Charon Onozuka's page

Prepping to finally get a playtest going, and one player asked if they could use the Shifting Rune to give their kinetic blast a different damage type. I'm unsure how to answer this, so I'll ask here. Is the Shifting Rune a valid rune to apply to a kinetic blast? How would that work? For that matter, how does a shifting rune work when applied to handwraps of mighty blows normally?

After seeing a certain post on Reddit sculpting this creature, I got a bit of inspiration trying think of a campaign to bring this horrible monster to my players. Not being completely satisfied with any of the statblocks I could find, I decided to try my own hand at bringing this creature to PF2.

For those unaware (or merely forgetting), the original tale of the False Hydra can be found here and is what I tried to base my design on more than referencing existing statblocks.

I'll post the pdf as a link here with a text version below the spoiler. Any feedback or criticism is welcome.

While doing a variety of homebrew ancestry content for my future games, I had an idea of trying to make a way for a character to gain multiple Versatile Heritages at once. This was partially inspired by hearing how some players wanted to do concepts like "Tiefling Half-Elf," which weren't possible with the current system. As such, I thought to try making a (hopefully) balanced way to accomplish this as a new Human Heritage, to play along with the theme of humans mixing with anything/everything.

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Multiracial Heritage
Your family line contains many heritages beyond humans, though your connection to each of them is weaker due to your mixed bloodline. Choose two versatile heritages. You do not gain a 1st level ancestry feat, and instead gain the initial benefits of both heritages. While you can select ancestry feats from these heritages, you count as being 4 levels lower when you do so and cannot select lineage feats. For example, at 5th level you could select a 5th level human ancestry feat or a 1st level ancestry feat from either of your versatile heritages.

Special: If you would gain multiple 1st level ancestry feats, such as from the Ancestry Paragon Variant Rule, then you lower your number of starting 1st level ancestry feats by one.

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Does this seem like it'd be balanced? Too much? I welcome any comments, suggestions, and/or criticism.

After seeing the description for the Fleshwarp Ancestry, I was kinda confused why it wasn't a versatile Heritage since the fleshwarping process is something that could theoretically happen to a member of any ancestry. So here is my attempt at creating a versatile heritage for Fleshwarp in my own games along with some homebrew feats I designed based on their heritages and PF1 Alchemist abilities with the body horror theme (and of course, all the normal Fleshwarp Feats would be available). Comments, suggestions, and criticism are all welcome.

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Fleshwarp Heritage
Your body and mind have been permanently altered, either by alchemical experimentation, mutation, or eldritch forces. You have unnatural or alien features that do not seem to match your base ancestry, though these may be obvious or subtle in nature. You gain the aberration trait, in addition to the traits from your ancestry. You gain resistance to mental damage equal to half your level (minimum 1). You also gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saves against diseases and poisons. You can select from Fleshwarp feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat.

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Aberrant Familiar (Feat 1)
You mold part of your body into an entity that can act somewhat independently of you. You gain a familiar. This familiar looks like a mass of flesh vaguely resembling the type of animal you choose and gains the aberration trait. This familiar can meld into your body or separate itself as a single action, and while melded into your body it does not take damage from area of effect abilities. Unlike a normal familiar, you can change what type of animal your familiar resembles while selecting familiar and master abilities for the day.

Deep Vision (Feat 1)
Your vision is better suited for seeing in places with less light. You gain low-light vision, or you gain darkvision if your ancestry already has low-light vision.

Special: If your ancestry has neither low-light vision nor darkvision, you can take this ancestry feat a second time to gain darkvision.

Fluidic Flesh (Feat 1)
Your flesh is capable of flowing together to make it easier to close your wounds. The DC for your checks to recover from persistent bleed damage is 10 instead of 15, and it’s reduced to 5 instead of 10 if you have particularly effective assistance recovering from the persistent damage. When you are treated with Treat Wounds, increase the Hit Points regained by half your level (minimum 1).

True Omnivore (Feat 1)
You are capable of consuming any sort of material in order to satisfy your hunger. As long as you are in an environment with objects small enough to consume, you can subsist without becoming fatigued due to lack of food. Additionally, your bonus from Fleshwarp Heritage increases to a +2 circumstance bonus to saves against diseases and poisons.

Purge Veins ◈◈ (Feat 5)
Requirements: You are afflicted by a disease or poison
You attempt to metabolize or flush all toxins out of your body. Attempt a saving throw against all ongoing diseases and poisons at their current stage. On a failure, the current stage doesn't increase, but you suffer the effects of the stage you were already on. On a critical failure, the stage only increases by 1.

Store Poison ⤾ (Feat 5)
Trigger: You critically succeed a save against a poison
You isolate and store part of the poison within your body for later use. You can spend a single action to expend this poison and apply it to an unarmed attack. If your next Strike with that unarmed attack before the end of your next turn hits and deals damage, it applies the effects of the poison, provided that poison can be delivered by contact or injury.

Extra Limbs (Feat 9)
You grow an additional arm or an arm-length tentacle out of your body. This limb is fully under your control and cannot be concealed except with magic or bulky clothing. This limb can manipulate or hold items as well as either of your original arms.

If you choose to grow a tentacle, the limb is unable to attack with weapons, but can make a tentacle unarmed attack that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage, has the agile, finesse, and grapple traits, and is in the brawling weapon group.

Special: You can take this feat multiple times. Each time you do, you grow an additional arm or tentacle.
Special: If you have the Mutate Weapon feat, you can apply its effects to a tentacle unarmed attack gained from Extra Limbs

Partitioned Brain (Feat 9)
By segmenting your brain into multiple regions, you can maintain multiple thought processes simultaneously. You can cast hypercognition as a 3rd-level occult innate spell once per day.

Nauseating Flesh (Feat 13)
Your body is suffused with poison. Any creature that bites, engulfs, or swallows you must succeed at a Fortitude saving throw against your class DC or spell DC, whichever is higher, or become slowed 2 for 1d4 rounds (or 2d4 rounds on a critical failure). You do not suffer the effect of the poison of your own nauseating flesh.

Redundant Organs (Feat 13)
You have multiple sets of vital organs and can somewhat shift their location inside your body, making it more difficult for foes to inflict mortal wounds. Attempt a DC 17 flat check whenever you would be critically hit or receive precision damage. On a success, a critical hit becomes a normal hit and precision damage is negated.

Special: You can take this feat twice. The second time you take this feat, the flat check DC becomes 14.

Sudden Growth (Feat 13)
You can cause your flesh to explosively grow out and form a barrier before disconnecting from you. You can cast wall of flesh once per day as an innate occult spell, though part of the wall must be adjacent to you when you use this ability. Because this wall is created from your own flesh, it recognizes you and does not attempt to grab or attack you, even if you end your turn within 5ft of the wall.

Amorphous Anatomy (Feat 17)
Prerequisites: Fluidic Flesh
Your body can reshape and remake itself with a little effort. You gain regenerate as a 7th-level occult innate spell that you can cast once per day. Unlike the spell, this ability can only target yourself and does not have the positive trait.

Undying Flesh (Feat 17)
You can prepare a resurrection method for yourself that activates if you are slain. By spending a week of downtime and 2,000gp worth of alchemical reagents, you create a pulsating mass of flesh of your size category. If you die, the pulsating mass of flesh twists itself into an exact copy of you, as if you had used the clone ritual.

You can only have one pulsating mass of flesh active at a time, and it does not need to be preserved as long as it is not subjected to extreme heat or cold. If attacked, treat the pulsating mass of flesh as having AC 10, Hardness 5, and 130 Hit Points.

So after reading the Magus Playtest and several of the threads regarding ideas on how to alter it, I thought about how the ability would look like if you tried incorporating it with the old idea of having the Magus use a stance as part of their spellstrike.
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Striking Spell Stance [2 Actions]

You enter a stance which allows you alter a spell to combine it with a martial attack. While in Striking Spell Stance, your melee Strikes gain the fortune trait and you gain access to the following ability.

Spellstrike [Free Action]
Trigger: You hit a target with a melee Strike while in Striking Spell Stance.

You exit Striking Spell Stance and Cast a Spell that can target one creature or object as a free action. Instead of casting the spell as normal, you deliver the spell through your weapon (or body for an unarmed attack) and the spell only affects the target you hit.

