Asurasan's page

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Something viewed as bad economics should also be viewed from the standpoint of the economic situation of the people being mistreated, not just from the standpoint of the group of people doing the mistreatment for their economic interests. If it is bad economics for the group being mistreated, then it is a bad overall economic idea as disadvantaging people for the gain of a small group leads to extremely bad overall economic outcomes for entire nations and peoples.

Would Abadar walk away from Omelas?

I suspect he wouldn't. He just has to figure out how to stop hinging everything on that one kid.

I think I sum it up with Abadar is concerned with the 'good' of the many as opposed to the 'good' of the individual. I think there is a pragmatism there that likely conflicts with either extreme of the 'good/evil' spectrum.

The idealism of Abadar, is that a functioning society is 'best' for everyone. Even if that society is flawed, people are still working together, making things that raise the quality of life for everyone, and mutually protected from a harsh world. Yes, these flawed societies rules/leaders should be better, but that's not a reason to tear everything down and start over.

I think this is why in basically every major city across Golarion, good or evil, you will find some instance of Abadar worship, or his organizations.

Also, when societies clash, innocents typically get hurt. But I think Abadar might view some War's as the end justifies the means.

Does the fact that the Soul Chains of the Accursed Forge-Spurned are level 11 items mean that the save DC for a creature that "has" one is higher? Also what does it mean for a creature to "have" one? Does it still count if it's in a bag of holding?

I treated the DC of the Soul Chains Transformative effect as higher(DC 34 I believe was what I chose.)

I counted it as being 'had' even when it was in a characters bag of holding for the purpose of the effect.

I think using some real life cultures as a baseline can certainly help expedite your worldbuilding.

Since we are talking about table top RPG's in general, there is a rule I typically try to follow, and that is to try to avoid having to give out lengthy dissertations at the table about the 'world' while running a game, so following some 'real world' cultural touchstones helps people need less explanation. I usually want to have a quick paragraph to explain a group or faction that may use real world cultures as a parallel.

This should be, at best, window dressings for your world. As your players dig deeper into your settings while gaming, it should be fun and interesting as you learn things that diverge from your "Not-Victorian England", as they are plagued by code bound warrior pirates with Katana's who take no prisoners.

I don't think there is anything wrong with completely scratch building a culture either, I just think you should remember the time you will need to dedicate to explaining these cultures.

Just confirming, this came in yesterday.

We are all good, thanks!

Will do,

Thanks Paizo-team!

Sorry! I somehow had a copy-paste issue there between the Paizo site and the UPS site.

Paizo Order Number:
36532520

Contains:
Starfinder Adventure Path #39: The Gilded Cage (Fly Free or Die 6 of 6)
Starfinder Adventure Path #40: Planetfall (Horizons of the Vast 1 of 6)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #166: Despair on Danger Island (Fists of the Ruby Phoenix 1 of 3)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #167: Ready? Fight! (Fists of the Ruby Phoenix 2 of 3)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #168: King of the Mountain (Fists of the Ruby Phoenix 3 of 3)
Pathfinder Lost Omens: The Mwangi Expanse

Hope that helps!

Hey guys,

I waited a little bit to see if this would resolve, but it appears UPS is not showing any tracking for my order. Can someone look into this for me?

It shows as shipped two weeks ago on the Paizo site.

Thanks!

Anybody who fondly misses fondue da grass in 3.5/PF1 obviously never had their party Rodney King'ed by a pack of ghouls. One such experience usually leads to everybody quietly forgetting the rule exists.

It was certainly responsible for perhaps more than half the deaths I’ve been responsible for as a GM in the 3.x era.

While running jade regent I had a particularly high AC character get mobbed by some weak wights with a paralysis attack and one got a lucky natural 20 followed by a natural 1 on a save.

It does make the paralysis moments suddenly tense when a rule like that is there.

krobrina wrote:

Gorbacz wrote:

Iomedean, not Iomedaen.

It's OK to swap her letters over. She's often drawn androgyneous.

If you think "woman with short hair" means "androgyneous", well, you need to get out more.

I won’t comment on the spelling, but I did also feel like she appears more androgynous in the second edition art and it has nothing to do with her haiir. I thought it was intentional?

Yeah, it works if you count the first square from the center as a 'diagonal'.

I just mean nothing in the wording actually implies that.

I feel like I'm playing devils advocate now and stealing RD's job(sorry!). But can someone explain why those are correct? I don't think it lines up with the description of bursts from the book.

