Christopher#2411504's page

The Witch - using their Familiar as de-facto Spellbook - is the only class with a easily replaceable familiar:

Undying: If your familiar dies, your patron replaces it during your next daily preparations.

Everyone else has to spend a whole week of Downtime just to replace it. And I an unsure if Archetyping into Witch would give Undying (it is part of the Familar, but also a Patron thing).

This is annoying. Please make this more accessible.

Some ideas:
1. make it a Familiar ability you can pick. Naturally it doesn't work restrictively and the Witch can get it for free.
2. make a lesser version of this a Familiar Ability. Something like only needing a single day of downtime? The Witch would still get the better version for free.
3. Make it a Feat for the Familiar Master Archetype. The Witch would have little reason to pick it up.

Flying ancestries in PF2 are tricky mechanically, as permanent flight is a rather high level ability. The 1/5/9 Featline is a elegant solution from the mechanical point of view.

However, a recent discussion about the flight feats made me realize it does cause a disconnect between NPC and PC of the same ancestries:
- A Level 2 Strix NPC can fly.
- A Level 2 Strix PC can barely "jump good".
PC's can't fly, when seemingly everyone else can.

When making a Strix PC, I instinctively designed around that. I made him a Suli Geniekin, with a heavy earth slant on the element side. And that large amount of earth element in his body prevented him from flight (until he had trained to channel enough air power). That worked for my idea, but I think it would be nice if we had a more general Lore Exploration for this phenomenon.

Effectively, a low PC or a PC without those feats suffers a low-severity disability. They have the same issues in their society that a adopted Gnome would have.
The Strix have a interesting naming conventons for the Flight feats: Fledgeling, Juvenile, Full. Which made me think that maybe they used to measure biological development and thus age by the flight ability? Remnants of that era are propably still in some ancient laws and all over the Strix language. Even if they are more accomodating now and changed the social norms and village designs to accomodate non-fliers, it would still set adventurers apart during their formative years.

This could even tie into the reason to become adventurers in the first place. So many adventurers are late fliers or flightlesss:
- because people with that issue often become adventurers
- because they are were too driven to become adventurers and thus neglect flight training

Set over in the original thread had this idea:

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

What the game is missing, is a Lore explanation for the discrepancy between adventurers without flight and "normal" members of the ancestry.

Something like "For unknown reasons, some get their flight only late into adulthood or never at all. As they have issues fitting into a society build around flying movement, many of them become adventurers".

And that could be kind of neat, leaning into mindsets of those who prioritize flight above all other things, and those who either cannot, or do not want to, devote years of their lives to strengthening their wings and take flight like their pre-sapient ancestors, and would rather focus on learning a craft, studying magic or leading their people.

There could be positive interpretations and groups that get along and value each others different contributions, and groups that do not understand or approve of each others choices, and see 'not able to fly' as some sort of disability or sign of failure (such as comparing flightless avians to some sort of 'degenerate' race like the flightless dire corbies of earlier editions, or conversely seeing avians who spend all their time on 'flying like birds' as trying to turn the clock back to the days before they had language and culture and society, when they were just animals).

There could even be more mechanical reasons for the different abilities, with one winged race not being naturally able to fly with any amount of training and exercise, but a series of magical transformations, or alchemical 'evolutions' (represented in-game by buying the appropriate feats!) could artificially give them this ability. And some might not want to embrace, or have access to, these transformations, leaving entire populations and communities of these winged folk, flightless, some by choice, some by circumstance.

Humans currently have no "Popular Edicts" or "Popular Anathema". This does make sense for the Ancestry level, because humans are the least homogenous Ancestry.
But it does not make sense on all levels. Why would the different cultures not have popular Edicts, Anathemas - and possibly even variant Ancestry Boosts?

I think with the Hellfire Crisis we can clearly see that Cheliax and Andorran have some rather incompatible sets of Popular Edicts and Anathemas. And it isn't all down to Cheliax worshipping Asmodeus. There should be some "don't accept that nations left the Empire" Anathema on the Cheliax side. And some "support more nations breaking away from Cheliax" Edict on the Andorran side.

This could even go one further and actually include variant Ancestry Boosts and Flaws.

