Almarane's page

Or "How four idiots managed to survive the apocalypse".

I will try to sum up my party's progress in the AP in this thread to not clog up the general thread too much.

Everyone was super excited to play Tyrant's Grasp. Especially because :
- the characters start up as nobodies, instead of heroes or extraordinary people.
- motherf*cking Tar'Baphon. Some of my players already played Carrion Crown and we wanted to see this next chapter in Tar'Baphon's story.

The Setup

We play once per month at my house, for sessions going up to 8 hours.

All the maps are put on Roll20 and I use a projector to show them to my players on the table. This way, I can anotate my maps and uncover only the sections they saw, and they can place their minis on the map.

When the confinement started, we switched to playing on Roll20. And... boy, it's not the same thing at all. Those sessions were particularly painfull. Now that the confinmenet is lifted in our country, we are back to playing IRL.

House rules used

• No grid : We play without the tactical grid. We find it too limiting, so now we do all our movements the real distance. This needed some adjustments though, like stating that the enemy's mini must be at least half inside your attack's area to be a valid target, but it's more intuitive for the players.

• Equipment points : Heavily inspired by the PF2 system. Each character has 10 Equipment Points (EP). They can equip any item regardless of its slot, as long as they have enought EPs and it's logical (you can't wear two pair of boots but you can wear two belts).
  Slotted items cost 1 EP, and most slotless items and consumables cost 0 EP. Weapons and armors also cost 0 EP.
  Metamagic staffs are now Metamagic conduits. They all cost 1 EP each. If you have the ability to craft magical items, you can fuse all Metamagic conduits in one object that will cost you only 1 EP (this way, you can have a staff of Minor Quick Spell and Major Bouncing Spell for only 1 EP instead of 2).
  All items giving back slots and spells are now Thaumaturgical conduits. In terms of cost, they work like the Metamagic conduits. They can either give you back a slot you already used if you are a spontaneous caster, or make you cast once again a spell you already used if you are a prepared caster.
  Items effects are no longer bound to the item type, as long as the effect is logical with the item (you can have the effect of a Cloak of Arachnida on gloves for exemple).

• No alignment : Alignment always was a pain point for my players, so we removed it.
  Now nobody has an aligned aura.
  The paladin and antipaladin Smite works on any creature, regardless of its alignment.
  The aligned DRs of creatures change depending on the creature's original alignments (and not the alignment that could bypass the DR). Loyal > silver ; Chaotic > cold steel ; Neutral Good > cold steel ; Neutral Evil > silver. If the creature already had this DR, the new DR becomes a "DR X/magic" instead.
  All spells who deal damages depending on the alignment were fused (and you can now choose which side effect you want to inflict) depending on their target (area spells and single targets). All Aura spells, Protections, Dispel, Magical circles were fused. By default, all other spells who use alignment were removed from the game (unless a character asks).

Other rules

• 20 creation points
  
• Background skills (Unchained)

The Party

• - Levyriah "Levy" : A female Ifrit Sorceress (Red Dragon), building towards a Draconian Disciple. Took the Outsider trait. Fights with a Lucerne hammer, and specializes in Evocation magic, particularly Fire. She does not remember where she came from and is in search of her family. She's really rough and lacks empathy. Her player is a newcomer who never played Pathfinder before. She has been sent by Evni Zongnoss to Roslar's Coffer to work a bit and search for clues on her parents.
  
• - Qil : A male Samsaran kid Word Magic Druid (Moon child) (Tempest Domain). Took the Reclaimer trait. Full caster, healer, with very low melee battle capabilities. In therms of combat casting, mainly does Electicity damages. He was an inhabitant of Roslar's Coffer. By some twist of fate, he is his own grandfather/grandson. A kind and polite kid, who lets the adults speak. Some memories of his past lives come back from time to time, and he knows about his family's weird shenanigans. After Book 1, he especially likes to shapeshift into a crow to scout and cast spells from a distance. His player already played some Pathfinder, but is still a bit of a beginner and never played a spellcaster before.
  
• - Phileas : A male Half-Orc Cavalier (Strategist), with a dip in Ranger and building towards a Knight of Ozem. Took the Optimist trait. Mainly built as an armored, sword-and-board tank, and the secondary melee DPR. He relies on his stategist abilities to give his allies the edge in battle. He's an apprentice soldier from Vigil who was sent to Roslar's coffer to guard the town after failing to become a Knight of Ozem. He holds justice in his heart, but lack kindness and is very pragmatic, sometimes even cruel. His player is an experienced Pathfinder player and DM. Was part of the group that played Carrion Crown.
  
• - Roy Summerleaf : A male Human Swashbuckler (Whirling Dervish). Took the Word trait. Built as a finesse melee fighter, with extra reach and the ability to use rotative attacks, and the main melee DPR. His parents were priests of Sarenrae when Roslar's Coffer got attacked by the orcs. His father died fighting the orcswhile his mother and him fled, and they went to Vigil. When he became an adult, Roy came back as a priest of Sarenrae to Roslar's Coffer to help reconstruct it and take back the Bastion of Light. His player is an experienced Pathfinder player and starting DMing recently. Was also part of the group that player Carrion Crown.
  
• - The DM (me): Played Pathfinder for 5-6 years, mostly DMing official Paizo content.

I planned for each character a secret arc that will play out during the AP. Unless someone asks to know these in advance, I will reveal them once they are played out.

We started playing in June of 2019.

Hi there

I am currently working on an electronic bestiary (French only, sorry) that automatically computes statblocks. I wanted to test it out on my next game of Tyrant's Grasp, but then I tried to add some creatures and the natural attacks maths seem... off. I wanted to know if it was me that forgot some rules, or if the statblocks are indeed wrong.

The problem arises from ennemies capable of using manufactured weapons and natural attacks. As a reminder, here are the rules :

Most creatures possess one or more natural attacks (attacks made without a weapon). These attacks fall into one of two categories, primary and secondary attacks. Primary attacks are made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and add the creature’s full Strength bonus on damage rolls. Secondary attacks are made using the creature’s base attack bonus –5 and add only 1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on damage rolls. If a creature has only one natural attack, it is always made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and adds 1-1/2 times the creature’s Strength bonus on damage rolls. This increase does not apply if the creature has multiple attacks but only takes one. If a creature has only one type of attack, but has multiple attacks per round, that attack is treated as a primary attack, regardless of its type. You do not receive additional natural attacks for a high base attack bonus. Instead, you receive additional attack rolls for multiple limb and body parts capable of making the attack (as noted by the race or ability that grants the attacks).

Some creatures treat one or more of their attacks differently, such as Dragons, which always receive 1-1/2 times their Strength bonus on damage rolls with their bite attack. These exceptions are noted in the creature’s description.

