Alurad Sorizan

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber. Organized Play Member. 9,025 posts (9,027 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 3 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.


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Unicore wrote:
I mean, I can completely understand that perspective, but isn't the story and how it helps the setting evolve going to end up being much more important than which specific god/goddess dies in the end? It is not like stories of that god or goddess are going to go away, or that they are going to be forgotten from the setting. I feel like Aroden is more present in Adventure Paths and Golarion Lore than most other gods and goddesses specifically because he did die, so it is possible that being the deity to die is only going make Sarenrae stories and lore even richer and more interesting. That is definitely why I think it is going to be her and am looking forward to it, even if I love her as a deity in the game far more than many others. I would much rather get to explore all the places in the world where her death will be meaningfully felt and lead to changes than Zon Kuthon, Gorum, Iori, or even Desna.

I enjoy Saranrae as a goddess more than basically any other fictional god I've read about in any fantasy setting, since I find her focus on redemption (with swift retribution against the unredeemable) to be fascinating. I associate the Pathfinder setting very strongly with her. Hence, her loss would make me very unhappy. Also since I personally find Arazni to be a pretty naff replacement (it should have been Nocticula!), if it turns out to be Saranrae who has to go.

Saying "well, isn't her legacy enough for you?" sounds a bit clinically detached and uninvolved, no offense intended.


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The slowly building dread that it really is going to be Saranrae ain't that much fun, I can tell you...


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Also Morgan would have to change his profile pic to a Corgi.


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I love the concept of the AP. Not that thrilled to have killer clowns with giant razors in it, which seems inevitable if the Skinsaw cult is involved. ^^


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Very nice, that sounds like a great idea. :)


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keftiu wrote:

Given that most other teams in the tournament are adventurers who are famous for other things, I'm a little befuddled by this complaint about Fists of the Ruby Phoenix in particular. There are teams there from most other continents on the planet - your successful heroes should be able to make it to Tian Xia if the competition interests them.

Stolen Fate likewise staples onto the end of other APs well, as it just wants heroes who can be swept up into a grand prophecy-touched adventure, and Curtain Call seems to explicitly be built for characters who cleared a lower-level AP.

I took Fists of the Ruby Phoenix as an example, because it is the one AP I really, really want to run one day, but the same goes for Stolen Fate and any other high-level AP which is gonna be released in the future ("Curtain Call" certainly sounds interesting... anybody has info what it will be about?).

And, yeah, I actually am planning on running Season of Ghosts before it and either just slowing down the XP gain a bit in it or just have the PC's start at higher level and slowing down their XP gain in FotRP until they've reached an appropiate level. Seemed like a better lead-in than bringing people over from Abomination Vaults or Gatewalkers. But I had to stretch a bit in my imagination to get there.

The point I'm trying to make is that we, as GM's, have to do the legwork a lot to get player characters to the start line for high-level AP's and a bit more help from Paizo for a good lead-in or better connective tissue between their low-level AP's and their high-level AP's would be very appreciated, since full 1 - 20 AP's seem to be out of the question by now.


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Jonathan Morgantini wrote:
As for why its not six books. We posted a while ago that six book APs were going away for the foreseeable future. They eat up a LOT of resources, the middle books usually do not sell as well as the beginning, and if the plot/themes didnt interest someone, thats a full six months they would need to wait before there was something new coming out.

While I can well understand the reasons you just listed, it still feels unsatisfying to not have proper lead-ins for the AP's which start at higher level. It's a huge strain on players to have to create level 10 or 11 characters with all the possibilities of feats/equipment/spells which already exist in PF2E (and I imagine it will get even more so as the edition progresses with more releases, as it is wont to).

I would just wish that there would be a.) better lead-ins to the high-level adventure paths, like with the Seven Dooms For Sandpoint player guide or b.) better connections between the low-level adventure paths and the high-level ones. I know that would take up some creative juice and some human ressources to do either one of those things, but since you guys decided to just not do six-parters anymore, I think the onus is then on you to make the higher-level ones more appealing to get into for players (not GM's, since I really want to run, for example, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix some day, but I desperately am looking for some way to get the players there without them having to create level 11 characters from scratch).

