AwesomenessDog's page

This really does just boil down into "Why can't I play real life simulator in my game about unrealistically delving into dungeons and killing dragons?"

Raging customer: "Grok use gratesword one swing with extra math rocks at end of charge!"

People only use grateswords in a very cheese heavy build designed around shredding things. Yes sir, the door, that way? Very well...

I can't tell you much about the conversion of 1e stuff to 2e, but as for the levels, I can say that if you can convert and add in the Agency of Secrets module to the party's return trip to Korvosa and the Deathhead Vault in book 4, its fairly easy to stretch the campaign's existing 17 (+1 for the module) levels to 20, though I would recommend just sticking to milestone leveling.

I usually do the level break down as follows:
Book 1:
1 - Haunted Fortunes
2 - City Gone Mad encounters through All the World's Meat
3 - Ambassador's Secret + Queen's Scapegoat
4 - The Dead Warrens and close of module

Book 2: Note that a lot of the encounters have been changed around in order here; I usually go off of original printing order but really its just about keeping the number of encounters balanced between levels
5 - opening through to half of the encounters
6 - rest of the encounters until the party decides to take on the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden
7 - Hospice of the Blessed Maiden

Book 3:
8 - Opening encounters up to finding Laori
9 - Either of the first dealing with The Arkonas or The Emperor of Old Korvosa (note approaching the Arkonas just to be told to deal with the emperor doesn't count as dealing with both)
10 - Dealing with the other one

Book 4: Like book 2, this book had massive changes, and these were probably entirely for the worse in the remaster. I would just stick with how the original printing works, so that is what I am recommending, but same rule applies of "just keep the encounter numbers balanced between events"
11 - Until the first of either finishing the Acropolis or the Clan of the Moon
12 - Until Cindermaw is completed
13 - Totem Trial and ambush by the Mantis Assassins

Return to Korvosa (book 4)/Academy of Secrets: While I did say most of the book 4 changes in the remaster were bad, that's limited to the Shoanti sections, the addition of the Deathhead Vault I think is very well done, if not kind of a nonsequetor. How I deal with that is usually by kidnapping Krojun in the ambush (sneak attack assassins beats invulnerable rager losing uncanny dodge barbarian) once it becomes obvious the party is winning, and having Cinnabar teleport away with his unconscious body (he can be found in the execution chamber with the Sakhil). You can also have the party be called back by Kroft but I find its less convincing on its own, but a good "oh we can also deal with this while we are here, and a way for them to realize "that's prob where they took Krojun anyway". Basically Kroft and the others who help with the plan to attack the Deathhead Vault also give the cover story of the party returning on diplomatic immunity (they are outlaws) to participate in the Breaching Festival which is covered by the Academy of Secrets module; you can also decide if you want Lorthact to be a major player in the crown, which can maybe fill out some level 20 fun. In either case, dealing with both of these event will take the party from level 14 into 15

Book 5:
15 - Because of the haunts in the castle, the party should only be allowed to level up once they have cleared the first chained spirit and thus can rest within the castle
16 - Defeating the rest of the chained spirits and finally the chain spirit himself will earn the next level up
17 - should cover until the end of the book

Book 6:
18: All encounters that can be done outside the castle (including potentially encountering Togomor leading the queen's forces outside Korvosa if you want to make her more proactive in being an active political/military threat)
19: Castle Korvosa itself
20: the Sunken Queen, plus any victory lap fights, like if they fail to prevent Kazavon from manifesting, maybe Lorthact if you included him, clearing out the Havero in Book 4, etc.

Actually spiders don't really go unconscious except for death. They can lower their activity to basically the closest thing to our sleep but they never actually become unaware of their surroundings or close their eyes.

That said, unconscious doesn't literally have to mean "night-night time". If you damage a creature to the point that it has negative hp and is "unconscious", if that creature doesn't have a consciousness (which some oozes do), then they are still damaged to the point of being unable to act. The ooze has been splattered to just a couple of beads amidst a splatter generally in the shape of the original ooze's size. If it has fast healing, it can regather its splattered self until it has been so splattered and scattered it essentially can't gather itself back up through surface tension.

Debatably you could argue that most every ooze is basically a magical construct, and then like constructs they would die at 0 hp, but they don't have that rule line, so they don't die.

Also, just because a creature is "mindless" doesn't mean it can't do a little bit of strategization, at least within line of simple and intuitive tactics, as oozes have wisdom scores as well. Now, often that wisdom is 1, but even still even as soon as that ooze had 1 hp from fast healing, it probably wouldn't immediately lunge at the closest thing it can detect if only so that it can heal more instead of just cycling into "wake up, almost die, wake up, almost die..." until the almost becomes just "die".