Humans are currently the poster child of the 2 free boosts. When describing the "Alternate Ancesty Boosts" rule, I usually say "you can choose to ignore the listed boost and flaws, to have two free boosts like Humans instead".
But we also have the Mightyfall Kobold, Full Moon Sarangay (and the entirety of the Lashunta in Starfinder, which have two Heritages with different Attribute Boosts). If there is precedent for Heritages to vary in such fundamental things, why could human cultures not? Humans aleady have many region accessed Ancestry Feats, so this stuff definitely matters.

Items with a fixed DC are just bad. They barely work on the levels we first get them. And 2-4 levels later the DC becomes too low to even bother wasting actions, worn usage and property rune slots on it. Any item with a DC is pretty much a "automatic skip" or "we never found a opportunity, so we sold it later" for each of my groups.

This needs fixing so badly, you partially did fix it - but only for some classes and some items. But I think something more general is needed. Too many things aren't worth considering like this.

I don't think Alchemists would complain too much if everyone got to use their Class DC. This is a mandatory buff, not a exiting one. A class Feature Tax. I am playing one and I would not complain.

But if you don't want to use the class DC for any reason, maybe take a page out of the Innate Spells?
"When you gain an innate spell, you become trained in the spell attack modifier and spell DC statistics. At 12th level, these proficiencies increase to expert. Unless noted otherwise, Charisma is your spellcasting attribute modifier for innate spells."
Having a separate "Item DC" Proficiency scaling like that could work. The attribute should probably be the classes Key attribute. It would be better for casters, but worse for Martials - unless they have a override to use Class DC like the Alchemist.

I have spent a bit of time thinking through the differences between Premaster and Remaster Kobold lore. And I have this headcannon that it really comes down to one mistranslation, that was just very, very persistent about being corrected. And I wanted to share it, in case it makes good headcanon for you. Or maybe even proper canon.

Every kobold instinctively understands the importance of power, and many are inclined to venerate those who have it, whether they be mighty dragons, cruel fiends, imperious fey, or even ancient artifacts. Kobolds seek out these alliances out of a sense of pragmatism— after all, who would dare bully a kobold who serves an ancient dragon?—but also because kobold eggs incubated near such loci of power take on physical traits (and sometimes abilities) similar to those of the warren's benefactor.

I am guessing that the Kobold dialect for Sakvroth contains a word for [being powerfull enough it would make the clan more secure if we follow them, while also imprinting on the eggs of the young]. Let's say it is "Druxi" for my little theory, so I don't have to keep copy&pasting those big brackets several times.

Whoever wrote that fatefull first translation of Kobold language:
- heard a Kobold description of a powerfull being (from a Kobold point of view)
- heard how the word "Druxi" sounded similar to "Dragon"
- maybe had run into a tribe that actually had a Dragon as its "Druxi"

And just wrote down "Druxi = Dragon".

And like the whole theory of the Alpha Wolf, that "Spinach is full of Iron" mistake or "Oni = Demon", this mistake just stuck around. Word etymologies are littered with examples for those kinds of messes.
Every Kobold learning Common was really confused when "Dragon" kept having a way more specific meaning then "Druxi".
Everyone running into a Kobold tribe with a Dryad, Fiend or the like at the helm thought "ah, they must be the proxy/regent for the Dragon while it is away, hence the same title".
There was a movement to fix the mistranslation, but people kept insisting on referncing that old work. Because "Dragon" was a shorter and easier to read translation, then dealing with the idiosyncracies of Kobold socio-biological traits. We are just now getting to the part where this finally becomes common knowledge: "Every Dragon is a Druxi, but not every Druxi is a Dragon".

Someone on my discord asked a interesting question: How do Astrazoans deal with armoring each form, if they are different?

According to the images they can make "clothing" from their body. But actual armor would still be a issue.

The only 2E option that comes to mind is hardlight armor, which could cover each form equally well:
"A projector fastened to a belt or lapel encases the wearer's body in this shimmering hardlight shell."

But what about the ones that need heavier armor?
Does armor already adapt to the wearers size and body form? Or was there some Upgrade or special armor for them in 1E?

1E/DnD 3E summoning spells were bad. Minion Spam was a serious balance concern and a drag on initiative.

2E had to compensate for it. But I think you overcompensated with the Summon Spell Creature Level.
3 Actions+Sustain and getting rid of the "1D3 from Rank -1 or 1D4+1 from Rank -2" fixed the issues. You didn't have to fix it harder by also making the Creature level abysmal.