Creatures with natural attacks and attacks made with weapons can use both as part of a full attack action (although often a creature must forgo one natural attack for each weapon clutched in that limb, be it a claw, tentacle, or slam). Such creatures attack with their weapons normally but treat all of their available natural attacks as secondary attacks during that attack, regardless of the attack’s original type.

So, I tried to reconstruct one of the ennemies*. They're a tengu with 18 in Strength, and no feats nor abilities granting them extra damage. But when I compute their attacks, I get :

It seems like the bite damages are calculated by adding their normal Strength modifier to their damages.

But, as I understand the rules, since they only use their bite for the second combo, they should add their Strength x1.5 (only one natural attack in this attack because of the "or", and they are not able to make another natural attack).

I tried looking for other official statblocks similar to this one. I found some, and it seems like, as long as they have at least one manufactured weapon, even if they can only make one natural attack, they only add their Strength as damage once if they only attack with their natural attacks, so 1d3+4 for our NPC. This seems consistent with the official Paizo statblocks (for exemple, the canibal )

But I found some threads (notably this one) where players tend to say the opposite, and that this NPC should use their bite at 1d3+6 damages.

Plus, it seems strange to me that your only natural weapon becomes less efficient as long as you potentially can use a manufactured weapon. If you are using a weapon in the same attack, sure, since you are less focused on your natural attack. But otherwise ? Does that mean I have to re-calculate the damages if the monster grabs a weapon that was not in their statblock ? Same thing when they are disarmed and can only rely on their unique bite attack ?

I'm kinda lost, so I need your help to figure this out @_@

Hi everyone

My players regularly find giant monsters (i.e. Huge or more) "not fun" when I GM them. But I like using giant monsters : they are inherantly scary, and even though I tend to be nice with my players and try to not give them impossible challenges, a good Kaiju or two from time to time is a good way to establish that "serious sh*t is going down and the situation is not something to take lightly". Plus, the more you gain levels, the more you will have to use giant monsters to have level-appropriate encounters against a single ennemy. Also, giant monsters are cool. So I see this situation as a problem.

When I talked to them to know what is their problem, they told me that giant monsters are way too powerfull compared to PCs. Most of the time, if the monster hits with even only one attack, it will at least put one PC unconscious (except for the occasional tank with a tone of HPs who is down after two hits). It's worse when the monster has multiple attacks because they can take out multiple PCs in a single turn, or focus on one PC to be sure to down them. Plus, giant monsters tend to have special abilities that can cancel any character once it triggers (for exemple, the Giant Flytrap's Engulf ability tends to completely remove a character from the fight until the Flytrap is killed, since it has a monstruous grapple modifier). From my players' perspective, these prevent the "giant monster encouters" from being scary : since they one-shot pretty much anyone, you immediatly go from the "okay I'm full health this should be okay until I take a hit" to "okay I'm dead time to wait for the battle to end and for my healer to heal me". Put this way, I can understand their frustration.

Also, this can become kind of frustrating for me as well sometimes. When I one-shot a player, it's not really fun. And when I don't one-shot a player, that mainly means that I did not hit them once, and so the fight appears "easy" since the monster never really fought. And the players end up killing the monster in two to three turns, because, despite their big damage output, giant monsters are not that resistant. I don't think the GM is "against" the players, but they have to at least give them a challenge from time to time, so it bothers me when I build up a big encounter/(mid-)boss fight for my monster to finally just be a glorified punching bag.

Just getting out of a giant creature's reach is most of the time not possible. When you play a close-combat character... well, you have to get close of your target. And if you are a long-range character, you don't really have many options to get to a safe spot. A Step only covers 5ft, so it's not enough for a Huge monster or more if it's right next to you, and a retreat only cancels the opportunity attacks from the first square.

So, I am looking for some advices on how to run and/or modify "giant" monsters to make them more fun, more scary, and less frustrating. Do you have any ideas on what I could do ? How do you run your giant monsters ? Do you change some things ?

Hello

To the hero who made the maps of book 4 of Tyrant's Grasp :

Thank you

Finally maps where the secret passages are drawn in way that the "S" symbol is on a different layer than the actual map, and that there is enough space between the room and the secret room that I don't have to spend 15 minutes on Photoshop to edit the map enough to make the secret passage invisible.

I know I tend to be pretty harsh with Paizo, so I really wanted to let you know that this made my day. I hope future official maps will stick to this.

Hi everyone ! :)

One of my players suggested me a workaround I will probably use to remove alignment from my games: Divine and Heretic. So I will expose it here in case it could be of help for another GM :)

"Divine" is related to your patron god's / concept's values. For exemple, showing mercy to your ennemy will be Divine for a follower of Sarenrae, and a spell raising an undead will be Divine for a follower of Urgatoah. Divine targets are targets that follow your values, such as an angel for Iomedae. Divine damages deal damages to targets that are Heretic to you, such as fiends for Iomedae.

"Heretic" is related to your patron god's / concept's anathemas and ennemies. Showing mercy to your ennemy will be Heretic for a follower of Asmodeus, and a spell raising an undead is Heretic for a follower of Pharasma. Heretic damages deal damages to targets that are Divine to you, such as psychopomps for Pharasma. (Heretic damages would be quiet rare, since attacking a Divine target would be an Heretic act unless special circumstances).

Replace all occurences of alignment by either "Divine" or "Heretic", depending on the context. For exemple, the Champion's Divine Smite, Holy Cascade and Hellfire Plume will now deal Divine damages (so a Champion of Pharasma will deal damages to undeads but not to psychopomps, and an undead casting Hellfire Plume will deal Divine damages to said Champion of Pharasma while a psychopomp casting the same Hellfire Plume on this Champion will deal no damages).

It is somewhat of a redux Loyalty system mixed with the Anathema system that only impacts divine characters and outsiders (since they seem to be the only characters with alignment-based mechanics). You will have to make judgment calls on what is considered Divine and Heretic on a per-character basis, but IMHO this can be improvised quickly when the situation presents itself and at character creation if you have a solid comprehension of your setting's gods'/concepts' values.

Hope this helps :)

Note: Please do not debate here about if removing alignment from the game is a good idea / a bad idea / necessary / not necessary as it is not the point of this thread. If you like alignment and want to keep it in your game, or if you don't like it and want to remove it, that's neither good nor bad, that's your decision and nobody should judge you on this. But you can debate about the Divine and Heretic rules or other ways to replace alignment here if you'd like.
Let's stay civic folks :)

Hi there

So, in the rules, it is said :

Two special types of energy damage specifically target the living and the undead. Positive energy often manifests as healing energy to living creatures but can create positive damage that withers undead bodies and disrupts and injures incorporeal undead. Negative energy often revivifies the unnatural, unliving power of undead, while manifesting as negative damage that gnaws at the living.

I am not sure how to interprete this. I see two possibilities :

Which one is correct ?

So, it seems we are multiple GMs planning to/who have added mythic rules to our campaign. So here is a thread to expose different ideas and/or ask questions about mythic parties, in the scope of TG.