So Ileosa as written is pretty strong all around. Not only does she herself have decent offensive and defensive abilities vs a level 17 party (+36 (plus bane) to hit, 43 AC, +21 lowest save, true seeing, project image (basically lets you both keep Ileosa illusive and even if someone fails a save essentially attack and threaten two+ people at once). She can be buffing the entire room further with her inspire courage +4, or if she can take a lower inspire courage from her simulacrums she can switch to a defensive state and give herself and one other enemy +4 dodge with inspire heroics.

If she can lock down an enemy, she can hit them/someone else with irresistible dance and get a massive amount of Free AoO while also preventing the person who failed the spell from doing anything else. She can song of discord and if enough people fail and roll low enough, she might not even have to fight the party. Quickened Greater Dispels is a great way to first create a weakness in the parties defenses and then immediately collapse on that weakness. She can see the party coming and create a mind fog near the entrance to possibly weaken anyone who has a decent will save to now fail nearly every will save, even on her lower level spells. Dominate person, really obvious what you can do here. Mirror image spam (from herself and her crown at least once a turn up to three times in the whole fight) to make her even harder to hit. If she or another of her allies ever does get affected by a debilitating effect, she can saving finale to get a second save out. She has a 110 hp heal in her ring of spell storing. Generally her tactics are fine and should explain a reasonable progression; that said, I am fond of swapping out her getaway for overwhelming presence both to make her have to play more aggressive (no way to escape now) and so she can potentially get multiple members of the party unable to do anything as she essentially gets to monologue (because if one party member decides to interrupt her, the entire room can probably end them just fine).

She can summon a gelugon which is good AoE cold damage plus some minor backline harass. The Tanniniver is a massive AoE debuff threat and a pretty good offensive damage dealer with inspire courage (and possibly inspire heroics). The furies are also massive back line harasss and can potentially even stop spell casters by just readying for whenever they cast spells and force difficult to impossible caster level checks from the damage. But the 6 false Ileosa simulacrums also can force a bunch of saves every round to not become fascinated and taken out of the fight (even if the DC is low enough that someone might only fail on a nat 1), but also they can give anyone under threat refreshable hp every round through inspire greatness (Ileosa gets 31 temp hp, if it takes the party 10 rounds of fighting through her, then she nearly doubled her hp pool through that alone, nevermind her Regen 20). The simulacrums can also keep up the mirror image annoyance, standard action casting and move action forcing a fascinate save, applying dirge of doom to anyone nearby attacking the real ileosa, or maybe even a different spell if they aren't being attacked for their standard action.

If you have the PDF, you should be able to copy paste out of the books, if not, you can also screenshot them.

I'm gunna start a tally of the number of incorrect necros in a row before we get a genuine new question or an actually new rules interaction discovery.

So I'll start with the fact that Crimson Throne is my favorite campaign, it's the one I started with as a GM, it's the one that over 13 run throughs I have taught the most first time players the game and then been their first full campaign, and I think is the one that tells the best and most adaptable story to any party that fits themselves in the town of Korvosa.

As mentioned above, I have completed 12 GMings of the game, and am currently on the 13th (though it is on haitus for personal reasons of one of the players). Those campaigns run around the time the remaster came out, though I have a strong preference for the original printing. Obviously some of those games are too old to have my own memory be good enough for what happened and some contact with players has such drifted away over a decade+ of life. However, for the most recent four completed (and eventually the one on haitus) campaigns we have commissioned "post campaign" art of not only the entire party, but also every major NPC the party had saved along the way at the top of Castle Korvosa and overlooking their journey through the Storval Plateau and eventually to Castle Scarwall.

Obviously, many campaigns have been run and still are being run, and because of how big this campaign is to me I wanted to let the background and NPCs act as a sort of community option to any party that similarly wants to commemorate a successful run. The art was commissioned through 2 artists, both who match the style of the original Crimson Throne art style very well, but one got a job as a videogame concept artist so the other had to take over. If you'd like your own version, basically all you would need to do is have the artist make your new PCs and perhaps do slight redraws of some NPCs or rarely create a new NPC that my groups did not cover; aside from whatever that costs, you otherwise are paying a small legacy cost for the background (that goes entirely to the artist for maintaining/updating/compositing your final batch of NPCs).

Here is a folder containing 3 of the four amazing versions of the end of the campaign.

You can also find other examples of the the artist's work (including the party for our Mummy's Mask campaign and that same party who is on haitus' first commission for their Crimson Throne campaign) at @Tangeeart on instagram, twitter, or reddit. Likewise, they also can be reached at artingallthetime@gmail.com.

Ah the bots are using chat GPT to write their posts and just adding phishing links to the end.

I might have worded that too strongly, I meant more you should look to the Harrow rules which come from that AP to understand what they mean by "Opposite match", not so much you couldn't play the ability outside the AP.

