Headed camping for the long weekend. No phone or Internet.
To all the players in my games:
I'm sorry for my spotty attendance lately. It's been a fairly awful week at work. I haven't been home before 10:00 or seen my kids awake in the evening in days.
It's short term, though and I'll be back at it soon. Thanks for your patience.
Thank you for bearing with me. I'm leaving tomorrow for a legal conference out of state and won't be back until Sunday. I'll have no Internet access. More accurately, I will have no laptop. I'm not nuts enough to try to GM on an iPad. So I'll just see you on Sunday.
Cheers!
Headed on a trip and likely won't have good internet for about a week. Please play Alister as needed.
Hi! I just got my Internet connection back after four days of outage. I'll be posting soon!
Anyone want to claim any of the items we found on Tenzekil? The handy haversack would be useful for Aristu to access his scrolls with, but other than that there is nothing there he needs.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!
Everyone else, happy Thursday!
Merry Christmas!
God Bless Us, Every One!
Family emergency means I'm going to be AWOL a bit.
Same here actually. Out in New Mexico for the weekend
Leaving tomorrow to take my daughter to a squash tournament. Will be AFK until Sunday night.
I expected more of a fight.
Let me know if anyone hates the idea of moving to Second Edition before we transition to Book Three.
I am fine with it. Would that be after this module? I would need to get the book and start reading it if we are about to change over.
Yes, it would. Tim (Alister) and I have been playing 2e for some months now and it's a fine game. Different, but mostly in good ways. It is more lethal for certain, but also better balanced, with fewer easy exploits.
The downside is that you're limited in character class choices at this point in the development cycle, but I think we can get decent approximations of our characters. Mikhail, for instance, might be a Cleric with a Fighter archetype or a Champion archetype. Or vice versa.
Yeah, I think Alister would actually be much more effective in 2e. Though, he won't be able to throw out the gobs of buffing like he just did.
I do feel like they've filed away a lot of the interesting, but rough edges that you could niche a character into, but overall, it's a good mechanic set. I do think with a couple more books, it'll really be good. (But that's just like how APG made 1e really come into its own.)
As a GM, I've gone from ruleset to ruleset since 1977 looking for something not easily broken. Paper-thin glass-cannon villains are one symptom of this, as is the fact that the games just aren't balanced at all at higher power levels.
I think 5e may have a cure for this, but I find it stifling of imagination. I -hope- that PF2e may permit me to tell stories more and manage disasters less.
In my home game, I'm moving away from a "give me a roll for that" model to a more narrative "yeah, you're a hero - you succeed at that" model outside of combat or combat-like activities.
I am fine with switching, too. Would be interesting to give PF2E a whirl.
Alister Aye
Aristu
Grimnir
Mikhail Aye
Piotr Aye
GM Tarondor Aye
Grimnir and Aristu, what say you?
I'm on board with the switch.
FYI, we'll have a significant downtime after "Realm of the Fellnight Queen" during which we'll continue expanding the Sword Marches and during which you can all work on any crafting or other downtime activities you like. I'm thinking two years might pass, with only a few short roleplaying interludes.
Will the kingdom activities translate over to our new edition skill bonuses?
I'm still working on that!
Probably we give up our house rules and go with the rules in the Gamemastery Guide.
We're almost finished with Realm of the Fellnight Queen. After that we'll do some years of kingdom growth before we move into Book Three, The Varnhold Vanishing. That gives everyone at least a week or two to upgrade their characters to Second Edition.
I can't claim to be an expert, but I have learned quite a bit and am willing to work with anyone who wants to, either over email or by voice on Discord, to get your 2e character as close as possible to your 1e character's theme.
Off the top of my head, I have the following thoughts, which you can take or ignore as suits you. They're just my 2 cents.
Alister - A straight bard is a good choice here, but I could also see Alister taking the Champion (Liberator) class with the bard archetype. That would make him a powerful battlefield buffer and controller while fitting well into the mold of a king. Both make good use of Charisma.
Aristu - You'll find that 2e sorcerers have quite a bit more flexibility in build than do 1e sorcerers. The Fey bloodline is still a solid choice both for mechanical and Adventure Path reasons, but you'd be getting the Primal spell list, not the Arcane list. I actually think that's a good thing as it includes many spells the party doesn't have now and would help differentiate you further from Piotr.
Grimir - The simplest switch might be to Champion (paladin). Possibly worth looking at an archetype like Knight of Lastwall from the Lost Omen Character Guide.
Mikhail - Easily our most complex 1e character. I think either Cleric (warpriest) or a Champion with the Cleric devotion or even a cleric with the fighter devotion might work well. Worth taking a look at the options in Lost Omens Gods and Magic.
Piotr - A straight-up wizard will do you fine. Whether you wish to continue as a Conjurer or consider a Universalist is up to you. I don't think you need an archetype, but two to consider would be Alchemist (Core rulebook) and "Pathfinder Spellmaster" from the Lost Omen Character Guide.
Should we continue to use Hero Lab? Or, another character builder?
Herolab for 2e is bad. The fact you have to continually pay for it makes it worse. If you have an Android device, download Pathbuilder for 2e. IYou might have to have your phone with you as you update the oaizo sheet, but it's still a great option.
I hadn't thought of a Champion for Alister...that's pretty cool. Let me play with that a bit.
I'm not sure I agree with Alister that Herolab for 2e is bad. It's just online and a bit less user friendly.I use it.
Pathbuilder does seem pretty slick but I don't have an Android phone.
That said, you can use any character builder you prefer, including none at all.
Let me know if you need ideas or help.
I bought the book and I was looking at it. I am not sure what path to go. Abadar's use of the crossbow instead of a melee weapon is making me super sad. I will probably go Cleric with a devotion in Champion or fighter and just take as much Champion or fighter feats as I can.