And please do not take this as an ask or even opportunity to stop doing high-level adventure paths. These are the reason I am suscribed at all.


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Also fixed, although that didn't change the shipping costs at all. We'll see if the final price for that will stay the same when they ship it.


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Ah, same problem as Cintra here. I hope CS gets back to me soon as well. I fired off my e-mail as soon as I found their order spawning e-mail in my inbox and noticed the problem.


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BTW, in Strange Aeons my crazy elf bomberman Alchemist Doctor Ogol is back and alive, since we'd been playing the disease rules wrong ( and too harshly). Hopefully this time he'll stay around. I'll be cautious. We decided that muscular Half-Orc who was to be my replacement character was a collective fever dream the others had. ^^


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James Jacobs wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Deriven Firelion wrote:
Rise of the Runelords update and Wrath of the Righteous with playable mythic rules would get my money.
Emphasis on "playable". ^^
You inflict Tired on Creative Director. It's Super-Effective! ;-P

Didn't expect a Kaguya-sama reference here. :)

For what its worth, I'm much more confident that you'll do it right this time, given that 2E has turned out so well balanced.


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Deriven Firelion wrote:
Rise of the Runelords update and Wrath of the Righteous with playable mythic rules would get my money.

Emphasis on "playable". ^^


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Pronate11 wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Great, now I'm more worried about Saranrae again, now that two of the three people on that cover art we saw were eliminated straight away from consideration and she was not.
Well, pharasma was published first as a birthday present to one of the writers. I would not take her being published first as any sort of sign of things to come. I treat this as if we have 2 data points, Asmodeus and Cailean. You usually need 3 data points to make a trend

Errr, not what I meant. Some weeks ago we were shown a cover to a new book coming out, where Asmodeus, Pharasma and Saranrae were on the cover. Hence me hoping that Saranrae would be eliminated as a death candidate right away, as Asmodeus and Pharasma were. And the reason why now I'm more being nervous about her actually being the one to be killed off, again.


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Great, now I'm more worried about Saranrae again, now that two of the three people on that cover art we saw were eliminated straight away from consideration and she was not.


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James Jacobs wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
magnuskn wrote:

So, I really wonder how Sorshen's kingdom of New Thassilon works, just geographically? Xin-Shalast is kind of inaccessible to normal people, so either the artists and outcasts who immigrate need to be somewhat high level or there are villages/small towns in more accessible areas. Also, economically, I wonder what Sorshen's part of New Thassilon produces to run their economy.

Also, is Sorshen keeping the fuzzy-wuzzy Hallowed Lynx' around, despite them having an evil alignment for some reason? Well, not that it's much of a problem anymore, due to alignment very recently having been removed. But still, they probably have some edict for coughing up furballs containing Shining Children on passerbies, or something like that. Asking the important questions here, because those very powerful fuzzballs are just too cute to not be part of her petting zoo.

One of these days I hope we'll have the chance to explore New Thassilon in more details, but until then those details will have to wait.
Dangit, I knew Hallowed Lynx' were cool, but I didn't know that they fall under the current state secrets Paizo is keeping in their treasure vault. :p

They don't. They're in the category of "There's a lot to talk about New Thassilon and the things that live there and more that we haven't had a chance to do much with since, so far, the only thing we've published that's focused on New Thassilon in a significant way is Rusthenge."

Not a secret, but just not yet on our announced production schedule.

Well, that you put "not yet (...) announced production" in that last sentence gives me hope that in two years or so we'll get more New Thassilon content. :)


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Elfteiroh wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
Jürgen Hubert wrote:
Has there been any indication what sorcerer bloodlines will be included?
The Draconic is a pretty sure bet.

Draconic might change a lot, depending on how they do it... It *might* become a "tradition wildcard" bloodline, where the specific type of dragon would decide your tradition, as new "main" Dragons are not only "arcane" anymore, but split across the 4 traditions.