I will also add that Arcane (Bloodrager) bloodline is by far the strongest bloodline, so I would be hesitant to give it any leeway other than what is strictly Raw. As is, being able to race cycle mirror images (from greater bloodrage) and swap out at will up to 3 more of your other spell selections from the bloodline to open with a Beast Shape Pounce into next round transformation or Dragon form for even more natural attacks is borderline busted. Just my 2cp as someone who has played with a player who used this bloodline.

Completely an unofficial rule but usually when I run ABP, it's to make up for the fact I am expanding an AP to run from level 17/18 to 20 which happens to mean that the wealth you are expected to have in the AP is usually around half what the level you will be at any given point is.

For my players, I give Animal Companions but not familiars ABP at effective druid level -2. The idea is that an animal companion is about the power level of a cohort NPC, who should have some wealth of their own. Obviously when the NPC comes in, they're coming in with gear, and then they start sucking party resources so the idea sorta loosely applies, if anything the NPC/AC equivalent is getting slightly more, but animal companions tend to fall off later anyway. Familiars of course do not deserve any of the free stuff because very rarely do you see them getting anything in the first place, but also if they were to get it, it can just come from the PC's. Additionally, Eidolons do not get their own ABP and similarly pull from the PC because they come with the restriction that a slot occupied by one is occupied for both (e.g. they can't both wear a belt of strength).

Additional modifications I make are that armor and weapon attunement doesn't get burned away by special abilities, but magic weapons cost twice as much (and can be enchanted with special abilities without a base +1 first, but it still must be masterwork), so for example a flaming longsword costs 4,000 for the flaming, 300 masterwork, and 20 base weapon for 4,320gp. Natural weapons/unarmed attacks are all attuned together by "attuning your body" much like a AoMF and wearing an actual AoMF just gives you special abilities like normal (note it is also doubled). Bracers of Armor is a special case where they work as normal buy cannot be combined with attunement if you buy it for actual armor instead of special abilities; this does make it the better option even after level 17+ if you just want a high AC for your monk/arcane caster with no special abilities but that is still paying 64k after wasting an entire attunement (or at the very least shifting your +5 to a buckler) which achieves the same effective "doubled cost" for that small AC boost since your WBL is halved.

Finally as a quality of life thing for some class choices/options where their unavoidable abilities would give you something occluded by ABP (e.g. protection domain giving +1+1/5levels resistance bonus to saves) and thus weakens a larger option as a whole, if the choice for such an ability cannot be individually taken/traded away, it simply stacks with ABP. An example of something that would not fit this bill, we have Hunter's nature bonds where you can just *not* take a physical enhancement if you already are attuned in that stat or paladin/magus where your attunement + divine bond/arcane strike total enhancement can add to +5, but anything over that you can put into special abilities.

i don't beleive using up a resource is the same as making that action.

Similar to using something like conductive but not being able to do the action that it may or may not require to use normally.

I can't think of anything that would mean you can't use body guard while total defensing. It simply counts against the total. It itself is not an attack of opporunity.
It says you are not making an attack of opportunity. So it counts against the maximum but is not one. So I do not se an issue.

Would you allow a swashbuckler to parry and riposte while full defensing? Parry is not an AoO but uses an AoO, and riposte is an immediate action and is thus not precluded.

It used to be old strict scripture that you leveled up upon resting (even in ADnD only upon returning to some sort of base), not as soon as you killed enough to hit a ticker that your character's couldn't know about. In real life this is true enough even as well, rest lets you process and ingrain what you learned on the previous day neurologically, muscles repair themselves overnight and can grow new nervous connections, so on and so forth.

Simple solution, don't let them level up until they rest, better solution, don't award XP until they rest. If you really want to avoid annoying some old kooks, speaking from experience, don't even give xp and level up opportunity till the end of session.

Maybe a simpler way to look at this is that if the feat requires 5+ ranks in Kn Planes, then that includes the knowledge about your closely aligned plane. You make a Kn Planes check to know the features of a specific plane (alignment, time, etc.), so it would make sense that you could easily combine this information to know what a "[planar] [animal]" would be assuming you also know the animal already.

I'm calling you out for restarting a convo that died twelve years ago.

It creates an entirely new one.

With this spell, you bring back a dead creature in another body, provided that its death occurred no more than 1 week before the casting of the spell and the subject’s soul is free and willing to return. If the subject’s soul is not willing to return, the spell does not work; therefore, a subject that wants to return receives no saving throw.

Since the dead creature is returning in a new body, all physical ills and afflictions are repaired. The condition of the remains is not a factor. So long as some small portion of the creature’s body still exists, it can be reincarnated, but the portion receiving the spell must have been part of the creature’s body at the time of death. The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand. This process takes 1 hour to complete. When the body is ready, the subject is reincarnated.

It is likely transmutation because you are taking the piece and making it into the entire new one, but because magic doesn't have to follow the laws of thermodynamics, you don't need to have more than a piece which would transform while the remainder of what that piece was taken from should be unaffected.