According to the Summon Trait, your top level Spell Rank - the ones you save for PL+2/3/4 Level fights - at the Level you get those slots get you a single monster of:
PL-2
PL-2
PL-3
PL-4
PL-4
PL-4
PL-4
PL-4
PL-4
PL-4

Your top level slot, gives you a creature at least 6 Levels below any enemy you are saving this slot for. It is 7 levels on the even Levels. The singular Rank 10 slot is especially egregious.

Even the Minion Creation Rituals Rank/Creature Level Table would be a massive improvement, at least getting you PL-2 for you top slots. So it might actually work against the odd PL+2 enemy.

Nonlethal is a lot more impactful in SF2 then it was in PF2. Constructs - in the form of Robots - are just that much more common. It is a unavoidable side effect, given the setting.

Weapons that have Nonlethal and can't turn it off (like Shock Truncheon and Neural Lash can) are at a distinct disadvantage.

I realize now that working the Nonlethal penalty into the Dice Size/Trait calculation would be hard, as you used several PF2 Weapons as baseline for the balancing.

So, why not just treat it like Exposed?
In the sense that:
1. those weapons get a extra Upgrade Slot
2. there is a cheap level 0 Upgrade that allows us to turn off Nonlethal. Maybe on a toggle, like you can toggle Environmental Protection.

That would actually give us the same choice as Exposed.
Either:
- use that slot to just turn off the penalty
- embrace the penalty and use the Upgrade space for more power the rest of the time

I have two issues with all the Contemplative Art I could find:

1. Where are their eyes?
In SF2 they are supposed to have eyes with low light vision:

A contemplative often hovers over a curiosity to analyze it with an array of senses, including the eyes that jut out a short distance from beneath the brain.

But I can't find those anywhere in the art. Not even the one that literally has a holographic targeting reticule for his giant gun, on Galaxy Guide Page 138.

2. Why are they running around mostly Unarmored/Naked?
Their brain is supposed to be 70% of their body weight

The immense brain is roughly 70 pounds of a typical contemplative’s 100-pound weight.

The brain is literally always center mass, since it is most of the mass. That is the point everyone is taught to aim.

Current Autofire

Automatic: In addition to a normal Strike, you can fire this weapon using the Auto-Fire action.

Auto-Fire [two-actions] (area, attack) You attempt to hit each creature in a cone with a range equal to half the weapon’s range increment without making an attack roll. Any creature in the area takes weapon damage (basic Reflex save against your class DC plus the tracking value of the weapon). This damage is area damage. Creatures that critically fail this save are subject to effects that occur on a critical hit with this weapon, including the weapon’s critical specialization effect. Auto-Fire has an expend equal to the number of targets in the area × 2.

I think tying the Autofire Cone lenght to the range increment is just a mistake.

You are forced to constrain the Range Incremenet of Automatic Weapons, to keep the Cone Lenght in check.
This results in a hilarious discrepancy between
Laserrifle (1D8, 100ft, Simple, 1 Expend, Tech)
Rotolaser (1D8, 30 ft, Martial, 1 Expend, Automatic, Tec)
Somehow Automatic is worth the entire Simple->Martial difference and 70% of the Range.

And despite all your efforts, anything that does increase Range increment (like the Sniper's Scope and some Range incremet stuff in PF2) will still just break the Cone lenght anyway.
So the effort in constraining range incremenet is for nothing.

And the best upside I can see, is that "Autofire" only takes up a single line in the weapons table.

If the two were independant values, both would be better off in my book.

I was trying to find out if you have any Streams or Livestreams planned for GenCon.
But all I found was silence.

There is nothing on the blog.
There is nothing sheduled on the YT channel.
And I am not sure you even know the Twitch Shedule exists as a feature, given I haven't seen you put anything there ahead of time in a solid year.

At least YouTube told me about the Intereview you are going go make with Roll for Combat in 8 hours.

But could you give us anything please?

I know the books aren't out yet and I hope for some day 1 errata, but everything makes me worried you are fixing the range issues the wrong way.

Range issues

30ft in PF2 is a somewhat short, but usually safe distance.
A melee Enemy will need 1 - sometimes 2 - Strides to get to you. If they aren't entirely body blocked by you allies.

30ft in SF2 is barely distinguisable from melee range.
For most ranged attacks, that will be 0 Range increments.
For some particularly short ranged weapons, it might be 1.
Ranges just aren't that far, if even the wolves have laser beams.