I do agree this matches up with basically all traditional bursts I've ever done and I have a suspicion that the 'first' square you count counts as a diagonal one, which makes the image correct. I certainly didn't imply that from my reading of bursts.

Burst Wording

I think you are missing a bit by my count. If I'm counting squares from the corner of the center target point, 25 feet out should be a bit wider. My best way to describe place i'm seeing a gap is I believe where you have 2 square on each cardinal direction, that should instead be 4?

Ours is also Ulfen (a Noble Scion of the house of Vinmark). She has Glimpse of Redemption and Lay on Hands, plus expert in heavy armor.

Glimpse of redemption feels like a really good add to keep that reaction slot working in her groups favor. If you don’t mind me asking, what muse did she go with?

Mine chose enigma which surprised me. The character is inspired to find the tales of unsung warriors who met an early grave so he can make stories out of them, cautionary, comedically, or otherwise.

I have a Bard/Fighter Ulfen 'Skald' like character in my AoA campaign who feels like he holds his own in basically any aspect of the game. So I'd say so far the 'gishy' bard feels fine in our group.

He usually gets to make a full attack bonus attack every turn, has a competitive AC, and in tandem with a inspire courage and a raised shield/move action at the start of fights and fades into spell casting as the fight progresses. He snagged AOO and has been able to get some use out of since 2e is more free form with movement.

When he drops a haste his action economy is more freed up as well to mix spells and attacks more evenly.

I think I see it as a bit of both also.

Mini's combat portion of the game is fairly codified and rigid without removing GM fiat to make new challenges and rulings off the cuff. It honestly does a great job at giving you a solid framework as a GM to build on to.

Exploration/downtime mode is relatively free form, giving the GM room to story tell and create new and unique challenges and activities for his players to interact with the world, but there is a loose set of guidelines to give players some control over how they want to interact with said world.

My opinion is that it is more free form than 3.x/PF1 era games and less free form than certain types of theater of the mind style games that I've played before.

I feel like all the rule gaps that currently exist are good for "Ask your GM" type scenarios and hope they don't go out of their way to fill in these situations and instead continue world building and content.

Some people don't enjoy that because GM's are as varied as humans. That means it is impossible to have a truly consistent portrayal of setting or mechanics from table to table. Even as much as PFS style games attempt to have general consistency in rulings, I can tell you that the GM's still have a huge impact on what is going to take place at the table.

All the rules in the world won't mean that people won't break them for good or ill reasons.

I've probably been a little more restrictive on hero points than suggested in the core, but they have received numerous uses and are nice for a tool that allows the PC's to push for a success when it really counts.

Right now I'm running Age of Ashes and I've been giving out 1 hero point per chapter in the AP, in addition I give out Hero points for generally dramatic or heroic actions my PC's take or any unique accomplishments.

I built my own 2e library in Maptools and do most of my tokens/images on a flatscreen TV I lay on my dinner table when we play. I make an effort to always do as much mechanical book keeping here to keep things flowing with the click of a button or two. A lot of this stems from me wanting to keep my pacing while running a game and I'd rather be thinking about other things than tracking Skeleton 1 - 5's HP independently.

As for resources I use a hodge-podge mix of printed out 'cheat sheets' and online resources(AON is a great online resource) that I really can't say I have a rhyme or reason for deciding what I print vs what I do online.

It looks like I've accidentally signed myself up for the PF Society Adventures Subscription. I'd like to have this one subscription removed. Please leave all my existing subscriptions.

Thanks!

I whipped this up for my game. I based it off Breachill being a level 4 settlement and assumed the town would have the following items available for purchase. Ignore my prices, that was something specific to my game and might not be applicable to your GM.

Permanent:
4th Lv-
Runestone - Striking 61gp 7sp 5cp
3rd lv-
Staff of Fire - 57gp
2nd lv-
Brooch of Shielding - 28gp 5sp

Consumables:
Lv4:
Invisibility Potion: 19gp
Lv3:
Lesser Healing Potion x2 - 11gp 4sp
Juggernaut Mutagen -11gp 4sp
Oil of potency - 6gp 6sp 5cp

There isn't any specific rules in place for how to come up with these lists as of yet, so unfortunately there isn't anything specific to guide us yet. I also assumed most mundane things can be purchased in town for my game.

Asurasan wrote:

I made a set of feats for anyone who has players who might express some interest in furthering their bond with the Warg pups found in book 1 of Age of Ashes. My plan is to make this feat line availible to players after they have successfully completed their 'training' with the Warg pups.

