Ashbourne's page

YuriP wrote:

EA won't disappear it probably will just change to 2d4 like Timber a new AoE basic save cantrip what means to me that EA and Scatter Scree will survive from remaster.

I am expecting that Electric Arc will end up looking a lot like Slashing Gust.

I hope they don't take the storm out of my Storm's Lash, My feather are getting ruffled just thinking about it. For us Tengu we can get Electric Arc by taking the Storm's Lash feat, so there is some extra cost to having it. I thought the changes coming to the remaster were optional or was that just for the classes?

Post notifications to help speed up the game. That's one of the advantages Discord has for PBP, the other bigger reason I know some people have moved over to Discord is it's easier to use on a phone. But I really don't like actually playing the game part of Discord. Hoping new forums can win sim people back here for PBP

With the announcement that Paizo is looking into new forums (no date has been given yet), It seems like a good time to provide feedback on how to improve Play by Post.

We need a better way to create characters for PBP, the current:

Race = EAC 14, KAC 14|SP 21/21 HP 24/24|RP 4/4|Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +6|Init: +1 | Perc: +8|

Classes/Levels = Speed 30 ft |Spells: 1st 4/4|Healing Channel 1/1| Active conditions: None.

is not intuitive...

The community is not known for lacking feedback. I originally posted this in the general section of the online games subforum, but apparently, no one reads that section anymore. So trying again here.

If Paizo wants to get away from OGL classes they could make "Pathfinder" into a class.

We can't have a proper talk about the birds and bees in Pathfinder because we lack a bee ancestry.

Very excited to see Tengus are freely available! Birds of a feather flock together, expect us...

Medieval Europe was also more industrialized than people think. They used water power where ever they could. Giant water-powered trip hammers were used in some metal work, such as blades and armor. China had similar technology, but I don't know how widespread it was there.

Ancient power-hammers.

Also, by the 16th century, Japan was importing European armor.

Incidentally, the katana is actually arguably objectively better than the bastard sword. The bastard sword has very slightly better damage, but the katana has a ton more traits.

That's a good point. A bastard sword will do most of its damage on impact (uses a bigger die.) A katana or any curved sword like a sabor will do more damage as you draw the blade along the impact (has more traits).

Deriven Firelion wrote:

A bear hug for Strength modifier damage at the level you would obtain these items is a fricking joke of an ability. I did 6 or 7 damage to the enemy with 300 hit points. Oh boy. They really felt that bear hug.

I mean, there are already reasons to grapple people with one action. This is just free damage on top of that. Like it looks like this stacks with Crushing Grab, since that's a "when you successfully grapple" clause.

Of course, maybe Crushing Grab will be different now.

But I think it's good to design the ability portion of apex items with a mixture of "powerful effect, limited uses" and "useful but not dramatic effect, unlimited uses."

Mechs in Starfinder are dramatic and overpowered. Mechs get around the "useful but not dramatic effect, unlimited uses." by making the average Party Level 3 levels higher than normal. Overpowered magic items as powerful as mechs might be hard to do in PF2e with its tighter math.

What I'd like to see is some to-scale drawings of what a dagger, a shortsword, a longsword, and a bastard sword (and maybe a greatsword) sized for a Frost Giant look like compared to Amiri herself. :-)

Frost giants are 15 feet tall. A bastard sword is around 4 feet long, so 2/3 the height of a 6 for a person. So 10 feet long for a frost giant's sword. This works for my idea that Amiri's sword is a huge broken sword missing 5 or 6 feet of the blade to explain its extra width for a blade the length of Amiri's sword.

If you watch any of the videos of people using giant swords, it's hard not to do massive damage if they hit but they are hard to aim, and slow to use. So maybe giving them more damage but requiring using 2 actions for a strike. Maybe even require being in rage to get the extra damage.

Ashbourne wrote:

Temperans wrote:

I mean my issue, and why I commented, is that you are talking about it in a human vs human in a medieval setting. This is not that. Amiri is a human fighting giants, dragons, large beasts, etc. and her weapon is that of a giant that she killed.

It is not a weapon made for humans to fight humans. It is a weapon made by giants to fight giants and she is wielding it because "blood for gorum!".