If the spell requires a spell attack roll, use the same dice result as the triggering attack while applying the spell attack's modifiers to determine if the spell hits and do not increase your multiple attack penalty until after both the Strike and spell attack roll.

If the spell requires a saving throw, the target rolls their saving throw as normal but takes a -2 penalty if the triggering attack was a critical hit.

Buffs:

Like most, I'm currently devouring as much new info in the APG as possible and wanted to start a thread discussing how the final Witch class turned out now that we have the final version (as my favorite class, of course I flipped to it first).

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My Initial Impressions:

Patron: Very thankful they have more relevance compared to the Playtest, and are better than PF1's implementation! (not a high bar, but still) While I personally would have liked a bit more meat - Hex Cantrips & Granted Spells seem like areas you could make unique options to help flesh out a Specific Patron, along with the possiblility of unique Lessons/Feats that have a specific Patron as a prerequisite. Have to say, this will be much better for thematic homebrewing compared to PF1.

That said, I'd grumble a bit about Evil Eye being Patron locked since that seems like something thematic enough that other Patron Witches should also have access. Also have to laugh slightly that despite the original argument over Witch traditions saying it was based on PF1 being arcane, only 1 Patron actually offers the arcane tradition (similar to divine) with occult/primal both getting 2 Patrons (3 for Occult if you count Baba Yaga Patron in Lost Omens Legends).

Overall seems like a good, if rather basic, start for Patrons and I can't wait to see when more Patron themes/options come out.

Familiar: VERY thankful that they're not a crippling penalty anymore and don't seem to have taken too much of the Witch's attention - especially since I don't really have much attachment to them as a core part of the Witch's thematic identity. (& heck, Baba Yaga in Legends already basically allows you to have an inanimate object as a familiar)

Hexes: Rather wary seeing that the hex trait only allows 1 hex cast per turn with many (not all) hexes seeming to also require focus points. This is especially true for Cackle, whose free action benefit seems a bit diminished when it can't be used on the same round as other hexes and uses up a focus point. It might be fine, but it'll definitely be a shift compared to what many probably expected.

Eldritch Nails: Seems like a hex-based variation of spellstrike? Very cool. Also love the themeing of putting runes on your nails.

Living Hair: Unlike the Nails, there is no mention of being able to add runes which I guess means you need to buy a normal Handwraps of Mighty Blows to do so? Overall, 1d4 dmg without any upgrade potential for reach like PF1's White-Haired Witch seems rather lackluster. I guess the Hair does have finesse, but the disarm/trip traits probably don't allow you to "drop" your hair on a crit fail, which seems to remove a lot of the benefit of having the weapon traits... making this feat seem less useful than just buying a simple weapon most of the time.

Witch's Charge: Love! The scars hex in PF1 was always interesting to theorycraft, and it seems like this will be a fun one too.

Witch's Bottle: Urg... putting a hex in a bottle that only lasts a day is already highly situational, and then it seems like you'd probably want Cackle to make it more worth it... except using Bottle/Cackle takes up 2/3 of your max focus points and prevents you from restoring those focus until it is used. This... sounds rather terrible. [& thematic + terrible is my least favorite combination.]

Rites of Transfiguration: Yes! Big problem I had with the playtest was something as thematic as baleful polymorph not being accessible to all witches (especially something like an occult curse witch). I was expecting it to become part of a lesson, but this works too!

Multiclass: Disappointed that there doesn't seem to be any way to access the Hex Cantrip or Granted spell of your Patron, even as an extra feat. Especially since that's were a Specific Patron is likely to do something that actually makes them unique compared to the vague themes. Not to mention this currently makes multiple patrons identical for the purposes of multiclassing, since all that matters is the tradition & skill. While I'm happy with how Patrons turned out for the main class, I hoped they'd have enough meat to still be an interesting choice for multiclass like how a multiclass cleric still cares which deity they choose - especially if want domains.

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So what is everyone else's impressions of the final class?

As a GM, you have a lot to keep track of. You've got to manage the PCs, NPCs, Monsters, Treasure, EXP, and keep up with literally hundreds of pages of rules. After far too long, I'm finally ready to release the follow-up to my Playtest GM Sheet, complete with cheesy thread title and everything. In order to make sure incorrect rules weren't accidentally carried over from the playtest, this sheet has been gutted and completely redone while cramming in even more features and support for several sets of variant rules and subsytems.

On this sheet you will find abundant notes and rules references taken from the Core Rulebook, Bestiary, and Gamemastery Guide along with space meant for tracking various aspects of your players and campaign.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kqIKe4cVBHSdmukd84TPZYjJKi4iLBjhdma p90JkcW8/edit?usp=sharing

Sheet Features:

Consolidated Rules: When rules notes would tell you to refer to another part of the book, I've included those rules into the note as well to save time in referencing.

Party Tracking: For those using my Character Sheet, simply posting the share link(s) provided by your player(s) can automatically pull a wide variety of information for easy reference. This includes information for all saves, skills, proficiencies, conditions, languages spoken, and spells known. If you are not using my Character Sheet, you can simply enter any of these values manually to keep any information needed for reference or secret checks in an easy to view table.

NPCs: A tab is dedicated to recording notes and relevant info for any NPCs in your campaign, along with templates to modify rows to enter useful information for running the Influence subsystem for any social encounters with those NPCs.

Skills: All skill actions are listed with notes on the relevant rules text, along with feats from the CRB that modify skill actions or establish new skill actions. Reference tables for DCs, Skill Income, etc. are also included near their appropriate skills for convenience when referencing and running a particular skill action.

Conditions: Includes rule notes for player and non-player conditions, useful traits, counteracting, and monster abilities. Also includes room to enter afflictions expected to reference during play (such as an encounter's venom), along with all of the diseases and drugs from the GMG already entered for convenient reference. (Just don't tell your players I'm to blame for making it easier to run rules for their character's alcohol addition or having them contract tetanus!)

Environment: Includes references for all the environmental rules, terrain conditions, natural disasters, and special battles.

Modes of Play: Separates actions and activities by which mode of play they are used for reference. Includes all basic actions, travel speed, and other notes to help with running different modes of play.

Time Tracker: Includes a wide variety of tracking features to help make the passage of time feel more realistic in your campaign without adding too much burden to the GM during play. After entering a start date for your campaign, simply keep track of how many days have passed and the sheet will automatically calculate the current date, weekday, season, sunrise/sunset, moon phase, and number of days until the next full moon. It also includes a randomized climate to help determine temperature and weather conditions based on the current season.

Best off all, while the defaults are set to Golarion (Elidir in particular), they can be freely edited to create your own calendar (up to 15 months), weeks (up to 10 weekdays), set your own leap year cycle, track up to 3 moons with different cycles, set dates for the Equinoxes/Solstices and their sunrise/sunset times (used to determine seasons / change in day lengths), and edit temperature variation & weather probability by season.

This is all in addition to helping track time during the adventuring day and being able to set start dates and durations for tracking downtime activities, room & board, and other events expected to occur at some future date.

Treasure: Includes all the treasure tables and charts for various magical items to determine prices and/or DCs. Room is provided list items discovered during the campaign along with their details and a general track of how many items and currency you have given the party. Also includes complete tables for gems and art objects from the Gamemastery guide to help spice up your treasure hoards.

Experience: Includes a room to track experience points gained by the party during encounters along with references to experience rewards and a variety of rules to assist with building an encounter. You can also set your campaign's exp speed and easily keep track of how much more experience is needed until your party's next level.

Roll 20: For any GMs using both my character sheets and playing via Roll 20, this tab includes a few generic macros & templates I have found helpful when GMing, along with an automatic output of secret roll macros for party wide saves and skill checks built from the information in the Party Tracker.

Resources: Finally, a tab is provided for links to all sheets I have made, online resources I have found useful, and includes space to link any additional resources that you may want to reference while GMing or creating your campaign.

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All this and more is included in the GM Sheet, along with any additions that I have added in since creating this thread. I maintain a changelog with version# to make it easier to know whenever I update, and always love to hear feedback and suggestions for improvement. So don't be shy about leaving a comment if you enjoyed a particular part of the sheet or have anything you'd like to see included in the future!

