AceofMoxen's page

Nevertheless, it seems strange to me that a rogue pretending to be a monk will likely outdamage a true monk at the monk's niche: unarmed strikes.

this was already true with thaumaturge.

Aww man I liked Pathfinder Training bonus feats/lore :'D

Sidenote, did any society scenario have enemies weak to Law/Chaos damage? Maybe one protean somewhere? I'm mostly curious if there was any guidelines for those situation

My thaumaturge did deal law damage at one point, so this could be a nerf to him.

You had economics in high school?

I taught economics in high school.

Nona was decent. Not as good as Harrow, better than Gideon.

On to Scourge, a Star Wars book by Jeff Grubb. So far it's decent, perhaps edging towards good.

I'm currently working on Nona, but I nearly gave up during Harrow. I can't stand the second person perspective or protagonist who can't trust their senses.

So, the same way you are going to increase the price due to rising "economic factor"; if that factor goes down in the future, you will reduce the prices too... right?

Deflation is worse than inflation, for those of you who failed high school economics.

Ace,

Who is Worm?!!

Worm is a web novel by wildbow. It's amazing superhero fiction. https://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/

It follows a young girl who kinda backs into being a villain. It really changed the way I view superhero media. For me, it was far more meaningful than watchmen.

You have significant fair points. I don't know enough to say more.

Set wrote:

This issue even had the one Isca appearance, like, ever, in which I didn't loathe her and her dumb plot device power. :)

That idiotic character was one of the many poor writing/editorial decisions made on the recent X-books that made me drop every single one of them.

Worm handles that power so much better, which makes X-Men fumbling it just look bad. You can't have that power in an ongoing narrative with multiple writers over decades, it just doesn't work.

Aaron Bitman, I'm typing on my phone. Fat thumbs make weird mistakes. I apologize. Anyway, remember when Jimmy Olsen's comic was cancelled for only having a million readers? Today's comics often sale less than 50,000. They are at the peak of average quality and already dead.

Maybe it’d be easier to get some artists back, but even there I’d think it was iffy.

Unfortunately, artist skills decay with age. Certainly, the speed to get a book out disappears with age.

You can't save coming cs with things that appeal to comic book poeple. To save comic books, we would need to move eyes off of tictoc and video games. (This is of course impossible, comic books are going to die.)

I want more Thrawn.

I am not up on post legends content. Has anything else discussed another galaxy? Is it still full of killer robots?

The river kingdoms are not a great place for a stage coach. Perhaps he was a stage coach driver in Galt, but escaped the chaos of that country and is starting over?

Mechanically, it's hard to say much without knowing the other character.

Going by the question in the title, my answer is no. It moves like a living creature, but is not alive. Think of the "living dead," as another example of this use in English.

Going by the question in the post, it could go either way. As the GM, your goal is to create an interactive, intriguing, and challenging story. Will your players feel cheated or intrigued by a non-/living creature with abilities like a living creature? Will they even notice?

I have just begun to read Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Dan Dennett. It's the first book of his that have read, and here's hoping it is good.

Thanks for mentioning this. It's a topic that interests me, so I'm eager to hear your opinion.

I play a redeemer of Likha, the storyteller. He was a gladiator/historical reenactor, but the government wanted him to change the stories to make them look better. He refused and joined the Pathfinders instead. I've mostly had to make up lore for Likha as I go.

I'm aware of weresharks and werecrocodiles, and they are both abominations.

I'm still thinking of more than one death.

It is possible, it will be interesting to see what direction is taken with were-creatures in the Remaster.

I would love to a similar idea of were-creatures but for aberrations similar to Marvel Comics symbiotes.

were creatures are for land mammals. Sea mammals that transform into humans are selkies. Reptiles and birds that transform into humans should be their own thing, too. I want to keep were-creatures in their ecological niche.

Couple thoughts.

I think a fake out is in line. It looks like sarenrae, but then Torag takes the deathblow for her satisfies multiple criteria.

Maybe more than one die? Can we rule out a big shake-up? Adventure arc opens with a good god dying then the PCs take revenge?

Are we certain aroden is dead? I know one guy who doubts.

Couple thoughts.

I think a fake out is in line. It looks like sarenrae, but then Torag takes the deathblow for her satisfies multiple criteria.

Maybe more than one die? Can we rule out a big shake-up? Adventure arc opens with a good god dying then the PCs take revenge?

Are we certain aroden is dead? I know one guy who doubts.

Captain America 750 was full of good moments. Gail Simone's story was cute, but I loved the send off for Arnie Roth, who might be mainstream comics first good gay character. (1982) His story was so good, they stole the prewar part for MCU Bucky. writer J. M. DeMatteis came back for this story.