As for weight the rule is to double the weight (PF1e) or the bulk (PF2e). So a large bastard sword would weight 12 lbs (PF1e) or 2 bulk (PF2e).

It's all good. I was on a bit of a rant after you said my first comment wasn't saying much, so I said too much. In the end where both saying it's a good weapon for Amiri to fight giants with. I still really like my idea of having it have a broken blade to explain its shape, at least for me.

I mostly play Starfinder but recently started playing PF2e as well, so not as familiar with buying weapons in PF2e yet. Can anyone buy an oversized weapon like Amiri's Sword? Would it cost the same as a normal size sword?

Items and Size

Yes people can buy a larger weapon, it costs twice as much for each size category.

Thanks.

I'm now wondering how that applies to organized play. Under the link you posted, it says:
"The rules for items of different sizes tend to come into play when the characters defeat a big creature that has gear, since in most cases, the only creatures of other sizes are creatures under the GM’s control."

Since a large sword is not even a listed item, it might fall outside of common or uncommon items. Might work if your character comes from some place where giants are common.

I mean my issue, and why I commented, is that you are talking about it in a human vs human in a medieval setting. This is not that. Amiri is a human fighting giants, dragons, large beasts, etc. and her weapon is that of a giant that she killed.

It is not a weapon made for humans to fight humans. It is a weapon made by giants to fight giants and she is wielding it because "blood for gorum!".

As for weight the rule is to double the weight (PF1e) or the bulk (PF2e). So a large bastard sword would weight 12 lbs (PF1e) or 2 bulk (PF2e).

It's all good. I was on a bit of a rant after you said my first comment wasn't saying much, so I said too much. In the end where both saying it's a good weapon for Amiri to fight giants with. I still really like my idea of having it have a broken blade to explain its shape, at least for me.

I mostly play Starfinder but recently started playing PF2e as well, so not as familiar with buying weapons in PF2e yet. Can anyone buy an oversized weapon like Amiri's Sword? Would it cost the same as a normal size sword?

Ashbourne wrote:

Whatever Amiri's Sword is in-game, it's not a bastard sword in the real world. I can't imagine that size and weight of sword being useful in a real human vs human sword fight. But what would it be good for in a fantasy setting? Maybe hunting mammoths, giants, dragons, and other giant-sized creatures.

I mean its a bastard sword for giants. She takes a penalty to use it properly in PF1 and PF2 handles it weirdly. Saying "this doesn't make sense for humans" is not saying much, its also why oversized weapons used to give a -2 penalty to attack per size category.

There are no real swords that has that wide of a blade. The closest thing to the blade proportions of Amiri's Sword is a knife or dagger. A bastard sword with a blade that wide would need to be at least twice as long as Amiri's Sword. A possible explanation is that Amiri's Sword is a large bastard sword with a broken blade. The tip shape also suggests the blade is broken. I think that's great flavor for Amiri's character.

Several people on youtube have made giant swords similar to Amiri's Sword that weigh from 48 to 70 pounds. These giant swords can split logs in half like an axe without a scratch to the blade. So by looking at the damage on Amiri's Sword, it would suggest the blade is thinner, so Amiri's Sword might be closer to 24 to 30 pounds, still five or six times the weight of a real human-size bastard sword.

One of the things that make swords one of the most popular weapons in the middle ages is that it's both good at attacking and defending. A weapon like Amiri's Sword is too awkward and heavy to defend with. This is one of the reasons I said it's not good in a real human vs. human sword fights. Bastard swords were designed for people fighting in plate armor against people in plate armor. The heavier blade was needed to damage plate armor, and wearing plater armor let you give up using a shied so you could use a sword two-handed. Also, someone wearing plate armor will not want to carry a 24 to 30 pound weapon around a battlefield. Amiri doesn't wear plate armor, so the weight is not as much as a problem.

Another issue that makes a giant sword not useful in a big battle or dueling with humans is they frequently get stuck in whatever it hits, and even when not stuck in something, the recovery time to lift the weapon back up to strike is slow. Amiri's Sword has the clumsy condition that fits this and the heavyweight. In the giant sword videos, the only strike they seem to be able to do is an overhead chop like an axe.