Think of Flatfooted and Touch ACs as excluding specific things (Dex and dodge; Armor, Shield, and Natural Armor respectively) rather than only including certain things.

I actually stretch most of the AP's to cover the full 20 levels (even in 1e), so aside from having to stretch book 5&6's monsters to be higher CRs to match the party, it should be easily doable, especially if you're already remaking everything for 2e anyway.

Mandravious is first described by Neolandus after rescuing him and heading north, but more detail is given by the Sun Shaman once the party earns the right to know by being Sklar-Quah. In your case, since you are probably just having Thousand Bones give the info, it should be him then who also knows and gives the info, and since he's more diplomatic and wanting to make peace, it makes sense for him to skip the big insider requirements. (It also makes some sense that he knows this info as the Skoan-Quah broke away from the Sklar-Quah because of differences in their hatred or willingness to make peace with Korvosa; you can maybe even add this fact to his retelling of the story.) I believe the remaster book mentions all the artifacts and who got what at the end (I know they retconned the Sklar-Quah shaman to be female in the remaster.)

Also also, a separate piece of advice, since you're about to start book 3, in the original, there were a lot of undertones and hints about both Kroft and Endrin having crushes on each other but never really acting on it. The remaster wrote those out, especially in Kroft's reaction to Endrin's death at the beginning of book 3. It's a nice arc to follow, especially when you in theory can rescue him and bring him back to the rebellion in the remaster because they added the Deathshead Vault. Maybe the party realizes and pushes them together and they can become King and Queen at the end, or maybe the party is as oblivious as they are to each other's feelings.

You meet Sial in the Thrall of the Acropolis dungeon (not that you are keeping it) in the original but not the remaster, though honestly you can probably just have Laori if your party isn't/wouldn't be trying to convert her and skip the "friend/foe" subplot.

The party still has to travel to Scarwall so they will still be going through Shoanti lands, my suggestion would be then to cut out the entire "becoming Sklar Quah" plot and just have Thousand Bones lead the spiritual séance at the end of the book when they arrive to him. It lets you keep all the importance of Shonati, still learn their history and the history of the Midnight's Teeth, still keep Thousand Bones as an important figure for peace between Shoanti and Korvosa, and allows the Mantis raid against the camp (maybe just reskin the chieftain as Krojun, or they kidnap Thousand Bones so they have to go back to the Longacre Building to save him and finish the séance), and it keeps the Son of Spirits etc. mostly as is.

I might also add in the Academy of Secrets module as a good cover for "why the PCs are back in town" and to give them political immunity when the Queen has likely made them outlaws. Ofc, it also helps them cover the full number of levels you would otherwise need without too much rapid level up (and I always enjoy adding Lorthact in as a quiet antagonist to Korvosa as a whole).

I haven't done Night of the Frozen Shadow, so I don't know how long it is, but if you have some travel encounters, plus the camp raid, plus say NotFS, that can be a level; Academy of Secrets can cover another level; and then the Deaths Head Vault is the third and final level for this module to keep you on track.

"When thrown in the air as part of casting a conjuration"

If you throw a powder in the air you don't get it back. It is a single-use item.

What do you mean a tiny familiar can't get you back the magical components?

There is a discrete difference between the behavior and characters of those who are and are not discreet.

Might be thinking of binding, which has a minimus containment that you can dispel on the fly.

Minimus Containment: The subject is shrunk to a height of 1 inch or less and held within some gem, jar, or similar object. The binding is permanent. The subject does not need to breathe, eat, or drink while contained, nor does it age. Reduce the save DC by 4.

AwesomenessDog wrote:

I am saying that because they were the ones putting it in from the beginning, I don't believe they truly just want to excise it, as opposed to say the core writing team now being anyone besides JJ, EM, JB, etc. where it's someone with new ideas having to decide what to drop and what to keep of the old.

So, even though James Jacobs is the Creative Director for Pathfinder, you believe that "someone with new ideas" is forcing him to post in these forums saying that he doesn't want to tell that kind of story now?

That he can't possibly have changed his thinking over all these years, and that he is lying to us when he says he has?

Sorry, I believe James, not someone who is pretending to mindread what his motivations and thinking are and announce it as if he knows all that better than James himself does.

You're really having trouble here. Even by your quote, he goes from being very hard on "we should show it as evil" to "let's never touch it again" boilerplate. People can say things disingenuously because they need to project a message. I am calling this disingenuous A) because it's him defending it less than 2 years before his most recent comment, B) JJ still leads the narrative team as opposed to someone who doesn't share his views so the narrative team (or at least its leader) by the previous point doesn't actually hold opinion that it's better to write nothing on the matter instead of well nuanced matter or even just "it's evil, period" content, and C) going "we will never mention this again" is *more in support of* it by being less against it than "it's evil, period."

AwesomenessDog wrote:

Wasn't meaning to relitigate it, just bring it up as example of how it and the Old Erastil example, it, and this current discussion are all three separate things with regards to genuineness and benefit.