I'm still debating wether I will add mythic or not. I wonder how this will impact the campaign and its atmosphere. Won't it make it less "survival horror" if the characters are above everyone else ?

I will probably stop to rank 3. Rank 1 powers don't seem game-breaker. But even so, I will probably ban the less "campaign appropriate" feats and powers, like Divine Source for exemple. As of when to give them those ranks, I've seen people choosing to do so when the Radiant Fire is triggered (so end of book 1, during book 3 and end of book 4) or when strong moments happen in the scenario.

Adding mythic ranks to ennemies seem weird to me... But with some thoughts, maybe there are some ennemies who do deserve mythic ranks ? Like the Graveknight at the end of book 4 ? Do you have some in mind ?

Do you have other suggestions and/or questions to share ?

Warning : this thread spoils both the first book and the end of the AP. If you are not a GM or do not want to be spoiled the last two books, do NOT read what comes next !

You have been warned.

We're between knowing people now?
Good.

I had an idea, and I am leaving this here, in case it can be of use for someone.

So, yesterday my party cleared Roslar's tomb from book 1, and one of them did something I did not expect : instead of taking the offerings under Roslar's statue, he donnated some money. He told me that this was to compensate for the weapons, healing items and Roslar's equipements they took from the tomb. I was pleasantly surprised by his generosity. Plus, they tend to not mercilessly kill whatever they see, which is good. So I have been searching for a way to reward my players who putted effort into their roleplay. Plus, this would show them that good deeds have as much consequences as bad ones, and encourage them to keep on being generous.

I am also reading Book 4 and 5 in advance, and I came accross the bit where the players learn they have to die to stop Tar-Baphon. I was not really thrilled by this : sure, this would be a heroic death, but I really don't like killing my players if they don't deserve it. The scenario suggests to make an NPC tell them they can link their soul to a specific tree to be resurrected later, but I didn't like it either. It defeats the idea of the characters throwing their lives to save the world, and the heartbreaking drama that would ensue.

And then, I had an idea. Let's go back to Book 1.

We know that Barzakh is conscious of the PCs presence in the Dead Roads, and uses his powers to see the PCs journey through the Boneyard. Pleased by the PCs' generosity (for leaving an offering at Roslar's Coffer to thank Roslar for the equipement, and for their continued misericord on their opponents), Barzakh will give them a coin stamped with his holy symbol. If a PC tries to magicaly identify it, they will see the aura of an artefact and won't be able to determine its powers. If questioned about it, Barzakh will only respond that "this coin will show you the road when you need it the most".

During the adventure, the first time a character dies, they will be transported to the Dead Roads in front of Barzakh, who will ask them to "pay the toll". All they will find on them is Barzakh's coin. If they give it to him, Barzakh sends them back to Golarion, alive, and the real life's version of the coin will disappear.

BUT... If all characters manage to stay alive until the end of the AP and sacrifice themselves, they will all be transported to the Dead Roads in front of Barzakh. He will congratulate and thank them for their sacrifice for the greater good, which was a heartbreaking decision, but a righteous one. If the players want to talk a bit with him, they can. If not, or once the players don't have anything to talk with him anymore, he will ask them to "give back what I lent you". If the PCs give him the coin back, he sends them all back to the living world as their final reward.

I hope to maximize the drama from the final climax this way :) Plus, this keeps Barzakh relevant until the end, him being the one who allows the players to start their adventure, and the one closing it. I also think it's as important to reward your players for good actions as to penalize them for bad ones.

I hope this idea will help some of you ! :)

Hi Paizo Team ! :)

So, I preordered "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Core Set" and "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path" on April 28th (order 7825501, shipping address in France, using Mail Innovations International).

Those two products were listed as shipping in 1 to 5 business days from May 13th. But now 6 days passed and my order is still marked as "Not yet shipped", so I wanted to ask if you know when my package will be shipped ? Does shipping from the USA to France make the shipping deadline longer ?

Have a nice day :)

So, I was curious about what funny things your players did in your campaign :)

(Of course, this thread is going to be spoiler heavy. Read at your own risks !)

I will try to remember some few things myself.

• Book 1 : Everyone but the barbarian got afraid by the Poltergeist's power and fleed. The barbarian did not understand what was happening and just kept on attacking the Poltergeist for several rounds without making any damage to it, and the Poltergeist couldn't damage him as well.

• Book 1 : The group fights their first Ectoplasmic creature, and the Witch Necromancer uses her powers to control it. Ensues a 30 minutes debate between the Witch and the Inquisitor of Sarenrae on "should the Witch keep controlling this undead, or should we realease it and kill it".

• Book 2 : After fighting the Manticore, the PCs discover she was pregnant. They then proceed to burn through all of their spell slots and numerous Medicine rolls to save the baby Manticore. And they succeed ! But sadly they don't know how to take care of it and give it to someone :( No mascot Babyticore here :(

• Book 2 : The PCs turned an abandonned church into a Disco Night after spamming light spells to kill a ghost.

• Book 2 : The group fights through Schloss Caromarc. The Inquisitor and the Paladin bravely enter the destroyed laboratory. Then they spot the two Rust Monsters, run the other way and close the door after them, leaving the With and the Oracle alone.

• Book 2 : A bit later, they encounter the giant ape-thing-golem. The Witch uses a power to reduce its Strength for 24 hours, and then another character uses their brand new Ring of the Ram to push the golem off the bridge. The golem lost just enough Strength to not be able to climb back :(

• Book 3 : First conversation with Estovion Lozarov. They manage to talk about EVERY subjects that increase Lozarov's paranoia. Half a day later, they triggered every remaining points that increase his paranoia, except talking to his assistant before talking to him.

• Book 3 : PCs are attacked by a bunch of werewolves while going to Desna's temple. The werewolves start by killing off their horses so they can't escape. The Witch necromancer resurrects the horses, jumps on one of the undead horsies, and yells to her comrade : "Jump on these horses if you want to stay alive !" The Paladin of Iomedae looks at her for a few seconds. Before muttering "may my goddess pardon me" and jump on one of the zombie horses.

• Book 3 : PCs were not discreet in the abandoned town and trigerred every encounters at the south of the map. This resulted in the random spawn of one cultist and 15 undeads. How did they manage to kill them ? The Hunter got on his Roc and flew, while the Witch used Fly on her and the Paladin of Iomedae, and then the Witch casted Black Tentacles on the ground. With the Warpriest of Desna in the middle of the zone. And the Warpriest failed his save. Ensues hentai references. The cultist will forever be remembered as "Bob, the cultist with 15 undeads, who went a little too trigger happy with his Animate Undead wand".

• Book 4 : Paladin gets attacked by a swarm. Hunter casts Resist fire on him, and then summon a bunch of Small Fire Elementals who proceed to do a group hug with the Paladin.

