Claxon's page

Something to know, that is very useful that newer players who have experience with TTRPG might not expect, is that the sorcerer might be the most friendly introductory spell casting class, because of a surprising reason.

Sorcerers can use any spell list, due to how their bloodlines work. So you can absolutely use the divine spell list, if that's your thing, without being a cleric or other "traditional" divine class. And because of the benefits that have been given to spontaneous spell casters (signature spells) without an equivalent to prepared casters, prepared casters usually feel much worse to play unless you know exactly what you're going to encounter and prep for that specifically. IMO, prepared casters definitely feel a lot harder than spontaneous. And the idea of versatility and utility that prepared casters were supposed to have, doesn't exist so much in PF2. There aren't many long duration buff or utility spells anymore. And even if the situations where they would be useful...it's unlikely you knew about it in advance so you weren't likely to prepare it.

And as far as I recall there aren't just general default mechanism to leave slots open and prepare them later or to reprepare slots as a downtime activity. Which is pretty much why I'd never recommend prepared casting. That's what scrolls or wands are for, to provide you with access to those utility spells. Oh, and Scrolls and Wands use your spell casting DC or spell attack roll, so they're absolutely a viable source of offensive magic.

Something that concerns me, is that experienced players of other TTRPGs (depends on the RPG) may have really bad habits that will make the game unfun if they try to do the same in PF2. It's worst for players who have experience with PF1, because the games play so extremely differently and many people who migrate try to play the game the same way (as much as they can) only to hate it because they don't have the right mindset about things.

PF2 requires teamwork. Or at least rewards it. You can probably succeed if everyone in the party kind of does their own thing without trying to implement much coordination, but it will be harder. But a player that thinks they can carry the party on the merits of their character alone (as they could in PF1) will have a dead character and likely an unhappy player very quickly.

Players need to know that attacking 3 times in a round is usually a waste of actions (due to MAP). Fighters and rogues are extremely strong classes that are very straightforward to play. Round out the party with choices among bard, cleric, and sorcerer. Spell casters are obviously more complicated than non-spells casters, but you can also have some pretty complicated non-spell casting classes too (Inventor, Thaumaturge, Alchemist, Swashbuckler) aren't classes I'd recommend to a new player.

So I guess it is a valid question to ask...if an inventor had a inubrix weapon, that they made their weapon innovation, that had fatal (like a pick) and they added the dynamic weighting innovation to it...what happens?

Wait, we also need it to be a deity's favored weapon. And for the Inventor to have that class feature, which I don't think it gets access to.

I think in the case of an inubrix weapon with fatal it's pretty straightforward.

Inubrix should do something. So it obviously reduces the normal die damage. And in the case of fatal, you apply the size decrease to the fatal dice after fatal is applied, else inubrix would do nothing in that scenario.

For the staff, it also seems pretty obvious that when wielded in two hands it should be a d8. And then because of your class feature with your deity's weapon, it should increase to d10 (but it wouldn't be able to benefit from another size change). The d8 thing isn't size change related, and related to usage instead.

Now, if you could somehow have an inubrix weapon with two-handed option and fatal that was also a deity's favored weapon....how would that play out? Not sure. Not even sure if there is such a weapon.

Edit: A quick search of AoN tells me there are no weapons with the two-hand trait and fatal trait.

I only say it's unclear because I have no idea what "special statistics" are.

Part of this depends on how you interpret "special statistic can only be adjusted by....". What is a special statistic?

As far as I know it's not actually defined.

I agree that it doesn't force you out of the stance. And agree that you couldn't make the stance attacks.

Whether or not you're locked out of other stuff...I'm not sure.

I lean towards yes because it's unclear.

Yeah, the rule about ambiguous rules applies here.

Although, I wouldn't even really call it ambiguous. It's clearly intended to apply to the kholo jaw unarmed attack only.

Claxon, I think you experienced what I was cautioning about.

Iron Gods is NOT an adventure for players interested in creating tech-savvy, sci-fi weapon expert, characters. Instead average - for PC adventurers - people find these ancient and barely comprehensible technological relics. Some they can use (poorly), some they can explore (in awe), and some they might have to fight (desperately). It's still assuming the party is made of magic missile slinging wizards, bare-fisted monks, devoted clerics, sword-wielding fighters, and the like.

Yeah, I was just trying to backup what you said with my subjective experience.

