Batíl Kararl's page

For the last mission at level 1, the Uzunjati mission, players are supposed to tell a story and also say something about the morale of the story. What did your players come up with?

My players had the following:

You are never too old to learn.

Sometimes you have to take a different perspective to see what is truly going on.

You can ignore what is happening outside, but it is possible that what is happening outside does not ignore you.

You can always rebuild that which was lost.

Never mix nitric acid and copper.

While the vanilla 'Life in the Magaambya' study system is too bare-bones for my taste, the expanded Magaambya with weekly checks is too overwhelming for me. So in my system, I picked some parts from these systems, as well as from the Monthly study system (which includes exams, and roles for branches), to make a new bi-weekly study system. I don't have a calendar or exams but I do have a course list, as my players indicated they would like to choose the courses their characters are following, and I've seen some nice examples of courses online already.

So with that, I present:
BI-WEEKLY STUDY SYSTEM

for the Magaambya. This document is written from a player's perspective. The branch benefits remain the same, though you could also change the benefits based on what courses the players took. I also encourage to combine it with an NPC Influence system, for which many options can be found online: I personally like this one best. How many Influence Points (or Friendship or Relation Points) you need for an NPC to give a certain advantage is left open. I also had to introduce some new teachers, else the teaching load of the staff mentioned in the AP would become ridiculous. For example, there is only one Emerald Boughs teacher mentioned (Zuma) and it is mentioned that he only teaches electives, so I made up some alchemy and other related courses for him.

Now we have 4 possible study system options (3-monthly, monthly, bi-weekly and weekly), so I hope this will be useful to someone. Please let me know if you have any critique!

In preparing for this AP, I've decided that I really wanted to lean into the utopian aspects of Nantambu. It is already described as a haven of peace, learning and culture, but I want to take it one step further. The Magaambya being focused on both arcane and primal magic also gives me solarpunk vibes, with nature and magic (instead of nature and technology) as core aspects of the city. With so much magic going around, and so many people dedicated to improve society, and such long periods of peace due to the tempest-sun mages, in my campaign I imagine Nantambu has recently developed a post-scarcity society where everyone has their basic needs met. Unseen servants keep the streets clean, primal magic causes an abundance of food, and healing magic keeps everyone healthy (though resurrections would still be rare and costly). Money is no longer necessary: everyone can ask for basic things like food and minor healing, and if anyone needs something more special like a big house, or transportation to another city, it is freely given if it is 1) abundantly available and 2) deemed necessary. The chime-ringers help in making sure no one gathers wealth for themselves (cough Froglegs cough) and also that slackers (cough Chizire cough) get a bad reputation and might be refused luxury goods and services.

Now, the question is, if I make such a choice, besides the effects on the story it will also have mechanical effects.
1. No money means less bookkeeping, which is good, because I can focus more on bookkeeping for NPC relations and an elaborate academic subsystem. Even more so if I add milestone leveling and automatic bonus progression.
2. Item levels. These are a good way to limit what characters can get (no you can't get this scroll of teleport, that's for this teacher who is doing an important mission in Absalom). But what about, let's say, 4-th level items for 1st level PCs? These items should still be abundantly available, what would be a good reason to deny them to the PCs at first?
3. Importance of diplomacy. If items are not traded for money but on the basis of need and availability, a PC who has invested in diplomacy or deception might be able to convince someone to give them a high level item. This makes social skills very powerful, maybe too powerful?
4. Trade with other cities. If Nantambu is the only post-scarcity society, they still need to trade with neighbouring cities and countries. So money still exists, unless they are so utopian that they are self-sufficient and just give away what they have for free, but that seems unlikely on such a dangerous world as Golarion. Maybe PCs will need to keep track of their money after all, just not in Nantambu?
5. Treasure: what do PCs do with treasure they don't need if they can't trade it for money? They can give it away to gain reputation with a certain NPC or group maybe, or go to other cities to trade it for money. How would you react to such a rule as a player?

The players know Ameiko is dead, the PCs do not. Now I know Ameiko appears in some other APs, I think Jade Regent? If we never play Jade Regent, but we possibly play the other Varisia APs in the future, how much impact does it have if Ameiko is not there? I was thinking of having Ameiko be thrown into the Pit in Jorgenfist (with the bad guys thinking she's dead) and then somehow climb out later after Mokmurian is defeated, and against all odds survive anyway. Would this be a good idea?

Hey all, I've made a discord server for GMs of this adventure path, just to chat about the campaign. I hope this is allowed. You can find the link here: LINK.

So my party was battling a large group of enemies below their level (some even 5 levels lower) when something interesting happened. Because the enemies were lower level, they all rolled initiative below the party. So we had the situation that also occurs when grouping enemy initiatives (giving all goblins the same initiative but a goblin boss a different one for example). This is known to cause swingyness in battles, and indeed: a battle with enemies that are not even worth XP according to the rules became a very intense battle, as all the low level enemies ganged up on one of the PCs. They only hit on a 19 or so, but with flanking and other debuffs and tricks and so many attacks, they were much more successful than if their initiative had been higher. Because then all the attacks would not come at the same time.

It also didn't help that there were no AoE spells to be used in that battle, as I think that is the biggest counter to this, but this all does show that enemies having lower initiative is not always better for the party.

So PF2 was designed for both experienced gamers and new players alike. For the most part, it has done a great job. But the system has a lot of mammoths in my opinion: design choices from earlier editions that just stayed around, while they should have gone extinct.

Example: ability scores. I don't know why these are still in the game when we use ability modifiers for everything. There is literally no reason to have the formula [ability score]=([ability score]-10)/2 rounded down if you can just use ability modifier for everything. Sure, you have some specific rules like not being able to get a +5 modifier at lvl5, but these rules can also easily be written in terms of the modifier.

