Ronin_Knight's page

I have recently been working on a rebuild of The Skinsaw man and discovered a pair of feats meant for Ghous or Generic undead. Unfortunately I have passed the point where such would be useful in my campaign but I thought they should be brought up here while I explore their theoretical potential.

Civilized Ghoulishness: https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Civilized%20Ghoulishness
Prerequisites: Ghoul, Cha 18.

Benefit: Your appearance is such that, while paleskinned and gaunt, you can pass as a living humanoid of your choice. You gain a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks made to appear human, and your channel resistance increases by +2. Ghasts with this feat can activate or suppress their stench ability as a free action.

Skin Suit: https://www.aonprd.com/FeatDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Skin%20Suit
Prerequisites: Int 7, undead creature that was originally humanoid.

Benefit: Once per day as a full-round action, you can cloak your body in a thin, fleshy suit that gives you the appearance of yourself as a young adult humanoid. Your appearance changes as per alter self, but this feat doesn’t adjust your ability scores or grant any new abilities. When so disguised, you cannot use slashing or piercing natural attacks, such as bite or claw attacks, without unraveling and destroying your skin suit, nor can you deliver energy drain or ability damage with your undead special attacks (such as a wight or vampire’s slam attacks) without destroying the suit. While wearing a skin suit, your alignment is masked as though by a constant undetectable alignment spell, and you have the aura of a living creature instead of an undead creature for the purposes of detect undead and similar effects. The skin suit dissolves into a puddle of bloody slurry at sundown, though you can remove it at any time as a standard action. The skin suit does not protect you from the effects of being exposed to direct sunlight. Finally, if you take lethal damage while wearing your skin suit, you must succeed at a Reflex save with a DC equal to the amount of lethal damage or the skin suit is destroyed.

Between this pair of feats the Skinsaw Man could walk amongst the populace of Sandpoint until the very moment of his confrontation. This could allow GMs to have more prolonged interactions between the party and the antagonist and build better opportunities to guide the party to more red herrings or expand the list of victims.

Any thoughts on this Idea would be most welcome.

lright, I can see where you're coming from, and I can't say I disagree with it. I don't think every character should be a cookie cutter, but I also was starting to feel like PF1 started offering so much versatility that my character's class became less relevant as the game marched on. From eyeballing it (been working a lot this weekend so I won't have time to really dig in and absorb this thing till Monday), it looks each weapon has become much more statistically distinct, which I like, but I wonder whether that would create balance issues for opening sneak attack to each weapon from the get go? But yeah, I guess I can see how maybe a class feat (or multiclass feat?) should be able to give it to other weapons.

What is it about the bow so that makes it so unappealing (classes and feats are the last thing I'm reading in great detail - trying to figure out the moving parts of this thing before I look at how each class interacts with them)? When I look at the stats compared to the crossbow, it seems like the bow is set up to do a lot more.

OK on the Front of Bows the problems are a follows: 1 the Volley special quality means if you fire a bow within the bracket listed distance, 50 feet on longbow, you take a -2 penalty on attack rolls the same as you do if you fire outside it's initial range increment, Crossbows son't have the volley property, and 2 composite bows now only add half your strength modifier.

So unless you can guarantee you're firing between 50 and 99 feet a crossbow will be more accurate than a longbow and has a larger damage dice, not to mention the fact ranger's early feats benefit a crossbowman and not an archer.

If a single player is uncomfortable with any of that, then yes. If you can get a group of people together who really wants to get down and dirty with that stuff, you're free to ignore the suggestion that that's maybe not a good idea to drop on unsuspecting people.

Then we can't even run base-setting Golarion, home to cannibalistic Goblins, inbred gang-raping ogres, and a rampant legal slave trade, by the gods you couldn't even run a tabletop version of Disney's Hunchback of Notredame in the new PFS. Or any campaign is Paizo's publishing hold there Ap's to the same rules they're apparently holding GM's and Players to.

I'm fully on board with explicitly banning racism, sexism, bigotry, and other deplorable behavior. I don't actually have the ability to empathize with someone who would complain about the rules suggesting those things should not be welcome.

I think it's well understood that if your entire group, to a person, is comfortable with edgelord junk, you don't have to listen to the rules on this.