Holy/unholy is a nice way forward to at least not immediately say good and evil, and maybe long term might allow for more grey in all deities.

Like imagine holy wasn't a different kind of energy from pure vitality, and unholy wasn't different from pure void. There are some lore ramifications there, but lets ignore that for now.

It means what were good gods, are now just gods associated with life energy and the creation of life. And formerly evil gods are just associated with void energy, the antithesis to vitality energy.

It's now not good and evil, but life creating and life destroying. While that can be flattned to good and evil, it leaves a lot more room for a vitality god to do things we would consider evil, and for for a void god to do things we consider good.

I remember playing a bit of Iron Gods (we didn't get all the way through it) and honestly the tech was a bit disappointing. Because it was timeworn and couldn't be recharged or or had limited uses you couldn't guarantee you would be using a specific weapon/item. It made it impossible to really build around (unless you're generous with retraining rules). Basically one person had the technologist feat and at best the rest of us dabbled in the occasionally really useful tech item that didn't require us to build around it to use it.

It was honestly a pretty big let down because the tech weapons and armor were cool in theory, but no one really wanted to bother because it wasn't enough better for a limited use item compared to standard non-tech items.

If you were really generous with retraining rules so that when a character ran out of uses with one weapon, they could transfer any relevant feats to a new one, that would go a long way.

I wouldnt mind if arcane cascade was no longer a stance, but something that just happened as a free action when you cast a spell, but only lasts 2-3 rounds. It would help the thing flow better without needing it to be significant

The funny thing is, if the magus has a pre-buff round they can absolutely cast a cantrip and activate arcane cascade, and benefit from it the rest of combat.

Honestly, this is one part of the magus that feels pretty awful.

I think you could just make it a reaction when casting a spell or using spell strike.

but apparently I'm the only one who dislikes the idea of "There are gods that are bad to worship because they are bad. and any of their followers can just be killed, because they follow the wrong god, and that makes them evil".

It's not because the follow the wrong god, and that doesn't in and of itself make them evil.

It's because followers of an evil god generally do evil things. Using Lamashtu as an example, maiming and disfiguring of beautiful people is a commandant of hers. Not just a suggestion but a full on edict. And her followers that don't do it, will be viewed less favorably than those that do.

Now, is every follower of Lamashtu evil and deserving of death? No. You can absolutely have someone that follows Lamashtu and is simply interested in caring for those who are maligned by mainstream society and viewed as monsters (though there are probably better deities that don't also associate themselves with evil acts).

The thing is, whether or not your (and I mean this more generally as anyone reading this) game includes that kind of thing. I don't like games that give me moral conundrums like finding the non-violent goblin child caretaker in the lair of a cult dedicated to Lamashtu. In my game world, you don't encounter such a thing. But if you are going to introduce such an element, players should carefully consider their moral outlook for killing an innocent person.

Thank you @PizzaLord

Last Question, Proficiency.

Does Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Firearms) get all the Tech Frearms?

I'm not confident, but I think no. I think Tech Weapons are their own category.

Edit: Looking on AoN it depends heavily on the specific weapon to be used. Some are covered by exotic firearms proficiency, many others aren't.

well, I definitely can't think of any times, especially in the real world, that things done by groups of outsiders were painted as "Corrupting the pure". Nope, can't think of any examples of this.

And make the beautiful monstrous... and all her children are considered monstrous... hmm...

Am I stretching here, oh hell yeah. but like I said, the talk about her just absolutely smacks of "This was a goddess of a people we wanted to subjugate, so we decided she must be evil and spread all this talk about her.

Or, quit trying to turn a rule book into propaganda as though there is some agenda with this imaginary goddess and you treat this as a rule book which explains what things are.

Look, if this was an in world lore source, or written from an individual characters perspective you might get some agreement that it was being misrepresented.

But this is not that.

It is a rulebook to objectively tell us as players (at a high level) who Lamashtu is.

So I kinda feel that that 'Maximum +5' is maybe a better typical DC than Maximum +10.

Yeah, if you're going to do a group thing it absolutely shouldn't be maximum +10 for the DC. Because you're basically telling anyone who has poured all possible upgrades into this skill that you shouldn't participate. So I think it's better to lower the DC a bit.

And wherever you have something that it doesn't make sense for the DC to scale with PCs, don't do that. Use a fixed DC. Like climbing a wall. The DC of the wall (ignoring things like weather) shouldn't change just because the PCs leveled up. Although it's not common that those kind of things are victory point based, but there might be some scenario where its appropriate.