They essentially mirror the Druid/Ranger animal companion line with the Rare tag(I love this about 2e Pathfinder, since it lets you build something so campaign specific like this).

Main work was just creating the Warg stat block. Due to the general balance of 2e and the action economy this doesn't seem like it should be particularly unbalancing but here we go.

Check them out!
Warg Pack Feat Line

Looks very cool! Only suggestion I have is to put the feat levels in line with ranger/champion instead of druid.

That sounds like a good idea. Fixed

Really, just Alak at first. I am anticipating my group will want to make him a solid ally for most of the AP so I want to have it so I can make a roll20 token. Every one else in the book, I have time after monday's Game 1 to get pictures for. I thought I could grab them from the PDF or if there was a file in the PDF folder with just portrait JPGs.

I use token tools to make all of mine. It's a freeware product that you can easily copy and paste into or take screen clippings with.

Token Tool

I made a set of feats for anyone who has players who might express some interest in furthering their bond with the Warg pups found in book 1 of Age of Ashes. My plan is to make this feat line availible to players after they have successfully completed their 'training' with the Warg pups.

They essentially mirror the Druid/Ranger animal companion line with the Rare tag(I love this about 2e Pathfinder, since it lets you build something so campaign specific like this).

Main work was just creating the Warg stat block. Due to the general balance of 2e and the action economy this doesn't seem like it should be particularly unbalancing but here we go.

Check them out!
Warg Pack Feat Line

I believe one of the sections in the first two chapters of the AP say the town is level 4 for the purposes of downtime activities. If I stumble across where again I’ll let you know.

Please disregard this. I spoke with a neighbor who has apparently received the package by mistake. All is well.

Hey guys, I’ve never had this happen before but it appears my shipment is missing for the above order.

I checked the tracking and usps shows it should have been delivered last Wednesday but I have not received it. I contacted the post office and they sent me you guys way. I’m not sure how to proceed so any help would be appreciated.

I'm not sure if shields breaking is quite that unrealistic - holmgang apparently involved a specific number of replacement shields per participant in the duel.

That is informative, thanks! Specifically sounds like they just took turns bashing each other.... I have a Ulfen character in my 2E game that might have 'beef' in his backstory that could possible have an old rival show up. I smell a challenge brewing.

As for the discussion, I wasn't trying to use the real world as an example. I was just trying to add weight to the 'shields probably aren't as fragile as to be obliterated in a single blow' conversation.

I think mechanically there needs to be some small tweak or addition to let shields scale to keep the 'shield game' happy at higher levels.

My problem is when extracting the images from PDF’s I sometimes have to rescale the maps in order to make the squares actually square.

The caves map in Hellknight Hill are an example of this. I just wish there was an option for each individual map image in full res to be available. I’d gladly even pay money for it.

Yeah, and purely anecdotally. All the historical testing I’ve ever seen about shields implies the man on the other side of the shield gives out long before the shield itself gives way.

I’m wondering why they didn’t go with shield runes similar to weapon runes. You could have just baked hardness and durability increases into those.

I think I know the answer to this, but it’s worth it for some clarity. The shard of the golden dragon orb, do the PC’s need this for anything in later adventures?

While this is true in general, there are a few cases where a class's functioning depends a bit on feat selection. The Alchemist is the worst offender, requiring some feats just to make their class features actually work/scale, but there are certain fighting styles for the other classes that depend on feats that act a little more as "fixes" than additional options.

Yeah, I agree alchemist is the oddest duck in the core classes. I'd probably lay this primarily at the feet of the 'Powerful Alchemy' feat which feels like it should just be baked in to your infused items(simply to cut down on the book work that a player has to keep up with). Which would keep it 'scaling' similarly to the spell DC's.

I think the above post begins to hit on this concept slightly, but there is one stand out element that is in relation to how the action economy and the decision to multi-class or not interact.

Pathfinder 2E is not a system of nesting stacking bonuses in the same way you dealt with in 1E. In general any thing your feat selection does is add options on to the chassis of your class of choice. This means multiclassing 'poorly' or 'optimally' has little to do with dealing the most damage possible, or hitting the bad guy. It simply gives you choices of how you want to proceed.

From my perspective, in combat, higher level class feats vs lower level multiclass feats aren't as much of an issue as people seem to make them out to be. These are(from a combat perspective) simply the way you want to spend your actions. Ultimately there is very little interaction beyond that. The core 'chassis' of your class will continue to function even if you never purchase a single class feat from it.