Once again, if you like this sheet, be sure to check out my PF2 Character Sheet.

Finally, I want to give a special shout-out to Dave Palay for providing scripting to automatically clear/reset the Day Tracker with only a single checkbox, kpulv for comments on the original playtest thread encouraging better integration/importing with the character sheet, Captain Morgan for feedback in the original playtest thread which encouraged many of the additons for this sheet's time tracker, and Doodpants for a post on unicode symbols that could be used to represent the 2E action, reaction, and free action symbols.

Still going through my copy of the GMG and noticed something that I found odd about the vehicle rules. Is it just me, or do the passenger numbers for many vehicles seem a bit... small?

For example, a Carriage is only set for 2 passengers the same as a Wagon. Considering a Carriage is 4x more expensive & has slightly higher piloting DCs, I'm not sure why you'd ever want to use one over a cheaper Wagon. Not to mention that since Carriages where listed as one of the transportation expenses in the CRB, I would have assumed they were something that could be used to at least transport an entire standard party of 4 PCs.

Speaking of which... I notice no common land-base vehicle in the GMG has enough passenger load listed to transport a full party. A heavy chariot could technically manage as long as one of the PCs was piloting, but that's it. Am I the only one who finds this strange/annoying?

While thinking about how I’d like to see Patrons implemented in PF2 and looking through the current Playtest and threads – I am starting to feel like there are three very different ideas about how Patrons should be represented in the game and wanted to try to elaborate on them a bit in a thread without getting lost as just a comment elsewhere. While I feel like all of these are legitimate options and contribute to interesting stories/character arcs – each has their own benefits and flaws.

1) Patrons as Vague/Mysterious
Leaves Patrons open to be just about anything with the Witch having little to no information about them. Currently seems to be how the Playtest is treating them.

Pros:

First late-night impression reading the Witch playtest, but I'm not sure I like how the hexes came out. In PF1, the limit of targeting a creature only once a day with an individual hex seemed fine because hexes were otherwise unlimited. However, now the same concept is being added as an additional restriction on an ability already drawing from a limited pool - I worry that stacking limitations will be too punishing/unfun.

For example, a beneficial hex like Life Boost can essentially only be used as many times in a day as you have party members. If your group gets into more combats during the day (refocusing between each one), then you suddenly have a dead ability that cannot be used even if you have focus points remaining. Especially at low levels, this could be your only hex and essentially deprive the character of a class feature during longer adventuring days.

Personally, I really dislike the idea that separate limitations could create situations were you have have focus points to use, but cannot actually use them. I could get behind 1/target/day when it was a limitation on an otherwise unlimited resource and would be fine with it remaining if Hexes became unique cantrips - but I feel that it shouldn't prevent use of a resource that is already limited by focus points.

What does everyone else think about this?

Finally finished with updating and upgrading my surprisingly popular Playtest Character Sheet to be fully ready for PF2 Characters and the final rules. Thank you to everyone who supported my previous sheet and apologies for taking longer than expected to finish this one.

Sheet can be viewed here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-9Nr0Qi5CMQxj3Z3tAHXR8UmSisuFOOp9Os gIxh0sMs/edit?usp=sharing
Please do not request to edit the sheet, as it is a template meant for everyone to use. Instead, you can save a copy of the sheet to edit by clicking the link just below the Pathfinder logo on the upper right of the main tab. Alternatively, you can make a copy by clicking here.

Sheet Features:

Ability Scores: Completely moved to the Feats & Proficiencies tab, with an easy checkbox table to calculate your ability scores step-by-step. Includes conditional formatting to warn you when applying too many boosts at any one stage, room to apply boosts/flaws from the Voluntary Flaws optional rule, ability to properly handle apex items, and a miscellaneous row for any boosts gained outside of the normal rules.

Automatic Calculations: Like any good google sheet, many basic calculations for things like AC, saves, skills, etc. are all done for you. Any calculation that uses an ability score also includes a dropdown box to change which ability score is used in the calculation, allowing the sheet to easily adapt to any feats, class features, or house rules which change what ability score would normally apply.

Background: An expanded tab records a wealth of background information for your character. Includes room for artwork, polytheistic deity worship, relationships, frequently used tactics, campaign session notes, and more!

Companion Creatures: A tab is included to record an animal companion or familiar. By selecting either "Animal Companion" or "Familiar" from the drop down list near the top of the tab, all relevant modifiers (HP, AC, Saves, Skills, Perception, etc.) on the tab will adjust to the rules for that type of companion creature. Also has a mini equipment section to record any items your companion is carrying.

Conditions: Most of the conditions from the rulebook are included with a toggleable checkbox, a place to put the condition's value if applicable, and a box to measure the rounds remaining. Any stat changes of the condition are then automatically applied to the relevant categories, while being sure to only apply the highest value from non-stacking status penalties and circumstantial penalties. Conditions which also give other conditions as part of their effects will automatically apply those sub-conditions without needing to check the sub-condition's box.

Display: The entire sheet is done in a letter-sized format to make it easier to display on smaller screens without needing side-scrolling. The sheet can also be printed easily, though not all tabs will have clean breaks.

Equipment: Multiple categories for equipment to be placed with a total bulk calculation that automatically multiplies the entered bulk by the quantity of that item held (and assuming said quantity is 1 if nothing is entered). Bulk calculation also includes the bulk of currency carried and automatically applies the encumbered condition to relevant areas when reached.

Formulas: An entire tab is dedicated to tracking all crafting formulas you know, with reference tables for income earned, formula prices, and standard DCs. There is also room to track progress during crafting – such as days remaining, price remaining, and how large of a batch you are currently crafting.

Planner: An extra tab is dedicated to tracking future plans you might have for your character. Includes areas to record options you want to select during level up, items you want to purchase, and other plans for your character and/or campaign.

Proficiencies: Upgraded from the Playtest sheet, Armor and Weapon Proficiencies can be checked once and then will be automatically pulled from their tab to calculate bonuses. There is room to enter additional types of proficiencies which will then be displayed in the appropriate drop down boxes under the individual armor and weapon entries.

Rules Reference: Notes throughout the sheet have been completely updated to display relevant rules text taken from the 2E Core Rulebook. Other notes inform how the background calculations of the sheet work and give suggestions on how to use the sheet. For example, hovering over any of the Conditions will display their full rule text.

Temporary and Miscellaneous Bonuses: Throughout the sheet are areas to enter extra bonuses and penalties without needing to worry about accidentally altering the underlying formulas.

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Feedback: If you enjoy the sheet, have suggestions on how it could be improved, or find any errors, then be sure to comment! I love feedback and will make updates whenever I can to constantly improve this sheet. In particular, I am interested to know how people react to the new dual-row weapon section and how useful people find the background and planner areas when making a character.

Finally, I want to give a special shout-out to Draco18s for showing me how generating ability scores could be done in a table format, Captain Morgan for offering early rules details and sharing one of their player’s edits of my previous playtest sheet, and Doodpants for a post on unicode symbols that could be used to represent 2E action, reaction, and free action symbols.

Trying to plan out my group's pacing through the rest of the playtest, and am having a bit of trouble finding/remembering a few things about the playtest period and surveys.

1) When is the survey period scheduled to end?
2) If forced to choose, would it be better to provide feedback on just the main parts of Doomsday Dawn (1,4,7), or to do things sequentially even if we can't finish in time?

Something that came up in a fairly off-the-rails event in Pale Mountain. But when an Alchemist asked if they could "milk" the Giant Scorpion for it's venom, we noticed that the monster statblock and item descriptions of giant scorpion venom do not match. Is this intended? Or is it just an error from different parts of the system being updated at different times (& if so, which is the correct version?).

I ended up letting the party get 1 dose of the venom from the bestiary rather than the 6th level item version. The scorpion was alive & co-operating at this time due to a 3hp Gnoll asking to surrender/bargain for his life, and surprisingly getting spared in exchange for the party using a hut to camp, info on the mountain, the scorpion venom, and the Gnoll's necklace to show Zakfah to help negotiation if the party encounters him.