Another option for victory point based challenges is to have multiple skills be useful in contributing points. Maybe you're trying to convince the king to do something. So you use some diplomacy, a little deception to present a scenario in which not doing it would be bad, and maybe even a puppet show (performance) of how the people of the kingdom would view him if he doesn't. There's room to be creative.

What about Lamashtu's edicts is evil? What about her domains is evil?

From AoN:

Category Gods of the Inner Sea
Edicts bring power to outcasts and the downtrodden, indoctrinate others in Lamashtu’s teachings, make the beautiful monstrous, reveal the corruption and flaws in all things

So yeah, she has some positive stuff, but the stuff I highlighted is pretty evil. Corrupting, and enjoying the corruption of the pure are definitely evil things. And the fact that her interventions are viewed as "terrors" from those who aren't her followers paints a picture. And "making the beautiful monsterous" sounds like either manipulating someone into being a bad person or disfiguring them. All of which are pretty evil.

Now, she does have stuff that counteracts the evil some, but not enough to have her not be evil (under the old alignment rules). If she didn't want to corrupt others or "make them monsters" then she'd actually be a pretty neutral god.

She's kind of the epitome of what I was talking about. We have her as the mother of monsters, the mother of the oppressed. Orcs driven from their homeland by the Dwarven Quest for Sky, Goblins constantly treated as sub-sapient. Everything she represents is GOOD.... but for some reason she is evil? Why can her followers not sanctify holy?

Again, in game lore, born a demon, yadda yadda, I know the actual reasons but again. if this were the real world I feel like any objective researcher would find pretty damn fast "oh, that's only her origins in Abadaran texts, in texts and art work from old Goblin and Orc settlements we see an origin story indicating her as a kind motherly figure who suffered with her people".

I feel like what you're saying here is ignoring the part of her description where she not only corrupts, but relishes in the corruption of others. And can intervene against their will (or at least without their approval for the changes she can impose on them).

So yeah, if you ignore aspects of her she could be a not-evil deity.

She could make a great candidate for redemption if she took the chip of her shoulder and didn't seem like her favorite thing in the world was turning everyone into monsters against their will.

And I still hope for a reload weapon-friendly Hybrid Study.

Yeah, honestly feels like there should just be a feat to allow you to recharge/reload as a single action.

Would basically only be useful for reload based starlin span magi, but it could use the love.

And maybe a conflux spell that lets you reload and get some other benefit too.

I agree that if a single character is doing it, it's not great to make use a victory point system with a lot of rolls. It drags things out and everyone else is bored.

It's when you require the rest of the party to be involved in the conversation. Don't make the DC high, but everybody has to participate. Now you 10 charisma friend whos untrained is potentially a liability, in a high chance game.

Of course that has issues too, where the party goes "Hey, we're going to try diplomacy, please wait outside while we do". Which is also pretty bad.

To be honest I don't know what the best solution is. I feel like victory points and multiple rolls are an improvement for complex tasks, but also if you only have one person doing it then it doesn't make sense.

Unless you add some sort of time element. Like you need to accumulate a certain amount of points that one person alone couldn't possibly do in the number of turns allowed. And even then, you still end up with certain party members likely being excluded because they're more likely to crit fail than succeed thus removing them from the exercise is the best thing for the party.

I think the "can" choose unholy is an important aspect. The problem is that mechanically, not choosing to be sanctified is pretty bad.

But I guess it's fine from a lore perspective. You're a servant of Lamashtu, but you focus on caring for outsider the world might consider beastly and ugly. You don't need the benefits that come from Sanctification necessarily.

But an adventuring cleric probably does.

Is anyone asking for magus that doesn't spellstrike though?

I think people are just asking for a Magus that doesn't feel like it needs to spellstrike every turn, and that on those turns where it's not spellstriking that it has something to make up for not being able to spellstrike.

I can absolutely imagine the kind of magus I described above, where I used spellstrike last turn. My target has run away, and I use a new conflux spell to follow it, with a speed boost and creating (greater) difficult terrain to cut it off from its allies. That sounds pretty awesome.

But generally, as it works right now if they don't move away, I probably just spend an action to recharge spellstrike and do that again.

If someone rolled a success to Lie against an NPC, you don't need to tell them "OK, he almost believes you. Attempt one more Deception check to really sell it."