However, I will remind you that Razmiran, more than any other evil force, can raise a character about the institutional nature of evil, which cannot be defeated by killing the leader of the villains. Razmir is not so much a direct "god" as a mask. Anyone can take his place.

I think an unusual plot could be a political-detective story where the group confronts Razmiran in order to find out that now we are faced with the third Razmir at this place.

A PC must become the Fourth Dread pirate Roberts.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

...and the great part about this is that it forces them to engage with the world, but doesn't necessarily force them to do so in an actively hostile way. Like, a lich can totally be sating its undead hunger by finding some way t make lots of money and then winning auctions for rare tomes... or by buying all those rare and valuable experimental components... or by hiring adventuring parties!

Or subscribing to all research (not only magical) magazines or reports of all Golarion's academies.

And obviously, no self-respecting lich is not subscribed to Pathfinder Chronicles.

New head-canon: the Decemvirate are 9/10 liches.

Dancing Wind wrote:

Quote:

We are currently sold out of Pathfinder Beginner Boxes, with news on that to come!

Is this a GenCon announcement or just a 'reorder process went awry' announcement?

Nothing is awry. We don’t have anything further to announce today.

Speculation: New Beginner box for Remaster.

AceofMoxen wrote:

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Also, all of this is predicated on the assumption that decent AI generators won't be licensed to hell and back forcing you to pay out the nose for access to a service that your buddy at the FLGS would do for a couple of root beers and a pepperoni pizza.

The limit is not money, but time.

Any discussion that does not on some level include money in its considerations is short-sighted. Cost is one of the major contributing factors as to whether there will be a version of the product that can be adopted by the public in a meaningful way and iterated upon based on their wants and desires as opposed to remaining say... a method for Disney to pay fewer writers and artists on the next multi-mega-crossover marvel superhero event featuring Chadwick Boseman's ghoulishly digitally resurrected image.

(Man, it's a sad day when the communist has to remind people to think in terms of capitalism)

I'm an economist. Things are maximized to the limit of their scarcest input, relative to the size of that input. If your pie recipe takes 2 apples and one pound of bread, the limit is apples divided by 2 or pounds of bread. In a market system, you can trade money for the scarcest input.

However, while you may trade your time for others' money, there are limits on trading your money for others' time. The market may exist for ten Douglas Adams books a year, but he famously took forever to write a book, and only got them out at a much slower rate. Ironically, in fact, his increasing pay tended to lower his output, with new books coming out as he was about to run out of cash.

The money will be there for some segment of the population, but the time will not be for many people. Further, AI use is already nearly free, and technology costs tend to come down. It's possible that, like social media or Uber, the Monetary costs could slowly rise instead, but I doubt that they will lock as many out as the time constraint.

Also, all of this is predicated on the assumption that decent AI generators won't be licensed to hell and back forcing you to pay out the nose for access to a service that your buddy at the FLGS would do for a couple of root beers and a pepperoni pizza.

The limit is not money, but time.

"Look at me. I am the patron now."

AceofMoxen wrote:

OP is starting with PF1 now, in 2023. So PF1 is running on a system that was cutting edge 23 years ago, which I rounded to 25.

Wow.

That's a long time.

I maintain that PF1 is badly flawed, and it always worried me that few were interested in addressing those flaws within the system without creating a new one.

3rd edition was fine, 3.5 was incredible, but by late 3.5 (the polymorph fix and swift actions), the system was showing its age compared to newer games. Pathfinder one killed dead levels and improved on 3.5, but at that point, the game was improving much slower than the gaming landscape around it. Unchained didn't solve much, and the late PF1 stuff seemed to lean into problems rather than introduce solutions.

In news that matters, Al Ewing will attempt a second Herculean feat of doing what he did for Hulk with Immortal Thor. So take that as you will.

*is dreading new comic book this week given the spoilage that came a few weeks ago*

Also Alan Scott isn't RUINED. He's better. :p

Immortal Hulk was amazing, Immortal x-men is fine, but I don't need a whole immortal line of comics.

Alan Scott is better, is his wife still in hell? Did they ever divorce? I'd like to hear her be glad for him. The last time I saw her, she sold her soul to stay with him, which is now incredibly creepy.

Reminds of the time Spawn told Batman his mother was in Hell. It was the most interesting thing Martha Wayne ever did.

World's Finest - another AI revolution. Meh. I think this latest story arc might be suffering from Waid having to work on more than one series. And I've always though Amazo was a bit overpowered. The kind of villain the Justice League should really never be able to defeat. Making him smarter just makes that even more so. Still, if nothing else, it's nice seeing some other heroes. Especially Metamorpho, Hawkman (however briefly) and Firestorm. Overall though, I think I'd have preferred this remain a kind of murder mystery story.