It might even be split into 4 bloodlines!

If anything has really quirked me about the new Sorcerer, it's that your bloodline fixes the type of magic you can use. I'd rather have it be a player choice to have the flavor of a specific bloodline with whatever magic list you want to use.


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We are not in the preview phase for this book yet, still waiting for the Monster Core to be released first. Maybe go ask Luis on his Twitch streams.


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James Jacobs wrote:
magnuskn wrote:

So, I really wonder how Sorshen's kingdom of New Thassilon works, just geographically? Xin-Shalast is kind of inaccessible to normal people, so either the artists and outcasts who immigrate need to be somewhat high level or there are villages/small towns in more accessible areas. Also, economically, I wonder what Sorshen's part of New Thassilon produces to run their economy.

Also, is Sorshen keeping the fuzzy-wuzzy Hallowed Lynx' around, despite them having an evil alignment for some reason? Well, not that it's much of a problem anymore, due to alignment very recently having been removed. But still, they probably have some edict for coughing up furballs containing Shining Children on passerbies, or something like that. Asking the important questions here, because those very powerful fuzzballs are just too cute to not be part of her petting zoo.

One of these days I hope we'll have the chance to explore New Thassilon in more details, but until then those details will have to wait.

Dangit, I knew Hallowed Lynx' were cool, but I didn't know that they fall under the current state secrets Paizo is keeping in their treasure vault. :p


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So, I really wonder how Sorshen's kingdom of New Thassilon works, just geographically? Xin-Shalast is kind of inaccessible to normal people, so either the artists and outcasts who immigrate need to be somewhat high level or there are villages/small towns in more accessible areas. Also, economically, I wonder what Sorshen's part of New Thassilon produces to run their economy.

Also, is Sorshen keeping the fuzzy-wuzzy Hallowed Lynx' around, despite them having an evil alignment for some reason? Well, not that it's much of a problem anymore, due to alignment very recently having been removed. But still, they probably have some edict for coughing up furballs containing Shining Children on passerbies, or something like that. Asking the important questions here, because those very powerful fuzzballs are just too cute to not be part of her petting zoo.


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Well, dang. I had hopes that Mephistopheles would step up as the new lord of Hell. The false prophecy is really fun to read as well. One almost wishes that this lie were true, Garak-style. "Especially the lies".

Still worried about Saranrae. I hope she'll be the next one to be declared "safe".


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Anorak wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Yeeaaah, kinda wondering when February orders will start to spawn, given that we are already almost at the mid of the month. ^^

Jackson W mentioned in an email in January that they were working through an extensive backlog. I imagine that is impacting shipping or at least handling orders that need fixing.

This on top of looking for a new Warehouse Manager & E-Commerce Manager

As long as we can avoid repeating the disaster of the Player Core and GM Core launch, I'll be happy.


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Yeeaaah, kinda wondering when February orders will start to spawn, given that we are already almost at the mid of the month. ^^


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I fully changed to Pathfinder in 2008 and have never looked back.


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xNellynelx wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:
This ap doesn't have roll20 module in plans right? Kinda wondering if I should start to prep it or wait more(I kinda want to wait for soundtrack, but I realized there is no guarantee I can upload it to roll20 jukebox because) :O

Not that they've announced. On 1/30, they posted "the bare minimum Paizo releases that [they] planned for the next few months" and this wasn't on the list. They might add it, but as of 1/30, it wasn't on the docket (See below for that docket).

January
(PF1e) Return of the Runelords AP 4 of 6 - Temple of the Peacock Spirit

February
(PF1e) Return of the Runelords AP 5 of 6 - The City Outside of Time

March
(PF1e) Return of the Runelords AP 6 of 6 - Rise of New Thassilon
(PF2e) Pathfinder Monster Core
(PF2e) Seven Dooms for Sandpoint

April
(PF1e) Return of the Runelords APs 1, 2, and 3 (updates)

I'm super excited about the Return of the Runelords stuff since I plan to run a 2E conversion of it in the future. I hope they do this AP and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix in the future as well. Seven Dooms for Sandpoint is of course also on my list of stuff I want to run.