It's strange to me that someone would argue that they have a right to offend or upset other people in a cooperative game that involves long hours, repeatedly, with real life people.

Right so stories presented by the GM can never contain unpleasant or challenging themes and villains are not aloud to hold detestable views, the game world must be scrubbed cleaner than a Disney movie and the challenges presented should in no way resemble something realistic. I'm sure this create great stories and memorable villains when the world is near Utopian and the villains less threatening than those found in cartoons for 3 year olds.

Ronin_Knight wrote:

Renchard wrote:

Compared to other rulebooks I've been looking at, like WFPR4e and Savage Worlds, it looks pretty darn similar.

Yes it's similar in that it's on the D20 chassis, other than that it has more in common with 4E or 5E than it does with Pathfinder or 3.X, it like those systems treats customisation and variation like vile expletives.

I think your lack of grasp of the strength of those systems shows why you're not able to see PF2e with any clarity. 4e and 5e both allow for a ton of customization, especially 4e. And 5e is so easy to homebrew the relative lack of customization is almost immaterial.

That might be true as I don't really find any strengths in those systems save for their simplicity and accessibility, I find 5E to usually be boring and I found 4E actively unpleasant as a system to the point I basically gave up on the D20 sytsem when 4E came out until I found pathfinder and landed the role of permanent PF GM for my local group.

The argument is that since Half-races don't get a heritage feat, it having been spent to make them a half-race in the first place, it puts them at a disadvantage not makes them more powerful

Compared to other rulebooks I've been looking at, like WFPR4e and Savage Worlds, it looks pretty darn similar.

Yes it's similar in that it's on the D20 chassis, other than that it has more in common with 4E or 5E than it does with Pathfinder or 3.X, it like those systems treats customisation and variation like vile expletives.

Having played 5E a lot lately, and Pathfinder longer ago, I see a lot of PF1 in PF2. BUT, since you're approaching it from a different angle, I can see why it may look different to you. Which is okay. I hope it is able to thwart your current feelings, though!

Unfortunately this seems unlikely as one of the primary traits they've promoting is the simplification of the system, and seeing as about 50% of the audience seem happy with that Paizo will probably go with that over the people like me who would see the majority of the current test document gutted. As those in favour of simplification mean less changes to the current iteration and a better chance at the coveted 'mass market appeal' despite the simple mass-market field being solidly in WotC's grasp.

Disagree. Feels like a beta(playtest) to me, but yeah, obviously. Can't wait to try it tonight. GMing it for my 5E group. They're pumped too. Probably my new system, just going off a cursory read-through.

Yes and I'm sure it will do great with a 5E group, for people who wanted something that even vaguely resembled Pathfinder as we know it you have to admit there isn't much similar to the 1e incarnation

Funny because everything I've read so far makes it seem far worse than I feared, before I thought it would have hints of 4e or 5E, maybe a bit of both. Instead we got the mutant hybrid of those two with not a shred of PF1E or 3.x left in sight.

Welp, finally Pathfinder is heading into the direction where nerds with too much free time won't be automatically at an advantage over new/casual players due to system mastery.

and that's the point where people like me who came to pathfinder because it was the opposite of 4E/5E, lots of customization and variables, wave goodbye to the good people of paizo, because I want more than 3 effective options per class and that's coming from a permanent GM.

Everything looks like 4th ed things to John, it's a shame he can't get rid of that bias.

To be fair most of the playtest books scream a weird 4E/5E Hybrid to me.

It feels as cookie cutter as 4E, nearly as simplified as 5E thought with less player power creep but with more confusing linguistic choices because everything is either a feat or skill, and don't get me started on the mess that is resonance. It's, to me at least, as bad as 4E if not worse.

Ronin_Knight wrote:

However, that is completely different kettle of fish to having an adventure where the NPC 'hero of the people' and main villain are both blatant stand-ins for opposing political figures. which is what I feear this Ap may become because of how one-sided and potent thee Paizo political leanings are.

Fantasy politicians can only by based on contemporary ones? How? What is your reason? To me, it sounds like reaching out to something that may not be there.

You mentioned the court of Louis XIV; that is one of Taldor's composites, so perhaps think along those lines?