Actually I think that's a perfectly valid thing to do. Especially for a complex lie, or one that goes against the person experience/expectations.

In fact, I think more uses of things like Diplomacy and Deception ought to be multiple rolls to get "bigger" effects.

I think something that would be good, is if every Magus Study had two conflux spells.

One that gives you movement with some extra effect. And one that gives you some kind of attack with extra effect.

So like Inexorable Iron could have an Thunderous Strike, but modified in some way to be something like I described above. And additionally another conflux spell that gave them movement, maybe it lets you move, and every square you move into/out of becomes difficult terrain. Maybe with a heighten effect that increases your speed for that movement, and that eventually lets it be greater difficult terrain.

My limited experience take on Magus, is that turns without spellstrike don't feel great. There are some options that are good, but not always depending on the situation.

I think something that disappoint me are a lot of the conflux spells. Especially specifically that they mostly force you to move. Which if I'm already engaged with an enemy, isn't really what I want to do. Or at least I want an option to do something else that doesn't require movement.

For instance I kind of like Thunderous Strike, although even that I feel could use some tweaking.

You're spending a focus point, that takes a while to get back. And yes, that conflux spell lets you Spellstrike again, but honestly that's like 50% of the reason you're even bothering with it.

If Thunderous Strike let you strike the creature, and attempt a trip (instead of giving a save against trip), and inflicted some bonus damage (although the current bonus damage is weak) I might be a actually happy with it. Right now the odds of getting the enemy prone are low since they need to crit fail.

For me, most of the conflux spells fall into "why bother" territory that I'd rather just spend an action to recharge without spending the focus point (assuming that in the long term I pick up focus spells form somewhere else).

But honestly, it's okay not to spellstrike every turn, but the Magus kit doesn't feel like it has great support on the turns you're not spell striking.

I want to continue exploring this bias of "Chaos is wrong, Lawful is Right"... because... wow. are people who are "Just following orders" right? even if those horrible orders are lawful?

was Robin Hood, the scarlet Pimpernel, Star Wars Rebels, Br'er Rabbit, etc all inherently wrong for being forces of chaos?

Not that there isn't a problem with flattening concepts in the way you are critiquing, but it is common that chaos is flattened and combined with evil and lawfulness is flattened and combined with good.

There are many reasons why this is the case and why it's a common occurrence with humanity, but to your point it can go too extreme with the whole "just following orders" issues that can justify horribly inhumane actions.

I even like the idea that for an NPC they have the same mechanical action, but it's reflavored a bit to represent their fallen nature, their slide to wards evil presumably. Powered by a new deity who is interceding on their behalf to turn them down their path.

Bluemagetim wrote:

I think I will just houserule Flurry of claws and Gluttonous Jaws double on crit. I don't think we have shown had a good reason for them to not crit.

Totally reasonable IMO. Hell, house ruling them makes them consistent with virtually everything else and that means people don't have to remember an exception. That just makes the game easier to play.

Unless it was somehow problematic, I would expect everything to have some effect on a crit (including the damage being doubled typically).

If double damage was too much damage compared to other options, I would expect the spell or effect to call that out explicitly and say something else happens.

Claxon wrote:

SuperParkourio wrote:

Claxon wrote:

ScooterScoots wrote:

Claxon wrote:

.

That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.

Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works.

Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.

But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.

You may be thinking of Felling Strike. You Strike the target and cause them to fall softly on a hit and also keep them grounded for a round on a crit.

Yes, for melee that's definitely what I was thinking of. I thought there was a ranged option that did something similar though.

It says "Make a Strike". It's not melee exclusive.

Brilliant, don't know why I was thinking it was melee exclusively.

Actually, it probably can't be used well with melee unless you melee character can fly and get into range (which they probably can't with a dragon).

It also couldn't be readied, but if I'm using a dragon at "full capabilities" I probably would allow the players to ready Felling Strike if they had it. Heck, I'd even remind them to combine Felling Strike with Sudden Leap, and let them ready a Sudden Leap to use Felling Strike. I'd probably make it cost 3 actions instead of 2 to ready in this scenario, but I think it's appropriate to let characters use these kind of feats in this kind of situation.

Claxon wrote:

ScooterScoots wrote:

Claxon wrote:

.

That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.

Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works.

Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.

But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.

You may be thinking of Felling Strike. You Strike the target and cause them to fall softly on a hit and also keep them grounded for a round on a crit.

