I'm doin good. I miss ya'll lots. Hope all is well. Gettin hyped for Christmas! :)
Happy Solstice and Merry Yule to all!
Sad face. I just realized FCD hasn't posted at all to Paizo since Sept 16th. Was hoping maybe was active elswhere n could maybe reach out to Lyn. Am worried bout her.
I heard back from her on Twitter. She's doing okay and misses all of us. I decided not to press as to if she'll be able to come back, but she's alive and alright.
Good to hear!
Yo yo yo...
I've finally been able to dig a bit into 2E pathfinder...
What do ya'll think?
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I haven't touched it yet...
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I think it's really good Kryzbyn. I'm running a PF2E game and about 4 Starfinder games right now, and both are really good. They do a lot to address the problems of Pathfinder 1E (game pace slowdown, spellcasters being best at everything, and a number of other criticisms I've had for PF1E for a long time now), and I'm excited to see how they develop. 2E does feel a touch on the bare-bones side, but that's coming from 1E with its 2 billion splatbooks. It's already much deeper than 5e, which I am resigned to playing with some of my friends XD
(Though to be honest... I kinda wish Starfinder was designed using the new PF2E engine instead of the on-life-support body of 3.5. I can see soooo much flexibility and potential for Starfinder to work on that engine).
What are your thgouhts so far?
I am alive btw, and I do check in occasionally ;)
I've been watching Oblivion Oath and Knights of the Everflame...I've seen how the combat flows at a better pace than 1E. The insane skill checks have been tempered by the training level of skills (they can still get insane, but you'd have to hyperfocus into one skill, maybe 2). I think the action economy is a little thin, but tbh it kinda grew on me. Even with haste, it doesn't look like you can cast two actual spells per round.
I'm really excited to run/play it. Just looking through the creation options, it's kinda amazing how many combos there are.
@DB3 what happened during playtest?
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I might give PF2 a try one day, but PF1 still has far too much to offer me in terms of content, options, and ideas for both characters and games to run/play in.
Between all of the Paizo material and respected 3pp stuff like the Legendary Classes from Legendary Games, Path of War, Psionics, Akashic, the Spheres system, not to mention various other bits and pieces from all sorts of other companies, I don't see myself ever making the switch.
What I might do is pick up any Golarion setting books, depending on if they continue them or not, as that's my favorite setting. I actually am working on my own homebrew version 'Broken Golarion' in which most of the APs have failed, and the bad guys have mostly won. Thus, any extra info on the world would be greatly appreciated.
They've moved forward with the story a bit in their new campaign setting books. Might be worth it to pick them up.
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@DB3 what happened during playtest?
Paizo: Admitted they used the most controversial ideas they had for PF2 in the playtest.
Admitted they made the playtest adventures incredibly deadly to 'stress test' it.
Admitted the reason Ultimate Wilderness didn't get a playtest(resulting in the last book of pf1 being poor quality) was because they were working on PF2.
Not playtest: Also shield costing an action because having part of your body blocked by a large object on your arm costs an action apparently.
I can see the shield thing going both ways. On the one hand, it's a shield, and in the past it just provides a passive AC bonus. On the other, you do have to move it to intercept hits. With the action economy already being limited to 3 actions, it's kind of a pain. Not only that, but if you use it, it might last 2 or 3 hits, depending on damage, depending on what the shield is made of.
The magic item resonance or whatever was horrible, but that's gone.
Ultimate Wilderness...well, I bought it, but never really looked at it. Was that the one with the Shifter?
From what I've seen in the Playcasts I've watched played with 2E, it is a lot more deadly than 1E. That seems to be tempered by the abundance of healing options that weren't there in 1E. Actually being able to heal in combat with the medicine skill is interesting, and bards being full casters now opens up a lot of options. I think that seems to be the theme of 2E is more options without more splat.
But, till I can actually play it...
Paizo: Admitted they used the most controversial ideas they had for PF2 in the playtest.Admitted they made the playtest adventures incredibly deadly to 'stress test' it.
Maybe it's just me... But isn't this a good thing? The purpose of the playtest should be to test things, especially the riskier or more drastic changes.