So it's not a great weapon for a real medieval battlefield. In the hands of a human, It functions more like a large double-bladed axe than a bastard sword. But it's a cool weapon for Amiri in a fantasy setting. In-game calling it a large bastard sword that is clumsy to use works fine for the game.

As someone who has owned real plate armor and bastard swords and fought with them, I do prefer realistic equipment in my games, but I'm not against weapons like Amiri's Sword. I just like to figure out how they would really work. I remember the dire flail first showed up in D&D. I thought it was the dumbest weapon I had ever seen until I built one to test. I'd love to build and test Amiri's Sword, but I no longer have a roommate that is a sword smith.

Conveniently the gap separates the two-game lore wise, so everything that happened in between them has been lost. Paizo has done one cross over adventure so far. Starfinder Society Special #3-99: Perils of the Past, and Pathfinder Society Special #3-99: Fate in the Future. So it must be someone on the mind at Paizo. Lore wise, mostly what I would like to see is just having Pathfinder being a convenient way to have interesting archaeologic sites in Starfinder.

Rule wise, the need to do SF2e to get OGL free makes it likely Paizo would use the PF2e base core rules to do so. But that doesn't mean it has to be an exact copy of the rules like the three action economy. It will likely have the remaster changes, too, like no alignment and dropping the ability scores. My guess is it will be much closer to compatibility but still require some conversion.

This has recently been talked about in the Starfinder forums.

SF 2nd Ed out in about 3 years, give or take .

Whatever Amiri's Sword is in-game, it's not a bastard sword in the real world. I can't imagine that size and weight of sword being useful in a real human vs human sword fight. But what would it be good for in a fantasy setting? Maybe hunting mammoths, giants, dragons, and other giant-sized creatures.

Um, I really hate to embarrass you all, but it's pronounced muh-GOOSE.

GM: You can't see who cast the fireball at you, but you just took 36 points of fire damage.

PC: Who cooked muh-GOOSE?

Maybe Drow could become named night elves being adapted to the night(dark low light, not dark evil), which would make them more adaptable to living underground as well.

The word Drow is a variation of Trow, which is a variation of Troll, generally referring to a malignant spirit. So Drow could keep its darker origins as a malignant spirit that is only found underground instead of elves.

Ashbourne wrote:

I've only been playing PFS for three months now. I haven't seen any TPKs, but the number of near TPKs is very high from what I'm used to in Starfinder or D&D3.5. But I think that's a sign the tight math in PF2e is working.

Alright. I would be extremely interested in what caused this difference of perception. Because I really go at PFS without optimizing at all and it usually felt from very easy to a little hard.

But this thread might not be the best place for this. If you wish, you can PM me the specifics for what caused the near TPKs.

I'm just saying the math for encounter balance works. If the goal is to have an exciting fight but not die, a near TPK is a good thing. But if we hadn't had time to heal between encounters, they would have been TPKs.

As for why we have so many near TPKs, the GM has very lucky dice, several times getting critical hits on the first three attacks, taking 1/2 the party to zero Hp before we even get to attack. Meanwhile, one of our front line fighters hasn't rolled higher than an 8 in 4 weeks. The other cause is fighting creatures that can paralyze.

I still think they should give us some information on the dragon

I want to know if I can befriend it or if I have to fight it

It's a stealthy dragon that likes to hoard gold, and its main abilities are illusions and hallucinations. A solid foundation for trust...

You might be able to befriend it for a price in gold.
You can fight it if you can find it.

I've only been playing PFS for three months now. I haven't seen any TPKs, but the number of near TPKs is very high from what I'm used to in Starfinder or D&D3.5. But I think that's a sign the tight math in PF2e is working.

D&D 5e is more balanced around an adventure day for resources, whereas PF2e is balanced per encounter. Most of the time in PF2e, it's good to let the party have time to recover after each encounter especially going into a harder encounter. So no need to worry about characters not spending resources.

I tend to think of dragons as individual creatures with enough power and egos to match, that I don't see them worshiping a god. On the other hand, if some lower creatures wanted to treat a dragon as a god, I can see the dragon going along with it, as long as it's beneficial to them, and are well fed.

I'd like to see more dragon bloodlines and cults.

I had one come up this weekend. If a character is paralyzed while their shield was raised, do they still get the AC bonus until they are unparalyzed for having a raised shield?