Yes, for melee that's definitely what I was thinking of. I thought there was a ranged option that did something similar though.

Claxon wrote:

.

That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.

Unfortunately bola shot is not compatible with readied actions as best I can tell, even with one person readying to activate the ammo and one person shooting. You definitely should be able to do that but I don’t think it technically works.

Well I was thinking more Sudden Leap, and I'm pretty sure there's a ranged attack feat that lets you make a trip, and if successful can drop a flying enemy to the ground.

But a good point is raised that those actions aren't 1 action activities, and a smart dragon will make sure to be well out of range of most retaliatory actions at the end of their turn.

While it's feasible to grapple a quickling (though you may have trouble actually succeeding at levels below it) to even attempt to grapple a (non-young) dragon you would need to have the titan wrestler feat.

Which isn't a crazy thing to have, but also not something guaranteed either.

But to your point, I think fighting any kind of dragon should be a telegraphed fight. The party should know it's coming and have an opportunity to prepare for it.

But even prepared, a dragon played intelligently where it can attempt to kite the party should be an incredibly dangerous foe where the party's first move is to try and neutralize it's speed/flight.

That said, while I'm forgetting the name there are both melee and ranged attack options that can knock a flying creature out of the sky and put them on the ground. And for most dragons, that means they end up not being able to use their flight (or at least not as effectively because they have to fly up after being knocked down). Doing that with ready actions when the dragon gets close and have the rest of the party prepared to act is probably your best bet. But also have an escape plan prepared.

Well, based on what I was seeing on the wiki, we know Abrogail I sold her soul to Hell in 4636, it's not clear what other deals she may have made. I can't find a precise timeline.

I was definitely off in that King Gaspodar died in 4622, Aroden's death was in 4606.

So, at most it's somewhere in the neighborhood of ~100 years since Gaspodar's death, and in 4640 was the singing of the treat of Egorian which marked the official start of House Thrune's reign over Cheliax and its territories. So in in that regard, you're correct that it marks about 90 years of the whole of Cheliax being official tied to Hell.

The general point remains the same though, relative to life spans its not been that long since Cheliax wasn't tied to hell.

I don't disagree with you necessarily.

But that all boils down to me saying not clear.

There are hazards designed to trap the party in the room they just entered. As long as the hazard is factored into the XP along with the dragon, it shouldn't be too much to handle.

Yes, the dragon could cast a spell on the party trapped in the room then Fly away, Sustaining the spell each round. But that means the dragon isn't doing much to stop the PCs from fleeing, disabling, or breaking the hazard. It's the equivalent of the BBEG leaving the room and assuming the killing device achieves its purpose.

My concern is that even if you mechanically factor in the trap portion, that the actual difficulty relative to that calculation won't be correct.

In fairness, Aroden dying screwed a LOT of things up, not just Cheliax.

But yes, Queen Abrogail Thrune the First made a deal with Hell for help to take control of Cheliax, though no one knows exactly what Hell receives. As a result of House Thrune's authoritarian control over Cheliax, with literal book burnings and rewritings of history, the country drifted towards reverence and worship of devils, as supported and encouraged by House Thrune's despotic control.

Remember in Golarion's current lore, the year is 4726. King Gaspodar of Cheliax died in 4606, leading to the civil war that resulted in Thrune's ascendancy. It's been about 120 years of ties with Hell. But members of longer lived races in Cheliax would still remember a Cheliax before the devils. And people likely, though the average human may never have witnessed it, wouldn't actually be supporters of Thrune or Hell, but merely live in fear of the secret police. And as long as they don't ruffle any feathers are allowed to live their lives in reasonable peace and stability. So the give lip service and appeasement because else risk their own death and perhaps risks those around them too.

Regarding the sustain spell thing....generally speaking the party should be able to get out of the room. You're right that a dragon could cast a spell with sustain and run away. But the party should be able to exit the area. I suppose you could have scenarios where the smart dragon traps a party in a room (perhaps with one person sized entrance and one dragon sized roof exit, and cast the spell and exit, and trip a trap that would cover both exits with something that can't be escaped....but like don't do that. That's kind of just an enhanced "rocks fall, you die" level death that almost looks fair if you squint hard enough but really isn't.

I guess I never paid close enough attention before, but Tridus is correct.

I thought spell attacks just generally defaulted to double damage, but most of them explicitly call out what happens on a crit in the spell description.

