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I think the reaction to spellcasting is sometimes overblown but that's a GMing or player metagaming issue, not a game or setting issue. If someone casts a detection spell that A) doesn't harm anyone or B) doesn't seem to have any annoying or visible effect after the casting is over, then you're going overboard if you make that NPC react the same way he/she would by seeing someone pull a knife or a crossbow. The GM should have the NPC question the PC, i.e. "Hey pal, what are you doing?" but to go to violence immediately is a metagaming reaction. PCs must also behave more realistically in many situations. For example, the PC should herald his spellcasting to any NPC by asking permission or at the very least, asking for forgiveness after the fact. Make good use of that 'talking is a free action' feature of the Pathfinder game.... it can prevent fights or death in many situations! :)
Don't forget bards and the Spellsong feat... I find this feat almost absolutely necessary as they can disguise their spellcasting as part of their performance! Another element to consider as part of this thread: what about those classes and creatures who have 'constant' magic effects? one of my WftC players runs an elf occultist with constant detect magic vision... I mean, if magic is always frowned upon, he'd be in trouble. We've ruled that only the act of spellcasting has visual and auditory elements, and that ongoing spells don't unless the spell says so (like Arcane Sight, which specifically says that your eyes glow when the spell is active)
Now, if we have a separate evil-only PFS campaign, we can have a completely separate discussion. I've ran Hell's Vengeance and when an all-evil party work together for an all-evil goal, there's no mild sausages happening there. It's glorious, clear-cut fun without that onerous, boring gray zone that so many people seem to want to perpetuate in a game that's supposed to be played for fun.
Separatist clerics are a thing, and I could see one of one of the more disturbing deities having someone walking a more heroic path to bring sanity to the faith. Sure, playing a heretic can be fun. You're playing a character that is future lunch meat for a fiend in the lower planes. And since you know it, and other hardcore evil priests of his/her faith know it, then yes, this can lead to fun, self-inflicted mild-sausage Mr. Magoo type of roleplay. But not all PCs worshiping an evil deity will go for the mild buffalo wings option. There will be some neutral aligned PCs that believe in the true code of their evil deity. I've recently had the pleasure to adventure alongside one such pro-slavery Chelish PC, and let me tell you that my CG PC didn't just hand-waive this guy's presence for the good of the mission. My PC had a debate with him, asked him why this and why that, but in the end, since there's no author's hand directing the entire story and controlling all the characters at once, redemption or conversion for one of the parties is impossible, and each player revert to their views & 'grin and bear it' until the end of the scenario. Fortunately, in this case I found a way for my PC to coexist and keep the hatred for that character's views (i.e. he used a disguise so that his true identity is not formally associated with that pro-slavery Hellknight, and well, continuing the adventure with him is to mitigate any questionable actions this character would do...) This example worked in that case, but I don't expect it will always do so. I'd much rather we keep to the neutral and good gods and disallow the evil ones, in the long run. Perhaps a grandfathering of the existing evil-deity worshipers would be in order, but I really think we already got tons to explore with the neutral or good ones without having to resort to evil-deity worship (which smells of a certain need for attention, if I'm being honest here).
We’ve had to “force” everyone to get along using the tenet of cooperation as a hammer. In most cases it gets the job done, but for many players it leaves them unsatisfied. It’s a situation akin to when you were a kid and asked your parents “why” and got the response “because I said so.” This. And it's also causing some kind of weird 'religion shame' for those playing clerics/paladins of good deities... it makes little sense to have good clerics defend evil ones under the pretense of 'Pathfinder Society cooperation'. Some things should be bigger than the Pathfinder Society. OOC, I get it, as the two players must find a way to get along, but they shouldn't feel compelled or encouraged to roleplay that they're BFFs. It's also odd to have a campaign rule against evil PCs but not one against the worshiping of evil deities. That to me is the oddest thing.