To start this thread off, let me be perfectly clear about my underlying bias. I hate magic items which primarily exist just to boost numbers. I hate having to buy them as a character. I hate having to reward them as a GM. I hate the mechanics of how they work, and I hate the thematic issues of everyone in a setting wearing the exact same thing. Needless to say, in PF1 my most disliked feature was the inclusion of the Big Six. You got a resource (gold) which provided a multitude of options as to what you could get with it. Except if you didn't choose the option of spending your gold on the Big Six and constantly maintaining them with upgrades, then you fell behind.

As a result, Automatic Bonus Progression (ABP) was my favorite optional rules addition in PF1. It made those necessary bonuses innate, and allowed players to spend the gold they obtained on actually interesting items rather than the Big Six gold sink required to stay on the treadmill. Within my group, these rules were also well received, as players enjoyed buying weapons that felt magical rather than just being slightly better weapons. They also loved finding magic items without having to worry about if half the group had already bought that exact item (something which actually did happen with a found cloak of resistance in a game which I was a player). That being said, the ABP rules were not perfect. In my opinion, their greatest flaw was that they were obviously a tacked on patch. You had to follow a messy table of bonuses and had odd features (attunement) which didn’t fully fit thematically. This was likely unavoidable, since ABP was trying to remove a subsystem while staying consistent with the underlying math of a system which had already long been established.

Which is what brings me to the PF2 Playtest. Since we are still in the playtest phase, the underlying math of the system is still open to adjustment and hasn’t fully set yet. This is the perfect opportunity to kill the concept of the Big Six entirely, while making their absence a seamless experience for the players. Especially now that +level is added to so many rolls and ability scores get a boost every 5 levels, there is less of a reason to say that these kinds of items are necessary for a feeling of progression by having higher numbers.

To their credit, paizo has clearly taken steps towards reducing the impact of the Big Six in the PF2 Playtest thus far. However, I would argue that they have not gone far enough and we still suffer from what I will refer to as the “Big Three.” The Big Three consists of the following items, all of which primarily exist to sink gold and give higher numbers necessary for players to stay competent.
1) Weapon Potency Runes
2) Armor Potency Runes
3) Potent Item for key ability score

Without these items being purchased (& upgraded for the runes), your character is doomed to fall off the treadmill and lag behind. You get the "option" to spend your money how you want or select starting items as a higher level character, but you better use those resources to pick the appropriate Big Three items. While the potent items have been moved to 14th level and given extra effects, the rulebook even suggests giving them to characters who will be looking for them at that point. Not because of their added effects, but because they boost statistics necessary to keep up with enemy statistics.

As a result, I want to strongly make the following suggestions for PF2:
1) Remove magical items which exist primarily to give numerical bonuses that then become necessary to succeed.
2) Move any interesting/essential aspects of these items to other features.
3) Adjust the underlying math to accommodate these changes. This may be a large task, but it can only be done well prior to the official release.

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Now to end this post, I’d like to give some of my thoughts of what could be done to the Big Three as part of these changes. These may not be the best options, and I’d certainly love to hear if others had better ideas for them.

Weapon Potency Runes: Remove potency runes as a type, and just have property runes. Property runes are already what makes the item feel magical, rather than just boosting numbers. That said, I think both the attack bonus and extra dice of damage given by weapon potency have a place in PF2, just not here.

For the attack bonus, item quality already gives an attack bonus, but doesn’t stack with potency and is likely to be ignored as a result (i.e. a mundane legendary quality sword is strictly inferior to a +3 or +4 master quality sword). With potency removed, you can have item quality be the primary way to get attack bonuses on weapons, along with the proficiency system that is already implemented.

As for the extra damage dice, it is a very fun feature for players to get extra dice to roll and as such should probably remain in the game. Rather than have it being a part of weapons however, I think it would be better placed as a feature of the character, perhaps as an extra benefit of increased proficiency with weapons. This would help weapon proficiency to have a bit more of an impact (which feels needed for many non-skill proficiencies), even if it would require changes with how martial classes currently increase proficiency.

Armor Potency Runes: Again, remove potency runes as a type, and just have property runes. Property runes are already what makes the item feel magical, rather than just boosting numbers. Currently, armor potency just boosts AC, TAC, and Saving Throws. However, all of these features already improve as characters level up due to their proficiency modifiers increasing with level, which makes the idea of higher level characters needing boosts less necessary. That said, in order to match weapons gaining attack bonuses from item quality, AC and TAC of armor could do the same. Reduced ACP from armor quality could then be shifted over to armor proficiency, where it makes a bit more sense & helps gives armor proficiency more benefits than just +1s.

Potent Items: Remove the potent quality and drop the price to reflect only the additional ability they had (i.e. Belt of Regeneration healing hp). If the additional ability alone isn’t enough to justify having a magic item, then it probably shouldn’t have been a magic item in the first place. Either adjust or remove the item as necessary. With ability scores already getting increased every 5 levels, having an additional bonus from an item really isn’t necessary, especially when it occurs about 1 level before the 15th level set of boosts.

So, I recently thought of an issue when going over the Identifying Spells rules from the first update.

Page 197—In the Spells chapter, just before the Dispelling section, add a new section called Identifying Spells that reads “Sometimes you need to identify a spell, especially if its effects are not obvious right away. If you notice a spell being cast or see the manifestations from its casting and you have prepared that spell or have it in your repertoire, you automatically know what the spell is, including the level to which it is heightened. Otherwise, you must spend an action on your turn to attempt to identify the spell using Recall Knowledge, or can use the Recognize Spell feat (see page 170) to attempt to identify the spell using a reaction.”

It would seem that from this, there is nothing to allow Wizards to identify spells they have in their spellbook, but have not prepared for the day. Instead, Wizards would treat those spells as being no different from spells they had never encountered before.

This feels wrong. I get that there is an issue with just allowing casters in general to identify any spell they know, since Clerics/Druids technically know the entire Divine/Primal lists, but it seems like Wizards should at least know what they spent time copying into their spellbooks.

As a GM, you have a lot to keep track of. You've got to manage the PCs, NPCs, Monsters, Treasure, EXP, and keep up with of all the new rules and rules updates associated with the playtest. To help, I've created a GM Sheet with numerous notes taken from the rulebook/bestiary and space meant for tracking various aspects of your players and campaign.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v_C-XrHnj5jAbbLJwfFjUhKUeYtBZ1HWpWK A5qFQFPw/edit?usp=sharing

Sheet Features:

Consolidated Rules: When rules notes would tell you to refer to another part of the book, I've included those rules into the note as well to save time in referencing.

Current Errata: There is a link to the current update document on the main page and any changes are added into all of the rules notes throughout the sheet.

Party Tracking: The party tracking tab has room to record information about your PCs, including all skills used in secret checks or to establish DCs. There is room to track the languages known by the group, as well as spells known (important to know if a PC can automatically identify a casted spell). At the bottom of the tab is also room to record relevant information regarding any important NPCs in the campaign.

Skills: All uses of skills are listed with notes on the relevant rules text. Additionally, feats which improve skill uses or establish new skill uses are also included. And to make everything easier, tables such as the Skills DC table or Ordinary Skill Tasks tables are included right next to their associated skills.

Conditions: Player conditions are all listed with rules notes and space to list any PCs currently suffering from that condition. Room at the bottom of the tab allows for recording any afflictions such as poison or disease which are likely to come up in your campaign.

Environment: All of the environment rules from the Bestiary are included along with terrain conditions from the Rulebook. There is also space to track the current environmental conditions and penalties for your campaign and a space to forecast the next 2 weeks.

Modes of Play: Includes notes on all of the actions, tactics, and activities players can commonly use during each mode of play (encounter, exploration, and downtime).

Time Tracker: Includes space to track overall time since the start of the campaign, room & board, downtime activities, events over the course of a day, and includes tables for basic services and cost of living.

Treasure: Includes all of the wealth tables along with space to track how much currency and items you've given to the party thus far. Also includes room to list any items to be found in the campaign along with their associated identification DCs and value. Finally, there are many tables included for referencing different types of magical items and common DCs/pricing.

Experience: Includes a tab to track any experience points gained by the party along with tables related to experience rewards and building an encounter.