• Book 4 : The group lets a Necrocraft babysit the baby they just found.

• Book 4 : "F*ck, I don't have any Teleport spells left." - The Witch in front of the Spawn of Shub'Nigurat.

• Book 5 : The group finds the hag's skull and turns it into dust. But not before wondering if they can turn it into bone meal, bake it, and eat it.

• Book 6 : In the middle of Virlych, the Witch and the Hunter cast multiple spell to create a little hut at the border of a little pound, surrounded by berry schrubs. In the middle of Virlych.

• Book 6 : After discovering that the giant doors in front of Gibet is made of adamantium, one of my players tried to calculate its price... (Aproximately 150 000 000 GP) They begged me to take the doors and resell them.

And you ? Do you have fun stories to tell about your campaign ? :)

So, my party is at zone B4, and

RAW, M should not have a Perception check against the group. But it seems weird. I don't understand if M should use Perception against the group's Stealth (which would make the stealthy tactic useless), or if they just go past M without fighting him. What's your opinion ?

Hi everyone

One of my players is creating a character and has bought a +1 Potency Rune. At first we thought you only needed to buy the rune, then to etch it, but after reading the runes rules, we found :

THE ETCHING PROCESS

Etching a rune on an item follows the same process as using the Craft activity to make an item. You must have the formula for the rune, and the item you’re adding the rune to must be in your possession throughout the etching process. The rune has no effect until you complete the Craft activity. You can etch one rune at a time, and you can add or replace runes at a later time.

So now we are confused about how to buy runes. Here are our hypothesis :

1. You can buy a rune directly for its price on page 371, and it is immediatly etched into the weapon/armor of your choice (and you can buy a formula later if you want to)
2. If you want to enhance the weapon/armor of your choice, you can't buy a rune directly and you have to buy the formula before enhancing your weapon/armor or you have to buy a runestone with the rune on it

Which one is correct ?

Hi everyone :)

Two weeks ago, we finally got the chance to play Lost Star. I will post about Doomsday Dawn from now on, with a breakdown of the characters, how the sessions went on, and some afterthoughts.

At the end there will be a section named "GM's questions". To keep this thread clean, I will link each question to a thread on those forums, so you don't have to post the answers here and they can be available for everybody :)

Before we start : all future characters' sheets created for this playtest will be available here :D You will find my player's sheets and some extra experiments.

The players

GM and reporter : Almarane : experienced PF1 GM and player

Players :
• Littlerogue : experienced PF1 and various tabletop RPGs GM and player
• MM : novice PF1 and various tabletop RPGs player
• Damann Lorem : novice tabletop RPGs player, has never played PF1
• Zukma : experienced PF1 and various tabletop RPGs GM and player
• Deoda : experienced PF1 and various tabletop RPGs GM and player

Players were given copies of their class and race’s chapters, as well as copies of the equipment, the feats, the skills and the actions’ chapters to use during play.

All players created their characters at the same time.

The characters

Chiros
Played by Zukma
Dwarf (m) Cleric of Thorag 1 [Esoteric Scion]
• Critical Success : 4
• Success : 17
• Failure : 10
• Critical Failure : 0
• Remaining Hero Points : 2
• Used Hero Points : 0
• Starting Resonance Points : 1
• Remaining Resonance Points : 1
• Starting Spell Points : 4
• Remaining Spell Points : 4
• Remaining 1st level spell slots : 1

Siri
Played by MM
Goblin (f) Alchemist 1 [Goblin Renegade]
• Critical Success : 2
• Success : 9
• Failure : 8
• Critical Failure : 2
• Remaining Hero Points : 2
• Used Hero Points : 0
• Starting Resonance Points : 4
• Used Resonance Points : 4

Lorem Ipsum
Played by Littlerogue
Human (m) Fighter 1 [Pathfinder Hopefull]
• Critical Success : 4
• Success : 11
• Failure : 11
• Critical Failure : 1
• Remaining Hero Points : 0
• Used Hero Points : 2
• Starting Resonance Points : 2
• Used Resonance Points : 2

Archibold
Played by Deoda
Gnome (m) Sorcerer (imperial) 1 [Family Friend]
• Critical Success : 3
IMPORTANT NOTE : Two critical successes were made on Perception checks (natural 20) when there was nothing to find, and the last critical success was an Electric Arc on the Mindfog Fungus which did 0 damages.
• Success : 2
• Failure : 9
• Critical Failure : 1
• Remaining Hero Points : 2
• Used Hero Points : 0
• Starting Resonance Points : 5
• Used Resonance Points : 0
• Remaining 1st level spell slots : 0

Eau-pâle
Played by Damann Lorem
Half-orc (f) Monk 1 [Mind Quake Survivor]
• Critical Success : 1
• Success : 12
• Failure : 17
• Critical Failure : 3
• Remaining Hero Points : 2
• Used Hero Points : 0
• Starting Resonance Points : 1
• Used Resonance Points : 0
• Starting Spell Points : 3
• Remaining Spell Points : 2

The monsters
• Critical Success : 5
• Success : 17
• Failure : 27
• Critical Failure : 7

The game

A full summary of the game (with actions and rolls breakdown until the bossfight) is available here.

• Preparation time : 8 hours (4 hours to read twice, 3 hours and a half to print and redraw maps, 15 minutes to screenshot and print the player survey, 15 minutes to make a document for an Assistant GM)
• Character creation : 3 hours
• Actual play : 5 hours (1 session)
• Number of Hero Points given : 5 points
• Number of Hero Points used : 2 (used for a reroll)
• Number of times a PC was reduced to 0 Hit Points : 2
• Number of PC characters killed : 0
• Number of rests : 0
• Days taken : 1
• Update document used : 1.1

Encounters (in order) :
1. Sewer Ooze : defeated
2. Goblins in the crypt : defeated (one killed, three unconscious)
3. Skeletons : defeated
4. Drakus the Taker : defeated (Lorem fell to 0 HP)
5. Goblins in the crypt : Diplomacy check to stop the encounter succeeded, goblins fled the dungeon
6. Minfog fungus : destroyed
7. Giant centipedes : defeated (Lorem poisoned and fell to 0 HP because of it)
The Quasits were not encountered.