We've seen unbeatable Amazo before. The recent Failsafe was built with Amazo tech. (Could Batman build a robot even Batman couldn't defeat?) Grant Morrison also did an unbeatable Amazo in one of my favorite issues. The animated Justice League had Amazo ascend into an uncaring god-like being, playing chess with Dr. Fate.

Freehold DM wrote:

AceofMoxen wrote:

Tristan d'Ambrosius wrote:

PF2. Cleaner ruleset. Closer parity between classes. 3 Action economy.

This, and a million little things that make up keftiu's comment, and I was genuinely tried of 3.5's problems. PF1 starts with a 25-years out of date operating system. We've had so many innovations since then.

3.x was 25 years old when pf1 came out? That can't be right...can it?

No, it can't. 3.0 released in 2000, then 3.5 was like 2 years later. Pathfinder, as a system, released in 2009.

sigh. OP is starting with PF1 now, in 2023. So PF1 is running on a system that was cutting edge 23 years ago, which I rounded to 25.

Kraven and Morbius are bottom-of-the-barrel spider-man villains. Why aren't they using Prowler, Black Cat, Doc Ock, or any of the interesting villains?

I feel like there's probably a better way to go about it than class kits.

Like, just have a brief walkthrough of two iconics and how their starting gear looks. Mention things like "Kyra has healers tools to make use of her medicine skill" and "Merisiel has thieves tools for Thievery, but doesn't need any items to make use of Diplomacy". (Kyra in particular seems useful for that because warpriests touch on basically everything you'd be considering during that step of character creation)

I think Kyra is cloistered.

keftiu wrote:

Tropkagar wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Also wasn’t the Consortium in P1 at the climax of Organized Play?

I'm not aware of Organized Play at all.

That’s where 90% of the Aspis Consortium content is - they’ve been one of, if not the single main antagonists across Society’s run.

Even if you don’t do Organized Play (like me!), the scenarios have a lot of fun lore that isn’t found anywhere else.

In that case, I think a book about this organization is all the more needed.

Having played PFS2, I think the Consortium is intentionally vague. Many scenarios have no actual agents, but a warning that if you fail, the Consortium will do the job instead. I think a lack of lore is a strength of the Aspis.

I just finished the second volume of Batman: White Knight, maybe the Greatest Batman story of all time. Really digs into who profits and what makes Batman better than a vigilante. I can't recommend it enough without spoiling it. The first volume came out in 2017, but it has situations that echo the 2020 protests. Both volumes have a satisfying mystery that Batman cannot simply punch his way out of. The only criticism I have is that switching the order of Todd and Grayson feels unnecessarily complicated, but perhaps the next volume will give me a reason for that.

The Raven Black wrote:

PF2 is Pathfinder too. Saying otherwise sounds extremely scornful for PF2 and the people who enjoy it.

.

It's certainly not intended. PF or PF2 / Pathfinder or Pathfinder Two. Or however.

Almost no one says "the great war" to refer to WW1, for an example. You might try "original pathfinder," like we say the "original trilogy" of Star Wars.

It seems to me that "the exception suggests the rule," but must be considered with other factors. It's not an overiding rule, but could be evidence towards a rule.

Is there an update or ruling on this?

PF2. Cleaner ruleset. Closer parity between classes. 3 Action economy.

This, and a million little things that make up keftiu's comment, and I was genuinely tried of 3.5's problems. PF1 starts with a 25-years out of date operating system. We've had so many innovations since then.

And if I look at Weapon Implement, it gets a +2 status bonus to attack at level 9+, that's a crazy bonus. With a Longsword it actually beats a Greatsword Fighter in damage.

Are you taking the -3 on attack rolls vs. a fighter? (at half the levels, including early ones.)

Games lore is a fun one. Pack an old mage deck.

Another Legend gone. He was great at designing characters that really popped off the page.

CorvusMask wrote:

surprised dead suns hardcover is missing the quote huh

The reprint should fix this with: "It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake."

Associated with the execution of Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien in 1804, France. The actual person who said it is disputed.

Stolen Fate AP: The future is not set. There is no fate, but what we make for ourselves.

Terminator two. (said twice in the extended version)

Lost Omens Highhelm: Torag's might alone will never be enough. You must learn to stand together and rely on each other. -Hammer and Tongs

From the in-universe holy book, I assume. (Don't split the party is good advice)

Drift Hackers: Alphanumeric!

I got nothing.

Eeveegirl1206 wrote:

Are not Balors basically the Balrogs from Lord of the Rings with the last letter changed?

And that's double the reason they can't use those.

Tolkien estate don't play around.

The video game wing of LOTR has been explicit that since this is the last decade of The Hobbit's copyright, they need to "exploit*" the property as much as possible. Expect five more games of Gollum's quality.

*Yes, they used this word.