Statblocks: Include rough templates to track any custom statblocks you may need to reference for the campaign and includes handy rules notes on all monster abilities and weapon traits. Also includes many of the monster/hazard traits for easy reference, especially the few which have mechanical rules implications.

Playtest Tracking: Finally, the sheet includes a copy of the Doomsday Dawn GM Tracking Sheet so that you can have it right next to all of your other GM notes when running the Playtest Campaign.

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As a final note, if you liked this google sheet be sure to check out my thread for my custom character sheet.
And as a bonus, if you get your players to use a google sheets character sheet, you can then ask them to share it with you and provide a link to view. Simply attach this link to their character's name in the Party Tracking tab and you'll be able to quickly reference anyone's character sheet in game whenever you need to, even after they've just updated it with new information.

[Disclaimer: I made this thread in General previously. I am remaking it now as I believe this is a better subforum to put it in and the sheet itself has had significant updates.]

As someone who enjoys making character sheets like this, I took several aspects of a character sheet I made for PF1 and tried to model different aspects of the new playtest character sheet along with feedback from players in my group.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HcscSM74XOAI7-6XCzYCtJKbv4l7g8tsPoh wItMlKQ8/edit?usp=sharing

Sheet Features:

Autocalculations: Like any good google sheet, many basic calculations for things like AC, saves, skills, etc. are all done for you. Any calculation that uses an ability score also includes a dropdown box to change which ability score is used in the calculation, allowing the sheet to easily adapt to any feats or class features which change what ability score would normally apply.

Armor/Shield: Includes a section to not only list your armor and shield, but allows you to track their hardness, dents, and apply the broken condition with a simple checkbox. Also allows you to automatically add/remove your shield bonus to AC with a togglable checkbox. Space is included to list two shields for characters who want to have a backup.

Companion Creatures: A tab is included to record an animal companion or familiar. By selecting either "Animal Companion" or "Familiar" from the drop down list near the top of the tab, all relevant modifiers (HP,AC,Saves,Skills,Perception,etc.) on the tab will adjust to the rules for that type of companion creature.

Conditions: Most of the conditions from the rulebook are included with a togglable checkbox, a place to put the condition's value if applicable, and a box to measure the rounds remaining. Any stat changes of the condition are then automatically applied to the relevant categories, while being sure to only apply the highest value from non-stacking conditional penalties and circumstantial penalties. Conditions which also give other conditions as part of their effects will automatically apply those sub-conditions without needing to check the sub-condition's box.

Crafting: An entire tab is devoted to recording the crafting formulas the character knows, relevant charts, and the number of days spent crafting + the remaining price of the item.

Errata: Sheet includes a link to a copy of the current errata pdf. The sheet is currently adjusted for Update 1.2 and will continue to be updated throughout the playtest.

Equipment: Multiple categories for equipment to be placed with a total bulk calculation that automatically multiplies the entered bulk by the quantity of that item held (and assuming said quantity is 1 if nothing is entered). Bulk calculation also includes the bulk of currency carried and automatically applies the encumbered condition to stats when reached. Equipment also calculates resonance used for invested items and overall has much more space to list items than the official paizo sheet.

Rules Reference: Throughout the sheet are notes which display either relevant rules taken from the CRB, current errata, or information relating to how the calculations of the sheet work. For example, all included conditions display their full rules text when you hover over them.

Temporary Effects: Several places in the sheet allow room to add in a temporary bonus/penalty to the calculations without having to change any of the permanent values.

Tracking Sheet: Includes a tab for a google sheet version of the Doomsday Dawn Player Tracking Sheet. This allows players to track information right next to their character sheet without accidentally viewing any of the GM spoilers from the official pdf.

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Be sure to leave a comment if you enjoy the sheet or have any suggestions for how it could be improved. If you enjoyed this, I am also currently working on a similar sheet for GMs with numerous rules references and sections for tracking party/campaign information.

So I know I'm behind the rest of the playtest, as scheduling issues took a while to reassemble my Pathfinder group, but I want to pass along bits of feedback and initial reactions from my players during their first look and the rules and attempts to make a character.

Ability Generation:
Players generally liked the new way of determining ability scores and were glad that they no longer had to go through the annoyance of using a calculator the help with the process.

One player did had a small complaint that the Key Ability section under Classes should have some type of reminder that you get an ability boost in your key ability. They mentioned that it would be really easy for them to forget this step otherwise and that the change wouldn't take much space.

Armor/Weapons:
Players seemed to enjoy all of the various trait that armor and weapons could have. They especially liked the idea of having a bit more choice instead of there being a default best option.

Of particular note was that players were very happy to see finesse as a weapon trait rather than a feat, and that the propulsive trait replaced having a number of different compound bows with varying strength modifiers (or needing a magic enchantment).

Players also expressed interest in having more dice on the damage rolls of magic weapons.

On the subject of damage, one player was initially disappointed to see an ability that only gave +1 to attack, but understood after they realized that any increase to attack rolls was also an increase to critical hit chance and damage. They mentioned that they would probably need some time to rethink their assumptions with the new edition as a result of this.

Skills:
One player was a bit confused with the role of Signature skills and thought they automatically started as trained in that skill. Afterward, they argued that signature skills really should start out as trained.

While I've seen a few threads disliking the Dubious Knowledge skill feat, one of my players absolutely loved the idea of it and made sure to take the Mind Quake Survivor background to get it on their character.

Penalties/Conditions:
Players liked the idea of less stacking penalties to make things easier to track. They also loved the idea that ability scores didn't get changed by conditions/effects and that they wouldn't have to recalculate everything in the middle of a game because they got hit with some type of ability drain. They also loved the idea the ennervated condition capped it's penalty at a character's level and could no longer kill PCs.

Overall:
Players seemed optimistic about the new system, noting that several issues they had with PF1 seemed to be fixed or were being addressed. To be fair, some of this optimism was likely transferred over as a result of the group coming back to play again after we fell apart with various scheduling/medical issues many months before.

No one really mentioned the subject of resonance or voiced any objection to it thus far. When I mentioned that one of the uses of resonance was when you tried to use a consumable potion, mostly simply seemed to take it in stride without much comment. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in game, as I noted the Monk purchased 3 healing potions to start since they didn't have armor/weapons to spend their money on.

Finally, as a bit of a self-plug. One of my players absolutely loved the custom character sheet I created for the playtest and suggested I promote it more. So here is a link to the thread I made for my character sheet, which is currently updated to be consistent with errata 1.1 of the playtest.

While preparing to run Lost Star tonight, I'm having a bit of trouble trying to figure out how the set the DCs to identify any magic items the party finds.

Reading through the rules, it seems that identifying items would use the Identify Magic activity from the Arcana/Nature/Occultism/Religion skills, which takes an hour to perform (except for scrolls which take a minute if you have the spell on your spell list). However, the table of DCs which the Identify Magic activity refers to is only for identifying spells, which isn't helpful for magic items which lack a spell level.

So does anyone know how you are supposed to set the DC for identifying items? Right now, the closest thing I can think of is to use the general skill DC chart (Table 10-2) and setting the difficulty to the same as monster identification (low for common, high for uncommon, and severe for rare/unique).

Probably a stupid question, but I'm looking for a clarification on how the Sick condition works when it says that it gives a penalty "on all checks."

Do saving throws count as checks penalized by the sick condition? Looking at the frightened condition, they seem to be implied to be separate things as frightened gives a penalty to "checks and saving throws."

Also, do attacks count as checks penalized by the sick (or frightened, enervated, etc.) conditions? Attacks never seem to be referred to as checks, instead being referred to as "attack rolls" and often being called out separately from checks in the text.

Finally finished with my first draft of a character sheet for the PF2 Playtest. I enjoy actually making my own character sheet for things like this, and like my character sheets to have plenty of helpful notes to make creating/running a character easier. Hopefully, others will find this useful as well.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HcscSM74XOAI7-6XCzYCtJKbv4l7g8tsPoh wItMlKQ8/edit?usp=sharing

Features:

• Autocalculations: Like any good google sheet, many basic calculations for things like AC, saves, skills, etc. are all done for you.

• Ability Scores: Any calculation that uses an ability score includes a dropdown box to change which ability score is used in the calculation. Because some class features key off of different scores or change what you'd normally apply.

