Claxon's page

Claxon wrote:

SuperParkourio wrote:

Claxon wrote:

ScooterScoots wrote:

Claxon wrote:

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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.

I think potentially a good house rule could be something like "a creature with regeneration that would reach dying 4 is made unconscious for 10 minutes (during which time it fully regenerates) or treated as stunned 3, slowed 3, paralyzed, and immobilized until 10 minutes have elapse."

This means that at least the party has a chance to get away from the creature and disengage.

what I'm saying is that a lot of the way this topic gets framed reminds me of the framework used to say "All Orcs are evil, they have absolutely no real world counter parts, so how could just saying this entire ancestry are a group of big ugly brutish thugs that we can kill with no remorse be problematic?"

That's why I chafe at "This god is wrong and bad, so no matter what principals it espouses they, and all their followers, can be slaughtered without question".

These are subconscious biases that I'm suggesting are perhaps not entirely unpacked, and continue to creep into the stories we tell, and games we play, which then influences the reality we perceive. Even the comparison "If I wants something deep I'll read a book" makes the assumption that we learn and absorb nothing from the game.

Most of the times when it is said "I just want something that isn't political" what is meant is "I just want something that doesn't challenge my current politics."

I'm trying to be careful, because I have no right to disrespect anyone, and I hope I haven't, but this is the source of my discomfort with this kind of hard and fast cosmology, and no, it's not at all going to change to suit me, nor should it, I'm one idiot out of millions of players. but... I don't know, I wanted to say something about it. And If I did disrespect you, I'm sorry that I chose my words poorly and that I insulted you.

I'll be honest, while I understand that people might draw really awful real world analogies/conclusions from the concept, for a game I honestly never had that much problem with the whole "All Orcs are evil" thing. If that's how it works in your game and your players are all cool with it, and no one is turning it into some overt racist thing where it crosses a line into being a true real life a%!%~%+, then enjoy what you enjoy.

I guess my group always side stepped the darkest parts of those issues because there were never innocents to be seen. The enemies we encounter in a black and white morality game are viewed the way you might view Chaos (or maybe even Orks) from Warhammer. In setting full of grey where there are no good guys (well, at least no factions, there are good individuals) Chaos is easily one faction that literally everyone else agrees is bad. That's exactly the kind of enemy I want.

Anyways, I think you can mostly move past that by having "this group of orcs that is raiding this innocent town" be the enemy, with no problem in my opinion. It's still black and white, that whole group of Orcs is bad. But not all Orcs are bad.

And just to express, I don't feel disrespected nor discomforted by this discussion. The opinion of an individual stranger on the internet means little to me (no offense) so it's not something I would get worked up over, even if you did intend to offend. I just genuine felt you needed to consider more deeply why the way someone else plays/views the game bothers you.

I dislike that way of thinking, but I can't explain it without it coming off as a major personal attack (which I don't want to do), so I'm just going to leave it as I don't like that way of thinking.

All that said, I could be making a mountain out of a molehill, or out of nothing. and I leave that bit unsaid because "How we play a game" isn't something I want to disrespect anyone over, especially as you've been completely respectful to me here.

Everyone is welcome to their preference for the game, and remember this is a game we're talking about, not how I or you feel about the real world or what should or shouldn't be.

In games where I'm trying to simply relax and enjoy adventuring/combat, I'm not looking for moral introspection. I'll go read a book if I want that. It's not something I generally want to explore with other people, because if you're not all on the same page it can get...awkward fast. And when those people are your friends, it gets even more awkward. There is potentially high stakes with hurt feelings and damaged relationships.

I would urge you examine why you dislike what I'm saying with regard to a preference of black and white game. The fact that you say you dislike does sort of ring as telling me how to play the game. You're not telling me I have to play the game your way, but you are implying there is a sort of moral judgment being made for not playing it the way you prefer. And I hope I'm saying this in a way that comes across as respectful, because I'm not trying to be disrespectful or tell you that you're playing the game wrong.

No, what I really would like is for you to examine why you dislike me having a preference that is different from your own. I think I've made clear why I prefer morally simple games, and I personally think those are good reasons to choose to avoid the nuanced games you like. If nuanced games work for you and your group that is amazing. But the honest truth (from my experience of the world) is that a group of people rarely lack the introspection, respect, and honesty to process such serious divides as our moral basis of our world views.