NO video game ever is "needed".

I'm going to disagree. Papers, Please was absolutely needed.

Will the Foundry version include any updates that would be considered errata?

I don't have any special knowledge, but one of the volunteers posted some changes on reddit (currently unavailable due to protests) They have corrected numbers that were missing or calculated wrong, but no major changes to the systems.

Edit: looks like they reopened: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/yefa9m/kingmaker_suggested_e rrata_from_the_foundry_pf2e/

AceofMoxen wrote:

bugleyman wrote:

AceofMoxen wrote:

If creating a cake is art, then creating a mini is art. Art is automatically protected at creation. "Beak-Bear," to the extent it is copyrightable, belongs to the mini guy.

I do not believe that is correct. The art that is protected by copyright in your scenario is (only) that specific sculpture. "Beak-bear" is uncopyrightable, because it is an idea. So one could not take a cast of the sculpture and start cranking out copies, but one would be entirely free to create one's own sculpture of a conceptually identical creature.

Generally speaking, copyright protects expression, while trademarks protect creations. Think of it this way: copyright stops me from selling copies of The Sorcerer's Stone, while it is trademark protections which prevent me from writing a book about the wizard Harry Potter.

Note: I am not a lawyer, but I did survive business law as an undergrad (i.e. back in the before times).

I did say "to the extent it is copyrightable." I'm very curious where the line is for any type of bird-bear hybrids, but establishing that the idea predates Gygax is an important part of that.

I feel Owlbears are safe if you change them up enough because WoW has their own flavor Owlbear but they are pretty distinct from DnD Owlbears with the only similarity being having the traits of an owl and a bear

Hasbro is maybe a $2 billion dollars a year company. Blizzard is so much bigger they can do what they want.

The Thing From Another World wrote:

AceofMoxen wrote:

The Thing From Another World wrote:

Not a fan of that particular novels series. The ending especially swore me off almost buying 4E because the major change was done to make FR more in line with 4E. I won’t say more because I dislike how it was handled to this day and because it would require major spoilers.

It's about the only positive experience I have had with FR fiction, so we clearly have very different tastes.

What was promised and what we received ended up totally being different. The ending especially was an huge bait and switch imo. I could say more I just don’t want to spoil it for other readers.

I understand that 4E changed, altered and removed much of the previous FR lore. What could have been done surgically with a scalpel with precision. Was instead run over with a bulldozer so it conformed to what Wotc wanted the 4E lore to be.

They are not an horrible read by any means though it felt like an also to older FR fans.

The current situation with Paizo feels very similar with everything being bulldozed to fit what they want the remaster to be.

The fact that Paizo is saying "this sucks, and we know it's not all good." is a huge difference for me. 4e was presented with condescension. WotC, with both 4e and changing the OGL said "Here's the new thing. You will love the New Thing. The old thing is gone forever. Yes, even in your homebrew."

Not a fan of that particular novels series. The ending especially swore me off almost buying 4E because the major change was done to make FR more in line with 4E. I won’t say more because I dislike how it was handled to this day and because it would require major spoilers.

It's about the only positive experience I have had with FR fiction, so we clearly have very different tastes.

Personally I love a bit of unrepentant malevolence from my pantheon leaders. I love the idea of deity who is called absolutely good by his followers but who demands human sacrifice and annihilation of enemies at war. The contradictions make them interesting characters.

Odin, Zeus etc have horrific crimes attributed to them (by modern standards ) but are also deities of hospitality, law, justice. So I am quite happy when fantasy pantheons are as interesting as they are.

As Rysky said, this almost completely impossible in the alignment system. It's been a recurring issue to try to place Poseidon, for instance. So rejoice! Alignment is going away!

The "war of the spider queen" six-part novel series goes into quite a bit of detail, including lolth's chance at redemption.

I don’t blame Corellion for not apologizing . If my wife at the time worked with my mortal enemy of the Orcish gods (Grumsh) to plan my death all so that she could gain more power at my expense. I wouldn’t be apologizing either. It’s amazing people forget that she not only was willing to betray Corellion the rest of the elvish pantheon as well simply for power and prestige. She was also responsible for causing elistraee to be banished because she magically cursed her daughter bow to hit her own father.

Corellion is no saint neither is Lolth.

Let's rewind to the start of the conflict. Corellion created the elves. Lolth was enamored with corellion and everything he/they touched. She saw mosquitos biting the elves and created spiders to protect them. She said "look Corellion, I can create things, too." He yelled and abused her for this. He abused his 'wife.' She went to the one safe place from his wrath and took comfort with Grumsh.

It's an abuse story, and like all abusers, Corellion is all "Look what you made me do" about the drow.

Also, Mr. Thing, saying "neither is a saint" is missing the point that the abuser is CG.