Whether or not I agree with you, it's objectively a terrible example for your purposes. Using an extremely controversial and probably overall unpopular take as an aside in your bigger point is asking for trouble. It's completely distracted from your intended point. Now, instead of engaging with the point you were trying to make--a point about risque content I probably mostly agree with!--we're arguing about whether or not James Jacobs is being forced at cancelpoint to change his setting and lie about wanting to do it.

To be blunt, either you've failed to make your point, or sniping at the slavery thing was the main point. Either way, it's not helpful.

Scroll back up and read how this started again, my claim was that banning sex-content wouldn't be the first time they made a disingenuous move (that was also completely invalidated as a necessity as the start to the entire thread had made several points regarding sexual content).

But you want a different point as to why it's meaningless and unnecessary for them to ban sexual content, let's talk about how the entire D&D community at large (not just those who have already switched to PF) give zero care to any of these larger issues especially when there's even a thin veneer of tradition to support it. Take Goblins as an example, not a problem Paizo has internally or needs to change, but had been a 2+ year debate that saw even those against the WotC setting depictions of goblins not switching from the system in any discernable number; it took the whole OGL debacle before there was any sizable trend of people looking for other D&D-style systems, and that was completely unrelated to the goblin-debate.

Short of objectively bad takes on sex (or other content-matter), I doubt anyone who would otherwise buy Paizo products or even just "unbranded D&D-esque product" would stop buying because of a 3rd party, Pathfinder compatible Book of Erotic Fantasy 2.0. If that's true, who is Paizo placating/pandering to if they don't allow it? If they aren't pandering, why would they block it?

Can we please not relitigate the slavery debate? James Jacobs has repeatedly and firmly expressed that the change was something he wanted. Sometimes authors change their minds, especially if they gain greater context after sharing their work with a broader spectrum of people. Regardless, the debate has nothing to do with this thread, does it? Third party publishers have not been told they can't include content involving slavery under the Pathfinder license, have they?

Wasn't meaning to relitigate it, just bring it up as example of how it and the Old Erastil example, it, and this current discussion are all three separate things with regards to genuineness and benefit. One was just a idiot being an idiot, another I don't buy, and in a still different but similar way, I don't buy that "sex has to be excluded in order to be inoffensive."

So, the Pathfinder Creative Director who assigned freelancers to write the lore about Golarion was ripping off..... himself? And when his name is on the cover of the book, he's ripping off .... himself?

I think you're missing my point, I *am* saying those people wrote it themselves, I'm saying they all wanted it in the game (both the sex, and the other s-word) when they put it in the game. I am saying that because they were the ones putting it in from the beginning, I don't believe they truly just want to excise it, as opposed to say the core writing team now being anyone besides JJ, EM, JB, etc. where it's someone with new ideas having to decide what to drop and what to keep of the old.

AwesomenessDog wrote:

My quoted comment was more in reference to how everyone assumed people who play D&D in the 80s and 90s were actual cultists and so the community went to ground. Now, it seems it's gotten popular (again?) so the moral majority has found something "impure" to try and silence the hobby by attacking this portion of it (while totally missing other things like drug use, slavery still being common in canon in many places, so on and so forth for things that are described as explicitly evil). So Piazo tries to go the appeasement route, and I think it's completely unnecessary to even pay attention.

You jumped over a lot of logic chasms there, and your conclusion is interesting. So Piazo tries to go the appeasement route, .

Why do you assume that the folks at Paizo are 'appeasing' anyone? What if it's actually their sincerely held belief that they don't want to include this material going forward.

You seem to have missed that they have removed slavery as canon. Why do you think that they wanted to keep including fan service material but can't because they have to 'appease' some imagined audience? Can you imagine that their staff wants these changes and that Paizo is making them of their own accord?

Mainly because the same people who are in charge of the greater lore are the ones who put them there in the first place, who more or less ripped most of Golarion lore from James Jacob's home games. This isn't like the "Old Erastil" debacle where a rogue writer made Erastil a misogynist, was immediately fired and his content retconned. This is without any attempt to smooth over, the Pactmasters suddenly taking a stance against open and prolific trade over all things possible, including life; this is a victorious Cheliax deciding to randomly stop indenturing a race of people they can push around; this is every Orc, Drow, Hobgoblin, and so on just up and deciding at more or less the same time, despite the vast differences in how they were affected by the "edition switch events of Tyrant's Grasp" to give up what had been up until that very moment their possessions. But we also don't see things like animate dead go by the wayside, the literal enslavement and destruction of a soul, despite the impetus in both cases being power through control. The "slavery is gone now" change doesn't even properly address all the cultural issues Piazo thinks it does, or at least in the way they think it does. A better analogy is the north defeating the south, saying "slavery is illegal", going back to the north, and then the south just starting share cropping. Cool, goblins may be "somewhat tolerable" now, but where is the addressment of every other (massive,) in-lore cultural hanging chad from this change?

