Claxon's page

Doing some research, it seems like there is a short story (called Returning Home) and in that story at the end of it, it includes Amiri being touched by Gorum's blood at his death, granting her mythic power.

Additional research I did also covers the Godsrain novel, which seems to indicate that Amiri reaches a point where she no longer worships any god and relies instead on the power inside herself (from Gorum's death).

I'm not sure if this is accurate information, because it's just done with Google and and the AI summaries it generates.

I imagine if you want to know for sure, you should read the Godsrain novel, but it seems like what actually happens may already be covered.

In any event, it seems very plausible and likely that Amiri wouldn't start venerating another deity.

The best at the intersection of academia and magic would be my preferred wizard.

Feats for bonuses or action compressions when casting curriculum spells. Multiple feats revolving around lores and recall knowledge checks. In chassis reductions to learn a spell costs. 4 slots free and clear with curriculum spells being free spells known. Free lores based on your curriculum. Spell substitution in chassis if swapping to curriculum spells.

That kind of stuff would be dope for wizard.

I never thought about it before, but a feat that let a wizard (once per round) reduce the action cost of a spell by 1 action (minimum 1) would be an amazing feat.

As I run into a lot of characters where people simply don't want to have a flaw, nor do they want to hyper specialize. 2 boosts tends to work better then 3 boosts and a flaw to create more well-rounded characters.

You what now? Must be nice.

I guess I play with is a bunch of munchkins. Not that letting them have 3 boosts with 1 flaw is a huge power creep over 2 boost, but it's also not nothing.

There are some things that effectively disrupt an activity like Draconic Frenzy. The second Gates Wizards focus spell, that lets you reaction teleport away after getting hit, is one example. If no other PCs are in reach the dragon is sitting on two strikes that it can't actually use and are wasted.

Yeah, that's not really disrupted though, that's simply being unable to continue the activity because there are no targets. I would generally refer to this as interrupted, but while the rules mention the word interrupted they don't really define it.

The dragon can make the attacks, but has no one to target.

That's a starting point, but like Zombies (IIRC) need flesh and brains, but it doesn't explicitly require you to get it from humanoids (a mistake in my opinion). So own it's that hunger doesn't give a strong argument for a descent away from humanity.

But for my table, I would impose a different track (and also change all the hungers to something that requires sapient beings).

Also (arguably, apparently) since it is the spell subordinate activity of Spellstrike that has the Manipulate trait that Reactive Strike is triggering from, it is also only the spell that gets disrupted if the Reactive Strike crits - not the Strike part of Spellstrike.

Depends on GM, but that is a valid interpretation of the rules. I would argue the more valid interpretation too, but it's not clear that interpreting the whole thing to be disrupted is invalid.

Yeah, I've even considered playing an all Undead campaign where the PCs were unwillingly turned into Undead and as ancillary system, they need to make periodic rolls to maintain humanity (conceptually similar to what Vampire the Masquerade does). I haven't actually came up with an entire ruleset on the descent into Evil/lack of humanity, but I think the idea could make for an interesting campaign if the whole group wanted to explore the concept of humanity.

I was heavily influenced by "Actually, Orcs can be good" from Warcraft III's Thrall campaign as a child. I was 12 and it left a weird imprint on my values and morals as a person, I guess.

I'm all for "Orcs can be good" but within the context of the setting or Golarion (although it has been walked back with PF2 Remaster) I draw a pretty hard line with Undead. Recently turned undead might be good, for a while. But Negative Energy/Void is inherently corrupting.

Ghosts are about the only undead that don't default to Evil for me, because they are formed by unresolved business.

lol what if you want rare or uncommon stuff that, according to the community, is objectively bad? I somehow always gravitate to rare options that are, according to everyone who isn't me, turbo trash.

Like most of the stuff in book of the dead (my beloved and favorite book).

Like especially Lich Archetype (I don't get how it's bad, but everyone says so. But that won't stop me from enjoying it.)

My personal opinion, and just drawing from the one item you're asking about...

Lich archetype (I'm not judging if it's bad or not) I would generally say no to (not because it's powerful or not) but because it's generally not appropriate for most campaigns. But, the thing is, Lich specifically is also not a 1st level choice. In fact, you need 6th level spells, putting it at least level 11. So within the context of the campaign we're playing, if you can weave it into the story to make it make sense that you're going after lichdom while not alienating the rest of the party such that they would want to continue working with your character (unlikely in anything except an "evil" party) then...maybe. I might require that you and I (if we were player and GM) have private sessions where you quest after the pieces/items/knowledge required to become a lich. It would depend.