Things that improve proficiency are the rare exception I can find that I think alter the 'core' mechanics of the system. So if your choice is between taking Power Attack on your sorcerer/fighter or Advanced Bloodline is simply just expressing how you want to do things with your actions. Neither of those choices determine how 'well' you do those things, simply just give you the option to do one or the other.

This is a large improvement from 1E where to successfully multiclass characters often required a high degree of system mastery to pull off depending on what you are going after. 2E Multi-classing allows you to dash in some options to enable you to possibly stretch your abilities in a different direction.

Feel free to share something if it fits with this Adventure Path, but if it is designed specifically for another one it is probably best shared in that subforum. I haven't checked every AP subforum but I imagine there is a community content thread for each of them. Even if there isn't you can certainly start one if you really want to get your content out there.

Thanks, just to clarify. I mean to share Age of Ashes content. I just was referencing what I had previously shared in similar threads for other AP's.

Just a quick question:

I contributed fairly heavily to the Jade Regent thread like this and I wanted to know if you guys had any interest in supplementary social encounters and social/setting vignettes? I appreciate the technical resources but I was curious if anyone would feel it is off topic to share other AP related materials? I want to avoid a hijack if I can!

Oh man.... I showed up to give a snarky answer like Stunned(30) or something being the best but thorin wins.

I feel like the big takeaway here is that htere's no clear indication of WHAT familiars/companions/minions can do in exploration mode. All of the rules surrounding them seem completely focused around encounters.

I agree with this. To give a true take on rules as written as people are usually looking for here there are no explicit rules about familiars, animal companions, or minions in general that I can find.

6 seconds of time in exploration mode is not equatable to a round in encounter mode. Those are different modes of play RAW.

Actions in the same index are described as part of a turn, and turns are described as part of encounter mode. During any other non encounter mode of play there is no explicit rules I can find to support much of what people are proposing here about the limitations of what a familiar or animal companion can or can’t do during other modes of play.

Here is something to think about: consider a character who is playing in a game from 1st to 6th, and likely is not going to see 7th level. They want to play a cleric.

Why not, then, be a cloistered cleric over a warpriest even if the plan is to never swing a weapon? All the character has to do is focus on Wisdom and Charisma. Their Dexterity does not need to rise above 12, and they do not care too much about the armor check penalty and armor speed penalty from medium armor.

I think you might have gotten that backwards, but I'm assuming you mean why not be a war priest over a cloistered cleric?

If so, they might be interested in dex related skills, could be planning a thematic multiclass into something else, don't want the aesthetic of wearing armor, or just feels like it doesn't fit into their mental image of what their cleric is about.

If you are talking about all things equivalent, the 'mini-wargaming' version of Pathfinder 2E you are probably correct that War Priest is easier to bring more to the table at levels 1-6.

I've played a level 1 and level 2 cloistered cleric(of Nethys) and brought plenty to the tables that I played at. I had plenty of healing and modest spell damage that I never felt out of the fight, and my knowledge domain actually helped me plenty when it came to nailing most recall knowledge checks.

I think the main thing about 2E is things are on average closer between what is considered optimal and not optimal.

Please disregard this request. It looks like the lost omens guide isn't part of the core subscription. I'll just wait for my CE books for a few weeks.

Sorry for the confusion!

Hey guys, can you remove the age of lost omens guide from this order so it will ship?

I’m subscribed to the core line, so I should receive this normally through my sub.

Just bumping this to make sure it was seen.

Thanks!

Ugh, I went to check my order status again on my items in my sidecart and I think they have once again messed up(no longer showing in my order history, but the items are still showing as ordered).

Sorry to bring this back up again. I'm literally just viewing my side cart and it seems to vanish and go back into my shopping cart as soon as I verify the 'ship as soon as possible' selection.

To say the exploration chapter wasn't well received by my old gaming group would be an understatement. I read it and went "yeah, kinda useful to read I guess. I'll be ignoring that in my games".

Will the whole exploration tactics and being forced to use one tactic carry over to the core rules?

Not a big deal if they do. Much like D&D 4th ed's skill challenge rules I'll ignore it 100% except to use as inspiration for adjudicating what to do in certain situations (skill challenges weren't a terrible idea, just terribly executed).

I think I saw someone(Jason?) mentioned that exploration tactics were more of an 'under the hood' mechanic to give the GM a tool to adjudicate what their players were doing based off their described actions and not so much a "Declare your exploration tactic to me!" type mechanic like it seemed to read in the play test.