Other :
• The group did not find the owlbear claw but found every other hidden loot
• The fountain was not purified
• The Boneyard trap has been triggered and damaged 3 characters (another succeeded their Fortitude save)
• The group found the magic dagger but did not take it, thinking it was a trap
• The group received the blessing of Pharasma
• The group did not trigger the Poison Lock (used the master key)
• The group recovered the Star of Desna and the Notes on the Last Theorem
• The group talked about the Notes on the Last Theorem to Keleri

 
Players’ and GM’s afterthoughts:
• Rests and resilience: The group was gladly surprised they did not use any rest to complete the scenario. (GM note : It was probably due to the monsters making low rolls and combats taking 1 to 2 turns, except for Drakus and the Giant Centipedes)
• Shields: The players liked the new shield mechanics, but they said they found the shields fragile and were disturbed that Raise a Shield cost an action.
• Fighter: The players found the Fighter interesting compared to PF1.
• Level of difficulty: The group found Drakus too hard for a tutorial (especially because of his bludgeoning resistance), and the other encounters too easy. They felt like killing Drakus without having a dead character is somewhat of a miracle, and they were not surprised when the GM announced other parties had TPK at this battle.
• Dying: With the presence of a positive energy channeling Cleric, an Alchemist who could make healing elixirs and a Gnome who could cast Stabilize as an innate cantrip, the group felt like it was impossible to die and never felt in danger.
• Poison: They found the poison quite strong.
• Characters’ usefulness: the group found that Chiros and Lorem were the two most useful party members. On the opposite, the other players felt useless most of the time. We talked about that, and it seems it was mainly due to the fact that Chiros and Lorem were good melee fighters with good tanking and could take hits, for the rest of the party, and could pack a punch during fights, while the rest of the group lagged behind in term of damages and utility: Archibold failed his two 1st level spells and most of his cantrips while using every Arcane Surge he could and being an optimized caster ; Siri had to be weary of not hitting her allies and felt like her bombs were useful, but nothing else from her character was ; and Eau-Pâle did less damages since she was unarmed and was a Dex-based Monk. Someone said it may also be because they were 5 players instead of 4.
• Arcane Surge vs Ki Strike: Arcane Surge needs one action and Ki Strike is a free action, while they seem to have the same effect. This was frustrating for the Sorcerer. Even so, the Monk hesitated to use her Ki Strike multiple times, but ended up deciding it was not worth it, except once.
• Alchemist’s bombs: bombs being a limited resource while still being the main damage option for the Alchemist was frustrating, forcing Siri to use her Hand Crossbow more often than her bombs. Unlimited bombs (like unlimited cantrips and unlimited representations) would have greatly helped enjoy the Alchemist’s flavor, even if they were less powerful than normal bombs or than a crossbow.
• The Cleric became a Paladin: The Cleric was probably the most useful character from the party, with good damages, training from his deity, good tanking thanks to heavy armors and shields, and healing. In the end, he felt more like a Fighter with healing abilities or a Paladin than an actual spellcaster on par with the Sorcerer, or other spellcasters who have a hard time competing in terms of weapons and armors.
• The rules are hard to understand for everyone: The group stated that the rules were horribly hard for new players to understand, and horribly hard for old players because of the change rules.
• Door-Monster-Loot: The group felt quickly bored with the Door-Monster-Loot dungeon. Most of the players accepted that because it was a playtest scenario, but some expressed disappointment about it, feeling like most Pathfinder adventures were like that.
• Player knowledge vs character knowledge, and Take 20: The group was frustrated about the polluted fountain’s enigma. They knew there was something in the fountain, but since they all failed their Perception checks, their characters could not know it. The GM decided to play this scenario RAW and did not allow another search check until the context changed (which never happened). During the session’s recap, someone said nobody tried to Take 20 in the fountain. When the GM announced that Take 10 and Take 20 were removed from the game and talked about the Assurance feat, the players expressed disappointment and did not understand why it was removed.
• Action/Reaction system: The system is interesting, but the players found that what you could do was not flexible enough, depending on your character’s class (3 out of 5 characters did not have reactions, while the remaining 2 had two reactions) (GM note : it may be because they were only lvl 1 characters. We will need to play at higher level to find out more). It felt like PF2 was aiming at being more and more simulationist (and it was not necessarily a bad thing, but it was not making the game easy to understand). Nonetheless, they were pleased with this new system and found that having 3 actions allowed more modularity than the old system.
• Magic system: The spellcasters liked that you could modulate your actions for some spells (in this instance, heal) to make them more or less powerful, and that your spellcaster bonus would add to the spells’ efficiency. The Cleric liked that you could cast spells at higher level, while the Sorcerer did not like that. We are waiting to see how this plays out at higher level.
• Aid/Assist: It took the group a long time to understand how Aid worked, and they felt like it was too hard and not useful enough to use. Assist was hard to use for spellcasters too because they had to go next to the enemy and hit them with an attack, which was unlikely for the Sorcerer.
• Focus action: Someone suggested to add an action to focus on your next action, giving you a bonus on your next action. This would help to make hard actions during combat at the cost of an action.
• Monk not trained with weapon: The Monk would have liked to use some basic weapons against bludgeoning-resistant enemies. Using weapons untrained felt too inefficient. The players missed that monk weapons were behind a feat. Maybe add a limited range of weapons available as trained for every monk to be able to attack bludgeoning-resistant ennemies.
• Recall Knowledge takes too much time: Recall Knowledge as an action felt too taxing for players, who said they felt like it was not useful enough for its cost. They would like it to go back being a free action, or a reaction to take the time to think about what it is and tell other characters.
• Confusing character sheet: The character sheet was confusing. Players were surprised it was a landscape format. (GM note: Luckily the new character sheet seems to resolve most of those problems. We will see next session)
• Hero points: The group felt that they were useless. Only one character used it to reroll. There was also a small debate over morale implications of giving out Hero points for out-of-game actions, especially since they are limited in online games.

GM only afterthoughts :
• Monster capacities in damage blocs and Drakus’s grab: I thought for the whole fight against Drakus that the grab after his claw attack was a free action, while it was in fact an action. I am used to PF1, where this way of writing means this is a free maneuver, while in PF2 this means it costs actions and is an automatic success. The confusion in PF2 is even legitimate when those maneuvers are written in the same way as poison, which are not automatic. An action symbol was missing, and maybe it should have something like “automatic grab” written instead. That would have cleared that for me.
• Recall Knowledge: It was hard to adjudicate which skill was the good skill to use for Recall Knowledge and Identify Magic Item. In the end, I made the Sewer Ooze be a Nature check and Drakus an Occultism check. I also ruled that you could identify a magic item mimicking a spell (like scrolls and wands) only if you had the skill linked to the spell’s magic tradition, and other magic items could be identified with any skill.

GM’s questions :
• Bite: Unlike Fist for the Monk, the Bite from the Goblins’ feat is not listed anywhere. What its stats are supposed to be ? I ruled them as doing piercing damages, and having no trait.
• Special senses: There was nowhere to write down special senses in the first character sheet. The new character sheet has not corrected this issue.
• Pouches: Do Backpacks and pouches add bulk you are able to carry to your encumbered and maximum limit ? Or do they just store bulk with no changes to your limits ?
• Thrown and ranged weapons: Are thrown weapons such as shurikens retrievable, or are they lost after use? Same questions about ranged weapons with arrows and bolts.
• Attack spells and multiple attacks penalty: Is it intended that spells with the Attack trait (and particularly ones with no attack rolls) count toward multiple attacks penalty? => Yes, they count toward MAP, this has been answered here.

