Boomstik101's page

I used the snipping tool on my 4k monitor on the Interactive maps to get the map image, imported the module in Foundry, then changed the map to my snipped version. It took maybe 5 minutes to get the scale right by using a binary search like method. Super painless imo

Not directly answering the original question but... for those using Foundry VTT, the (free) PDF to Foundry module (see here) that lets you automatically import the maps, images and texts from the official Paizo PDFs into Foundry has already been updated to work with Abomination Vaults #1. And the monsters and NPCs are already available in the Pathfinder 2 compendiums.

And the good news is that all that is free, as long as you have an official Paizo PDF.

My God... It's... Beautiful! I spent like 2 days copying and pasting the room entries! This module just... did all of it! I am literally gobsmacked!

IIRC they had copies at Paizo con.

Those were most likely some samples from their printer so they can approve of quality, and make any last minute changes that show up in a physical book. I know in other industries they are called "Artist Proofs"

cookie76180 wrote:

David knott 242 wrote:

July subscription authorizations should be done by now, so if you are still waiting for it, something has gone wrong.

so what should I do ?

Check your order history. If the order you expect is pending, you’re fine. Sometimes authorization emails fail for some reason. Some banks (mine is one of them) also don’t show authorizations/holds until the actual charge hits.

I have never had an authorization email from Paizo or my bank. I just get a shipping email and that is it

The warehouse is in Redmond Washington (the state), so Pacific time is when things happen. Who knows the hours the employees work, especially with the pandemic here. King County (where Redmond is located) is in "Phase 2" currently which you can check out what that means HERE

It would be fascinating to see a mirrored magus archetype: One for casters to gain martial proficiencies/feats, and another for martials to gain casting proficiencies/feats. I realize I am essentially describing multiclass archetypes, but it would be interesting to see how a Bard/Magus(caster) or a Champion/magus(martial) would look like. Probably insanity. I like insanity!

I am actually running Plaguestone for 2 people right now! (i had 2 drop out and i had been trying to get the game off the ground for 8 months...) The biggest thing we did was to give the players a "robo cleric". he is a stern emotionless cleric of pharasma. Luckily, my players are super experienced so they have full control of the cleric for heals and combat. The cleric never takes the limelight, and is a big enough tank to keep the party alive.

When it comes to combat, I make sure encounters roughly match the number of players, and if I see the fight turning pear shaped, I adjust how much hp the monster has and make the fight almost be deadly, but not quite. I usually take the boss of an encounter and apply a weak template on it. luckily, most encounters in the first 2 chapters (of 3) are with 4 or fewer enemies.

The final thing I have done is to play fast and loose with magic items. this is a standalone adventure for us, so I wanted the players to have fun toys. There is an alchemical crossbow that uses bombs on arrows that is super cool, but you get as loot in the final boss. I have an alchemist, and wanted to give the player the super cool item for the game!

Is the thrown enemy an improvised thrown weapon? Can you throw a guy at another guy? Also: I made a titan stature barbarian around this feat so that you get that sweet sweet +10 to the throw for being big.

Huh... I must have been hallucinating then. I could have sworn I saw it on paper.

Nunchucks aren't a grapple weapon (they are backswing, disarm, finesse, monk)

Did you mean something else?

I dont have my book in front of me, but I remember them being the *only* grapple weapon. Maybe my eye wandered on the weapons table.

I made the ultimate grappler. It is a half orc barbarian with a monk dedication. The reason is simple:

Giant/Titan stature to grapple gargantuan creatures

Both Barbarian and Monk allow you to separate damage grappled creatures with your STR mod

there is a level 6 monk feat that lets you throw a grappled creature with bonus if you are larger (up to +10 for 2 size larger)

Half orc can get an advanced weapon as a feat, so you can dual wield large sized Nunchucks (a weapon that lets you add item bonus to grapple checks)

I did the math (the monster math), and at level 20, you can grapple Treerazor with a 14 on the die.

I dont have the sheet in front of me to describe what I took when. I know that level 2 and 4 are quiet in terms of Barbarian feats that deal with grapple, so that was when I dipped the first time, and I believe I took the monk throw around 14, because being larger is more important than throwing (even though I based the build on this very interaction)

Fumarole wrote:

Has there been any word on how rarity will be indicated in 2e? I really did not like the color system used in the Playtest.

If memory serves, they have a tag of uncommon or rare, but still retain color coding. The Tag is needed to help with color blind players/GMs.

A lot of the players at the table kept not noticing the dark red color of uncommon and I swear picked every uncommon spell and item for their builds. We had to pretty much have each other read our character sheets to make sure we didnt have something we shouldnt

I read this thread as "will you be using rarity?" Lol.

In any case, I will be using uncommon and rare treasure as a nice way to reward players with things that go above the power curve. Items like secret treasure rooms that are deadly encounters. I want the players to find a vorpal sword and say "holy crap!". I want the methods to make the item be lost to all but the most legendary smiths. (A cool quest reward for a player would be a recipe for an uncommon item when they hit legendary crafting)

You could add runes to a shield boss/spike, and there is a "returning clasp", but you need the quick draw feat from some non champion class. No clue as to thrown properties

Worst case: you try it, and if it isn't your jam, you didnt really invest much into it.