It would be interesting to see neutral worshipers of evil gods really 'stretch their evil legs' in scenarios written for evil characters. If we'd have PFS Evil Campaign you could explore these mild buffalo wings operate with the triple hot buffalo wings (i.e. alongside evil PCs). You would get to see moderate Asmodeans alongside the hardcore ones; this would lead to interesting roleplaying scenes. As is right now, the mild evil buffalo wings are forced to mingle with the honey garlic wings (LG) or BBQ wings (CG) and sometimes even the plain ones (NG). :P The missions all have happy endings, so to speak. Perhaps the PFS campaign should focus on neutral/good part of the evil/neutral/good axis... and the 'PFS Evil Campaign' I mentioned should be called 'Aspis Consortium Chronicles' or something... so that the evil PCs be actually working for a rival organization. That would make so much sense. Cobra vs. GI Joe, instead of having Cobra dudes constantly try to infiltrate the Joe's HQ! :P
Dear fellow PFS'ers! I'm seeking some advice on how to handle RP interactions in say, a group filled with good characters with that one 'neutral' guy/gal in the back that's openly displaying his/her unholy symbol of an evil god. A) Is the Pathfinder Society neutral on the question of devil / daemon / demon worship? B) Do they actively recruit worshipers of these entities or merely tolerate them? C) Most adventures involve a boss fight against agents of such evil gods / goddesses, so wouldn't the Society, not being entirely stupid, pay attention to mission reports and build a black list, so to speak? D) I'm aware of PFS ban of PvP, but does that mean that I must roleplay good characters as being tolerant of such agents of evil? can he/she not speak out during a scenario, and if so, can you provide advice to make the RP experience enjoyable and constructive, and not lead to players of such worshipers of evil deities not feeling excluded or cast out or singled out? Thank you!
About the Pose as Scenery plant companion trick: can anyone provide advice on how to improve that Disguise check? I don't think it's a class skill for animal companions, and many plant companions have a low Cha which works against that +8 Disguise check. The only thing I'm thinking right now is hat of disguise and I'm not sure plant companions can even equip that magic item... Any advice would be greatly appreciated! thank you! PS: under the Bestiary's description of the Plant type, we have this "The following are class skills for plants: Perception and Stealth." which leads me to think this Pose as Scenery trick may have been intended for Stealth instead of Disguise.
Why not convert all the existing classes right away instead of pacing them out? If it's a money thing, I understand, but why not do it anyway now, keep the class rules internal for Paizo's eyes only, and use those secret rules for NPCs when you need them in mods/products? IMO this would achieve the same result, provide 'sneak peaks' of those upcoming classes to the GMs running the games, and would not alienate those who want to understand how the car engine works.
James I just saw your 5min Owlcat / Kingmaker video game interview on Facebook. First: you clean up good Sir. Second: I'm glad to see you're excited about the game. I'm an early backer and I've been playing the Beta for a while now. As per your interview, I was also surprised to find so many new plots and so much lore in that game (I can't believe how much MORE they've put in, above and beyond an already very flavorful AP). I really like the style of this game. Can you please provide any other insights about the game?
@OP http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/stylized-spontaneity/ http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/metamagic-feats/stylized-spell-metamagic/ Summary:
So we have +1 spell level, +10 to DC to id, -10 to DC id = effective 0 change to DC to id spell BUT: spell is now invisible and makes no sound. Basically, a psychic can detect thoughts as a 2nd level spell instead of 1st level spell, and others don't know the psychic is doing that unless they make a Perception check with DC10+spellcraftranks+intmod. Hmmm.... I guess it's not bad if you're at a range of 60 feet as Perception checks are modified by distance (+1/10ft) so the DC to spot detect thoughts at 60 feat would go up by 6... still a bit easy to make at higher levels but it's not completely useless... something to consider...
Nexo, I'm not James, but respectfully, he has said many times to put rules question in the rules forum. We don't want to piss off James and we want to limit our posts to one non-rule question per post. Please click here for the rules forum. James: do all ex-familiars, companions, etc. become unique creatures judged by Pharasma or is there a cosmic highway bypass to say, Elysium for them?
Ah! thank you for this amazing reply (especially with the date of first occurrence and timeline). It almost sounds like that wasn't something biological in nature, and more like an actual demon lord using his god-like powers to mold that evil elf into something different (i.e. that was the 'why' I was asking about: who or what was behind the transformation). It makes sense that biological drow could be any alignment they want depending on the environment they grow in. Going into the future, do you think there could be room in the setting to create a new type of elves to differentiate those 'turned evil elves' from the 'biological drow'? (I believe we have elves, drow, aquatic elves so far; please correct me if I'm wrong). Edit: or if not a new elven subrace, perhaps a template of some kind? I have also pondered about the in-game effects of forlorn elves in Golarion.
I know you said you're bored with archetypes and options in general at this point, but do know that we do appreciate all the archetypes and options provided thus far, especially those that are anchored in the setting like the Pure Legion stuff, and the Red Mantis / Hellknight / Gray Maidens / Eagle Knight stuff from Adventurer's Guide. This stuff is going to sustain campaigns for years to come. I'm trying to think which part of Golarion could further be explored in that regard - can you give us a highlight of the upcoming 2018/2019 products that will further expand on certain parts of the Golarion world?
I'm not sure yet how much of the Inner Sea Taverns rules I'll incorporate The only thing you need to remember is that a 'strong drink' counts as two drinks, and that there are rarely 'incredibly strong drinks' out there but those 'are often unfit for mortal consumption'. Thus, on your end there would be no rule to memorize, only flavor: Inner Sea Taverns takes care of the mechanics.