• Armor: Includes a section to not only list your armor and shield, but allows you to track their hardness, dents, and apply the broken condition with a simple checkbox. Also allows you to automatically add/remove your shield bonus to AC with a togglable checkbox. Space is included to list two shields for characters who want to have a backup.

• Conditions: Most of the conditions from the rulebook are included with a togglable checkbox, a place to put the condition's value if applicable, and a box to measure the rounds remaining. Any stat changes of the condition are then automatically applied to the relevant categories, while being sure to only apply the highest value from non-stacking conditional penalties and circumstantial penalties. Conditions which also give other conditions as part of their effects will automatically apply those sub-conditions without needing to check the sub-condition's box.

• Crafting: An entire tab is devoted to recording the crafting formulas the character knows, relevant charts, and the number of days spent crafting + the remaining price of the item.

• Equipment: Multiple categories for equipment to be placed with a total bulk calculation that automatically multiplies the entered bulk by the quantity of that item held (and assuming said quantity is 1 if nothing is entered). Bulk calculation also includes the bulk of currency carried and automatically applies the encumbered condition to stats when reached. Equipment also calculates resonance used for invested items and overall has much more space to list items than the official paizo sheet.

• Rules Reference: Throughout the sheet are notes which display either relevant rules taken from the CRB or information relating to how the calculations of the sheet work. For example, all included conditions display their full rules text when you hover over them.

• Temporary Effects: Several places in the sheet allow room to add in a temporary bonus/penalty to the calculations without having to change any of the permanent values.
  

Finally, if anyone has suggestions for how the sheet could be improved or notices any mistakes, I'd be happy to hear them in this thread. I'm tentatively planning to make a tab for tracking animal companions/familiars as well - but I still have to go through those rules and find the time to actually do so.

Starting to plan what I'll need for GMing, but have never run any type of official adventure path or anything before (only home games). Does anyone know what would be a rough time estimate for completing each part of Doomsday Dawn?

Going through the playtest rulebook while jotting down notes and thought I'd post some of my thoughts. Currently just finished reading through the classes section (skimming many class feats) and then jumped ahead to archetypes/multiclassing. I'll post initial thoughts about spells/skills/feats/etc after I actually read them (maybe tomorrow).

General:

Rarity being displayed as just a color isn't good. Not only have some posters mentioned that they are colorblind, but even as a person who isn't I find the differences between common and uncommon options to be easy to miss while quickly going through.

Rarity being applied to languages is great.

Proficiency progression seems a bit off. Skills can get Master at 7th lvl and Legendary at 15th level. Saves seem to have a similar progression in classes that boost that specific save. But spell proficiency doesn't even hit expert until 12th level (shortly before skills hit legendary) and the barbarian doesn't hit expert weapon proficiency until 13th level (when the fighter has a legendary group).

Not only does this feel a bit inconsistent, but thematically saying that a mage can't be considered an expert in magic until 12th level feels wrong & means that the majority of levels only have a difference of trained/untrained when it comes to magic. It also feels wrong that a Cleric/Wizard multiclass who dabbles in magic can get expert magic proficiency at the same level as the main Cleric/Wizard classes, even if they only have the ability to reach master (at 18th level rather than 16th).

Ancestry:

Vision: Kinda dislike the continued theme of "everyone except humans(/halflings) has some type of special vision." I can understand Dwarves having darkvision due to associations with subterranean work/life, but I don't really see why the other races have it or low-light vision. I don't want to return to games where things like torches / other light sources are unnecessary because practically every expanded race has darkvision as a default. It ruins the appeal of expanded vision being special when so many have it.

Classes:

Energy Pools: What is the point of having a consolidated system of spell points when these still exist? Clerics have channel energy, Druids seem to have a special Wild Shape pool, and even Universalist Wizards have a sort of pool being 1 per spell level. Heck, the character sheet at the end of the rulebook doesn't even include a space to record these special pools! It just has spell points, which should really be the only extra pool for class abilities in my opinion. It makes the whole spell point system feel only half-implemented, like the designers were unwilling to break away from the old system we're trying to replace.

Reprinted Feats: After constantly hearing that the CRB has a limited page count, I have to wonder if it is really worth it to reprint certain class feats in their entirety for multiple classes. This is especially true for things like metamagic feats, but I also things like Sudden Charge (+Sudden Leap) being under both Barbarian and Fighter. It'd save space to just put all classes that can take it as a class feat as part of the feat's traits and then just have later class entries refer back to the first printed version.

Barbarian:
Why does Acute Scent (p56) require darkvision and low-light vision? Having a better nose is not reliant on sight, this just unnecessarily punishes certain races (human) who play the class.

Cleric:
Love the Deadly Simplicity feat (p73) improving the damage dice on a deity's favored (simple) weapon. Gives clerics more reason to actually use their deity's weapon (though considering many of my homebrew deities have 2+ favored weapons, I wish the wording for a bit more precise to say that only simple favored weapons are improved).

Hate the way domains are constrained to an initial power and advanced power, cutting off design space to give more abilities later. Even worse, advanced powers can be gained as early as 4th level? While I haven't gone through all the abilities yet due to them being listed in the spell section, this makes me doubt that any are really powerful/special and instead are just petty tricks on the side. Which is exactly what I want to avoid with such a thematic and important feature to the class.

Make domains bigger and more important to Clerics please! At very least, open them up so domains have room to add more powerful feats later - something like the advanced power feat saying you can select an advanced power from your domain as long as your level is at least twice the advanced power's spell level. Don't limit them to just one advanced power equivalent to a 2nd level spell in effect.

Fighter:
Interesting to see the Power Attack is a Fighter-only feat. I have the feeling that if I went through the feats more closely, the new division of feats might have varied effects on play.

Paladin:
Still dislike this being an alignment-restricted class. Considering they get more martial feats/abilities (like being the only class other than Fighter to have Attack of Opportunity as an option), and have access to Cleric Domains, they basically serve the thematic niche of religious warrior (Warpriest) that doesn't focus on spells. Except they then limit that niche to LG-only.

Think the class should specifically say they get proficiency in their deity's favored weapon in the same block as their other class-based proficiencies. Also, instead of having faster weapon proficiency based on a selected group of weapons (like the fighter) - it'd be more thematic and make more sense if they gained that faster weapon proficiency with their deity's favored weapon instead.

Oaths seem to be done well. 2nd level Feat to opt-in and have powerful 14th level feats with a passive effect they can expand into... though it does make me even more bitter that Domains and School Powers are capped at 4th/8th level feats in terms of power.

Detect Evil getting nerfed and becoming an 8th level feat is a great change in my opinion. No more trigger-happy paladins detecting evil on every person they meet so they can get smite off as a surprise round.

Ranger:
Getting faster proficiency with a group of weapons seems to be the only thing replacing combat styles? It's not bad, but it isn't really special other classes do the same and fighters do it better.

Sorcerer:
Eschew Materials really needs to be called out better. After seeing the Wizard had it as a feat, I actually had to scroll back and specifically search before I realized Sorcerers could still do this. Except Sorcerers have the additional word of "usually" added into this ability, meaning Wizards can technically do it better if your GM feels like abusing that wording.

Still feels like a downgrade for Bloodlines to have less powers associated with them compared to PF1. But considering they actually get 3 powers which extend to 10th level strength, they are still far better than Domains/Specialty Schools.

Wizard:
RIP Specialty Wizards. Seriously, getting an extra prepared spell of your school isn't impressive when specialty wizards of multiple schools can prep the exact same spell lists. And Sorcerers cast the same number of spells each day (bloodlines give an extra spell slot per day with no restriction on casting). And Universalists can make up the difference with the ability to drain arcane focus for every spell level in a day.

And as for specialty School Powers? Again limited to 2 and appearing to be more tricks on the side rather than anything defining, though unlike the Cleric there is thankfully at least room in the formatting for expanded feats and options in the future. Though as given, the powers gained from a school are limited to 8th level effects, which while better than Cleric Domains is still not enough in my opinion.

I'd really love to see specialty Wizards actually be masters of their chosen school, but my first impression is that they'll be, once again like PF1, barely distinguishable from any other Wizard. In my opinion, they should at least gain faster spell proficiency progression with their favored school (like fighters with weapon groups) or something to really feel special. As it is, the only class that really cared about schools of magic will probably care even less as universalists become more prominent.