At character creation, if lichdom was your goal, I would tell you "Maybe, but I can't guarantee it's going to happen". It would depend on a lot of stuff happening in between. It wouldn't be as simple as the ritual to become a lich and create a soul cage being a check box, there would be work involved it actually meeting those requirements (which I think is why it's listed as rare in the first place).

This almost seems like the same obsession with “there can be no limitations on my selections whatsoever“ that cropped up in first edition. Options can be limited from game to game. It doesn’t make the game bad they can be different options in different games. that’s not bad either. Nothing to work with the GM over some of your character choices is not “I have to beg” it’s called working with the person running the game. .

Yes, thank you! Just because it's printed doesn't mean it should be available in every game.

There are different styles of games and what works in one doesn't necessarily support what is desired in another, and what doesn't belong in one isn't going to be questioned in another. And it's okay.

Personally, as a GM I want players that understand not everything is on the table all the time, and I need them to be okay with that.

If I encountered someone who believed "there can be no limitations on my selection whatsoever" I would quickly tell them they should find a different game with a different GM, because we're not going to see eye to eye. And neither of us is wrong, we just want different things.

Well, that pitch doesn't actually inform me about anything useful in creating my character. Like 0%. It doesn't tell me what options I can use to make my character, what things you don't want to see in a character or even a simple house-rule/ban list. I've heard your pitch and I still can't fill out thing 1 on my sheet.

I haven't come to the table with a character, I'm waiting to find out what options I have for a character. It's only after I've heard the options and completing the character that I make a background to fit the mechanics. So I wouldn't even put a Katana on my sheet if I didn't know I could take it and that would happen before I made any background justification for it: so asking for justification first is asking for something that doesn't exist, hence my frustration in doing it that way. So, for instance, I'd pick a Gunslinger...

I'm guess I'm confused by your statement, or perhaps I needed to state the implicit assumption which was "Commonly available stuff is fine, anything else needs approval".

Genuinely, did you not understand that implication on what was allowed?

But I guess more generally, what I was trying to say is, if you are playing a character raised in Sandpoint (which to the best of my recollection has no inherent connection to anything providing firearms) and told me you wanted to play a gunslinger, my default answered would be "No". But if you came to me and said you wanted to play a character whose parent had fled the life of the shackles as soon as they had enough money, but had made it out with a old coat pistol. And that your character had an interest in it since they were child, and worked with the local alchemist to learn how to create black powder and the blacksmith to learn to smelt lead I would consider it.

I think one potential improvement to the Rarity system would be to make it interlock better with the tables in AP Player's Guides that suggest which options are a great choice for the campaign, which ones are fine, and which ones are a poor choice. That's generally a better guide for "can I play [ancestry] [class]?" sorts of questions. Like the Bastion of Blasphemies player's guide imparts on the reader that a Duskwalker or a Changeling is a fine choice but a Skeleton or an Azarketi is not, the same way it tells you that Investigator is a better choice than Druid.

I see this as a "both" thing.

Like the generic rule books can tell you for the generic inner sea setting of Golarion.

APs meanwhile could be set outside the inner sea, but also just generally can spend a page or two on "these options are good fits (including those that might not normally be), these options are bad fits" and that could encompass classes, ancestries, items, magic, and really anything or everything.

My fundamental issue with the rarity system can be summarized as follows:

If a GM was already going to have an issue with something, Rarity was not the issue.

Like, Exemplar. 99% of the time, I see Gms just go "yeah sure whatever" and they just narratively don't address the whole "god-touched" aspect. Same with Inventors, the few times I've seen a GM address it they just go "well sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic... so any random civilian is just going to assume your crazy gizmos are magic."

The tags that are meant to restrict something due to narrative weight don't seem to actually mean much unless a GM was already going to disallow it, at which point the rarity system really doesn't help.

Though typing all this out, I suppose at the end of the day the rarity tags can act less as a barrier to entry and more of a "hey, GM, this might not jive with your story" warning. But as others have noted, there are class features that are common that give access to uncommon things... thus circumventing the benefit of the warning tag in the first place. Looking at you, Teleport.