Any chance we can get one more 1E Bestiary before 2E? Do you think this fills me with joy? (on a related matter, I am stepping up my subscriptions now... setting and AP subs are no longer enough... I must catch'em all now! must get it all... :) :) :) )
All our stuff is 1st edition until we launch the final 2nd edition game next year. That includes this book, which will use 1st edition Pathfinder rules, but the majority of the book is edition-neutral.Thank you. Is this going to be for 1E or 2E?Can't find a darn thing anymore... where is this Sandpoint Book everyone is raving about?It's here (and it's also the 1st result from typing in "Sandpoint" to the search bar at the top of the Paizo page). Thank you! Much appreciated! Any chance we can get one more 1E Bestiary before 2E?
Can't find a darn thing anymore... where is this Sandpoint Book everyone is raving about?It's here (and it's also the 1st result from typing in "Sandpoint" to the search bar at the top of the Paizo page). Thank you. Is this going to be for 1E or 2E?
Thanks for pointing me to the thread James! wish-list for this book, if you're still taking orders at this late hour: -goblin stat blocks (with cool PC levels)
Thank you! :)
Ok I ran the first half of this Friday: no one danced! then they realized the other NPCs were all looking at them shaking their heads, one of thenm even letting out, "Chhhhhicken!" :) The actual fighting parts are yet to come, and I think I'll run it as is. Like the book says: Ciz and Barz don't really expect these guys to survive the day. And bad guys can be prone to nonsense at times... we all know how much PCs do stupid things at times! :) One thing I need to prep better is to print out all the NPC stats in a neat stack so that I don't flip through 3 books to find them when the fight starts...
I just ran the Menador Keep for my group. Yep, I had to change Lucian to a Ride-by Attacking, Spirited Charge guy for him to make sense. Vital Strike can't be used with Ride-by Attack anyhow. They targeted the mount (which should have been a horse) and once he was on the ground fighting them, his pitiful 18 AC meant he didn't stay long enough for dessert... the group had fun fighting 40 ish 3rd level fighters that couldn't hit them at all with their listed +3 to hit, so, fun goal attained. The devils were dismissed back to their planes and the oozes almost stressed them out, but went down pretty quickly before doing any harm. I'm about to run the Ruby Massacre next week. Reading this thread is an eye opener. Lots of good suggestions here. I'm not done reading everything about that part of the adventure so I'll go do that before asking my questions! ;)
My take on the first season was that it was well represented by the gug; but this season has me think it could be an psychic + elder gug rolled into one, with a few psychic levels (not more than 11 as she was able to shut down the portal). Elder gugs are huge sized which would roughly match the size of that thing on the other side. However its size in Will's mind is titanic/colossal/bigger than the town but that could be a result of a nightmare spell or something. It's also interesting to note the small quadruped gug-like things running around this time (like a 'gug-like' template applied to some kind of animal... perhaps as a result of it growing mostly on the prime from tiny slug brought by Will) When creating hive mind type monsters is your preference to create a series of different monsters for each function or caste, or to create a template applicable to everything?
In Stranger Things 2, what better PRPG monster would you assign to the monstrous monstrosity squirming on the other side of that ruby-colored portal? (all of us probably yelled "NOOOOOOBS!" when Dustin was going through his mind flayer description... similarities basically stop at 'hive mind'... :P)I didn't yell noob at all, I LOVED that they called it a mind flayer. Stranger Things is a celebration of the 80s, and of D&D as a result, and it feels weird to me to try to shoehorn Pathfinder into the deal. I was also happy they pulled out the Monster Manual. I was similarly excited. Let me rephrase: Pathfinder wasn't around in the 80's, but based on the shape of the monster and its influence across the planes (especially via the possession of Will), what PRPG high-CR monster, in your opinion, would exhibit similar powers?
It sure hasn't been explained! :P My guess is 4th incarnation of the 3rd edition of the game we all love! ;) In Stranger Things 2, what better PRPG monster would you assign to the monstrous monstrosity squirming on the other side of that ruby-colored portal? (all of us probably yelled "NOOOOOOBS!" when Dustin was going through his mind flayer description... similarities basically stop at 'hive mind'... :P)
The imp companion of old was powerful but... cumbersome... rules wise. I think imp familiars are a better fit for what imp's roles should be, and now, you can make an imp mauler familiar that's medium sized... :P (DHTBIFOM - if they come as regular familiars it's good to go for mauler archetype... if they count as improved familiars that lose 'speak with your own kind' then I guess we're out of luck on that one... :P)
Martials are too weak? bring down the wizards. Works for me. What would you prefer? give free boosts to the wizard at no loss whatsoever?
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