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Currently a player in three campaigns:

Strange Aeons
Well, this one is going rather poorly so far for our party, who are stuck in a mysterious place without almost any equipment. The GM rewrote a lot of the first module, so I don't know how accurate our experience is to what most other parties get. In any case, my character, Dr. Ogol Keravin, Crazy Elf Alchemist Bomberman, just died from a combination of Filth Fever and a Vampiric Mist, to my great chagrin, because I wanted to play this character for a long time for an entire campaign. My new character, Hiroyuki Watanabe, Half-Orc Hunter with wolf companion named Alto, is about to get introduced into the story, probably hanging upside down in a closet, stringed up by his nads, if I know the GM. But, dang, I never knew that Sacred Tattoo and Fate's Favored is a thing, pretty crazy combination. I hope this guy survives.

Iron Gods
This campaign is going so much better, with my human Unchained Monk Lucien Kell coming as the MVP in quite a lot of the last sessions, being the only person to be able to really damage a gargoyle at level 3, beating up a bunch of low-level ruffians mostly by himself at level 4. Lots of fun and I am looking forward to the next session. We are basically at the end of the first module as well.

Ironfang Invasion
Also going pretty well, albeit a lot more slowly due to the style of the GM. We are in the second module and currently clearing some fort in the forest of fey invaders, with a mixture of diplomacy with the nicer fey and kicking butt on the not-so-nice fey. My character is Barnabas Khaine, a Sylvan Sorcerer with his lynx (small cat) companion Mauler. A middle-aged tattoo artist who secretly was spying on Molthune, he got stuck with the group of survivors after my first character, Flynn Fairbanks, got stuck on the spiked shoulderpad of some nasty bugbear at the end of the first module.

Also already prepping my second Hell's Rebels campaign, which will begin when module two of Ironfang Invasion finishes. The GM of that campaign and I will alternate our campaigns each module, so that both the GM there and me can refresh a good bit between each module. I already have uploaded all the maps to Roll20 and worked out intro stories for each of the characters, but I still got loads of work to do for the first module, the actual character stories planned for the campaign and replacing the sucky sea elves with more Vyre.


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Stormlord506 wrote:
Just gonna throw my two cents out there, I think it's gonna be Iomedae. No reason to have two heralds of Aroden in the core 20.

Actually that should engender some rivalry between the two, which would be good narrative fuel.


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Honestly? I don't know. I really like Saranrae as a goddess and it would just kill a good part of my enjoyment of Golarion if she were the one to go. Also, Arazni still feels like a total "Huh? Why her, exactly?" choice for a replacement of whomever is going to have to go, at least to me.


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Bloody hell, you guys. You are not helping my anxiety by teasing us that much. And I bet that you'll do Saranrae as one of the last, because that's just my luck.


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Ruzza wrote:

I mean I've seen RD do it to numerous threads like he just did now. They usually get cleaned up faster. I don't know "I didn't see it, so you must be lying," really flies.

EDIT: Not to lay all the blame at RD's feet, because let's be honest the well was poisoned with the first post. It was inviting trolls and was really only stopped by JJ jumping in. As he asked to end the thread, I'll not add in any further than this.

Obviously I can't go through his almost 32k posts to see if he ever dared to utter something approaching a political opinion, but since he arrived on this forum, he always has focused on writing game- and rules-related posts, some of them with outlandish scenarios which I personally have rolled my eyes at. The above-quoted posts, however, make him out to be some habitual political troll, which just isn't true.


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Well, it's almost 11:00 a.m. in Germany right now. :p What are you doing up at this hour in Seattle, James? Get some sleep. ^^


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For me, in a world where there is an evil torture god in the top 20 deities list and his direct minions (velstracs) seemingly pop up everywhere in AP's and adventures doing their thing, having banjo-playing cannibal rapist ogres around still seems appropiate. Them, together with people eating trolls, are a great reason to not go into those woods at the horizon.