I disagree, in that as a GM it helps me because Paizo has already identified the things that might be problems lore/narratively speaking.

A problem for a lot of GMs is identifying it.

A second problem for a lot of GMs is (after identifying it) explaining to players (who sometimes feel entitled to options) why you don't think it's appropriate and potentially having an argument about it. Instead the rules give me a nice tool to point to and say "Generally off limits, but ask me about exceptions".

Claxon wrote:

Not trying to throw shade at anyone...

But there is a part of me that wonders if some of the people pushing back against the Rarity system in Pathfinder...if it just boils down to a GM telling that person they couldn't have something flatly because it wasn't common and they're upset because of that interaction. They were denied something they saw and thought was cool and now they hate the system.

BotBrain in comment #1 started the thread because using Uncommon as a foreign-region tag was getting obsolete due to more adventures happening in those exotic foreign regions or more PCs being travelers from those foreign regions.

Kyle_TheBuilder added in comment #4 that some GMs were blanket banning uncommon and rare items. The current system does not distinguish between rarity because of lore and rarity because of disruptiveness. Kyle_TheBuilder much later added that going to the GM for permission due to Uncommon-because-of-lore was quite annoying.

I myself in comment #78 had decided to write about how rarity played into my own campaigns. But in writing down the experiences of my players and me, I discovered that Uncommon had many uses that were not in the rules. NielsenE in comment #77 had called these "character building hacks."

These are signs that Pathfinder has outgrown the original design of the rarity system. This is not a criticism of marking rarity itself. I like having the information available. But sometimes the rarity traits might mean something different than my interpretation, and I don't like that.

I see BotBrain's statements as a reason to enhance the Rarity system and tags (regional tags seem reasonable).

Tagging because of disruptiveness could be possible, though it will invite discussion about what is disruptive and why. Again possible, but I'd expect people to fight a lot about it.

If your statements are to make me think that the rarity system could use enhancement, then I absolutely agree.

One of my issues with the Rarity system is I build a character and then fill in the background to fit it. So when I meet a DM I'll ask what's allowed and some ask for the justification for it when I haven't come up with that as I haven't made the character yet. Asking why I should have a katana is putting the cart before the horse in my case: I haven't gotten to the step yet as I'm feeling out the DM's BAN/houserule list to see what options are available. For me 'pitch me an idea and I might allow uncommon or rare' is just frustrating as that's making the character backwards IMO.

Can you expand on this because as a GM, this is my preference on how to handle it and I'm not sure why that's frustrating?

Now, I do typically start off by saying "Hey, in this campaign you guys are going to start off as residents of Sandpoint Varisia and the campaign is going to be about traveling from there to Tian Xia, though you character has no reason to know about that". This would be my 5 second pitch for Jade Regent AP. Is it because the theoretical GM doesn't give you that kind of information to center/ground your character?

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

I can never wrap my head how some think that X character from X ancestry with X weapon of X class should go through super duper GM screening and approval process becasue "omg, its' uncommon".

That's extremely easy. Because any GM has the right to say: "I want it so".

Because in my campaign set before Gods Rain incident, not set in Tian Xia, I don't want a Tengu Exemplar katana master because it doesn't make sense for where and when my campaign is set.

Why is that so hard to understand? GMs are allowed to create and modify a setting as they desire.

If you can come up with a story of why your character from the backwater town of Sandpoint knows what Katanas are or how an Automaton came to be there we can talk about maybe approving your concept.

Not trying to throw shade at anyone...

But there is a part of me that wonders if some of the people pushing back against the Rarity system in Pathfinder...if it just boils down to a GM telling that person they couldn't have something flatly because it wasn't common and they're upset because of that interaction. They were denied something they saw and thought was cool and now they hate the system.

As a GM...honestly I love the system.

With Pathfinder 1st edition I was actually much more restrictive about what was allowed. I had a list of 10 specific base books that players were allowed to pull from. Anything else required specific approval. And I had rules about some of the 10 books that were allowed for specific things that weren't allowed. PF1 was so crazy I had a written document about how I ran things, house rules, what sources were allowed just to minimize disruptions. The rarity system helps offload a fair portion of that, along with Paizo not really printing truly broken options in PF2 or things that could be combined in a way to create brokeness. There are some options that are stronger than others, but nothing that feels like it's a standard deviation outside other options.