The same holds for spell level. No reason to have the formula [highest spell level]=[level]/2 rounded up, which pops up in a few places such as rules for rituals or the rules for simple DCs/spell DCs. When I talk to more experienced players, they say they don't even use this formula, they just memorized at what level you get which spell level, and that it has always been like that. But surely that's not a reason to keep it like that. The game could have been designed in such a way that spell levels corresponded 1:1 to character levels for example, making everything easier.

Other examples are the rules for attack of opportunity (specifically avoiding them even though they are rare), using a d20 instead of d6s that are much more common, different names between saves and abilities, VANCIAN CASTING, etc.

Even though I'd been playing Pathfinder 1 for 2 years before switching to this edition, it still struck me as odd how many leftovers there still were. While many fans complained it was too different, especially during the playtest, I thought the old ways could have been left behind while they were not.

New players, which parts of the rules seem like leftovers from previous editions to you? And do you dislike these or do you not care? Old players, what do you think would have happened if any of the leftover examples above had been changed or removed? Would you still have switched to this system? Why are the examples above important to you?

What would be the correct ruling of trying to convince an NPC of a true fact that is hard to believe? Is Deception the skill to be used, and if so, what should the DC be? Should the PC get any bonuses because they are not actually lying?

Does the answer to these questions change if there is yet another NPC that is trying to convince that same NPC of the opposite of this truth? (which is a lie, so they are definitely using Deception then)

Maybe as an example, let's say the PCs have slain a dragon. They don't have any proof, but they try to convince the king that they did this. Another person tries to convince the king, also without proof, that the dragon is still alive. What kind of checks are used to try to convince the king?

What the title says. I'll first introduce the ruleset, then how it came into being. This has not been tested yet, I'd like to have your opinions on it.

Crafting changes
The basics of Crafting are not changed. Anyone can use the existing Crafting rules in the core rulebook. All expert Crafters do, however, have the following additional option.
Before you roll your Craft check, decide whether you want to Craft normally (in this case the rules remain the same) or whether you want to do a fast Crafting. If you do a fast Crafting, the 4 initial days spent Crafting are reduced to 3 days if you are expert, 2 days if you are master, and 1 day if you are legendary in the Craft skill. The initial price to Craft remains the same (half the item's price, times the number of items if you make a batch of consumables). If you are successful you can pay for the remaining materials as normal. Or you can decide to continue Crafting, where each additional day spent Crafting reduces the materials needed to complete the item by an amount based on your proficiency rank and your level+1 if you are expert, your level+2 if you are master, and your level+3 if you are legendary in the Craft skill. Add another +1 to your level on a Critical Success as normal.

Any items made with fast Crafting cannot be sold, nor can they be used by anyone except you and your party members. For example, you use a quick handwriting on scrolls that only you and your party members recognize, or the item is missing crucial finishing touches that makes it hard to confirm what it is exactly or to determine the price. If you want to sell an item, you can either Craft normally and then sell it, or use the Earn an Income activity with your Craft skill.

Reasoning behind these rules
The main problem my players and I encountered was that Crafting does not add much compared to using your Craft skill (or any other skill) to Earn an Income. The only situations where it is better than using the Earn an Income action is when you don't have access to buy an item, not even when you would travel for 1 or several weeks, while you do have a lot of time AND a quiet place where you have all your crafting gear, like a smithy. These situations are just too rare. Furthermore, the benefit of increasing your proficiency in Craft is too small, often you don't decrease the time it takes to craft something. My players did not feel like they were really Master Crafters.

Any change that makes Craft a better activity would raise the question "Then why would you ever use Earn an Income" so our group decided that we would give Craft a benefit but make it so that you can't sell the item, to avoid exploiting this activity. With the rules above, a Master or Legendary Crafter now makes items about 2x-4x as fast as a Trained Crafter, which feels more appropriate, while at the same time it does not really feel as an exploit as they can't sell anything that they craft in this way, nor does it feel unbalanced or unrealistic to make something this much faster.

Finally, we wanted a rule that did not change the core rules too much. No new tables or anything that makes it so that existing feats would need to be changed. I think most Craft-related feats still work with the houserules above.

How can I make sure I get an e-mail notification when someone replies to my thread or post on the forums?

Hi all. For my Rise of the Runelords campaign I've converted the PF1 Thassilonian Specialist archetype. The idea is that an arcane caster (wizard or sorcerer at the moment) can specialize in one arcane school with this archetype, giving more bonuses than normal, at the cost of becoming worse and worse in the predetermined opposite schools as you take more feats.

Link to pdf file

The Efteling is a real theme park in the Netherlands that has an attraction where the Laaf race can be found. I decided to use the race builder to build them for Pathfinder. Some facts:

-Laafs are reincarnated when they die
-Laafs love food and drinks, especially alcohol
-Laafs never throw anything away
-Laafs originate from an area near the North Pole
-Laafs have really large cheeks
-Laafs hate war and destruction

Here's the full race description, including alternate racial traits and favored class options.

The Laaf race

The Dwarf bonus languages contain some typos, like Giant -> Jotun, Gnome -> Gnomish, Orc -> Orcish. Couldn't find a typo thread.

Greetings! This is the first homebrew content I've ever made, and I would be very grateful for any criticism I can get here.

Link to class

This class uses the performance combat rules (and also the duel rules) from Ultimate Combat, so it's advised to read those first if you're not familiar with them. Basically, the Battledancer has its own equivalent of bardic performance, and during the performance you are considered to be in a performance combat and follow those rules (besides inspiring yourself and your allies). With these rules you can gain victory points, which this class can use for several benefits other than the benefits described in the rules.

Differences with other classes:

Some questions, but general feedback is welcome:

Thank you for your time!