The shields thing is kinda a wash since 1 action usually means you are replacing an attack at -10 (likely need a nat 20 to hit most things) for +2 AC (which is more powerful than in 1E since it can reduce your chance to be crit as well), and it can give you DR against an attack. I like how shields work, especially since it encourages character to actually take Crafting to do maintenance, which makes the game and characters have more depth. At least for my players, they're usually more of the hack-and-slash type, but the way 2E is structured actually encourages them to consider how their characters more as people than stat blocks.
Iunno, that's my experience so far.
Why would I want to give up the flexibility of the sheer number of options of PF1 for something more restrictive, barebones, and that seems... less optimizable.
Like that attack at a -10 thing you said. If that's nearly a surefire miss, that seems insane to me. Because in regular pathfinder, that's your third ieritive, and it means that if you only hit on a 20, your main attack is only hitting on a 10+, thus meaning your attacks are halriously unreliable. Reliability is my biggest thing when making a charecter. I hate it when perfectly good tactical plans are thwarted just because the dice say so. Nat 1's already provide more then enough of that.
I have already moved away from Pathfinder entirely for all but a couple of games I still play on the forums here. I got burned out on the many nuanced ways to make a character overly optimized. I have not even looked at PF2.
We're a bit nervous here, as we live with my 96 year old grandmother. But, I haven't been in out in over a week, and while my mom has had to leave as recent as this weekend, I believe we are all okay.
I hope Lynora is okay. I'll reach out to her on Twitter tomorrow.
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Tonight my not-niece(not a blood relative but I've helped raise her) had her first non-introduction to TTRPGs character... hatch.
A week or two ago we were at a local gaming shop and I was looking at miniatures. She came over and looked at them with me, and after telling here the white ones were for painting, she picked out a blue dragon hatchling(plus tiny hoard) and went to ask her parents if she could get it.
Tonight, while playing the GURPS Dungeon Fantasy game, out group came across a dragon egg among the items we'd been sent out to recover for a merchant. It was hatching, with lightning strike it and everything.
Out pops this little purple(her favorite color) dragon that says "Mommy?" looks around and has now imprinted on our Dwarven Holy Warrior(which happens to be my niece's mom's character too).
As it is purple and breaths lightning, it shares properties with piezoelectric minerals -quartz in this case- so kinetic energy(being hit) recharges the breath attack.
She has expressed that "Pickles" is not a very dragon sounding name.
Okay so far. I can happily report that the cough and sore throat I have had for a few days is not the modern plague, so that is good...
Agarthans...........ASSEMBLE.
Agarthans...........ASSEMBLE.
Is Dalesman just trolling us?!?
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*stumbles in bleary-eyed and half drunk*
I'm heerrrreeeee
*falls face first on the floor and begins snoring*
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No trolling, good people. But I thought I would need several days at least for everyone to have a chance to respond.
I hope that all of you are doing as well as you can be, given everything that's going on. Crazy days.
I've been looking over the older posts since I went radio-silent. Has anybody been able to get in touch with Lynora to make sure she and her family are okay?
FCD: Incoming PM for you sir.
No trolling, good people. But I thought I would need several days at least for everyone to have a chance to respond.
I hope that all of you are doing as well as you can be, given everything that's going on. Crazy days.
I've been looking over the older posts since I went radio-silent. Has anybody been able to get in touch with Lynora to make sure she and her family are okay?
FCD: Incoming PM for you sir.
I had reached out to her awhile ago(via Twitter), and didn't hear back from her. Just messaged her again, will let you know if I get a reply.
I am also assembling...
How is everyone doing?
I've been semi-watching from afar. I haven't had contact from anybody around here for some time now.
Completely random aside,
I'm playing a Kitsune(the normal PF version) in a Bard's Gate game, which reminded me to look up the more powerful one used here.
Who was it that made that race? I have a couple questions:
1) What their breath weapon, as I don't see it the write up
2) What exactly does the 'kitsune ball' created via their Empowering Leech ability actually do? It just says it's a one time/use magic item, but other than that, I don't see what it can do.