Can you retrieve thrown weapons such as darts and shurikens and ammunitions for ranged weapons, or are they lost once used ?

Here are my notes for the latest Twitch Stream (15/09/2018) :

Updates are posted once every two weeks, the first day of each part of the playtest.

Scenarios are designed to be rough.

Dying rules will be changed again (not enough characters die right now compared to their benchmark).

They know monsters are too powerful compared to their benchmark. Adjustments in the future. But adjusting 300 monsters in the middle of the playtest may be hard (still, they'll make do with what they have)

Next update will have a lot of stuff in it.

Jason finds it weird that the most studious classes (I think he is talking about wizards) only get 2 skill points. It was because the baseline assumption was that they would have high INT.

Monday : class surveys will open. Not tied to DD. 200+ questions. One of the questions will be "What alignment the Paladin should be allowed to take". They know this will be a passionate debate, but now they can have the datas in a survey. You can only take this survey once. You can skip classes you don't want to answer. If you do come back later, you can pop back where you left and answer questions you did not answer.

Monday : Ancestry and Background survey will open (like "What do you think of the goblin being in the game", "What do you think about half-orcs ? How should we include them in the game ?"). Not tied to DD.

Other surveys (spells, information, etc...) will open later.

Jason encourages GMs to not fudge dices and to be impartial in their GMing. The devs need solid data.

=== Q&A ===

Q: How would shields be able to take more than one dent from a Shield Block ?
A: Not sure how to respond. Jason is not sure whether the shield takes one dent and then all other damages are transfered to the user, or if it takes multiple dents.

Q: What are you thoughts on Stamina ?
A: In Starfinder, it is used to reduce resting portions in a Sci-fi scenario. While in med fan you can take time to rest and have magical healing. But they know people want to spend less time resting and longer adventuring days. Jason thinks there's a bug in the healing system. They wait to see more datas. They may boost healing spells in the future.

Q: Counteract levels: how do they work ?
A: Need to dig deeper. They know there are confusions and need to check where the text is failing.

Q: Does it really take an hour to identify healing potions ?
A: Yes. When you are high level you are supposed to take Quick Identification.

Q: Could secret rolls be more called out as secret rolls in the final book ? (In the stream they use to ask the players to do those rolls)
A: They know that people would not always remember which rolls are secret. They will try to make them more loose. Maybe optional secret checks.

Q: Can you explain how Toughness works when a monster uses its Swallow Whole power ? To cut your way out do you need to beat the Toughness with only one damage roll or can it be over multiple rolls ?
A: Not sure. Will have to double check.

Q: Is there a reason the barbarian's rage bonus isn't applied to thrown weapons ? It is odd [...]
A: It is odd.

Q: Will there be more guidelines on when and how to skill gate behind trained, master, etc ?
A: Final version of the game will have better guidelines in general.

Q: Any thoughts on not making healing potions require resonance ?
A: Resonance is not being well received. Resonance does not often come up at low levels. Good ideas has been thrown on the table. They may scrap Resonance. The system was an intent to balance the money system. Healing potions could not require resonance, but they would have to adjust the healing potions' cost. They know Resonance is a limiting system ("a stick with no carrot"). They are waiting for more datas before making changes. Resonance will not make it to the final game in its current form. One of their current idea for Resonance is making it enhance your magic objects instead of limiting them, like increasing the dice of a healing potion if you spend Resonance.

Q: Does the Paladin Ally class ability affect unarmed strike ?
A: Jason thinks so, but he does not seem sure. Need more digging. Those in-depth questions are better asked on the forum board.

Q: Do mounts count as allies ?
A: Jason thinks they do. ("Don't hit the paladin's horse. That makes him angry.")

Q: Any thoughts on Arcanist style casting over Vancian ?
A: There was a point in the early design where Jason wanted the Sorcerer to disappear and blend him with the Wizard to make all spellcasters work the same way, but it did not make it. So no.

Q: [very long question about twin weapons]
A: Rogues don't have many two weapon fighting feats. This will be fixed.

Q: Should people that don't feel fully profficient on the playtest fill up the surveys ?
A: Yes.

Q: Any plans to improve divine cantrips ?
A: Maybe. They are looking at all the cantrips. They want them to be reliable, but not your best option.

Hi everyone,

I am currently preparing my first session of Lost Star for this week-end, and I had some questions I'd like to ask to GMs who have already played this part :

• The survey seems to imply that you can not encounter the Sewer Ooze, and it's renforced by the sentence "but for now the creature slithers up to attack the moment the PCs get within 10 feet or as soon as anyone takes an action against it" in the scenario. But how can you not encounter the Sewer Ooze ? Is it in a puddle ? Is it in the hatch at the center of the room ? Did your players use Stealth to not be spotted by the ooze ?
  
• More of a roleplay one : how do you sabotage the rope for the Falling Rock Trap ? I'm trying to find a description in my head, but I have no clue. Wouldn't the trap trigger if you just cut the rope ?
  
• When Drakus uses his melee attack, does he use his sword AND his claws, or only one or another per Melee action ? In the bestiary, monsters tend to have multiple entries for their different melee attacks (like the Animated Armor or the Barghest)
  
• How can Drakus inflict flat-footed to someone ? I guess he can use his claw to grapple someone, but are there other ways ?
  
• Does Pharasma's blessing trigger once per character, or once for the whole party ?
  
• Did you tell your players they were blessed by Pharasma ? And if yes, did you tell them the blessing's effect ?

Hi everyone

Today, I asked one of my players to make a summary of the spellcasting rules to help me prepare our first session. He had a bit of a problem finding the spells' preparation time. I will translate what he said :

I am reading the spells. First paragraph, prepared spellcasting : "the caster has to spend time preparing her spells", no indication about the preparation time.

Go read the wizard and his spellcasting ability : no indication about the preparation time.
Look a bit more, go to the chapter about the wizard's grimoire, with a reference to the daily preparation.
Which is hidden in the dowtime activity chapter. (which wording makes me think you can only prepare your spells after an 8-hour sleep, so if someone bothers you when you wake up, you're f***ed)
All this for a rule that has not changed since PF1. Something I knew, but I lost 15 minutes to find it in the book while I have a research function.

Sidenote : he was reading the Screen-Reader friendly version of the PDF.

It may be interesting to mention the spells' preparation time somewhere else than just in the dowtime activity. Maybe in the spells chapter, and/or in each class prepared spellcasting ability.

For reference, I made a list of all uses for the six main abilities, to better understand their impact on the game (after seeing multiple thread talking about the uses of X or Y ability) and what to choose when creating a character. I am sharing it with you all now that it's finished.

"Mod" means "you add the ability modifier", "Score" means "you add the ability score". Ancestry and Class specific usages are in italic.