The Current Solution?

Everything I see has me worried that you are doing exactly the wrong thing here - trying to solve the issue with Class Features:

- SF2 Casters have more slots. At least I assume this was partially for this issue, as Slotted spells tend to have better ranges then Cantrips - it is hard to find a Cantrip with the Range of Fireball.
- the Mystic has Network Spell at Level 1, which allows them to measure spell Ranges from any Bonded ally. The literrally just need Line of Effect and vision. Which is probably the most broken way to fix the range issue.
- Witchwarper on Level 3 have a Spellshape to hit anywhere in the Quantum Field, which is a lot more reasonable:
Later level, limits Spells range to "Quantum Field Range+Radius", caps AoE spells to your Fields Area, if the enemy moved out of your field you need a separate Sustain to move it first. A lot closer to Reach Spell in utility, but still way stronger then it and completely free.
- the Space Pirate Archetype gets a 60ft Area of Effect Demoralize when rolling Initiative

Why it is a bad idea

It really just makes compatibility harder.

The problem comes from the gear. But you fix it via Class Features. Which means:
- if you put SF2 classes with those features into a PF2 campaign or a SF2 scenario without the gear, their range will just dominate
- if you put PF2 classes without those features into SF2 campaign, they run head first into those range issues

Gear Problem, Gear Solution

The much better and more common ranged weapons of SF2 cause this issue.
If they are there, every class should have access to the solution.
If they aren't there, no class should have access to a solution (as otherwise, the solution itself would become a problem).
If the solution is gear, then the problem and the solution would be directly connected. No SF2 gear, no issue, no solution.

Casters need some kind of Item to increase their spell ranges. The details would be up to testing:
- maybe a feature of caster weapons, to just add the Range increment?
- maybe a flat range increase Identical to Reach and Widen Spell? Maybe with higher versions adding more?
- maybe it turns Spell ranges into range Increments (also apply penalties to Spell DC, to keep the balance between AC and Save spells)?
There are a lot of options here.

Auditory and Visual Actions (that aren't spells) do also suffer issues.
But Space Pirate has half the solution: It uses a Hologram to give the Demoralize Range.
Just give the a Communicator a "using Loudspeakes and Hologramms, you can add 30ft Range for non-magical Auditory or Visual Action that has a range".
If you wanted to go further, you could also make those actions usable via a Call? "The range becomes infinite and you ignore line of effect and line of sight, if the target has a open communicator or is a tech creature that can receive your call".

Does anybody agree with the issue I see?
Would gear be a better solution?
Are there any things that I overlooked?

The Azlanti Gods Acavna and Amaznen died/vanished in Earthfall.

While I don't have the book, there appears to be no rarity making them PFS illegal. They probably should be restricted.

The more I look at mutagens, the more I loathe the very design.
I was hoping you would get around to fixing that in the Remaster, but maybe nobody every told you of the issues? Or I am the only one that considers them issues?

As I see the Mutagens:
1. They are balanced by being Consumables (meaning they cost money or limited class Feature space to even have).
2. They are balanced by being Polymoprh (and thus mutually exclusive with each other and several spells).
3. They are balanced by needing up to 2 Actions to apply (Draw and Drink) or being applied before combat or require a extra Item (Collar of the Shifting Spider) and the Initiative Roll Free Action to apply.
4. They are balanced by giving barely a bonus 1 higher then permanent Items for that level.

But apparently that wasn't enough for balancing. You had to also:
5. Give them a downside. You don't gave most Potions, Elixirs or Spells a downside. Yet for some reason every mutagen must have one.
6. You make the downside a Item penalty, a penalty that is used practically nowhere else (so we keep forgetting about them).
7. Make them so excessively complex. I don't even try to use them without Foundry, because only a computer could hope keeping track of all the very specific bonuses, penalties and effects.

As a Alchemist for any given group, 90% aren't even worth getting the formula for.
And even if by some miracle one of the Formulas is worth getting as Alchemist for this group, it is still a judgement call every time if we actually want to use one. And the answer is way to often "No".
Forget tying to use them in Soceity Play.

Today I learned that there is a species of spider that keeps one species of frog as pet - while happily eating other frogs.
And I thought that might be a intestines piece of information.

https://youtube.com/shorts/JJDNid3EVZI
https://youtu.be/PdNS0u3oQX4

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenesthis_immanis
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiasmocleis_ventrimaculata

Lost Omens has Tripkee, Anndi, awakened animals, frog fey, and spider monsters.
And the whole relationship reminds me of Kobolds and Dragons. Except it works with animals.