Thanks to both of ya for the help, I dont usually post on the forums so sorry about putting it in the wrong place.

No worries! It's not a problem at all, in fact it might have been for the best.

If anything, by accidentally putting it in the wrong spot, it prompted me to think about where it should be but also get the attention of a Paizo employee. An employee that will likely elevate the concern (on licensing) to the appropriate people.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I mean, even in the off chance that your group doesn't do a session zero, and you're allergic to bouncing ideas off your GM before you commit to them, there is a chart in the player's guide for an AP that basically gives explicit permission to play certain uncommon options.

It's hardly "Haggle" or "Negotiate" to just say "hey, is it cool if I play a Kobold? I have this idea to do [x]."

In my experience the answer is "yes" in 80%+ of cases when a player wants an uncommon thing, and the cases where it's not are generally either "hat on a hat" or "intentionally disruptive in a way I don't want to deal with right now."

Point is all of that is just pointless then and so - why bother with the tags?

I will say more - why even create in first place things as designer you will lock behind these tags? If I create lets say a spell thats disruptive like "mind reading" and I say to myself "dam, that can disrupt so many campaigns and plots... better put Rare tag on it" - why the hell I even created such spell in first place? Why not make "mind touch" that lets say give me +X bonus to Sense Motive and make it Common since in my opinion thats not disruptive.

I have no idea why you waste time as designer to create so much stuff to then put it behind some tag wall which will limit (whenever you intended it or not) the usage/play of it. Seems like a waste to me. Then just create it in first place in shape or form that you think would NOT require such tag.

Unless they really just throw dart at things to meet some tag-quota per book lol.

As a GM I actually really appreciate it because it means, that my experienced players who think this kind of magic should already exist because of previous game system are going to start suggesting it if it doesn't already have written things doing it. AND, when the Devs know that stuff can be disruptive, it gives me (as a GM) more of a leg to stand on and say no.

Ultimately I feel a bit bad for Kyle the Builder because they seem to have had bad experience with the rarity system.

But as a GM, it's a godsend.

I didn't know about the echo receptors or saurian spike, so thanks for that.

Those are amazing. For a high level character, I might even consider both to so that even enemies that occasionally can negate sound or smell usually can't negate both so you'll always have a precise sense for the enemy, and not rely on sight which is the most common thing to have negated.

I'd say it's too nit-picky. It doesn't mention how many "charges" the kit would even have to run out.

If your players really want that level of realism, simply say that whenever they're in town it can be assumed their replenishing supplies and that periodically they're spending a portion of their wealth on restocking. But the amount spent is inconsequential to their overall wealth (except maybe at level 1 and 2) that it's not actually worth tracking.

You wouldn't believe (or you know it already!) how challenging for many is just the concept of tight teamwork in TTRPG.

It doesn't help that in PF1....team work wasn't very encouraged. You could within your own character become so strong and competent time spent to do a lot of "teamwork" stuff just made you less efficient.

Now, that's not to say teamwork in PF1 couldn't take you to crazy levels, especially if you had time before combat started to get buffs going and set up things that required set up (without requiring the enemy to be present). It's just spending turns in combat to do it often wasn't necessary since optimized players could likely take out 1 or even 2 enemies on their own without any further teamwork required.

The underlying math of the system in PF2 makes that impossible to do (on your own). But to your point, with proper teamwork and tactics you can take on challenges above your level, more than the game assume you can by default.

Fun, but definitely rough on the psychic or any player that doesn't know how to ration resources.

I also like wave encounters as a GM, but you gotta let players know in advance that you're likely to frequently utilize them in places where it makes sense (like an nearby enemy should likely hear the fighting and investigate). But I typically adjust the quantity of enemies or lower their overall level to account for no rest in between.

Considering the price of special materials vs their benefits, I would absolutely let someone pay the same cost (as if they were just buying regular armor) for some kind of ritual that would turn their "natural armor" into a special material.

The cost is so crazy to begin with, it's basically never worth it.

If someone really wants it, no reason to make it a problem beyond the crazy expense someone buying the armor would have to deal with.