I appreciate Paizo making humanoid races more playable, but I hope ogres (and other large creature races for mechanical reasons) never become player character material. I don't think I'd like to handle that RP aspect on how to make a town accept having an ogre walking around them.


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I'd really love to see some details on Sun Wukong. So far we only have his domains and really generic info.


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Ravingdork wrote:

The current system is in place so you can tell who your real friends are (or for when no one opts to come to your aid after having every opportunity).

** spoiler omitted **

That, uh, feels deliberate. Maybe that Monk wasn't as fun for the other players?


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The Raven Black wrote:

Awesome points, Sibelius.

Also, most Fiends are not really born evil. Many are the evolution of evil souls from mortal creatures who chose to do evil deeds.

So, it is still evil by choice rather than evil by nature.

That is undercut a bit by fiends normally not remembering their past. You could say that the people whose essence gets turned into fiends deliberately chose evil, but a fiend is created out of "essence of evil" and therefore did not get to choose.


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Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
My point is that having sapient beings who tag and behave as "always alignment X" has gone out of vogue in the last decade, with the predominant view being that this is a narrative trope which could be seen as bigoted. Since alignment itself now is a thing of the past in Pathfinder, I have to wonder if the devs have taken this opportunity to remove fixed morality from outsiders (and undead) or if this aspect has been kept around and just replaced with "always certain edict/anathema".

This is indeed an interesting question, but one to which I think the answer remains the same: The designers have expressed the desire to keep the remastered Golarion much the same as it was before the remaster--at least as much as possible, the major exception being the drow.

It is true, fantasy species being 'born evil' is very often regarded with suspicion because it feeds back into nasty irl stereotypes that need no further support, but the bar is usually in a very different place when the creatures involved are neither humanoid nor even mortal. Humanoids having a mental and moral range similar to us is important because they are us, in a hundred different ways.

Demons are incredibly diverse creatures in fiction, sometimes acting as just another fantasy species, other times being literal manifestations of cosmic evil. Paizo demons are more toward the latter, so while I'm sure there are those who might propose (in good faith) that a sapient embodiment of evil being evil is uncomfortable or even problematic, the people at Paizo seem to feel that there being some group of creatures in the universe that are 'always evil' because they are made of evil is more interesting than not. There are factors in place that make it clear (at least imho) that 'demons are evil' is not in the same order of statement as 'orcs are evil' with regards to what role these fantasy creatures play in our media.

Besides, in no edition of the game I have played has 'always evil' meant...

Well said. I also think that having unnatural creatures being "always alignment X" is something that can be defended from a literary standpoint. The demons from the manga/anime Sousou no Frieren are an interesting example of such creatures. I was just wondering how Paizo would handle this with their remaster of outsiders, since alignment was such a fraught point of debate in the past, especially when it came to the "always chaotic evil" type of discussions. We'll see where they go, although I think you are probably right and they'll keep the morality of outsiders and the like the same, just under the banner of edicts/anathema.


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Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
I'll be very interested how they will deal with the removal of alignment for fiends and celestials. Are fiends (demons, daemons, devils, etc) still going to be "always evil", but just with the tag "unholy" to replace it? And the same in reverse for celestials? Or will it be more common for outsiders of their stripe (always aligned to one alignment type before the remaster) to be of any morality they desire?

Since the setting is staying the same, I expect the former. Note that this will apparently apply to undead too (ie most of them having the Unholy trait in addition to the Undead trait).

I think fiends will likewise have both the Unholy trait and the Fiend trait.

I recall when the removal of alignment was announced, there was rather a lot of speculation to the tune of suggesting that, without alignment, a deity like Sarenrae could now be dark and flawed, and there would be nothing to stop her clerics from committing atrocities in her name. Contrary to these claims, dev commentary suggested that, except where impossible, the changes made by the remaster should be virtually invisible in the setting.

This if course means that we should expect to see that immortals/outsiders will remain the same--dedicated by nature to certain concepts, but technically capable of change, no matter how unlikely. My understanding of the people in charge of stories at Paizo right now feel that part of what makes an 'angel falls' or 'redeemed demon' story is that it simply doesn't happen save for in rare exceptions that are usually worth a narrative arc about them.

