, and I won't even say a peep in those threads. Old Man Robot's suggestion for a "better system for everyone" is objectively worse for me, personally, and probably for other people, so he should not be surprised by the response, for the relationship the consumer has with the producer is not, in fact, parasocial. It is a very real business relationship.
For local shipping, they (at least used to, I haven't heard that it has changed) rotate what regions get shipped first in order to equalize the "early"/"late" receipt. However, I think you just identified the problem in the post above, and it's not on Paizo's end.
Dual gate Fire and Water at level 1 gives you 1 action fire blast and 1 action cold blast. Has MAP and dies not gain +CON, but you can fire both in a single turn.
Being magical and subject to effects that suppress/counteract magic is not the same as being a spell. The key will probably be in the definition of the Impulse trait.
We've seen two deities in Rage of Elements previews, one of which requires worshipers to be unholy and the other allows worshipers to be holy. Were those word choices—require vs allow—intentional? If so, that’s potentially promising.
I think the problem lies in the narrative role of locks in an RPG. They exist to be bypassed whether by tools or brute force. They're there as speed bumps.
That's in Player Core 2, so they haven't given any hints that I've found.
I'm going to split these up, as Alex requested, so they know which ones people are liking. However, the common theme is allowing access to mundane things granted by AP chronicles. A boon to allow access to mundane weapons from Adventure Paths. E.g., I would like to make a character who uses Poi as weapons, but I don't want to play the Extinction Curse.
What I've seen recently previewed for terminology changes throughout the rules may break your heart.
I'm hoping the "Sanctification" choice is part of character creation and is optional for every class--with some sort of balanced set of interaction with extraplanar forces--so, for example, you could have sanctified rangers and unsanctified divine sorcerers.
Monk stances can be used as examples to reflect on the distinction between rules text versus setting description text that I personally care about.
The author obviously has their vision of how this fighting style looks. A hypothetical player may want to instead have a goblin monk whose defensive movements are quick and jerky and calls it "Frog Style" instead. Mechanically, everything functions the same: must be unarmored to enter, gains a +1 circumstance bonus to armor, and can only make strikes that deal 1d6 bludgeoning with the agile, finesse, nonlethal, and unarmed traits. Does it, however, matter if the player has a different vision and is the author's description so important that it necessitates a discussion with the GM/entire table to modify the setting text? Presumably the author envisioned striking with the hands--the setting text states the monk holds their arms like a crane's wings, and the attack is called a "crane wing" attack--though it does not explicitly state this. How much does it matter? Especially given the lack of explicit direction on what constitutes a "crane wing attack." Maybe they meant elbows. Does it matter? Dragon Stance's lashing dragon tail attack does explicitly state leg attacks. Does it matter? Not to entirely derail the topic, but wheel chairs are introduced mechanically for a reason. What does enforcing lashing dragon tail being a leg attack truly protect within the rules/balance? Sometimes there may be reasons. I don't have an encyclopedic memory of the books. The crane wing attack could be argued without evidence that it means you can't also have a slashing weapon out to switch to without a separate draw action or at least not a 2-handed one (ignoring the lack of an actual stance exiting mechanic).
I hardly believe anyone applies flavor text as rules, and as a fact there hasn't been a single example of a piece of flavor text that is applied as rule in this very long discussion. You can't cast produce flame with a shield and weapon in your hand because it forms in your palm and your palm is occupied was a real life example.
So Produce Flame not working with a single niche weapon is a breakdown that actually matters, then? No. Produce Flame doesn't work with any weapon. Literal reading of the spell description for produce flame invalidates the rules text in the somatic component and would force one to have a free hand to cast the spell. I'm sure there are more spells like that. But most of the people posting that the setting text is rules and also subjectively interpreting and bending the setting text to make the text workable when countering the examples, so I don't think it's worth spending reading through all the feats, spells, and magic items to demonstrate how big or small of an issue it is. The camp of strict reading isn't going to change their mind.
Could they change call to arms Battle mystery focus spell that modifies your initiative and triggers on "You are about to roll initiative" from a Reaction to a Free Action (like the swashbuckler deeds that modify initiative) so we avoid arguments about whether an oracle has a reaction in that moment.
I apologize, there were a lot of posts between what I'm quoting and now, so someone may have pointed this out, but at least one of the examples makes the rules crumble:
And here's another example of a spell that breaks the rules if the description is literal: A small ball of flame appears in the palm of your hand, and you lash out with it either in melee or at range.
One of many such described gauntlet weapons: A scizore is a gauntlet or protective leather tube worn over the forearm and featuring a half-moon blade mounted to the end of the cap on a short pole. So produce flame can't be cast/used with weapons in the hand by literal reading the spell despite the somatic trait clearly allowing one to cast touch spells with your hands occupied. Your knuckles aren't your palm, your finger isn't your palm, freeing your palm from a 2-handed weapon takes an action. You can point a finger at anything wearing a closed gauntlet weapon if you read it literally even though somatic trait says you can cast somatic traits with occupied hands.
That's the most straightforward solution I've see proposed. It also mirrors how Skill trainings are level gated (E at 3rd, M at 7th, etc.).
Cantrips are a thing too. Not every encounter needs a barrage of slotted spells.It's probably just me, and oracle will probably be getting a revulsion that may change my mind, but I feel like oracle should gave the same spell progression as sorcerer. I just don't feel like I'm able to stay relevant through an adventuring day as an oracle.IMO, pretty much every spellcaster could use a few more spell slot (especially at early levels). I really dislike how much spellcaster rely on buying consumable if they want to stay usefull throught the day. There are a few more since SoM, and remaster will help divine lance, but the divine cantrips are not the most... engaging.
For example, a champion of an elemental lord who does the appropriate elemental bonus damage. LOH isn’t baked in, it’s just “Devotion Spell” so a different tenet could have different 1st level devotion spell.
It's probably just me, and oracle will probably be getting a revulsion that may change my mind, but I feel like oracle should gave the same spell progression as sorcerer. I just don't feel like I'm able to stay relevant through an adventuring day as an oracle.
They'll be able to create more specific/different/interesting tenets and causes without being shackled to an alignment. You could potentially have more causes without the need to be shackled to the 3x3 alignment system.
I'd like to maintain the current Awaken Animal that only increases the animals mental capacity. The ancestry can come from a new ritual, and I don't care if it is or isn't called the same thing, or the same ritual but a higher rank version. I would still like the in-world room for creating intelligent animals without automatically granting them size changes, bipedal locomotion, and prehensile thumbs.
They will need to go there to take advantage of their free 80 AcP, though. But, yes, DougH’s site is a handy resource.
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