Sounds like the plans for Player Core 2 aren't set in stone yet, but I have a feeling Lost Omens: Highhelm has been set in stone from the start.

If the remaster project can be considered PF2.1e or PF2.5e or just still PF2e, It's hard to measure just how big the change is. I like just calling it PF2r Should that be an r or R is another question.

I'm all so wondering if just the new core books should use PF2r so they are not confused with the original core books, and other books and if AP keeps using PF2e.

Fighting is what EVERYONE does, it’s a combat focused game :3

Are you talking about the game, or posting on the forums? :)

Call the class what you like a barbarian, berserker, or rageaholic, the core mechanic for the class is rage, there are 25 class feats with the rage trait. It doesn't matter if your character lives in a big city, wears the latest high fashion, and is an intellectual. Rage is generally considered uncivilized. Outside of a battlefield, most civil society with laws, raging will have consequences. Even raging here in the Paizo forums has consequences... The last thread on barbarians got locked down. Rage is not a job skill that's in high demand, especially when it affects your concentration.

I don't see the barbarian as a culture unto itself, it's more of an individual lifestyle shaped by the consequences of rage. How someone with rage fits in could vary greatly from culture to culture, and how that character is played very from character to charactor.

Diabolic dragons that can unleash the fires of Hell.
That is a big step up from its red so it breathes fire.
New dragons are looking great!

Will Fortune 500 dragons replace gold dragons or just be obsessed with accumulating all the world's gold?

I'm really excited to see what they do now that the color mold has been broken. I'm happy to get away from this color = this breath weapon, or the nature of the dragon's personality.

Most curious to see what dragon replaces the screaming nature of blue dragons. Whatever the new categories of dragons are I hope they are not tied to one appearance. I think whatever the most scheming dragon is its appearance should be the hardest to identify it by.

I'm also curious to see if the new types of dragons might end up as new sorcerer bloodlines someday.

The part of the arguments around the barbarian class I find kind of funny is, it's ok to have a class built around rage, but the name Barbarian is offensive.

During covid at work, a customer got raging upset when asked to put on a mask. So they when behind the checkout counter, pined the cashier against the cash register, tore off her mask, spit on her face, yelling I hope you get covid and die.

I witnessed some road rage last year driving to work around 10 am stopped at a stop light, a car hits another car going the wrong way, backs up to flea the accident hits another car, barely missing my car, then hits another car, next drives through a brick wall trying to get away, hits another car, kills a pedestrian, hits bus and finally stops after hitting a tree.

Absolutely barbaric don't have a better way to describe those incidents.
"brutal in a way that's considered entirely uncivilized."

Call the class barbarian or berserker. It's still a class based on rage, with a disregard for your own safety while doing the most damage you can. A different class name is not going to make rage more civilized.

I think that Sibelius's point is that the Pathfinder monk being called a monk doesn't make a lot of sense, since "monk" isn't really used to refer to "martial artist with magic powers" in any other non-D&D-based media.

I think the term monk was used to combine the aspects of martial arts and spiritual power, thous the comparison to Shaolin monks. Shaolin Kung Fu is much more than just a martial art. It is part of a complete spirituality that is grounded in Buddhism.

Not say Pathfinder/D&D monks are a copy of Shaolin monks but certainly seem inspired by them.

- A Designer Stream like what many patreons do to design elements live.

They did that last year at Paizo Con for Starfinder, but just for fun, not something that got published. They may have done something similar for Pathfinder, but I was mostly interested in Starfinder then.

- Utilization of Larger Social Media Channels (e.g., Rules Layer, Roll for Combat, etc.) to disseminate stuff or have the 'conversation' for the community out in the open (i.e., have brand/remaster champions as the touch points)

Eric Mona was on roll for combat on the day after the announcement. Jason Bulmahn and Logan Bonner were on Paizo's official Twitch and Youtube the day of the announcement. Paizo, in general, is good at keeping us informed through social media. And often takes live questions.

- Run a community competition for a cool new beast or item to replace the OGL ones that are getting de-scoped (how cool would that be!).

Paizo passed RPG super start contest on to Battle Zoo to run. You still have time to enter monsters for this year's competition.