Edit: One exception might be any kind of armor property that required light or medium or heavy armor (although this isn't special material related). Any ways, these kind of abilities usually tell you what kind of armor to treat your natural armor as...so it should be straightforward to figure out what does or doesn't work.

You couldn't use armor break anyways, because your "natural armor" doesn't doesn't have a separate HP pool to ever qualify for the action.

It's also not technically possible to ever apply the effects of specific armor to your plates, though as a GM I would absolutely allow you to inscribe rune(s) that had the effect.

For rebounding breastplate, I would allow you to inscribe a rune that consume two property rune slots and has all the effects of the rebounding breastplate, but that's purely house rule territory.

Claxon wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Maybe Gorum just could not be defeated in fair combat. So he went for the god of assassins as the only possible way out. Suicide by Achaekek.

This feels plausible.

But I also feel like Gorum didn't dictate the method of his demise to Calistra, but rather went to her and said something along the lines of "Hi, I'm the problem, it's me. I need to you to plan my death. K, thanks, bye!"

In a less cheeky way, I don't think Gorum would have wanted to know the how of his death. I can't really explain it, but like if he doesn't know he can fight against in his own true way. If he told Calistra how to do it...I feel like it would have ruined things for Gorum.

Well, he had to have picked her to ask for a reason...

I'm sure there is a reason, but the reason might have been as simple as Gorum thought Calistra would oblige him without trying to talk him out of it or corrupting his purpose too much.

Maybe Gorum just could not be defeated in fair combat. So he went for the god of assassins as the only possible way out. Suicide by Achaekek.

This feels plausible.

But I also feel like Gorum didn't dictate the method of his demise to Calistra, but rather went to her and said something along the lines of "Hi, I'm the problem, it's me. I need to you to plan my death. K, thanks, bye!"

In a less cheeky way, I don't think Gorum would have wanted to know the how of his death. I can't really explain it, but like if he doesn't know he can fight against in his own true way. If he told Calistra how to do it...I feel like it would have ruined things for Gorum.

Inspired by your idea, and merging it with my old headcanon that Groetus was taking in the souls of atheists that were fed to him and train them as godkillers to take care of any deity trying to escape the inevitable end.

The AP would then be of the PCs training under Groetus' watch and facing adequate challenges to reach the lofty status of godkillers. And then dealing with the divine stragglers and making sure no one makes it to the next universe this time.

That's an interesting premise...but in a story like that I'd want to see options that the PCs could turn against Groetus and try to usurp the roles of survivor (and maybe even watcher).

I'm not sure exactly what I want to be honest. But your idea is at least one premise that could lead to this kind of thing.

It's possible it could be a sort of background feat/story for an individual character.

Only problem is that it's likely to conflict with other characters backgrounds. Although, it does lead to questions like "What is this characters motivation?" Like real actual oblivion looms on the horizon, everything about this universe is on the edge of ceasing to be. All the history, the people, the culture, literally everything. And you're still dead set on following Groetus and helping to consume/destroy/unmake everything? Why?

I didn't read everything in this thread...but giving some consideration I think what is healthiest for the game overall (purely my opinion) is that you gain focus points automatically (if you have any focus spells) based on your overall character level, but that everyone gets the built in ability to rest and recharge all focus points (but possibly with each point recovered requiring 10 minutes, so that as a GM I can force you move along instead of spending 30 minutes between combats).

A set pace for gaining focus points would stop people from taking dedications just to get extra focus spells and thus extra focus points. I personally view this current meta as an undesirable outcome, where people are doing this thing not because they want the focus spell (primarily) but because it gives them more focus points to do the thing they could already do more in a single combat.

First, thanks for the many suggestions! I enjoyed y'all's thoughts.

Second, I do want to reiterate that one of our goals -- because this is our first experience with PF2E -- is sticking strictly to RAW. So milestone leveling, free archetypes, and other optional/alternate systems are out as solutions. (Though I really do like the idea of tying advancement of free archetypes to side-quests, and will probably do that in future campaigns.) It may very well be that there's no way to square this circle because we're trying to be so strict for our first use of the system. Which means it won't really be an issue in subsequent campaigns.

I just want to express, that the above opinion you're sharing...doesn't make sense.

Milestone level is typically a part of modern APs that are written, that tell you what level characters should be. It's really a core part of the rules, and I think the preference of a lot of the devs.