Is Lost Omens: Gods & Magic worth the purchase?
I will give TOS+ a try ... have not yet used it for 2e, but it's pretty good for 1e.
Is Lost Omens: Gods & Magic worth the purchase?
If you're interested in alternate domains and being a "domain initiate" (someone dedicated to lesser-known aspects of your deity), then yes. Also, if you're really into the lore of the deities or the new deity Nocticula the Redeemer Queen.
There are some nice feats for religious types, but you can find those at the Archives of Nethys for free. So mostly, no. I wouldn't purchase it unless you're a GM or really into deity lore.
I recommend that you go to the Archives of Nethys and see what you think of the Battle Prayer and Sacred Defense feats.
Sacred Defense sounds useful, but how likely are you to get a 30+ or 40+ check in this system?
Started using TOS+ ... of course, not entirely sure what are "must have" feats, etc..
Sacred Defense sounds useful, but how likely are you to get a 30+ or 40+ check in this system?
In 2e, you add your level to nearly every check, in addition to stat and a proficiency bonus (technically, it's part of the proficiency bonus). You also get 4 stat bumps, but you can't put them in the same stat, so your secondary and tertiary stats get bumped too.
So if you care a lot about the religion skill, by 7th level when you could take the feat, you'd probably have at least expert proficiency (+4), Wisdom of at least 16 (+3), and 7th level (+7), for a total of +14. You certainly could have higher. A DC of 30 isn't impossible to make, though maybe difficult. By level 10, it's pretty easy.
In my Age of Ashes game, at least one PC has a skill at +12 by 3rd level. So they could make a 30+ right now. By the time they're 8th level it will be much easier.
Started using TOS+ ... of course, not entirely sure what are "must have" feats, etc..
Depends on whether you're sticking with Conjurer. Universalist is a solid choice in 2e (you can use "Drain Bond" for each level of spells you can cast!)
For Arcane Thesis, I think that Improved Familiar Attunement is amazing and Metamagic Experimentation is really solid too.
Familiar and Enhanced Familiar are awesome feats and seem right up Piotr's (and Corb's!) alley. (But just get the Improved Familiar Attunement instead!) But if you are a Universalist, you really, really want Bond Conservation.
Another great way to spend a feat is on an archetype dedication and I can see Piotr getting a lot out of Alchemist Dedication.
Then there are General feats. Canny Acumen (with Perception) is quite good. Fleet is great now that standing still is a generally bad idea. Incredible Initiative is as important for wizards in 2e as Improved Initiative was in 1e.
Shield Block is really nice with the Shield cantrip. Toughness was always great for squishy casters. All my wizards have Toughness.
Assurance is the hidden gem. It looks utterly forgettable. But using Assurance to make sure you don't miss flat checks (such as for Medicine or Athletics) so you don't kill someone you're trying to save and so you never miss what should be a simple climb.
In 2E if you are trained in something, say medium armor, and then you get trained in medium armor again. Do you stay at Trained or do they stack to make you Expert?
They don't stack as far as I know. But I'm curious where you see that. The Armor Proficiency feat is specifically worded to move you up a category, and most of the archetypes don't give you armor Proficiency.
I didn't see it anywhere. I was just curious if that worked without wanting to spend a chunk of my day researching it. :P
I am slowly building the character though. We will see how close to the mark I am.
I don't think they stack. They've been very careful to state in many instances that if you already have something (like a skill), then you get to choose a different one. So if it doesn't say that, then I think you don't get any benefit.
That makes sense. But hope springs eternal. Now to decide if I will take all Harms and smite my foes endlessly. :D
In 2E if you are trained in something, say medium armor, and then you get trained in medium armor again. Do you stay at Trained or do they stack to make you Expert?
No, they don't stack. It's possible to get a proficiency from two different sources (such as if you multiclass through an archetype), but the extra proficiency is wasted. However, if you gain a skill that you already have, you may take any other skill at that level of proficiency.
Where should we post our first attempts at 2E characters?
Here's fine.
If a skill is listed as General and Skill feat can you take it with either a skill feat choice or only as a general feat choice?
I am specifically talking about Sacred Defense with the 7th level General Feat option.
Also, I have only seen one thing that raised a skill above trained at 5th level. Is it generally the case that getting anything above trained is hard to do?
If a skill is listed as General and Skill feat can you take it with either a skill feat choice or only as a general feat choice?
Skill feats are a subset of General feats, so you can use your General feat to select a skill feat, but not vice versa. Since you get more skill feats (one every two levels) than General feats (one at 3rd and one every 4 levels after that for most (non-rogue) characters), I think it might be wasteful to use a General feat for a skill feat. But that's up to you.
I am specifically talking about Sacred Defense with the 7th level General Feat option.
In addition to the above, note that Sacred Defense requires that you have Master proficiency in Religion, which you might well have. Just sayin'.
Also, I have only seen one thing that raised a skill above trained at 5th level. Is it generally the case that getting anything above trained is hard to do?
Skill increases improve your proficiency in skills of your choice. You can use these increases to become trained in new skills or increase your proficiency rank in skills you’re trained in (from trained to expert at any level, expert to master at 7th level or higher, and master to legendary at 15th level or higher).
I assume that Mikahil will be a Champion? Take a look at Table 3-7: Champion Advancement on page 106. You'll see that while you get skill feats at every even level, you also get skill increases at every odd level. So over the course of a 20-level progression, a champion will get 8 skill increases without spending feats on them. That's enough to get two skills to Legendary and one to Master or four to Master, etc.
But yeah, anything above Trained makes you exceptional in that skill.