It's entirely possible in a few years we'll see a plot line with an archon whose extreme pursuit of justice has folded into a devil-like obsession with punishment, but that remains to be seen.

My point is that having sapient beings who tag and behave as "always alignment X" has gone out of vogue in the last decade, with the predominant view being that this is a narrative trope which could be seen as bigoted. Since alignment itself now is a thing of the past in Pathfinder, I have to wonder if the devs have taken this opportunity to remove fixed morality from outsiders (and undead) or if this aspect has been kept around and just replaced with "always certain edict/anathema".


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I'll be very interested how they will deal with the removal of alignment for fiends and celestials. Are fiends (demons, daemons, devils, etc) still going to be "always evil", but just with the tag "unholy" to replace it? And the same in reverse for celestials? Or will it be more common for outsiders of their stripe (always aligned to one alignment type before the remaster) to be of any morality they desire?


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keftiu wrote:
The Hryngar have already come up a few times, as the replacements for the OGL Duergar.

They are duergar after all, just with their serial numbers filed off and a new focus from slavery to pyramid schemes.


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I always appreciate looks behind the scenes, James. So, yeah, I'd love to hear about how difficult it would have been to re-write Seven Dooms for Sandpoint into a Remastered adventure in a few months. :)


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Ah, this makes me look forward even more to GM'ing Return of the Runelords. I've been prepping the 2E conversion for the last months. Just finished adjusting opponent stat blocks for 3, 5 and 6 players, since I got 6 players but it has become pretty normal that some people can't make it to a session. Still got months to go before we start, since we are currently in Strange Aeons where I get to be a (terrified, because low will save class as a PC) player.


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Errenor wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Errenor wrote:
Bluemagetim wrote:

Spontaneous

- Signature spell allows the spells you pick to be cast in higher slots that the one you learned it in.
Standard remark: now you don't need Signature spells just for what you stated. All spontaneous casters now can use higher rank slots to cast lower rank spells without any additional effects compared to the rank of the known spell. But you do need the spell to be Signature to get heightened effects from higher rank slot.
Wait, what, they changed that in the Remaster? Because (as I understood the rules so far) the lack of ability to freely downcast your spells was a huge nerf to Sorcerers in the jump from 1E to 2E. Are you sure?

Absolutely. It's a remaster change:

"As a spontaneous caster, you can also choose to cast a lower-rank spell using a higher-rank spell slot without heightening it or knowing it at a higher rank. This casts the spell at the rank you know the spell, not the rank of the higher slot. The spell doesn’t have any heightened effects, so it’s usually not a very efficient use of your magic outside of highly specific circumstances. For instance, if your party was having trouble with an invisible enemy, and you had revealing light in your repertoire but had already spent all of your 2nd-rank spell slots, it might be worth it to use a 3rd-rank spell slot to cast the spell, even though it’d have no heightened benefit."

Though I'm not sure why are you calling that 'downcasting'. It doesn't feel like a suitable word.

That's the term which was used in 1E by a lot of people, so it makes sense to me to still use it here. In any case, thank you for the information!

Downcasting was more useful in 1E due to many damage spells autoranking until a certain point (i.e. Fireballs got to 10d6 in a third level spot, if your caster level was 10 or higher) and more spell slots in general, but it still is tremendously useful in some situations to get to use your lower level spells when you've run out of the appropiate spell slot as a spontaneous caster.


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Errenor wrote:
Bluemagetim wrote:

Spontaneous

- Signature spell allows the spells you pick to be cast in higher slots that the one you learned it in.
Standard remark: now you don't need Signature spells just for what you stated. All spontaneous casters now can use higher rank slots to cast lower rank spells without any additional effects compared to the rank of the known spell. But you do need the spell to be Signature to get heightened effects from higher rank slot.