Paizo Con is only 25 days away, that's normally when They make some of the biggest announcements of the year. There's also lots of community engagement.

Issue with something like "Tian Xian monk" is the fact that monks aren't really gated to a specific region in the setting, being pretty much everywhere in the setting, I mean, the iconic monk is from Vudra for example (and even if you did say they all stemmed from whatever place's culture, you still end up with characters being "Nidalese Tian Xian monks" because there's their own culture + the fact their class has one).

Plus, it leads to the issue that whilst Tian Xia =/= East Asia, it is heavily inspired by it, meaning there'd definitely be a feeling that it's kinda like renaming it to "East Asian monk" which I don't really think we wanna be calling something

Finally, there's the issue of it being multi-word when classes are almost always one-word. That's really the main issue I have with the Martial Artist suggestion often given.

That's why I said Tian Xian monk or another name from that setting + monk. That other name being something similar to Shaolin, but perhaps more generic like martial monk. The problem with Monk is its use by many cultures, and the cultural differences for example, Shaolin monks and Franciscan monks are so vastly different that they would require separate classes. You could fill an entire book with monk classes for all the gods. Another way to do monks would be to have different sects of monks be the equivalent to cleric Doctrines or some other way of creating subclasses.

(Which gave me an idea for each god having an archetype to take to become a follower of that god. Giving non clerics benefits to followers of a god.)

I don't have an issue with using two words in a class. I wonder how tight of a design box limiting class names to one word is. Looking up occupation names most are one word but not all. Take Flight attendant. Would just calling it just Flight or Attendant be meaningful on a job application?

I think the monk class as is, the name martial artist better fits the adventuring lifestyle of characters better. With the trained and lived in a monastery to gain your skills as a background.

Just brainstorming here I'm not attached to any one idea of how the monk should be named.

I really think that any "changes to names of classes" are going to have to wait for 3rd edition.

Where Monk is probably going to become "Martial Artist" and Barbarian might become something else.

I'm pretty sure someone at Paizo has said they were not changing class names because it would affect older 2e products too much.

When, if name changes happen for monk I'm leaning toward Tian Xian monk, or some other name from that setting + monk.

The biggest drawback of making it a base class feature is you have to choose stainable spells to use it. If you don't have those spells it is a waste of time to have. The name itself I don't think is a problem. What spells you pick is much more important than what sounds your character makes when using a feat.

Name wise, the cackle feat doesn't require you to say the name of the feat in character when you use it. It never says you have to cackle. The feat could be called "sustain spell with verbal gestures" or "Tim" and still work the same.

The description says "You can extend one of your spells with a quick burst of laughter." You can flavor that laughter differently each time you use it if you like, to fit the spell and situation. Flavor wise the laughter could be taunting or encouraging the spell to sustain. If your character doesn't like to laugh or has a dry sense of humor, you could use a sarcastic laugh. You could be giggling to your patron or any other type of laughter you can come up with. Does the laughter even have to be laughter?

I suspect Daggerheart will be highly optimized for live-streaming games. There could be room for the depth and options of character creation Pathfinder 2e has. But the dice rolling will likely use the most simple rules possible. Rolling 12d6 for damage isn't good for how they play the game live. Likely very limited use of bonuses or adjustments to rolls that have to be calculated live during gameplay. This is assuming they still use real dice to play the game.

I filled out the alignment line on my character sheets for 44 years and can't remember ever using it once in gameplay. I don't think playing another game to formally playtest removing it will add anything useful.

Paizo developers and employees have now been playing the game for four years. Combined with public feedback, I feel that is more than enough to make small updates to the game. The only time Paizo needs to do a playtest is when a new edition or a new class comes out because they don't have years of in-house gameplay and public comments on the new content.

We got 19 pages of treasure tables between the Core rule book and the Treasure Vault book. But none of that has numbers for random die rolling. Each book doesn't have to have an up to date table as long as it's a self-contained table within the book.

I wonder if that's intentionally left off because characters are expected to have magic items relative to their level to keep up with the game's math. Giving out purely random treasure would make it harder for characters to get magic items relative to their class. Also, a large part of Paizo's business model is publishing adventures that don't rely on random treasure tables.