Yeah, the part of Gorum that was most interesting is that war was the goal. Well, conflict in general - someone who goes around fighting duels to the death is just as valid.

Many of the other gods that encourage war are more leaning towards conquest specifically - war as the means to an end. Or they favor directly solving problems with violence, but only against those who deserve it.

Though https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=302 is an example that might work as a pure god of war itself. In general, if you search gods with the Might domain you'll find a lot of candidates.

Yeah, the natural conclusion of a deity like Gorum was basically that he wanted followers like the Ork boyz of Warhammer 40K. They don't care if they're krumpin or getting krump'd, as long as it's a good fight. And all Gorum cared about was the fight (at least up until the events of Gods Rain).

Yeah, barbarian's rage (in PF2) is not some mindless uncontrolled fury.

It stops things that require concentration, but there's a lot you can do that doesn't require concentration.

It's certainly not like "the Black Rage" of the sons of Sanguinius from War Hammer 40k.

Also, you don't necessarily have to play the game in a setting that is post events of God's Rain. You could play at a time when Gorum still existed.

IIRC, there is no dedicated God of War with the death of Gorum, at least not the way that Gorum was. Though there are other deities that are related and cover war, they just tend to have something else that's more important than "war for war's sake".

A quick google search told me:

The word "Earth" traces back to the Old English noun eorþe, meaning "ground, soil, dirt, or dry land".

So yeah...the original premise is completely off.

We called our planet Earth, based on an old word that meant ground/dirt.

My reading is that Pharasma's main objection to the undead themselves is when they want to grow their ranks, and when they plan on existing forever. Like a person who was good in life, and then became a skeleton and decided to continue doing good until they fall apart and cease existing ends up in one of the upper planes right?

I just want to touch on this point.

IIRC, Pharasma has servants that hunt down people who artificially extend their life spans for too long. Presumably for similar reasons of throwing the whole cosmic balance out, like Undead.

It's one of the better martials at dealing AoE damage as well, a lot of options at various levels for that. Nothing on par with spells (the only option there is Barbarian with Dragon's Rage Breath), but plenty of ways to do Strike+save turns when facing groups of enemies.

Ummmm....a Giant Instinct barbarian using a reach weapon (15ft reach) with Whirlwind Strike is also pretty damn effective, if you have a good amount of enemies in that 30ft circle.

Agreed, it should be errata'd. And if other things in the book were updated, this should have been.

But like...is it important? No, not really. It's pretty obvious it should have the attack trait.

Yeah, there's a good argument that the Exemplar is fine. It's good but not a problem on its own. But the exemplar dedication is arguably a bit too strong.

You may not be able to help if your passion spills over onto the page, but that doesn't mean its a fallacy for others to choose to preserve their peace rather than wade into the passion and let themselves be affected by it.

100% this. I have frequently disengaged from arguments for exactly this reason.

"Proving" I'm right or even just providing a convincing argument to justify a position, has become less important to me the older I get when leveled against preserving my own internal peace. I don't particularly care what strangers on the internet think of me, and I don't care if others accept my ideas and beliefs, as long as I believe I maintain my intellectual integrity.

Paizo has to pay the bills. They have to position for this internet age. Paizo is not looking to gouge customers, but are you even sure Paizo isn't making these changes to ensure the stay in business? Would you prefer Paizo went out of business trying to give their game away for free?

I understand the need to pay their bills.

But their is a line between monetizing and getting compensated for you working and pushing away customers. I don't know where that line lies. It mostly depends on how much we as users/customers/fans value Paizo's work.

My preferred method for Paizo would be to raise the price of physical media while providing access to the basic rules text for free. Which has been the model...for basically forever.

If that stops being the model because they don't believe they can raise the price of the physical media to maintain the revenue to continue operation....well that would unfortunately mean (to me) that Paizo would need to shutter their operation. That's not the outcome I want. But I also think restricting access to paid only options would drive away users/players/fans. It would violate a very basic part of the relationship we've had. I personally wouldn't be involved in Pathfinder any more.

I feel like moving to subscription based rules might be the future.

I hope you're wrong. I feel like this would kill interest in Pathfinder Paizo.

Part of the opening that draws in a lot of new players is "Hey, you can look at the rules for free and try this out with 0 financial commitment from your side if you like".