And barring something I missing, if the spell doesn't call out what happens on a crit, nothing extra happens by default.

However, I would argue that based on the quantity of spells that do call out an effect on a critical hit, that the spells that don't call it out might be in error or overlooked.

You have a bit of a point, that typical animal level intelligence is like a -4 int modifier, and that most things with a -5 int modifier are considered mindless (which is what the cave worm has, though it is not mindless).

However, while int is not meaningless, it is somewhat under-defined. We don't have hard rules about "X level of mental activity requires Y int modifier". Which means it's open to interpretation. And while most reasonable people are going to agree that such an advanced plan as "throw it high in the air and let it die" is honestly too much for a creature that is almost the cognitive equal as a mindless ooze, the fact that the worm isn't mindless leaves it a bit open.

For instance, I would argue that animals (which are a-4 int) would definitely be capable of understanding that throwing a creature up as high as they can would kill it (if they were so physically endowed).

So can this non-mindless int -5 creature figure that out? Not clear.

Add dragons to that list.

I feel like dragons, while being arrogant, also shouldn't be fighting anywhere near to fair fights. They should fly around using their breath weapon. They're generally faster than any party members are going to be, so even if the party can fly the dragon can still kite them around. Melee should basically never be able to get in range of the dragon (unless you somehow neutralize its flight).

I am curious to see what everything thinks on these two points.

What is functional to hit for spell attack?
What is the acceptable crit chance on a spell attack after including the best common case for teamwork math swings?

My hot take?

For the first question, somewhere close to martial levels of ability to hit.

Not accounting for situational bonuses though, martial (not fighter) to hit and spell caster to hit (for spells) are already close right? Well, only kinda.

Examples:
Wizard gets expert spellcasting at 7, master at 15, and legendary at 19.
Ranger/Barbarian (most martials) get expert in weapons at 5, master at 13, but never gets to legendary. On top of that, martials also get accuracy boosters in the form of weapon runes. And on top of that, there are bonuses that apply to melee weapons, that don't apply to ranged attacks (including ranged spells). Off-guard from flanking being a common one that melee attackers will see that ranged attackers (including spells) wont.

So... what would I do?
1) Smooth the proficiency bump increases. This may actually require separating spell DC and spell attack proficiency from one another as giving the bump to spell DC 2 levels earlier is probably not good.
2) Additionally provide an item bonus similar to martial levels

Ultimately spell casters who want to make spell attack rolls probably need to be at the same level of attack bonus as melee martials are. They're expending limited spell slot, and if they miss the spell is expended with no effect. Subsequently this is why I'm also okay with them criting more often than they currently do, because it is limited by spell slots.

There are about 37 spells total (including focus spells and cantrips) that target AC, compared to the hundreds that don't.

We might need to look at how those spells scale up if crits become problematic. But honestly I'd rather look at minimizing how much damage gets added on a crit, than keep spell attack rolls as something no one wants to bother with.

That said, I know it wouldn't be done because you're basically completely decoupling spell attack from spell DC and creating a bunch of special rules just for it...and while that might be great for a home game it makes the game more complicated in a way that I don't think Paizo would ever really consider.

Claxon wrote:

Yeah, casting does not always equal speaking.

And more complicated is that since the remaster, spells lost the verbal tag for spell components. It was generally replaced with the concentrate tag, but it's possible that a spell required concentration without requiring a verbal component.

So in the remaster...you kind of have to decide which spells required verbal components or rather if you'll allow any exception to concentrate = verbal = speaking.

And to hammerjack's point, it is possible to cast spells that don't require speech, which would still result in an additional round of air lost.

Which spells require speech in the remaster is not about the Concentrate trait at all. The remaster rule is that all spells do EXCEPT when something like the Subtle trait removes the need to speak.

Oh right, I forgot about that being part of the change in the remaster.

By default all spell require speech unless something explicitly removes the need (like Subtle).

Edit: Some of the changes in remaster while not taking up much word count/space had monumental impacts to how the system actually works, and the old way is so entrenched in my mind that I continually forget about these changes.

Not quite- the "10% chance of making a difference" narrows the range. If our +3 friend succeeds on a 9 or lower, then it starts impacting the crit chance as well.

That means the lowest number our +3 stat friend could succeed on would be a 10. That's pretty generous for hitting Will DC anyway, so I went with 13.