As I understand the animals work together because:
The spider was raising children and thus defending a nest, making her rather stationary and territorial.

The frogs taste bad or might be toxic. Juveniles have been seen picking up the frog with their mouths, tasting and then quickly setting them back down.
Giving other species a suit of the frogs skin had a similar effect.

The frogs don't eat the eggs. And they might actually hunt insects that do eat the eggs.

Under Character Options, Player Core it says:

The Ceremonial Knife feat (page 188) can be used once per day to create one wand.

The feat was already not the clearest written, but I think this ruling made it worse. It says: "create one wand". Not "create one temporary wand".

If we still usually get 8 days of downtime per adventure, the witch can create 8 wands per adventure. You get it by level 6, so that is 24 Wands by level 7.

Now I am pretty sure this falls under "too good to be true". But I thought I double check, just to be sure. And so somebody sees this and can fix it.

The way chronicles are handled right now is not helpful - but a active detriment.
"Managing Chronicles" legitimately ranks around "Horror Movie" levels of dread. And I don't like horror movies!

We get a PDF and have that list under My Organized play. The issues with those are:

1. DM has to create the PDF and make Entry on the Paizo Page separately.
Meaning they can forgot one, but not the other.
Or they make mistake, like selecting the wrong Reputation to increase, regardless of what I selected in the chronicle.

2. Neither the PDF nor the Page has the complete information!
Want Archievement Points? Not on the PDF!
Money, XP? Sorry, not on the Webpage.
Running number of Chronicles? Depends, have you made sure to to count them yourself? Can't have a computer doing that work!

3. Neither have a overlapping identifier!
I have to figure out that WebPage Entry "Pathfinder One-Shot #2: Dinner at Lionlodge" and the file on my disk "PFS2E OS-DL.PDF" relate to the same, actual game.
Apparently there is no shared ID for Chronicles?

4. There is apparently a half-dozen designs for Chronicle Sheets.
Why are there so many designs?
It should be one current design.
If some sessions don't have stuff to put some fields, leave them empty.
If there is any stuff unique to one adventure, there are plenty text fields.

Some chronicle Sheets have 4 fields for Gold and 3 for XP. Which is useless information - I only need the change. And since not all have it, I will not be able to use them anyway.

5. No place to write down the Level
You can apply Credit from playing Pregens
You can apply Credit from some non-PFS adventures
I might be able to actually sort the PDF's out, if there was any indicator for the level I played/(planned to) applied it.

Nope, nowhere.
https://www.organizedplayfoundation.org/Lorespire/pfs2guide._.Player-Basics #Applying_Credit

6. The Website does not understand that some Chronicles aren't applied yet
I might play a Level 5 Pregen while my only character is Level 2.
So have fun with the WebPage faultily including Reputation you don't actually have for 12 Session straight! So it even manages to mess up the one counting job it does!

So, a question came up on the PFS 2E Discord. The best answer is "depends on table/DM". And I really think a question like that probably should not depend on table/DM. But my google Fu isn't good enough to find one. And the Society Errata appear silent.

The situation:
1. Double brew allows you to create 2 Quick Alchemy Products for the Action cost of one:

You know your formulas so well that you can concoct two items at once. When using the Quick Alchemy action, instead of spending one batch of infused reagents to create a single item, you can spend up to two batches of infused reagents to make up to two alchemical items as described in that action. These items do not have to be the same.

2. Additives allow you to add Special things to stuff you make via (mostly) Quick Alchemy:

Feats with the additive trait allow you to spend actions to add special substances to bombs or elixirs. You can add only one additive to a single alchemical item, and attempting to add another spoils the item. You can typically use actions with the additive trait only when you're creating an infused alchemical item, and some can be used only with the Quick Alchemy action. The additive trait is always followed by a level, such as additive 2. An additive adds its level to the level of the alchemical item you're modifying; the result is the new level of the mixture. The mixture's item level must be no higher than your advanced alchemy level.

3. The issue is that all the actual Additive feats say "an Alchemist Bomb", "an Elixir", "an [specific ALchemical Item]". Which is Singular. But Double Brew results two things.

So would the Additive affect both resulting infused items, or only one?