Strength

In the latest update, familiars got the new ability :

Can use up to two of its limbs to take manipulate actions as if they were hands

My question is : can familiars use wands ?

Since they don't have resonance points, I would say no. But I'm curious to know what the dev think about it.

I have red the new death rules, and I think there is a contradiction within the rules.

In the "Dying" paragraph, the new rules state that :

You lose the dying condition upon returning to 1 or more Hit Points. When you lose the dying condition, you regain consciousness, but are slowed for 1 round.

While, in the "Unconscious" condition, it is stated :

When you’re unconscious and at 0 HP but no longer dying, you naturally return to 1 HP and awaken after sufficient time passes. The GM determines how long you remain unconscious, from at least 10 minutes to several hours.

In the "Dying" paragraph, it seems like you wake up immediatly, while in the "Unconscious" condition, you have to wait at least 10 minutes.

I think the "Dying" paragraph was intended as you wake up immediatly if you return to 1 or more hit points while having the dying condition. As for the Unconscious condition, you return to 1 HP AFTER the 10 minutes (thus waking up immediatly when you get to 1 HP like stated previously) : as of now, you could read it as "you return to 1HP immediatly and awaken after sufficient time passes".

I saw this problem when one of my players told me "then, knocking someone with non-lethal damages is stronger than knocking them with lethal damages. They wake up immediatly if they succeed at their Fort save to reduce the dying condition, while they have to wait 10 minutes if they were unconscious due to having taken non-lethal damage."

If I'm correct, I would suggest to change for paragraphs like those to make them easier to understand :

You lose the dying condition upon returning to 1 or more Hit Points. When you lose the dying condition this way, you regain consciousness, but are slowed for 1 round.

When you’re unconscious and at 0 HP but no longer dying, the GM determines how much longer you remain unconscious, from at least 10 minutes to several hours. Once this time has passed, you naturally return to 1 HP, and thus lose the unconscious condition and awaken.

What do you think, guys ?

Devs, is my understanding of the rules correct, or is my player's understanding the correct one ?

So, no more Sneak attack with axes, longswords and scythes ? :,(

I can get the reduction of Sneak Attack dices now that they multiply if you critically succeed, but not being able to sneak attack with any weapon makes me sad :,( Making a Slayer-like character (who was profficient in all martial weapons) based on sneak attacks and strength is now pretty difficult, and impossible if you wield a non-agile and non-finesse weapon.

I can also get that, in usual fictions, assassins who rely on sneak attacks tend to use daggers and the such. But what I found cool with PF1's rogue was that you could sneak behind someone with any weapon you were proficient with. Maybe it was something the old team forgot to say with the original Sneak Attack. Still, it was pretty cool and allowed you to make truly original characters.

From the rulebook p.145 :

IDENTIFY MAGIC
Once you discover that an item, location, or
ongoing effect is magical, you can spend an hour
to attempt to identify the particulars of its magic. If your attempt
is interrupted, you must start over. The GM sets the DC for your
check (see Table 4–2 on page 146). Cursed or esoteric subjects
usually have higher DCs or might even be impossible to identify
using Arcana alone. Heightening a spell doesn’t increase the DC.
Success For an item or location, you get a sense of what it
does and learn any means of activating it. For an ongoing
effect, you learn the effect’s name and what it does. You
can’t try again in hopes of getting a critical success.
Critical Success You learn all the attributes of the magic,
including whether it is cursed.
Failure You fail to identify the magic and can’t try again for 1 day.
Critical Failure You misidentify the magic as something else of
the GM’s choice.

So, from what I understand, you now have to spend an hour to identify one item or magical effect ? It's cool that you don't need Detect Magic anymore to do so, but one hour per item seems a bit much to me.

If I'm in the middle of a dungeon, I can't spend one hour to identify a magic item.

If I looted multiple items, it will take me an enormous amount of time to identy them. Let's say I looted three weapons, an armor, four scrolls and six potions in the BBEG's lair. Bam, 13 items to identify. It will take me an entire day to identify them all (because I have to eat and maybe take a break or two, and I want my 8 hours of sleep)

Maybe there could be another way to identify items, allowing non-spellcasters to identify them by taking an hour and spellcasters to use Detect Magic to shorten this duration (in my head, casting Detect Magic allows you to "read" the spells put in an object, like if the magical aura changed into some kind of scripture or tapestry, being more or less complex depending on the number of spells and their level).

I am talking theoritically with PF1's amount of loot in mind. I'd like to have the opinion of players who did high level scenarios to know if you still loot a big amount of magic items or not

Also, I fill like the critical failure will bring up problems and be difficult to play out for GMs. They will have to remember which item was misidentified and manage the PCs' equipement in secret, and pulling a random effect from your hat can be tricky.

I have tried to create multiple characters to test out character creation. I like the layout, but here are some problems I encountered (I know that some may seem nitpicky, but still) :

• The "Age" space is a bit small. It's even more problematic when you create a character with 3 digits in their age.
  
• Same problem with the weapons' names' fields and most of the Traits' fields.
  
• At page 14 of the rulebook, there is a sentence saying "If your character’s ancestry provides her with special abilities, note them in the appropriate spaces, such as darkvision in the Senses section on the first page." But there are no field for special senses in the Senses section.
  
• There are no "character traits" field. I put them in the "Notes" field.
  
• There are no fields to say what kind of lore you are trained in.
  
• We may need a variant of the "Spells" page for the alchemist. There is no dedicated field for alchemical formulas
  
• There is no dedicated field for the number of cantrips you can prepare.
  
• The weapon proficiencies fields become pretty hard to use when you play classes like wizards with specific weapons, and when you take racial weapon familiarity. It gets worse when you combine them.
  
• The Bulk line is weirdly placed between two items' lists. I'd move the Bulk line between the Magic and Alchemical Items list and the Resonance line.
  

First, about Sign language :

Why should Sign Language be a feat ? I would expect it to be treated as any other language. A group of adventurers could have learned it just to be able to silently speak while ambushing their opponents.

This seems even more weird since your GM can hand you sign language as a bonus feat. This means that, if your GM is kind enough, you would never spend a feat to learn sign language (and I suspect even if your GM does not git it to you for free, most players will not take this feat if they are the only one taking it).

---------------------

Also, about Read Magic/Esoterica :

Those abilities state that you can read and understand magic writting if it is written "in a language you can normally read".

I... always assumed magic was written in its own language, and anybody with some magical expertise could attempt to "read magic" no matter their background. I could grab a scroll from a goblin lair and read it, even if its creator was an elf or a goblin.

Now, I have to speak a specific language to read a scroll ? So if I'm a human with Common and Elven languages, I can't read a scroll crafter by a Goblin, a Drow or a Dwarf because I don't speak goblin, undercommon or dwarven ? This makes looting scrolls and spellbooks less interesting in most cases, and we lost the somewhat "universal magic" vibe from PF1.