No trolling, good people. But I thought I would need several days at least for everyone to have a chance to respond.
I hope that all of you are doing as well as you can be, given everything that's going on. Crazy days.
I've been looking over the older posts since I went radio-silent. Has anybody been able to get in touch with Lynora to make sure she and her family are okay?
FCD: Incoming PM for you sir.
And replied.
I spent a good portion of the night prepping a roll20 table for GenCon. Even during lockdown times we gotta get our fix.
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*waves*
Hi, guys. Still alive here. FCD, got your texts, but I saw them later and didn't want to reply in the middle of the night (er...when is that? Not only have I lost track of time zones, I've gone totally nocturnal since this whole craziness started. Like I sleep from 7am to 3 pm kind of totally nocturnal. My internal clock is so utterly borked :P)
And sorry for missing your PM on twitter before MG. I think it got et when the app updated. It shows in my history, but there was never any notification. Didn't mean to ignore you.
DB3, so sorry, I never got any email! Or it got lost in all the school crap. Like, seriously, my inbox is a freaking mess with all the school updates between district updates, school updates, teacher updates, google classroom weekly summaries, and college board crap. Only a couple more days of this crap and hopefully kiddo will actually pass all these stupid classes (Not to mention the stupid AP exams that had to be taken twice >.<) It's gonna be close. As usual. Gave the usual end of term pep talk today about turning in bad work being better than turning in no work. *sigh*
Anyhow, yeah, I haven't written in what feels like forever, and haven't gamed in longer since my IRL group fell apart due to drama. Which is great when it happens in the game, but not so much when it's between players. :/
So I'm not totally sure how well I can manage with the whole writing thing as I genuinely haven't tried like at all. But I have been doing plenty of reading.....nothing I can admit to in polite company (look, my browser history is basically AO3 and knitting patterns, mostly the former, so ya know, ALL the smut ;P), but still lots and lots of reading..... which is important when you're stuck with writing. Gotta see what does and doesn't work as a reader. And I definitely see why I got overwhelmed with the overarching plot line from way back in Avalon season one finally starting to pan out. Like, oh dear, I didn't mean to paint myself into this corner, but here we are...
So, yeah, maybe it would be better to start small? A side story? A one shot? I dunno, just spitballing ideas here because I don't want to try to get the behemoth moving again only to get crushed under the metaphorical weight because I wasn't ready. I may also need to build confidence and all that. I mean, I've got my weight stabilized again which stabilizes my blood sugar at least a little. And also the antidepressant seems to be working again now. Dosage gets super wonky real fast when your body weight keeps changing. So I think it's really just me needing to get past worrying that all that nonsense is going to start again. Which I won't do unless I actually try.
It is so good to see you typing again here, my friend. I'm glad everyone's okay. (^-^)
And starting back up with something small and 'self-contained' sounds like a good idea.
Seriously, that's all I really care about. As much as I dearly love this game, my PCs, the other characters, and the players/Lyn, I am just so freakin happy you're okay Lyn. Was really worried about ya.
That said, while I would love to get back to playing Ace, I will be 100% okay with swapping to a different PC for a little while if doing so will help you get back on track.
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Huzzah to Lyn! And hey no worries about the text, as I said my intent was mostly to seek input and not to put pressure on you to do something you didn't feel like you were ready to do.
Glad to see you again though. It has been far too long :)
As far as brainstorms go, Dalesman and I were discussing maybe wrapping up Laeren with an "in conclusion" style post and doing a timeskip, but I am also down with a sidestory or vignette to ease back in. A small list off the top of my head. This is assuming we want to still remain relatively canon, if we wanna completely exit canon for the moment then I've got more ideas:
Just some spitballing. Happy to be typing again. :)
'self-contained'
Welcome back, Lyn!! Good to hear from you again! I am glad things are looking to stabilize soon, and that your health is a bit more better :)
I was sad to hear that your real life group collapsed under the weight of drama. My own has recently done the same, so I can relate to those feels....
Hello guys and gals. I have been away for about a year now and I am slowly getting back into things.
I cannot commit so many characters right now but who knows what the future holds.
but right now checking in to say hi.