You're not wrong that the +10/-10 (crit)success/(crit)failure does throw a wrench into things, but for the general purposes of discussion I was ignoring it (because honestly I don't know how to relay how that impacts the overall evaluation) simply to illustrate why I find that describing it as a 33% increase for a positive outcome is misleading.

glass wrote:

I am not QuidEst, but....

The Contrarian wrote:

LOLWut? The +3 guy literally has a 10% increase in how often it succeeds.

No he doesn't. He succeeds on 10% of the total possible rolls where he otherwise would not have, but that is not the same thing.

The Contrarian wrote:

You're totally going to have to walk me through that 33% reasoning.

If the +1 character would succeed on a 15+, then the +3 character succeeds on a 13+. That is 8 results rather than 6. 8 is 33% greater than 6.

Exactly this. In a more extreme example, if somebody needs exactly a 20 to get a success, getting +2 triples how often they succeed (because they succeed on three numbers instead of one). That's still only ten percent of the rolls becoming a success, but it's very significant because the expected time between successes decreases to a third of what it was.

And, if you aren't looking at increases to the critical success rate, that means it's somebody who is succeeding less than half the time. That's pretty normal for demoralizing, since it resolves against Will DC. But it does mean that the +2 shift has a more noticeable difference in things like "how many times do I have to fail before I succeed".

I do want to add, while it's technically correct that in the example given it's a 33% increase, I don't actually like the analysis performed in this way because it's misleading.

It's misleading in the sense that the amount of increase is relative to the target value.

For instance, if the +1 character succeeds on a 4, then the +3 character succeeds on a 2. That means going from 17 successes on a D20, to 19 successes. That is a ~12% increase.

At the other end of the extreme is +1 character succeeds on an 19 and thus +3 character succeeds on a 17. That's going from 2 successes to 4 successes. That's a 100% increase.

Since we don't know the target value, talking about the relative increase in success is misleading (IMO).

But I do have to admit, that because the rules force us towards enemies that fall into a pretty narrow ranges (and more generally the challenges we face, in terms of what target values relative to our bonuses) that in terms of "how it feels" it is actually pretty meaningful. But it's because of the "treadmill" affect where you get one better, and the enemy gets 1 better and everything stays basically as it was.

Yeah, casting does not always equal speaking.

And more complicated is that since the remaster, spells lost the verbal tag for spell components. It was generally replaced with the concentrate tag, but it's possible that a spell required concentration without requiring a verbal component.

So in the remaster...you kind of have to decide which spells required verbal components or rather if you'll allow any exception to concentrate = verbal = speaking.

And to hammerjack's point, it is possible to cast spells that don't require speech, which would still result in an additional round of air lost.

I think being extreeeeemely hard to kill is a good gimmick for maruts. They'd be going in the category of unusually tricky monsters, like wily cave worms and vampires that actually play smart. Things that you don't just simply fight and kill.

However, you do need a way to end an encounter with it for parties that don't have the silver bullet (yet). 10m reboot sequence if you sufficiently trash it sounds reasonable. Or maybe you can banish them once they're down.

I can also imagine that they may be something that you really almost can't destroy, but there's instead a sort of protocol ritual to get them called off your case.

Maybe Axis just has only so many maruts and doesn't like it when they get stuck on a case for a millennium because the backlog of other cases just keeps getting bigger. If you get someone to file the proper paperwork for your case they pull off the marut to work on other things while they process your files first.

Oh god! Paperwork and bureaucracy being the solution to your Marut problem is too on point!

It's not just abstract philosophy in Golarion. It's real, actual, observable power.

Following an 'evil' god makes a lot more sense when you can see the actual benefit first-hand.

And, the way I've always run it is that (inexplicably?) the "evil" deities are a lot more likely to offer comfort to someone (to convert them) in a moment of need than good deities are. If pressed for an explanation its because converting a "good soul" to their evil ways is far more beneficial than a good deity saving 1 individual person.

There's also a concept that deities try not to get directly involved in things very often, primarily because its expected that any deities that oppose them would also get directly involved just to mess that up.

In Golarion lore, it would probably help if there were more established reasons why evil deities seem more likely to intercede on selfish prayers than good deities, but I agree with you overall.

Yes but even if someone didn't believe in Golarion, the gods could still throw lightning bolts. That is the issue with people wanting to apply real-world religion or logic to religion. We as a whole do not have proof in real life but everyone has proof of it in Golarion. If you don't believe in the gods, you are an actual idiot. Even the people of Rahadoum believe in the Gods, and that is /Why/ they don't worship them.