Wait, what, they changed that in the Remaster? Because (as I understood the rules so far) the lack of ability to freely downcast your spells was a huge nerf to Sorcerers in the jump from 1E to 2E. Are you sure?


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MadamReshi wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
Alrighty, thank for the detailed explanations. The stunned condition and counteracting seem to be the most obtusely written rules I've so far encountered in 2E. So the explanations are very appreciated.
Yeah; the rules for counteracting are actually simple once you understand them but I do find they were not well written, at-least in the Core Rulebook.

Same, I had to go through them about five times before I got gist of it.


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Alrighty, thank for the detailed explanations. The stunned condition and counteracting seem to be the most obtusely written rules I've so far encountered in 2E. So the explanations are very appreciated.


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Errenor wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
"stunned 2 for two rounds"
Shouldn't exist. It should be either "stunned 2" or "stunned for two rounds" (or "stunned 6" I guess).

Ah, so there are no cases of being stunned for X actions and stunned for X rounds together. That clears that up.


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Thank you for the succinct description, shroudb.

To be sure I get this right, if you are "stunned 2 for two rounds", this means that the first round, even if I reduce my actions by two actions in the first round, I can't act at all, because Stunned says "You've become senseless. You can't act while stunned.", but in the second round, after removing the two actions, I can act again? Is that right?


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Finoan wrote:

That is a very common houserule. One that I recommend using.

But it is a houserule.

Stunned is very clear that the only way that Stunned 2 reduces its value is that at the start of your next turn you don't regain two of your actions. And that for the entire duration of having Stunned you are unable to use the actions that you do have.

As for the wording of 'total' even that is clear. You do only lose two actions in total - the two that you don't gain at the start of your next turn. You actually do still have the two actions remaining from your current turn. You haven't lost those ones. You just are unable to use them until you remove the Stunned condition.

I have to wonder why the text that you reduce your actions per round is there at all, if you simply are unable to act the entire round. As a newbie to 2E, I was reading the slowed and stunned conditions and wondering why they were so similar (which seemed to make stunned a bit redundant over slowed), so what you say makes a lot of sense (especially when comparing the stunned condition between 1E and 2E), but it's still strange to even include the "you lose actions according to your stunned value" bit when you can't act at all in the round.


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James Jacobs wrote:
There are an endless number of compelling stories to tell that aren't slavery stories, and that's where we're focused going forward. In the meantime, this isn't the thread for the topic—a topic I feel has been discussed and answered and doesn't need to continue.

I know, I know. It's still a sore point, though, because it feels like there is a black hole in the continuity of the setting now. Anyway, as you said, let's return to the Windsong Testaments, which are also some very interesting developments (even if contradictory to stuff written in the Book of the Damned).


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TriOmegaZero wrote:
Honestly, I don't even think that slavery has been eliminated everywhere in Golarion. We just aren't putting it into focus anymore.

Then I must have misjudged things pretty badly, since, as far as I am aware at least, slavery was thrown out in Cheliax (relabeled, at least), Katapesh, the Linnorm Kingdoms and Irrisen, at least. All at once, which is awesome, yet in-universe would be such a monumental social change that the very quiet way it was done just feels narratively editorially imposed in a very artificial way. Which it was.


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TOZ wrote:
C'mon mate, you know better than to say slavery is gone. :P

Oh, I absolutely acknowledge that Cheliax at least just did a switcheroo and called it a day. My main objections are to the "everywhere all at once" aspect and then the writers/editors burying even that as much as possible, instead of giving a detailed explanation how exactly this astonishing feat of social change was accomplished worldwide in a medieval-like fantasy world, because Paizo decided that they just don't want to deal with the difficult topic anymore. To me, this is like dropping a hammer on their own immersive storytelling, just like with the Drow and the many established Drow characters suddenly being unpersoned. That sucks, because a big part of liking a fantasy setting for me is getting immersed in the story.

Ed Reppert wrote:
If it were possible to abolish something simply by saying "that doesn't exist any more" the world would be a very different place.

Politicians are certainly trying nowadays to just rename things and then pretend the "old thing" doesn't exist anymore. ^^

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