I'm moving from 5e to pf2 for similar reasons. 5e is a great storytelling tool, but there is only RP reasons to spend gold. (Which is fine, but I want magic items!)

Everything being feats threw me for the first two character creations, but it dawned on me how much sense it made. Entire archetypes can just be feats you can opt into, and if something is missing from a class, add a feat!

I don't really think it is analagous to dipping, though. If anything, I'd compare it to gestalt. You're able to fully explore two things instead of dipping into one.

The biggest critique I can think of is just balance. This is a big upgrade; character skill grows quadratically instead of linearly because as you level up you don't just gain new feats but squeeze more juice from your old feats. But the nice thing is skill feats don't impact combat enough to break it, usually.

It is, in the end balance I suppose. And that will come down to the designers who I'm sure are way ahead of this

I'm probably going to work to rebuild a version of the landscape sheet from the playtest.

I know the sheet redesign was likely to make it appear more like 3.5/1E, but I liked that it was different. I don't want 2E to feel too much like 1E. I also love landscape sheets enough my group makes fun of me for it.

I really liked landscape too. It made it tougher to use with a clipboard with important numbers like hp, ac, saves etc under the clip, but it made the other lines feel like there was more space

It seems like you're assuming the skill feats aren't worthwhile at the level you get them, which absolutely shouldn't be the case. And given the retraining rules, it feels weird to pick feats at level 2 that won't pay off until level 15.

If your complaint is that in general that seems too powerful, well, that's certainly the balancing act when designing any feat. I can tell you for example that the examples you list wouldn't happen with my own versions of the skill feats. But for example, a single skill feat making you not flat-footed while...

Perhaps I still havent grappled with the unease I have, or havent expressed it well yet. I'm worried that a 1 feat dip into these legendary effects will devalue skill feats as a whole, or will make it too easy to perform way too many legendary skill effects. Maybe I'm just worried because at launch there isn't a lot of diversity in feats.

I should also say that I think its wonderful that feats keep giving you bang for your buck, but there are two sides to the coin

Edit:
I think I touched on the heart of my worries with my "1 feat dip" comment. I'm worried that it will be similar to taking a 1 level dip in a class and getting that classes capstone. (Granted that version of multiclassing is gone, but the point stands)

It is just it would be nice if they were more exciting than they were in the playtest. For example, I don't want to have to spend all 5 of my 10 feats just to be good at something as niche as climbing in combat. Hopefully, the new Combat Climber feat consolidates that somewhat.

I'm personally a bit worried with consolidating the feats into each other. I'm having trouble coming up with words that would describe why that is.

I've rewritten this like 5 times, so here is my best shot at explaining my unease:
If all feats become evolutionary (improve with proficiency), then feat choice will start to become less meaningful. You just pick up a feat to cache it for later. A theoretical example with no basis in reality would be a player taking 5 acrobat feats, and by lvl 15, they take no fall damage, can jump mid air for free, can squeeze into a 1 inch hole, can escape any grapple, and stand up and take a free Step action. All of this for a whopping 5 feats and improving acrobatics to legendary. This isn't particularly engaging to me.

Wow, I must have gotten a different impression from the playtest skill feats. I really enjoyed a space where I wasnt concerned about picking up a situational social feat over a combat improvement feat. Sure some skill feats didnt come up, or were more fluffy than anything (I'm looking at you, the only religion feat). Any buff to the skill feats, is icing on the cake in my book.

In fact, I just built a 1e character, and I lamented that there was no skill feat progression. I missed that play space to give my charming old man feats that reflect how neighborly he is.

I used to describe pf1 as 3.5.5, so following that versioning scheme, 3.5.10 probably fits.

That said, if we are going full software, it should be 3.5.2

That said again, pf2 is it's own beast and I cant think of a clever versioning scheme

I've been playing older and older characters. It's been allowing me to RP about "the good old days", have a family, and just be friendly without the character feeling the need to prove themselves.

Pappy is became a legend because of this. He is just the happiest long haul trucker you will ever meet, and always has a story about the shenanigans him and his buddies got up to.

I am personally super excited. I really got into TTRPGs at 5e and dabbled in pf1 and starfinder. I am probably going to wholesale switch my GMing to pf2. If I could run with just playtest rules, I would. Sure the rules arent perfect, but dang are they good.

A few friends who I played starfinder with were really uninterested in 2e. Not that they hated the playtest, but it just wasnt what they know. They have spent almost a decade playing with pf1 and it's like a comfortable couch after a long day. They think the rule changes are nifty, and would be open to a oneshot or a small adventure, but it just isn't for them.

I feel like these people make up a lot of who are sticking with pf1. That, or it's too early and the options they are looking for havent been written

Lets take the Microsoft approach: the second edition of Pathfinder is now Pathfinder One... or 10. Pick any, but just be inconsistent.

It would be nifty to have some laminated blank monster sheets that I could fill out with the information so I could reuse the card, and only really include the stuff I need, or any stat changes I make.