A fair point, as someone else mentioned it was the previous description which descibed 'dragging Taldor kicking and screaming' in to a modern political view that had me twitchy as it came onlinne at a contentious moment in real world politics if I'm remembering things right.

Right the thornier of the two issues out of the way:

I also have to say Dudemesiter that you seem to be outright stating that a work of fiction cannot be written without political intent and I both disagree with the idea and find it distasteful in the extreme. their are plenty of works written either purely for the purpose of entertainment or without seeking to impart an inherently political message, whether it imparts some other form of message is another matter entirely, I would say this lack of political message applies to the majority of the romance, horror and even a fair chunk of the fantasy genres.

I have to Ask Dudemeister do you honestly think that unless an author writes some form of denigration of the status quo in to their work that they should have it treated as support of the establishment? that would seem to do a disservice to creators as a whole, to espouse that they are incapable of setting their politics aside for the purpose of creating something entertaining. the only way I could see to justify that stance would be to claim that all expressions and indeed all views have to be related back to politics. If I've misunderstood please let me know.

Treating trans characters as heroic figures is only political because trans personhood is treated as political because cisgender representation creates invisibility.

When art doesn't challenge the status-quo, then the politics of that art is support of it.

Positive representation of LGBTQA people is counter to the status quo. Until the that shifts so that trans-personhood is as invisible as cis-personhood, trans people deserve to be represented heroically.

OK I've got a couple of different points to make on separate subjects so two long messages incoming:

In regards to the quoted statement and the statement by the Head Dino I mentioned earlier, I'm somewhat confused as I understood the goals of the LGBTQA+ activists was to hammer home the fact that members of said community are the same as everyone else and should be treated as such, A position I agree with completely, However, at the same time both you, Dudemeister, and Mr Jacobs claim that while this isn't the case that they as a group should not be represented amongst villains.

Surely if the idea is to show that LGBTQA+ people are the same as everyone else they should be found at all points of the alignment spectrum represented by well written characters, rather than what were, to me at least, the sub-par characters as found in WotR.

Maybe I've misunderstood something, quite possible as I'm not neurotypical and do sometimes misinterpret points particularly in the ever-shifting goals and lexicon of activism.

So...I keep thinking my idea for a Winter Witch from Irrissen but is actually a defector from that place MIGHT work here...

Haven't had the chance to get my hands on it yet but definitely sounds interesting, maybe have them pass themselves off as a member of the Ulfen Guard who were assigned to the queen, the alternate race trait that grants weapon proficiency would help with that.

You’re damn right it is a political statement.

Did you know that Cheliax is a metaphor for fascism? And they’re the bad guys (Boom! Politics!). I’m sick of people saying they don’t want politics in their RPGs. Guess what RPGs are writing, writing is art and art is political.

Have you not noticed that one of the most common themes of the Adventure Paths is rebellion and resistance against authoritarian regimes? Was that metaphor too subtle for you? Hell’s Rebels is literally about fighting a power hungry fascist. Jade Regent is about fighting to free Minkai from a narcissistic demagogue and his cronies.

If you think any AP is apolitical then you’re just bad at understanding metaphors.

You're conflating two different issues, I'm perfectly happy to run or play a game which tethers a general political themes or story Hence why I've run campaigns inspired by the Sengoku period and the court of Louis the 14th.

However, that is completely different kettle of fish to having an adventure where the NPC 'hero of the people' and main villain are both blatant stand-ins for opposing political figures. which is what I feear this Ap may become because of how one-sided and potent thee Paizo political leanings are.

Hence why I base villains on the likes of Nobunaga Oda or Cardinal Richelieu and not Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn, the former pair do not have a chance to start arguments at the table like the latter.

Ronin_Knight wrote:

nighttree wrote:

God's above I hope not. I do RPG to get away from "real world current events".....

Same here, bu I'm sure you've noticed as much as I have that Paizo can get quite heavy handed with their political messages in APs and aren't the best at subtle references.

Examples?

Sorry this took so long to reply, sleep and work took priority, probably the most blatant examples I can think of were certain NPC's in Wrath of the righteous which was outright stated they were written as they were to support paizo's political leanings, and to me at least that showed through in the quality of the writing, the other would be the Head Dino stating he will never allow a transgender villain because, if I remember correctly he either thought writing them as such in the current political climate was transphobic or at least a bad choice for writing.