I think you are spot on when you say you want to use it as inspiration and not inherently a tool to codify every single element of the game.

Looks like I sorta answered my own question here by signing up for the RPG line. In this case it looks like I'll be able to pick up a normal book + bestiary at gencon and have my limited editions from my preorders sent separately?

I planned to gift a second book to some folks in my play group, so I think this will work out for me. I'll be able to have books in hand at gencon for PFS games I was planning to play in and I'll end up with a 2nd set of core books I can gift to a friend later after my normal Limited Edition versions arrive. Let me know if that sounds incorrect? I don't mind spending a little extra in this case.

Thanks!

Hey Sam,

I appreciate it. Can I go ahead and subscribe to the Core line and pick up my things at gencon?

Hey guys, I was messing around with my orders trying to figure out how to opt into Gencon Pickup for my 2e pre-orders and AP pickup's since it appeared to be available at this time. As I was looking around at the options I found out how to turn on gencon pickup for my subscriptions, but I didn't see how to enable it for my pre-order.

I opened up my sidecart and looked to see if there was some way to adjust the pick up location there, but as I looked through my order(the number listed above) I believe I've done something to have that moved out of my sidecart and back to my normal cart.

I just want to double check to make sure I haven't incidentally done something to cancel my pre-order while trying to enable gencon pickup.

If you guys don't mind double checking to make sure I have set myself to pick up my things at gencon and not accidentally canceled my preorder it would be much appreciated!

Thanks as always!

Point buy is REALLY easy.

Each Score costs a number of points equal to the modifier the score gives you(minimum 1).

9 through 13 all cost 1 point each.

14 and 15 cost 2 points each.

16 and 17 cost 3 points each.

18 costs 4 points.

I'll agree on Scores vs Modifiers. Ability scores are almost never used, and when they are, the rule can usually be tweaked to not need them.

It is mathematically easy to understand. Once you understand the game the effect of each value is meaningful as well.

In my experience, teaching it to players who are new to the system is frequently confusing due to the inherent lack of value in odd scores(as you mention above) vs even scores. Depending on the amount of point buy you are doing, you are talking about walking someone through making 10-20 choices about their before they understand the value and implications of their choices 4 levels later.

If 2e is anything like the playtest, you are making significantly fewer choices, each choice is in some way improving a character, AND potentially playing with building blocks in your characters backstory. That is what I consider a huge improvement over 1st edition.

To me, this is a huge improvement for my ability to onboard people into Pathfinder.

Pathfinder Spoiler #98 describes the wand rules. If you overcast, there's a 55% chance it's merely broken (unusable until repaired) and a 45% chance it's completely destroyed

Thanks 3Doubloons,

I had missed that one.

Pricing in particular seems to be something I'm worried about. They say scrolls are way cheaper, but how expensive will a wand actually be? After all, a wand can't be too expensive or players will, A) complain about their expensive toy got permanently destroyed & B) create wealth issues within the party if one player's wand is destroyed and their equipment value is now significantly lower than the rest of the party. On the other hand, if wands aren't expensive enough, then they're just a pure upgrade to scrolls.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what was said above in the first post, isn't the wand 'broken' if you fail the flat check not 'destroyed'? In Pathfinder lingo broken is more of a temporary state until repaired?

i.e. Fighter's shield takes more damage than it had it in HP, it becomes 'broken'. During the next rest(In the playtest it took 10 mins) the fighter made a skill check and repaired it.

It seems like wand might be very similar to this, right? Then it dosn't upset the whole WBL problem you are describing.

@Asurasan The terrain modifier stuff is in the current version (1.5.1, but 1.5.2 should be out this weekend, probably). You can plop down tokens on the map (on any layer, including Hidden) and then double-click the token and set the Terrain Movement Modifier. This feature, combined with the new "AI" button in the upper right corner, will perform more intelligent pathing to get the PC token from point A to point B. (We're still testing these features and we'd love to get feedback. We have a Discord server, but the best place for feedback is GitHub.com/RPTools/maptool , in particular the Issues tab. You can fill in a template and tell what feature(s) you'd like to see.)

Azrei_fje,

Thanks for pointing this out to me. I've actually grabbed the new version you mentioned and messed around with it. I also hopped over to you guys github and looked around some. I'll probably grab eclipse and refresh myself on java and take a look at the source code tomorrow.

The terrain movement modifier on tokens works like I would expect. I think I had envisioned something more like a 'paint on' style of difficult terrain using a template tool that snaps to the grid, but the current approach is completely serviceable.