I say it's appeasement because it doesn't read as if it was written by someone or in a way that someone actually wants to get rid of sex, or slavery, or any other problematic content would write it. Would I say it's explicitly bad faith to do it for appeasement, not exactly, but it's certainly not good faith when the previous interactions with these elements are far more thought-out and interesting than the handwaving they did to get rid of them.

The main reason I would rather assume that these changes are mainly made in good faith because the creators want them is that I still think the changes are worth criticizing--particularly in how these changes affect the third party publisher scene. I would rather assume the best of the people that disagree with me so that we're the most likely to achieve some sort of satisfying understanding.

On one hand, I'm trying to address both sides of this, yes I do think it is still mostly if not entirely for preemptive appeasement of a supposed mass audience they want to attract, but even if it isn't the points from earlier posts are there to also shoot down the changes made in good faith as well.

There's also a difference between not wanting cheesecake/fanservice and not wanting any risque content. It's a complicated and fine line, but a real one.

I don't think the line is at all that fine, in fact it should be super easy to cut out cheesecake while leaving in written references to sex, rules and lore that support sex as a thing that exists and happens, and so on.

There's no reason that Paizo had to release the front cover of Giantslayer book 4 with both Amiri and Iridjka's entire buttocks on display from behind in bent over (sword swinging) positions, and there's no reason that not having that would have any bearing on any rules released. Seoni's side boob doesn't magically make it necessary for the first encounter post Sandpoint goblin assault to be "come to my father's basement, there's something I want you to look at..."

A GM for a bunch of kids can take that encounter from Runelords and make it only go as far as kissing if that's what they want. On the other hand, the same GM can't take back if one of those kids gets ahold of a book cover and just sees as much as you can legally see on a book cover because they just grabbed the wrong book of a shelf, or even worse, opens up a book and finds one of the couple of times paizo actually published a monster will a full breast (including nipple) on display. While I'll still argue society as a whole really doesn't need to be that afraid of a human's (or even an undead or monster's) body, my point is that neither of these things are really tied to one another.

I don't think that's the case, for what it's worth, and I'm a little wary of "people who disagree with us are outsiders who don't really play the game" takes.

I'm not saying that people who disagree are outsiders or not part of the community, but at least by what Driftborne alludes, it would seem like community sites, like say the 2e forums, are being brigaded by people who don't play the game and are essentially just pearl clutching at something that shouldn't concern them.

AwesomenessDog wrote:

So we are back to the 80's where we are kowtowing to random moralizing people that don't even play the game or are otherwise really a part of the community?

Can't tell if you're for or against chainmail bikinis

Honestly, I'm asexual, I couldn't give a darn, and I think that anyone who does is being overly squeamish about a part of reality (in general) and then complaining via projection of their own insecurities. It's the same problem of being too uncaring or sometimes even unable to compartmentalize reality and fiction. The only reason I could ever see myself denying someone "bikini mail" in a game is because they are trying to treat it mechanically as full plate and not even being clever in regards to "extra pieces" that could make up the difference. (E.g. a reasonable exception to the above.)

My quoted comment was more in reference to how everyone assumed people who play D&D in the 80s and 90s were actual cultists and so the community went to ground. Now, it seems it's gotten popular (again?) so the moral majority has found something "impure" to try and silence the hobby by attacking this portion of it (while totally missing other things like drug use, slavery still being common in canon in many places, so on and so forth for things that are described as explicitly evil). So Piazo tries to go the appeasement route, and I think it's completely unnecessary to even pay attention.

I believe we've moved mainly the the "Do we even need to censor to have mass appeal?" question.

Most of the people I see blogging complaints about the content of Paizo products admit they are not even Paizo customers.

So we are back to the 80's where we are kowtowing to random moralizing people that don't even play the game or are otherwise really a part of the community?

Ignoring a +2 weapon costing 4k more than 2 +1 weapons, ignoring how you gave them daggers instead of shortswords but didn't give them knife master, ignoring you did nothing to show how you go from "average damage on a hit" to "DPR", ignoring how you're statistically wrong about ignoring critical actually being in the rogue's favor (unless maybe you took improved crit at 8 instead of GWF), ignoring how you failed to realize that average difference in the rogue and fighter *is the fighter's power attack again*, ignoring how you miss the entire point that it should cost this much for the rogue to get to TWFeint, ignoring how you forget the fighter is (or at least was at the start of the PF1e) meant to be the best at just dealing damage and it takes a perfect storm for the rogue to come out ahead *because they aren't just meant to be good at fighting*, your point is what? That I'm right and the rogue is easily ahead of this fighter after you effectively gave them free feinting as an attack replacement? I fail to see how any of this is an argument for why the benefit of something like TWFeint should be just given for free to everyone and not gate kept behind a bunch of feats (oh yeah, and why would you ever take Imp TWF when you can take Greater Feint and it's better).