Plus, does this mean GMs will now have to determine in which language each scroll is written ?

---------------------

This version of the languages rules left me disappointed. I was not a fan of languages rules in PF1 and tended to houserule them out of my games because I found them too restrictive, but at least I could somewhat play with them by allocating skill ranks in Linguistic. But after reading Read Magic/Esoterica, it feels like languages are even more restrictive than before.

Sign language was a good idea, but the way it is handled is weird.

I am currently reading the alchemical items' chapter, and I find the "Operate Activation, no cost" and "Operate Activation" Activation entries a bit confusing. It may seem minor, but at every Activation entry I have to make the mental effort of telling myself "okay, there's this one sentence hidden in page 359 telling you need to use 1 Resonance point to activate an alchemical item". Stating "no cost" in the Activation entry is a bit counter intuitive. I fear that some players with short memory will forget that Operate Activation takes up a Resonance point until they see a "Operate Activation, no cost".

It may be easier to read if the entry reads "Operate Activation, 1 RP" and "Operate Activation" instead of, respectively, "Operate Activation" and "Operate Activation, no cost".

The entry for Injury Poisons reads :

Injury

An injury poison activates when applied to a weapon,
and it affects the target of the first Strike made using the
poisoned weapon. If that Strike is a success or a critical
success and deals piercing or slashing damage, the target
must attempt a saving throw against the poison. If the
Strike is a failure or a critical failure, or if it fails to deal
slashing or piercing damage for some other reason, the
poison is spent but the target is unaffected.

It seems pretty harsh and strange that your poison is spent if you fail your attack. I can get it for bows and crossbows (the poison is not really spent but you lost your arrow), but on melee weapons, the poison does not magically disappear after you swing your blade at the void. In my opinion, injury poisons should be spent when you apply them to your weapon, but should stay potent until you hit someone with your weapon, then your weapon loses the poison's effects.

Hi everyone

So, I started to read the PDF and saw those new action symbols and monsters' statblocks. As I tend to create my own help sheets as a GM and for my players, I need to be able to copy past elements from the PDF.

But I can't select action symbols, and even if I select everything around those, I only end up with a white space.

Also, when I try to copy/paste a monster's statblock in Microsoft Word, the header is completely broken and all action symbols are absent.

I can work with the header being broken (it's just the matter of deleting a line and add tabs, or I could screenshot the statblocks but this will hurt my printer pretty quickly), but non-pastable action symbols are a no-go for me. This would mean I'd have either to search where are every missing symbol and replace them with either another symbol or a screenshot of the right symbol. I guess this was made like this to prevent people from stealing graphics, but as I said you could just screenshot the symbols.

Another problem I see with non-selectable action symbols is for accessibility. I know people who rely on vocal synthetizers to read books on their computers because they are blind.

So, I'm not a fan of alignment. Even if it is a good way to have a general vision of a character at creation, I don't think someone can keep the same vision of the world when they travel with a group of very peculiar persons, a.k.a adventurers. I usually don't refer to my players' alignments once we all get to know their characters' personnalities, letting them evolve the way they want.

I have multiple exemples to show why alignments may be a problem in roleplay-oriented campains :

One of my groups (for Carrion Crown) is composed of two paladins (LG, Iomedae and Desna) and a necromancer Agent of the Grave (CE) (note : I removed the "Must be a member of an undead-worshipping cult for 1 year" condition). The necromancer, who lived alone in a swamp, was used to control corpses like puppets and didn't get the meaning of life. But with the influence of the paladins, after many adventures, she learned that necromancy is badly seen, and even though she continues learning on the subject, she greatly reduced her use of her powers, only using the corpses of her ennemies and only when the situation was dire. She even ends liking the two paladins and saving them multiple times out of good heart. On the other end, the Paladin of Iomedae, who did not condone her acts, had to let her use her powers for the greater good by preventing over evil necromancers from killing innocents, and even had to ride on a zombie horse to escape. Even if it isn't "Lawful Good-ish", he now understands that her powers are important for his quest, and that, even if using undeads is an Evil act, sometimes you have to accept Evil to save innocents. He also sometimes had to break into private buildings and work with evil creatures in order to investigate and capture the big baddies.

In another group (for Wrath of the Righteous this time), a player plays a CN Summoner, an in-training commander. She gets to be an official soldier, and throughout the story, ends up being blindly loyal to her army and to the group. And even if at first she became a commander because it was because of her upbringing, she ends up developing a strong sense of justice and wants to protect the innocent citizens of Golarion.

In those scenarios, the Necromancer should become CN (from CE), the Iomedae's Paladin may become NB (from LB), and the Summoner will end up becoming LB (from CN). I know a character can change their alignment during their adventures, but I don't like the fact that their alignment change their capacities because of the system's mechanics :

*The Necromancer can no longer gain Agent of the Grave levels while she still continues studying necromancy because she starts being moderate about using corpses and doesn't actively kill people to get fresh corpses
*The Paladin looses all his powers because he allows a Necromancer to travel with him and because he broke the law while this is done for the greater good and he still follows the precepts of Iomedae
*The Summoner can no longer call fiendish animals with her Summon Monster magic power while she did it all her life just because the crusade made her a better person

Those changes always seemed arbitrary to me, and very anti-roleplay. For some classes, you have to ensure that you don't change your alignment to keep your powers because of the "system" mechanic. I would not have any issue with alignment if it was purely roleplay and did not have impact on the system. Unfortunately, it does have an impact.

Unchained tried to allow players to replace alignment with loyalties, but even this system seems too restrictive to me. There is a little paragraph about removing alignment alltogether, but it does not really tell you how to do so. Removing alignment in PF1 forced you to rewrite a bunch of rules (especially Clerics/Paladins) without any tips on the matter.

So, my question to the devs is : will there be an easy way to remove alignment in PF2 ? Without rewriting too much rules ?

For now, the main obstacle to removing alignment is the Paladin (and other potential archetypes) with their LG-only alignment, but I feel like the tenets may be enough. It may be interesting to know if there will be other alignment-restricted options, and if the devs made them as easy to ignore as for the Clerics without having to alter the rules too heavily (for exemple, the Cleric's powers depend on their god and not on their alignment).

I was wondering how health points will work in Pathfinder v2, since we now know each ancestry will have differenciated "racial health points".

In v1, you only had your class health points, and you had to roll a dice to know how many you got. This created some strange outcomes where an unlucky warrior had less HP than a lucky wizard at higher levels.

Now, in v2, you get racial health points at first level. But do you get racial health points every levels too, like your class health points ? Or is it just at first level ?

Also, if we think about health points, we also need to think about damages. Have damages been increased too, to preserve the current balancing ? Have they been more increased than the HPs, so the game is deadlier than before ? Or have the damages been kept the same and the game made easier at lower levels ?