At the end of the session, I can write a new monster for the next encounter as well!

Doing God's work!

I feel like pigeonholing gear was one of the flaws of PF1 that PF2 should be embracing, not doubling down on. Stuff that sucks if you don't have specific ways to invest in it or class features that punish you for not using them aren't really good design.

The rules may change after the playtest, but the only ones who gain any higher proficiency in other armors are the paladin and fighter in the same feats as heavy proficiency increases. The exception is the Monk who gets it in unarmored, so it isnt quite punishing you for not going into heavy.

I feel like paizo is going for more of a "If you want to do x, play y class", sort of like they did for Starfinder. If you want to deal damage, play a soldier.

Also level 17 is pretty high up there.

level 17 is the level for the PCs in the last playtest adventure.

Boomstik101 wrote:

necromental wrote:

Boomstik101 wrote:

Heavy armor felt super good to use! I am on the last session with a defence oriented paladin, and there are rounds I mitigate 100 points of damage.

You can feel good all day long, but when someone who invested in Dex and wearing a light armor has the same AC while suffering none of the penalties you do, it sucks.

I'm glad there is more than one way to high AC! Dodge tanks being viable fosters a lot more build diversity! I dont see light and heavy armor being in competition.

Just to point something out, the specific example Boomstik101 cited here was a 17th level paladin. A 17th level Paladin in master to legendary heavy armor can easily have an ACP of 0 and only a 5 foot speed reduction. In exchange for that their AC was actually 3 higher than anyone than a fighter or monk could achieve.

In actual practice heavy armor was good for classes it was meant to be used for, which is exactly how it was in PF1.

Correct. I am drawing on my experience as a 17th lvl paladin specifically built for AC and tanking. I am having a blast with it, so perhaps that is coloring my opinion.

Boomstik101 wrote:

Heavy armor felt super good to use! I am on the last session with a defence oriented paladin, and there are rounds I mitigate 100 points of damage.

You can feel good all day long, but when someone who invested in Dex and wearing a light armor has the same AC while suffering none of the penalties you do, it sucks.

I'm glad there is more than one way to high AC! Dodge tanks being viable fosters a lot more build diversity! I dont see light and heavy armor being in competition.

In my entire experience playing TtopRPGs I've NEVER had a more consistently frustrating, unbalanced, and wasteful time during a game as when I had to deal with players with their own Minions who each get a full Init and actions to supplement their own. At several points, it became necessary to pass off the Summons and other Minions around the table when the Summoner/Druid/Sorcerer, etc began dropping a bunch of new minis on the table. For a while, I just flat-out banned the Summoner (Because I didn't care to homebrew it into a reasonable state) from play because it became a whole can of worms unless they went out of their way NOT to build a disruptive and overpowering PC.

I've had similar feelings about npc companions. When I controlled them, combat slowed and I always felt like it was my turn and the players had to wait that much longer. Player summoning has always made someone's turn quadruple in length as they suddenly had to think about a second body and stat block.

I personally see summoning/companions supplemental to a character, not its focus. Perhaps that is because I've never seen it done well.

Wow, I must be in the minority of people who pretty much loved everything about the playtest.

I really liked resonance since it made magic item cooldowns super low or non existent. I dont think my group has even come close to our resonance cap.

I even tried the animal companion on one of the adventures and really liked it! The companion wasnt there to tank for the party, but act as utility. I especially liked the 2 actions for 1 deal, since my druid could cast, and the companion can move and attack. That made it especially good as a mount!

Heavy armor felt super good to use! I am on the last session with a defence oriented paladin, and there are rounds I mitigate 100 points of damage.

My favorite feature is that martial get dice added to their damage instead of flat numbers. Now they scale better with casters for throwing dice at the table. And it gives money meaning. That is the thing I dislike about 5e, but I digress.

When it comes to balance, I found it to be fairly tight. Monsters are scary, heroes can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and spell casters save the day with their spells.

TL;DR dis edition gonna be great!

Dave Skidmore wrote:

Boomstik101 wrote:

I didnt realize I was going to buy a textbook!

They've repeatedly said '640 pages', which makes for a serious tome. The CRB can join Hero 5th Ed. in the category 'RPG books that can stop small arms fire'.

640 for the core book, and 360 for the Bestiary. So the two main books together are exactly 1000 pages. One Kilopage of PF2. That's a lot of book.

I vote we measure our book collections in Kilopages from now on!

I wonder if anyone can read these well enough to transcribe some of the content?

Enhance!

Curse those glossy pages!

That said, the book is looking pretty snazzy!

I didnt realize I was going to buy a textbook!

I have a character I have been workshopping in oneshots named Pappy. He is a long haul trucker (an underrepresented profession) who is just the nicest guy you will ever meet. Talks like Larry the cable guy and always has a story about shenanigans him and his buddies get up to. These stories are how he inspires.

Another one I've wanted to do is a two weapon fighting class. I've always seen people talk about it, but have never seen it done in person. I'm thinking ranger since the playtest ranger had a lot of feats for 2wf. Though I will have to see how the fighter shakes out as well.

I am in the middle of my "friendly characters with family" period and want to explore that more.