I play a goblin merchant, HEAVY on the merchant part. I ended up picking Sorcerer for the class with the Janni bloodline and merchant background. I picked Sorcerer because it's charisma based and there are lots a good cantrips and spells for merchants. I use alarm to protect the shop. mending to fix trashed items to resell, bullhorn to shout out sales in the market. One requirement I have for this character is that all cantrips and first-level spells have to be useful for being a merchant, without any combat spells.

It looks like there's a possibility of sorcerers getting new draconic bloodlines so curious if any of them might be suitable for a merchant. Dragons and merchants both like gold after all.

It sounded like Core 2 was where most of the archetypes will end up. We have a merchant background, but I'm hoping for a merchant archetype, maybe built around social skills a merchant might need. Or as a way for non casters to get some of the useful merchant cantrips.

For Abomination Vaults, I'd use level zero to Get the party familiar with Otari and the NPCs in the town. Might be a chance to use some of the extra Otari-related content and NPCs Paizo published in the blog.

Otari-related.

Mostly I'd run some chore-type tasks to help some of the NPCs to get to know them. For combat encounters, an unarmed bar fight is a great way to have one without getting the characters killed. Have them get hired by an NPC to get rid of a giant rat in their cellar. Mostly I look at playing at level zero as an extended live play session zero, and a great way to establish some of the lore before the main game gets started.

James Jacobs wrote:

You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess.

Hi James,

I appreciate the comment. I grasp what you're inferring, but if it isn't too much bother can you be more directly clear in your response instead of leaving us to infer what you're implying. Could you give a quick response to the original four questions (restated below)? Any rationale you could also provide would be good as I'd rather hear it from 'paizo representatives' vs. having only assertions from vocal community members.

Original 4 questions:

[b]1.) What books/content are set in stone? What elements, classes, etc. aren't?

That's already been answered by Paizo

James Jacobs wrote:

You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess.

Hi James,

I appreciate the comment. I grasp what you're inferring, but if it isn't too much bother can you be more directly clear in your response instead of leaving us to infer what you're implying. Could you give a quick response to the original four questions (restated below)? Any rationale you could also provide would be good as I'd rather hear it from 'paizo representatives' vs. having only assertions from vocal community members.

Original 4 questions:

[b]1.) What books/content are set in stone? What elements, classes, etc. aren't?

Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project .

MMCJawa wrote:

To defend Red (partially), the Pinkertons were sent after someone who they thought received stolen product, so it's somewhat a non-sequitur to use that as an argument against Paizo.

You don’t send the Pinkertons after someone getting a wrong box of trading cards. You send your lawyers.

You also don't send the Pinkertons if you have any clue what a PR disaster that is. Unless your goal is to intimidate other people.

I think that we are well past the time of a formal playtest. Smurfy as one might be, Paizo hasn't the time.

And the informal playtest last as long as people are willing to argue about rule changes that they what. If that is useful is a different debate.

Rysky wrote:

Red Griffyn wrote:

Last I checked the US still falls under the rule of law

Laws don’t really mean much when you can hire thugs to threaten, rough up, and dispose of people you don’t like.

Its literally illegal. I bet the person who was strong armed could sue and should.

Could sue and should, doesn't always match up with can afford to. It's why rich people and big companies get away with it, and they know it.

I think this could just be solved by a blanket policy of putting all flavor text in italics.

I like the idea, the only problem I see is it will just start an endless debate over what font to use.

Ashbourne wrote:

That's one thing I like about Savage Worlds players can rename and flavor any of a power's descriptive trates however they like.

Do you need a rule to tell you that? I mean I never surrender control of my gaming table to anyone who isn't part of the game. I have always considered it a basic tenant of tabletop gaming let alone RPGs. Tone and flavour can move around a lot.

Besides it is in the First Rule of Pathfinder.

I don't need a rule to tell me that, but it's getting debated so someone must.

The only difference is in Pathfinder says if the group agrees, in Savage's worlds, it's more built into character creation on an individual level. My only point is, what harm does it do if a player renames a feat or spell?

The biggest game rule change is dropping alignment. Paizo has already said where alignment really matters, they will replace it with something. Be it holy vs unholy or with edicts and anathema. I don't see a need to play test a new version of a vs b

The one thing they need to play test the most is the ORC license. There's only one chance to get that right.