God's above I hope not. I do RPG to get away from "real world current events".....

Same here, bu I'm sure you've noticed as much as I have that Paizo can get quite heavy handed with their political messages in APs and aren't the best at subtle references.

Rysky wrote:

Today's political climate is going to influence the campaign for the simple fact that the writers happen to be living in said political climate.

This.

As the author, I can say that there was certainly a large amount of real world influence that went into my thought process for writing this adventure. I sincerely hope that it isn't some kind of "rub it in your face, ha ha ha" material, but as a person living in the modern world, I'm still influenced by it. Heck, study of real world history is essential when writing in a fictional world. When instructed to write a heavily political adventure, of course I'm going to perform a ton of research on modern and historical politics to get a sense of how things could go down and what sort of interactions might be interesting to play with.

That being said, I'm not the only person who worked on this project. Developers, editors, and even more internal staff eyes get to review. If you've enjoyed Paizo products to this point, including the messages we put in our content, then I don't think this will be any different!

Finally, I like to think I'm not new to this whole "political / social adventure" scene. :)

I would disagree to a point about real current events having to be factored in to writing a medieval fantasy setting as regards politics I've found that feudal japan offers more relevant political motivations, plots and is less likely to rub player's the wrong way if you favour certain philosophies or views.

However I will say I'll honestly be happy with the campaign so long as it doesn't turn in to Princess Hillary V Senator Trump, because I've got a group of mixed political affiliations and I don't need the campaign bringing up real world tensions.

Yeah I looked there but I also thought if it's a non campaign setting or player companion book it might no be present of have the name changed.

Hi folks
I'm trying to find a template, though it may be something I imagined, the template was called Immortal or something similar and it made the creature unable t die and gave it damage reduction that as only negated by obscure substances, examples given were things like glasss and gold.

So I was wondering if anyone else remembered the template and where it could be found? I think it was in a 2010-2012 publication.

I think you might be having unrealistic expectations if you are expecting more realistic economy simulation ._.

I mean, I'm pretty sure its not possible to turn game mechanic adventurer economy into realistic one <_<

t be fair 'll be happy if it just rebalances the prices of trade goods, a pound of black pepper should not be cheaper than a chicken in the sort of economy Golarion has and I'm more looking for details on orchestrating trade deals anyway.

Oh this is going to be really useful or my Kingmaker retool,finally a more realistic economy and trading system to incorporate with kingdom building.

Shifter's aspects do not count as the "Animal Focus" class ability and so they do not qualify, sadly. Even if the elemental focuses don't have major forms, it would be cool to have them available as minor forms. But keep in mind a Shifter only has at most 5 aspects unlike Hunters who can freely swap between all of them, so a Shifter would be hard up to sacrifice a possible wildshape form just for a minor buff.

So, on top of the limited number of aspects they don't actually count s the 'animal focus' ability so any feats related to that are useless for the class? Despite your positive outlook on the class, you're not making me any more confident in its abilities.

not surprising considering the website seems to be faceplanting the minute paizo close their doors, the last few days the server has been down whenever I've opened outside of US working hours.

Psyche....

you vile trickster, may a thousand weasels infest your garden and befoul your footweear!

Just wanted to point out Dream thief hags, are a cousin to night hags and in the outsider category, so far the Changelings have been the progeny of monstrous humanoids, o which I can only spot 8 on archive of nethys, so we might be getting some new hags or more unusual options.

Well now I have to run my current curse of the crimson throne party through both Rise and Shattered star, or if this is the promised return of Sorshen then I might just go straight in to this.

Please let this include a revision of prices and regional market variations for those prices, or just some better logistical options for the potential siege and or kingdom management of the upcoming Taldor Campaign.

Hi guys
I'm a couple of weeks away from starting the 'escape from old Korvosa section' my party didn't find the knivesies portion of the game to be particularly enjoyable and the characters they're running aren't likely to play games with Pilts. So I was considering changing the first part of the adventure in to a variation of the house on Hook Street.