I think if Paizo moved to saying Demiplane was the only official digital rules source people would mostly ignore it (I don't think it's going to convince a substantial number of people to sign up for Demiplane). People would continue to use AoN. And if there were other plays that tried to force people into paying for rules in some other way with no free access (which would violate the ORC I think) then it would be the death knell for the company. Now, to be clear I don't think this is what's happening. Just postulating what would happen if this was the course of action taken.

In this case I am applying the Best Evidence Rule to these rules debates. I am anticipating heated rules discussions getting derailed because someone decides to attack the source of the rules that their opponent is using. "Well, that link points to d20pfsrd. So why should I trust that?" It wastes time and mental effort having to answer that accusation and prove that the rule source is accurate. Why is it better to have that as a risk - even if it is a minor one?

Is anyone going to respond, mitigate, or refute any of my reasoning here based on something other than a mischaracterization of me or what I have said?

I guess most of us think un/official is simply unimportant. Accuracy and usability is important.

And more than that, if there becomes a debate as to "which rules sources takes precedence" we would simply need to compare the text of each source. The most authoritative source is the latest book with errata (which might be a separate document). So within the context of an argument, someone would need to go to the proper book and confirm what the text says to identify which source is accurate. But honestly, this remains a problem even if there is an "official" digital source because the source may have erroneous text entered by many means.

But we don't have that (a perfectly digitized copy of the books with errata) as a link that can be shared on the internet.

AoN was the closest, and for the foreseeable future remains the closest most accurate thing.

In any event, I think the waste/risk is so minor in terms of arguing about the validity of a rules source that to me personally, it just doesn't matter.

If ultimately your point is "We need an official rules source (that is basically AoN in terms of what we want it to be as a community)" then I think everyone would agree. If your point is "Paizo should just buy AoN and employee those volunteers" then I would also agree.

What exactly is your point? If your point is to say you're going to start ignore AoN as a rules source, I think everyone else who participates in the discussion will ignore you for ignoring AoN.

Unfortunately Finoan, even though it isn't your intention by saying an official source is the most valid (especially regardless of accuracy) you're creating an external view the official source IS more correct and that other non-official sources are less correct.

I understand that isn't your intention, but for 90% of that's how it would be viewed.

Most people don't care about official vs unofficial. Only about accuracy.

If Paizo created an official source tomorrow, that was horribly inaccurate about everything, practically no one would use it and would lambast you for using the official but inaccurate source of information.

Currently, when it comes to questions of rules and citation, the best that can be done is to have the official print/PDF with the latest errata. Which actually creates a problem for printed sources, since they don't have errata integrated. And pdf actually suffer from this too, since they don't get updated until it's time for a new print. You just have to know errata exists...except for AoN which had updated the rules text to include errata as it was published (to the best of my knowledge).

Agreed Teridax.

AoN becoming less official than it was, doesn't make it less accurate or reliable, not inherently anyways.

For me personally, AoN will remain the "official" searchable rules reference, even if is no longer official.

From a practical standpoint, I think most people will agree. We're all still going to use AoN.

What I will say is that in a conversation regarding Ethics of necromancy, while your playstyle is valid, that statement about it is a conversation terminator.

True, much as I intended it to be.

For me, and when I am the GM, it is not a conversation, Necromancy is evil in the world of Golarion. I would have to look at the new Necromancer class to determine if there is sufficient lore reasons why I wouldn't consider it that way.

Though, alignment is (mostly) gone and if everyone at the table is okay with that kind of character being present in the group, I won't stop them. I would likely have NPCs make comments about the necromancer. And The world at large wouldn't find positive redeeming points about necromancy, and if a character believed there were positive redeeming things about it they would essentially be deluding themselves into believing so (the way some believe that Razmir is an actual god). To me all of that is fine.

Anorak wrote:

CalmCyborg wrote:

I've been a super-subscriber for multiple years because I love the work Paizo puts out and before I loved how they pushed back at WOTC during the OGL fiasco and created ORC because of it. I'm not sure what's happening now, but I hope this was a mistake or they rewind this back because I, like many others, use archives every session because of it's ease of use and I also subscribe to a lot of Paizo's book lines. I don't see the point of them doing this. It's not going to net them more money and it just looks bad to those in the community. I also sell people on Pathfinder 2e or Starfinder 2e with archives as a selling point. I really hope they rethink the way they are going or I am going to have to rethink if I need to continue supporting them with my multiple subscriptions.