Slightly more complicated than that in the case of Rahadoum. While they get labeled as "atheists" they don't actually fit the bill, and atheism on Golarion is kind of something only an idiot would believe (as you mention) because at the very least, the being called gods definitely exist.

But Rahadoum believe that any entreating with deities will bring misfortune to humanity. And beyond that, they question why one would worship a deity, how do they differ from a vastly powerful outsider of another kind?

It's not that they don't worship them because they're called gods. It's that regardless of what you call them, or what power they can grant, subjugating yourself to them will only be worse for humanity.

You could absolutely rewrite all deities to be for more neutral or grey.

I would however suggest, you just make new deities (even if there are a lot of mirrors to existing ones).

I say this only because, as a player, I'd have a hard time ever viewing Asmodeus as anything other than the highest devil, using legal trickery to claim souls and bring harm to others to achieve his goals.

Even if you've rewritten him, I'm still likely to react to the deity in such a way, including his followers. And for what it's worth, Asmodeus is probably my favorite non-good deity. One of my favorite PF1 characters was my Tyrant Antipaladin of Asmodeus. But the character was definitely awful. I played him in the AP where you play an evil party "working" for/with House Thrune (the name escapes me). He did awful things like purposefully being infected with every possible disease (because he was immune to the effects) and then spreading the disease to every non-Thrune supporting town he came across. And then basically sold snake oil to everyone to cure the super diseases.

Sometimes it's fun to be bad.

Keep in mind that the reinforcing rune was an (in?)elegant solution to a problem. The problem is that basically no shield except the sturdy shield was useful, because it had the highest hardness, BT, HP.

The reinforcing rune basically makes it that any shield can have the same hardness, HP, BT as a sturdy shield while still having the other properties that make it special.

While I said I wouldn't let someone's negative opinion harm me, conversely I do love to have intelligent kind discussions with strangers that allow us to grow and exchange ideas.

So while some conversations can be difficult, paradoxically those potentially difficult conversations are easier with strangers (because the stakes are low) but the reward remains roughly the same.

That is to say, my pleasure.

I think what you suggest here is actually made a problem based on the context of encounter composition.

I admit that what you're suggestion, it can very much feel that way. But is so because the party is constantly fighting creatures at party level +1 , or at party level, or whatever fights.

Which means, ignoring the bumps that happen due to proficiency changes, you basically always feel like your in the same relative spot against enemies (because you are, more of less).

GMs and written adventures need to mix in a lot more fight's that use party level -1, -2, -3, or even -4 creatures.

Can you imagine how you would feel at level 10, fighting a horde of like 10 Babau demons? Technically that should be somewhere between a moderate and severe encounter. But because the PCs are 4 levels above the enemies, there is no real threat to be had. It will make the players feel like bad asses. Be sure that you use enemies that had been encountered previously and were challenging at that time, only for them now to be trivial.

The main problem with the treadmill of progression (in my mind) is that you never really get the chance to look back. You're always facing new threats at or above your level. And thus you always feel you're struggling (because you are) against your enemies. Go fight enemies that you once struggled against but have out leveled and see how you feel.

Claxon: Not at all offended, you are correct, I'm one person whining on the internet. I'm glad I haven't offended anyone. and the way people engage with media concerns me because it colors the way they perceive reality. not in so direct a way as TheTownsend suggests. but... a good example is "To Protect and Serve". we've all heard that motto for the cops in America. It's on every show where they are closing cases constantly, and all (mostly) working toward good. It's not true. Cops have gone to court and had it declared they have NO responsibility to protect people. but we think it's true, from the media we consume.

I really do understand your concern with how media can impact how people think and feel. You're not at all incorrect about that.

I just don't think my, yours, or anyone else's home game of Pathfinder, D&D, or any other TTRPG is the source that needs to be examined for how the lenses people view the world are created. So I don't disagree with your concern, I just don't think a home TTRPG is the place to worry about it. Or even at the level of Paizo or D&D (WOTC). Sure, there might be official written adventures that present people in a way that I would disagree with if it were reality. But it's relatively fringe compared to all the media one might consume. I guess what I'm saying is to me it's a bit like worry about the pinhole sized leak in a boat when there's a 3ft hole on the other side. Sure, we don't want any leaks. But I'm not putting my energy into the small one until the big one is addressed.