Cavalier:
Ha! I knew that cavaliers would make a good archetype. That said, I wish the order/challenge/banner stuff was in a separate archetype from the mount stuff. If I just want to be part of an order and focus on the challenge ability, then I have to waste a feat slot to get a mount I won't use (especially if it can't follow me in the adventure's terrain).

Not to mention that the prerequisite for Cavalier Dedication is being trained in Nature? That makes sense for a mounted archetype, but again, if I want to focus on the knightly order and challenge ability it makes no sense. I'd say Society would be a better skill for a knightly order considering you need to know about the order's role in society, relation to nobles/king, etc.

Hello all.

After learning that Mythweavers lost some of my old character sheets, I recently got the idea of trying to make my own. While this was originally meant to be more of a personal project, I thought that I might as well share it in case anyone else happened to like it.

Character Sheet

Feel free to use or steal bits from it however you like.
While I'm not sure how much more I'll work on it, I'm open to any comments or critique if you find something wrong or think that it could be improved.

Greetings all.

While making deities/demigods for my homebrew, I’m having a bit of trouble thinking up some good names/titles for archdevils within my setting.

The idea behind hell in my setting is that it's run similar to a corporation with endless red tape and horrendous amounts of administrative bloat. Each of the archdevils who manage a layer of hell are also part of hell's board of directors and take some pride in having overly long and fancy sounding titles as a result.

So does anyone have any suggestions for some good administrative titles for my devils to have? The longer, more convoluted, and potentially silly they are, the better.

Greetings all.

Recently I started to build a new character for a Gestalt campaign and decided that I wanted to try to focus on creating magical traps. The character is currently a Kobold Cleric/Sorcerer with the Rune domain (for blast runes) and the Kobold bloodline (for trap runes). While I know that I want to pick up some the the rune and symbol spells later(especially explosive runes) - I'm unsure about what other options exist for this type of build.

So my question is, what options are there to help with a character focused on making magical traps? Is there anything I can use to boost the effectiveness of traps I create or spells like explosive runes?

Greetings all.

As is starting to become a minor tradition in my group - I'm currently in the process of creating a small oneshot campaign for halloween where the PCs get to be the bad guys. Nothing too much in the way of story (witches trying to perform evil ritual, last year they were monsters attacking a city) but I find myself in need of a little help when figuring out what to throw at the party as enemies.

The Group:
The group will consist of 4-6 gestalt characters at level 6 which all have one of their classes being witch. Good alignments are banned & I know at least 2 of them are planning on flying a lot. Early ideas for classes seem to be Witch/Summoner, Witch/Bloodrager, and Witch/Bard - though I will not know exactly what they're playing until the session itself.

The Situation:
The campaign takes place in the middle of a forest clearing about 200ft. across where the ritual is taking place. The start of the ritual sends out a pulse of evil energy which alerts all good-aligned creatures for miles that something is up - and the party has to defend the site and make sure the ritual isn't interrupted before it completes at midnight.

So my question is, what are some decent options for good-aligned creatures to throw at my players?

As I was prepping for a halloween oneshot, one of my players started to ask questions regarding the effects of polymorph spells (specifically beast shape II granted through a skinwalker feat for werebat-kin). One of the questions they had related to their plan of assuming the form of a dire bat & have another person help put barding on them.

As I tried to look things up for them, I noticed that barding has the line that, "Flying mounts can't fly in medium or heavy barding." However, the player obviously isn't a mount - so is there any other rule I'm missing about how barding interacts with a polymorphed player who is flying? (said player wants full-plate barding).

Personally, it'd seem a bit weird to me if flying creatures can fly just fine in heavy armor - until the moment they become a mount and are suddenly unable to fly at all. But I haven't managed to find anything which would support this...

After playing in a game recently (as well as when designing my own campaigns) I ended up having a few questions about exactly how the greater detect magic spell works.

1) When looking at a lingering aura from a spell, is it possible to identify exactly what spell was used? And if so, what is would the DC be?

I know that Spellcraft can be used to identify a spell as its cast or identify a magic item, but a lingering aura doesn’t seem to satisfy either of those. The closest I can find to help would be a Knowledge(arcana) to determine the spell’s school, but that still only narrows it down to a large category of spells.

2) How does greater detect magic interact with attempting to identify the spellcasting signature of spells cast using items? Does it register as the item creator’s signature, item user’s signature, or simply fail to have a unique signature? Does this change based on if the item used was a spell-completion, spell-trigger, command word, or use activated item? And does it affect the lingering traces left in a creature’s aura to determine their last spell casted?

During the last session I played in, my GM ended up making a quick ruling that I simply failed to find any unique signature on the spell I was attempting to look into (because it was done with a spell-trigger item) – comparing it to “trying to analyze the handwriting of a printed letter.”
On the other hand, as a GM planning to use this spell for law enforcement in my own games later – it’d seem pretty crappy if buying/making a scroll/wand was all it took to defeat the spell. So I’d really like to know what the official interpretation is supposed to be.

3) When looking into the greater magic aura spell, am I correct in seeing that it is only capable of targeting objects/creatures, and not spells themselves, thus making it impossible to mask the traces of any spells used over a great distance?

4) Finally, I’m assuming greater detect magic pierces mask dweomer as mask dweomer states that more spells powerful than detect magic pierce it with a successful Will save (though greater detect magic only specifically mentions magic aura). However, is there any greater version of mask dweomer in the same vein as greater magic aura?

Right now I’m playing a sneaky Vigilante Cabalist (uses witch spell list), so seeing that I can’t get access to greater magic aura is annoying for me if there isn’t a similar version for mask dweomer or another way I can invest in to try to hide from greater detect magic.

Greetings all.

As a GM, I've just started to add 3rd party material into my games (especially after getting the rogue genius pdf bundle). While I'd love to start looking at more things I can add for my players - I'm currently finding the sheer amount of 3rd party content out there to be a bit overwhelming. As such, I'd like to hear what 3rd party books/content other people find to be especially enjoyable in their games, to get a a better idea of what to look into myself.

Some of the things I'm especially interested in finding content for:

-More Eidolons for the Unchained Summoner. Yes, I'm the pesky GM who demands summoners in my games be unchained. While I love the fact that unchained eidolons actually have a theme (as opposed to a formless blob of whatever the most powerful options are), I understand that the existing subtypes are rather... limited. As such, I'd love to know if there's any good 3rd party material that provides additional subtypes for the unchained eidolons.

-Archetypes/Ki Powers for Unchained Monk. I've already worked with one of my players to make simple updates for various archetypes to work with the unchained monk (as said player nearly always plays monks), but I'd really like to have more options to provide to the player.

-Antipaladin/Ninja/Samurai. Somehow, these alternate classes seem to be especially popular within my group, appearing in nearly every campaign - but as alternate classes they seem to have received fairly little official support. So I'd love more stuff for them.

-Vigilante. Possibly one of my favorite new classes, though I'd really like to have more social talents available just so that renown had less importance.

-Kobolds. Because I've become associated with them within my group & am currently running a Kobold Campaign.

In a (Kobold) campaign that I am currently running, I had a player ask if I would homebrew some of the Kobold racial Feats as they were pretty weak options. The player wanted to take them in order to be more thematic (especially since the players are competing in-character for which scale color is better and who is more dragon-like), but was concerned with falling behind other PCs as a result.

Considering that I agree the feats aren't all that great, I decided to try boosting them a bit. While the player had some of their own thoughts about what would be a good adjustment, I'm unsure about the proper balance for the strength of a Feat. As such, I would like to ask for other opinions about how strong these feats would be and what could be done to make them better as a homebrew rule for my campaigns.

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Draconic Breath

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Draconic Glide

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Draconic Paragon

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So what do people think? Have I thrown too much into my feat variations? Or are they still too weak? And should I make the damage more in line with what the player suggested, or is it better where it is?

Currently designing a character for a gestalt side-campaign that I'm playing in and decided that I want to make a Magical Girl themed character. (starting at lvl 1, 25pt. buy)

I'm planning to use the Magical Child archetype for the Vigilante as my first class - but I'm still trying to decide what to pick (& what archetypes to use) for my second class. While I'd prefer to pick something that synergies fairly well (has a use for CHA), I'm rather open in deciding where to go from there.