But let's do some at least halfway baked clown math to really show how wrong who's assumptions are:

CR 6: Rogue is +6
CR 8: Rogue is +0.5
CR 10: Rogue -1.9

So with stuff published up to 2012, not only have we shown how Rogue if given free reign is still better, its more better when left to its job of trash cleaning, but the rogue is better as the class not designed exclusively for fighting.

So, I'll ask again, what is your point? We take away the requirement for a rogue to spend these feats to get to the point it is at, as you are suggesting, and this just becomes what virtually any rogue can regularly do in virtually every situation. A rogue should not have a chance of getting this close to a Fighter's fighting potential a majority of the time, just like a fighter shouldn't come close to the rogue's out of combat utility.

As for it being "watered down" over time in the official setting and lore books... I mean, what else do you expect? They're trying to make their products and setting at least MOSTLY family-friendly sandbox/theme park TTRPG setting in order to assure they can retain mass market appeal. Including depictions or descriptions of intimate sexuality in the books is very much a kind of line in the sand drawn between adult content and family-friendly materials.

I agree with the rest of what you said, but I don't follow the rational on this part. The game arguably became *more* sexual through the life time as 1e, both to its peak in 2012-2014 and as 5e took over. They rewrote Arshae to not just be about freedom but sexual liberation with Chronicle of the Righteous in 2013. They give you a succubus girlfriend in Wrath of the Righteous. It's been redacted now, but they released Socothbenoth's fiendish obedience in 2017, where you would "achieve sexual relief" very violently with a mandatory partner, plus Nocticula's who is much more obviously violent requiring a pint of blood to be shed. The bigger contention however lies in the fact that most people here don't see watering down as a necessity to achieve or safely maintain mass appeal.

It's ok as long as you never say f!+! more than once in your multi-year campaign.

Debatably, a paladin isn't even immune to the half of diplomacy that can act like a hostile diplomacy to get him to take an action (e.g. "If you don't obey, more will die."). He is only immune to the shaken (or worse) condition which comes from select use of the intimidate skill.

In today's environment, I wonder if Paizo would even be willing to print the E1 version of Calistria in an E2 book.

Can we start anti-slut shaming, i.e. shaming people for having prudish/pearl-clutching/"think of the children" tendencies when it comes to risque content instead of the far far more common opposite?

I haven't played 2e, never will, but apparently they are at least releasing Kingmaker again for 1e as well (correct me if I'm wrong) with the whole Owlcat changes. I know in the CRPG it's just never something that comes up because in the original KM it was one of those "only the GM will ever know this" lines, so it will be telling to see what happens to the Kressle intentionally rhyming "Their thought's turned from r- to escape." line.

On one hand, completely unnecessary line that probably was only meant to be page filler anyway, on the other, one that doesn't really offensively manifest to the players, and on yet another, one that when put into the greater context is imo more empowering than offensive for the use of the word alone (and again can be easily excised if an individual knows it would be a problem for a player). And even in later books, King Irovetti is characterized basically as a sometimes rapey sometimes not womanizer (who also boinks a snake lady he's supposedly married to), but the point is risque stuff abounds in his castle room descriptions. So if any of this stuff is removed, there's becomes at least a clear and hard line of what they don't want from previous editions, whether or not anyone can just write in or out things in their own games.

[Writes thesis about how sex was everywhere in the medieval and renaissance time periods Paizo models its world after and how it wasn't until the Victorian era several hundred years later that people became as prudish about sex which would be objectively harmful to do the same, especially in a world where there are several prominent sexual deities about opening up and acceptance for them to be pushed to the side, all of which probably could have been explained as a single sentence.]

TBF, the "worse at math (actually "people who play it winge about math") is a callout A to the 5e people, and B at the same time a callout of how pf2e is appealing to that crowd.

But yes, making everything scale on your level if it's a class skill instead of having to assign from a pool of ranks, and then adding a scaling proficiency is aping 5e's design, even if 5e is essentially just redone 4e.

Your explanation of heightened casting conveniently leaves out spontaneous casters' near universal (and one time actually universal) ability to spontaneously heightened cast baked into the classes. Of course prepared casters need to prepare, nothing new here, or even greatly different between 2e, 5e, and even 1e. That is closer to 5e than it is to 1e.

To compare 1e traits to 2e backgrounds is the most laughable thing, not only does one give *very* minor bonuses, but that same one has nearly a thousand options, while 2e has 158. Granted, 158 seems like a lot, until you realize there are over 40 base classes in 1e and 7 core races that create 280 combinations even without branching into non-core races or the vastly different ways to build those classes. While this may seem like a "content hasn't developed yet" comment, it's still more about what the two different things try to accomplish. 1e traits give bonuses for incidental things you will already have thought of in the process of creating a backstory (unless you're just taking reactionary again), while 2e is just giving you what your race formerly gave you under the premise of describing the core foundation of where your backstory meets the game itself. That is the exact same impetus that 5e's backgrounds fills, and it defeats the point of creativity, even if it doesn't stop you from being creative.