Company Blog has been posted. It seems they were still in discussions (If Jim is being honest) when Nethys dropped that post.

If he's being dishonest Nethys will probably make that clear. I wonder if it was dropped to give them leverage in the discussion. If nethys did drop it prior to the conclusion of talks, that does resolve one of my major concerns which is that Paizo did not announce it themselves.

Nethy's likely dropped the post about the agreement coming to an end, because likely they've got to comply with the change in license on the 24th. Which is to say they have to remove all material which doesn't fall under the Community Use Policy. It's 9 days until the 24th, which means they probably are out of time to wait, and need to starting removing material to be compliant. Since material is going to start to be removed, they decided to explain why.

New blog about the situation, adding context from Paizo's end. Their explicit reasoning is cutting the administrative cost of maintaining their licence with AoN and confusion over licencing their exclusive access breeds. This seems reasonable to me, lawyers are expensive.

This also implicitly confirms a suspicion of mine, that the AoN announcement was effectively jumping Paizo with public backlash, mid negotiations no less.

The Archives continue to function, with more limited scope that can still be tailored to both Paizo's needs and the best interests of the community. I see no reason to suspect AoN will not continue receive free PDFs, same as numerous influencers and commentators in support of publicity, just not on the same preferential timescale.

I agree that it does seem like it's primarily about reducing administrative costs, which is understandable if a tad bit sad.

AoN will continue to operate much as it had, minus materials not covered under Community Use Policy.

Those who had picked up the pitchforks ought to put them down. This still isn't a positive thing, but with context it is understandable though lamentable.

I don't know what Bluesky is, but that certainly isn't the kind of response I'd want to see.

Was the post made from an official Paizo account, or as the personal account of a Paizo employee saying this "on behalf of the company"?

I ask only because there is a difference between an employee being concerned for a coworker, and an official statement/stance from the company.

Paizo let this blow up without any announcement on their end and then expected us to feel so bad for the employee they threw under the bus that we wouldn't comment.

It's really disappointing communication from what is supposed to be a well established company!

Can you clarify or elaborate on "expected us to feel bad for their employee bit".

As far as I'm aware, there's been no official statements from Paizo staff on this, aside from some (limited) communication from Maya.

I don't think anyone at Paizo was expecting us to feel bad for Maya, though as a community we do. And I think generally our threads on this topic have been respectful and expressing our disappointment with the company in about as good a way as we can.

However Paizo has dropped the ball and didn't get out in front of the topic, which is obviously not great because it leaves all of us speculating.

If Paizo had spelled out their reasoning, given us and AoN a heads up, publicly apologized to AoN for the decision, and showed that other options weren't on the table and why, then I would have gone: "Dang. That sucks."

Now I feel like my boy was done dirty, and Paizo has an incompetence problem.

This is how it should have gone. Even if they can't get into specifics, telling us "Hey there's a business deal that's contingent on this activity" would have at helped. Although, depending on the contract Paizo could be very limited on what they're allowed to say. But there should be something they could say.

At the very least acknowledging the situation in a blogpost and trying to explain that there are business reasons that they can't share at this time would help.

All to, allegedly, promote *Demiplane*?? The site that takes two business days to load, looks like it was built by someone in a twisted love triangle with both dead space and clutter at once, and doesn't know the meaning of UX? The site that's not customizable, terrible for searching, and is constantly spamming you with unrelated crap?

Let's be clear, this is assumptions and speculation, not clear fact.

But if I am speculating then this:

Kalaam wrote:

From what I gathered it seems to be a "if you make more than what's needed to cover your costs of maintenance/staff by X amount you should pay us royalties since you are turning a profit on our content" which is fair tbh. But they just don't seem to make a profit at all, which is also fair, it's basically a win/win. Except paizo seems to fear that the loss in sales from people just getting the rules from AoN isn't worth the trade in the current situation.

Either that or they're in talks with potential financiers who see the AoN deal as a liability and won't agree to a loan/investment unless it is dissolved.

This is what I'm thinking.

Deleted pervious post for being melodramatic and overly aggressive.

Not sure what you said, but I appreciate that you realized you might have been out of line and decided to remove that.