So I decided to ask the forums for opinions. What classes/archetypes do you think would combine with Magical Child best? As long as I can theme it towards being a magical girl, the sillier and zanier they are, the better.

Newer GM here, wondering how others handle situations when your players decide to do something completely off the rails which seems destined for spectacular failure from the start.

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My situation:
Running a Kobold campaign where the group is currently hunting down/capturing various monsters for their dragon's new dungeon. After making a deal with a few mimics, the group struggled to decide what to go after next before someone brought up the idea that they wanted to go kill some Gnolls. The group had previously fought Gnolls while ambushing a travelling merchant and again while stealing some Pugwampi slaves - but had never ventured too far into Gnoll territory.

The problem here is that they never had any other plan more than "charge into enemy territory and kill stuff." They made a couple knowledge checks to learn about Gnolls in general and tried to shift the burden of planning onto other group members for a while before just going with walking straight into the tall grass and seeming to think they can easily exterminate a local race. Of course, I know that some of the competing Gnoll packleaders are out of the party's league (being the story reason why nearby city Paladins haven't already wiped them out). So I tried to drop a few hints about such during their Knowledge checks and made a quick plan to have waves of increasingly strong Gnolls in order to drive them off.

At first it seems to work okay, as the party kills half a dozen weaker Gnolls before realizing that they're starting to have difficulty. But over the next half a dozen Gnoll deaths, the party starts a partial retreat before turning around and charging right back in only to get completely overpowered (may have pulled the last hit to put them at dying instead of full dead). As such, I decided to have the Gnolls capture the unconscious group instead of simply killing them (intending to use them as slaves & providing opportunities for escape, bartering freedom, or rescue from the players who missed the session and say they wouldn't have participated in a suicide charge for no good reason).

Of course, I worry slightly that the group's overconfidence may have been a result of my pulling blows/throwing easier encounters at them previously (still getting a feel for designing combat difficulty). However, as a group of lvl4 Kobolds, I would have thought they'd realize that they can't just take on a full race within the region on their own...

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So is there anything that I could have handled about this situation better? What other things have come up in your own games and how has the GM handled them?

I'm currently designing a city for a campaign that I'm running, and recently started to think about the topic of magic. While magic is certainly a potent tool, many spells seem to have great potential to be abused for criminal activities. As such, I'm thinking about having the city imposed regulations on the production and use of certain types of magic. Naturally, this is a subject of heated debate among the citizens, with many desiring more/less restrictions.

As such my question is, What spells do you think that a reasonably lawful city would try to restrict in order to lessen crime?

Currently, the city does not ban merely knowing spells or having them listed in a spellbook. However, it does make it illegal to manufacture, own, or possess magic items capable of creating the spell's effects (potions, scrolls, wands, etc.) and adds an additional criminal charge for using banned magic to aid in illegal activity.

What I've currently thought as being banned in the city:
-Spells that prevent alignment detection (Undetectable Alignment, Misdirection, Nondetection)
-Spells that give the user invisibility (Vanish, Invisibility, Invisibility Sphere)
-Magical Compulsion (Charm Person, Suggestion, Dominate Person)
-Knock (restricted to law officials only)
-Secret Sign
-Vacuous Vessel

Recently the Intimidate portion of the Antagonize feat has come up in play at my table, and as a newer GM who didn’t even know this feat existed until seeing it now – I’m having a bit of trouble deciding exactly what to do about it (if anything). On one hand, some of the current problems are certainly due to my own failings at reading the rules carefully during the session and I don’t want to take away something that the player is finding fun to use. On the other hand, the feat itself is giving me a bit of concern about how to rule it going forward and I’d love to hear other opinions about it. (& yes, I realize I’m diving face-first into a landmine of a topic here.)

First off, here is the feat in question,

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Things that I find difficult to rule:

You cannot make this check against a creature that does not understand you or has an Intelligence score of 3 or lower.

What exactly is needed for make an opponent understand you? While I have seen some claim that a shared language is required, I know that my players are disputing this and claiming that acting in a hostile manner should be enough. [Character in question knows only Draconic (Kobold campaign) & is unlikely to learn more languages.] Should I force the feat to be language-dependent and say that he can’t use it unless he’s using a shared language? Allow use but with a penalty for not having a shared language? (& if so, what penalty? -5? More? Less?) Or just allow use with non-verbal actions as long as the opponent is intelligent enough?

The effect ends if the creature is prevented from attacking you or attempting to do so would harm it (for example, if you are on the other side of a chasm or a wall of fire).

What exactly qualifies as harming a creature for the purposes of ending the antagonize effect? RAW only seems to specify terrain that is near-impassible already and does not address other situations. Is provoking attacks of opportunity enough to end the effect? Or only large terrain features like those described? What about uncertain harm like knowing there are traps in the area? Honestly, it almost feels like this is so vague that it could be interpreted to the point of making the feat useless (attacking PC would bring harm, thus can’t force them to attack). So what would be a good interpretation without harming the PC’s fun?

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What has cause me to make this thread:
Looking at the feat, I’m having a hard time seeing how his actions should be able to make enemies behave completely out-of-character [guards abandoning guy they were hired to protect, enemies running through the entire party (while provoking) in order to hit him, panicked and fleeing opponents turning around to charge into (a rather brutal) death, non-combatives moving away from the people protecting them and into their enemies, etc.]

Additionally, I feel rather uneasy about an ability that can be used consistently (1/target/day) and doesn’t involve any type of save. Especially considering that I can’t see many ways to increase the difficulty of the check (10+BAB+WIS) other than just adding levels to the enemies (which creates other problems) and the current check seems rather easy to make. Compared to spells which have a multitude of traits, feats, items, and other spells which can boost saves or otherwise resist spells, it feels very off.

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So in Conclusion: Should I change how I've been ruling this? Ban it? Add a houserule to it? (I do kind of like the idea of making it only work on targets that are already hostile/making attacks) Or am I just overreacting to something that isn’t a problem and/or will be inconsequential once the group gains a few more levels?

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Full disclaimer: My failings in handling the feat thus far have been a result of not looking at the player’s combo close enough (unless I am somehow mistaken, the Intimidating Glare Rage Power should not allow STR to be used for the intimidate check of Antagonize, as it is not a check to demoralize a foe), and failing to see the other options for a successfully antagonized opponent in one instance (using spells if available instead of being forced into a melee/ranged weapon attack). The Party is currently only level 3 (soon to be 4), so my initial impressions have been based on that power level were magic has almost not come into play at all for the party.

Hello everyone. Currently in my group, I’m about to run a small side-campaign to satisfy some of the combat-lovers in my group who want to try out making Gestalt characters. The problem is that I don’t have enough time to go making all the gestalt enemies I’ll need to run it! So I thought I’d turn it over to the forum threads and see if anyone was bored/interested enough to stat up some wushu-themed characters.

Don’t be afraid to optimize a bit, PCs tend to optimize themselves and will have more gp to play with + 25pt buy. PC’s will be starting off at lvl5 and I don’t yet know what classes they’ll be playing for this.

& to everyone who provides a stat block, THANK YOU!

While looking through the new esoteric dragons for campaign ideas, I'm having trouble understanding exactly how the Aura of Protection ability of the Occult Dragon works.

The ability:

Protective Aura (Su)

A very young or older occult dragon has an aura that acts as a magic circle against evil, law, or chaos as a 20-foot emanation.

So when does the dragon choose if this ability works against evil, law, or chaos? When they get the ability upon entering the very young age category? Can they change which alignment they protect against? If so, how often can they change it?

Also, can the ability be suppressed if the dragon is cautious about exposing themselves? (say when using change shape to pass as a human)

I’m currently designing a black market for my players to encounter in my campaign (evil campaign, players will have a bit of trouble shopping at normal stores after what happens). The idea is that a malicious NPC with levels in Hoaxer Bard has purposely created several cursed items and mixed them in with all the deals and scams already taking place in the black market.

So my question is, what are some good/fun cursed items to tempt my players with when they see them for sale?