So I will demand my cookie now, as well as you to stop assuming people who are upset at Paizo making a long series of stupid decision aren't able to come to their own subjective influence based on objective knowledge of systems that 1e's core design philosophy is the better way to play an RPG over 2e/5e.

1. You could have waited until April for a ten year anniversary necro. Patience is a virtue, you know.

I don't know what year you're living in, but april would be an 11 year anniversary.

Senko wrote:

Well that's an embarassing letter mix up.

Wow, hadn't even noticed it while copy-pasting. LOL

You were writing on a smartphone? I hate their tendency to change what you write while you are mid-word. As I am Italian and the phone corrects the text in Italian, when I write in English the end result is terrible.

Makes sense as a typo from the Blood of Fiends book, but uh... I guess Arshea exists too.

I thought the order of operations was that a succubus wraps their partner's...

Hugo Rune wrote:

I roll separately for each missile. I also roll separately for each person hit by a fireball/lightning bolt etc even though it is the same thing dealing damage to multiple opponents.

I can see the counter argument WRT fireball etc - it is one thing so it's damage is consistent and the save simulates the character"s response to protecting themselves from the worst of it. But I have always done it with individual rolls and after 40 years am not changing now.

for me it's a time saver.... a fireball can hit a large number of opponents, and it sucks to roll and count 10 dice, upwards of 30-40 times

Stop packing 30-40 rats in a 20ft radius to brag about your damage numbers.

Personally, I'd probably put it at 1/2 level and cap it to +5 bonus. It doesn't really need a +10 and is not valuable enough to be worth taking that far anyway, so there is nothing wrong with capping it to encourage taking the extra skill rank (or less fitting to a class called "Artisan" the hitpoint).

Energy drain isn't damage, and the health loss from losing max health (both from something like a negative level or from say dropping rage or bear's endurance running out) is not damage either.

Total Defense might have certain uses, but generally, you aren't going to want to trade all but 1 of your full bab attacks for probably +3 dodge over your normal fighting defensively bonus (note you don't gain crane wing's normal +4 when you're doing total defense because now you're automatically blocking that first would be hit instead of it just being bonus AC).

I would be inclined to say no, as you've already made your lash back moment by the time the next AoO comes along. And that's even RAI, as RAW the AoO from something like Gtr Trip isn't in response to an action starting but from the outcome of the action and thus after the fact.

Note you can still fight defensively and not be occluded from normal AoO with Crane Style and still be missed for your Crane Riposte.

If you can make it an attack action, you don't even need that. Just launch them upwards into the air with your awesome blow (yes, literally juggle them), because then they're literally falling prone, and you aren't limited by number of attacks every round. You fall prone whenever you take falling damage, and the enemy would be falling 10 feet every time you launch them up, causing the ability to trigger and letting you use another AB with the AoO.

Of course this is dumb and any GM should probably disregard RAW and even RAI because its an almost infinite loop which is not how the game was meant to be played.

Barbarians aren't trained in disable traps, but they are trained in activate traps.

Welcome to Symbol traps, which are granted much higher level than this one is meant to be encountered in. Even symbol spells can be avoided if you don't directly look at them (use a mirror or close your eyes and use detect magic), but getting caught by a trap that requires you to be cautious, even extremely so, is perfectly fair; in fact it's just as fair as someone getting caught by a simple trap that shoots you when you open the chest containing it because they didn't call for a perception to open it and didn't say they were opening it slowly, for the GM to offer them one anyway.

To add on to what Diego is saying, here's the rules for total concealment.

Quote:

If you have line of effect to a target but not line of sight, he is considered to have total concealment from you. You can’t attack an opponent that has total concealment, though you can attack into a square that you think he occupies. A successful attack into a square occupied by an enemy with total concealment has a 50% miss chance (instead of the normal 20% miss chance for an opponent with concealment).

You can’t execute an attack of opportunity against an opponent with total concealment, even if you know what square or squares the opponent occupies.

So you still threaten but won't get any AoO.

Further clarification, you don't "threaten" if you can't make an AoO from cover or concealment, so you can't flank someone who you can't see. You can still attack into a square you normally threaten but currently don't for the above reasons, but if say someone can see in the dark and thus see the enemy, but you can't, just because you set up a flanking position, doesn't mean your ally can use you to benefit from a flank.

Laughs in Outsider (native).

For most enemies that have spells or effects that work exclusively or better on them (e.g. outsiders and dismissal, plants and horrific wilting, etc.) it's probably more obvious than a GM calling for a specific knowledge skill, especially for someone who is intent on metagaming.

If you can't trust your players, you probably shouldn't be playing with them.