My basic idea was that instead of Pilts becoming interested in Salavator the spider cults sees his prophetic visions as a potential source of power.

I'm still working on how I'd remodel it to work properly but wondered what people thought of the combination?

A lot of these have distinctly "outsider" flavor. I was hoping for something that might play into characters who were once a part of the system before being thrown "outside" of it. Would a Bounty Hunter theme work well for an ex-cop?

Yes, yes it would, for evidence see Jet Black of Cowboy Bebop.

Hi Folks
I'm going to be running a campaign in the Forgotten realms in the near future. I'm decently familiar with the setting in general and have all the relevant books. I was hoping the fine folks here could help me out with a couple of things:
1: any sources for forgotten realms specific material converted to Pathfinder. I don't mind doing the conversion myself but at the same time the less background conversion work I need to do, the more I can focus on campaign development.
2: any suggestions on integrating the villain codex organisations into Faerun, the sword coast in particular. I have my own ideas but alternative perspectives are always welcome.

Ok this has awesome potential, I just have to hope it has a console release otherwise it's going to really hurt my wallet.

Ronin_Knight wrote:

here's hoping it's a hint/supplement for the non-Korvosan 2018 AP.

Is there a Korvosan 2018 AP known?

Samy, my assumption of a 2018 Korvosan AP is based on hints dropped at the end of the hardback Curse of the Crimson throne book regarding the subject of an upcoming pathfinder product.The subject is grandiose enough to warrant it's own AP and we have been a while ithout a varisian based AP.

So we have a book detailing the peoples of the mana wastes, here's hoping it's a hint/supplement for the non-Korvosan 2018 AP.

If you have the Villain Codex there's the Seasoned Commander Fighter Archetype, it gives you a greater skills per level while also making sense motive and Diplomacy class skills. It also grants access to the cavaliers tactician ability, in exchange for armour training, and a martial variant of the Bards various 'inspire' performance abilities which replace weapon training.

In regards to Bluff I would say take the Fast talker trait to make it a class skill but only if you want your character to be the cunning ruler rather than an honest one.

Rysky wrote:

Rysky wrote:

You could try going to each individual product page (they have a tab for downloading stuff) if you've already redeemed your code, just search for the product on google and the Paizo webstore should be the first or second hit.

Hope this helps.

Just heard back that this tactic won't work :(

Sorry.

WAIT! I GOT IT TO WORK!

When you go to the Download tab on the product page and login there it throws you out but if you go right back to the product page it will let you download stuff, I was able to get my copy of Wayfinder 16!

Thanks so much for this Rysky, I can access the Healer's handbook.

Because republics and democracies have too much chance of bringing in real world politics to the game world, I'm already twitchy about Paizo inserting their political views in to game materials, I don't need to worry about a GM being given a preset setting/adventure to vent their frustrations with a fantasy stand in of whichever political candidate they oppose.

I also think that the potential for this and alienating the customer base by seeming to lord one fantasy version of a certain political viewpoint over others or as inherently good would be the other reason.

Is that Amiri's sword breaking in the background?!? In addition to the new level of rage she's about to unleash, I'll bet she replaces it with a badass chainsword!

check the next book's cover.

3- Forced Weapon selection. Rapier is iconic, but I'd like the option to use my abilities with other 1-handed weapons too, such as whips, chakrams and longswords. That would add a lot of variety to Swashbuckler builds. I suggesting expanding the ability to work with one-handed Slashing weapons too.

on the forced weapon selection I wholeheartedly agree, considering how easily this class with slashing weapon option could blend in to the Taldan Duelist for Golarion I might even go so far as to include the Falcata as an additional weapon on the list, though I suppose that could be an archetype.

I'll admit I was surprised at the 4+INT skill ranks per level and the lack of the trap finding ability. the skills per level is lower than either of alternate classes feels a bit of a disservice, I don't know if it's a print error or the intention but it makes me leery of the class. on the Trap finding ability the idea of getting in to the opportune place suggests an infiltration theme to the class and it would be nice to have the ability available to another stealth viable class.

MMCJawa wrote:

Now we just need stats for these guys in swarm form

Please no D:

that's exactly why we need swarms of the little buggers, i have a party involving a Tiefling and an Undine, I can't wait to spring this on them