Yeah, Death Knell is a solution (for some creatures with Regn, but not the Marut specifically) but I don't know that it's a good one.

I don't think it's the kind of spell spontaneous casters are going to know, and I don't think it's the kind of spell prepared casters are going to prepare unless they know in advance they're going to be fighting a creature with regeneration.

I mean, Death Knell really isn't a good spell, except for this kind of use.

Not that this is a great overall solution, but suppressing regeneration of creature for the purpose of killing it seems like something Thaumaturges would be able to do.

I like the idea of having two characters perform some activity that destroys the creature. I'm now imagining one character binds/restrains the creature, but for balance reasons is required to spend all their actions involve in doing so. And another character basically chanting anathema stuff/prays/thoughts at the creature for two rounds to kill it. Although thematically I only see this working for good/evil/chaos/law/sanctified/unsanctified. But I do like the imagery of it.

the "crazy cultist wants to end the world and doesn't care if that includes them" is what christians think of the satanists they made up. and then ruined a lot of REAL PEOPLE's lives (Pagans in older times and more recently in the Satanic Panic) by accusing them of being this thing they made up.

I guess I just wish there were more wiggle room as so many people seem to think trying to interpret the "evil" gods as anything but completely evil is a bad way to see the game, and trying to inject any nuance into your enemy makes the game "less fun".

I get this perspective is unpopular, and definitely not Lore as Written or Intended, and it's not many people wanting that nuance so... yeah, whatever. Thank y'all for talking about it with me.

I'm going to ignore the real life implications and issue stuff cause...yeah.

Anyways, I think there is room for both kind of game where you can have grey and nuance or black and white. But it's a stylistic choice that really needs buy in from everyone that's going to be playing in the game (although it could be different in different games, even with the same group).

Generally I prefer stark black and white games, only because it means after a long stressful day/week I don't have to think about what's good and what's bad. Are the enemies redeemable or irredeemable? I don't want those kinds of question most days. I want to kill the bad guy and not question if that was the right thing to do.

But, it's totally reasonable to want the other way of playing. And I don't think it's that much effort to bring the grey aspects in of both good and evil gods.

And if your group doesn't actually have clerics or champions, the answers to these questions don't really matter beyond what the group wants to force them to matter. There aren't built in mechanical consequences for other classes. So beyond the feelings between players/GM there's no problem (although disputes between players/GM over this kind of thing can absolutely ruin a game).

I just want to add to the opinion that "dungeon-style" gaming doesn't require an actual dungeon.

A "dungeon" is less a physical structure than an adventure paradigm with the following characteristics:
1) Limited choices to "advance" to the next encounter. Instead of an "open map," the party is constrained to a set number of "tunnels" and "doors;" the location could be in a building, a heavily overgrown forest along game trails, or even narrow streets and back alleys in a town/city as well as underground.
2) The players (usually) set the pace. Although there are some "dungeons" that have a hard time limit for the party to "solve," this is the exception in many campaigns. For the most part, the party can freely make multiple runs at exploring the location and/or leave to rest and recover.
3) The "dungeon" location is mostly self-contained. There may be some narrative connections to the nearest community ("home base"), but usually what happens in the "dungeon" has limited or no impact on the party's interactions within the community outside the dungeon.

Also note, the mega-dungeon is not the only type of dungeon. The most common form of dungeons in recent adventures is a narratively-linked series of small dungeons that the party explores in sequence rather than a single location.

I mostly agree with everything you said, except that I think players don't have to set the pace (which you also acknowledge). It's common in written adventures that this is the case, but I prefer not to run dungeons this way and instead have the denizens react in a logical way to the intrusion. For me, it often means you only have one chance to go through the dungeon. No extended retreats or overnight resting within (though I build encounters with that in mind). However this is more a personal preference and what I find believable.

Also there's still room for Skyrim style dungeons filled with Dragur style enemies who have no goals beyond protecting the ancient tomb and you can freely leave and return and things are unlikely to change in the intervening time. Though I personally am not a fan of this.

Technically true TheFinish, and one of the more interesting ways to use the ability.

If you have multiple ranged attackers, it only requires one person to move next to the enemy to make it off-guard to everyone else.

Though typical party compositions make it not that likely.

It would be much more interesting for "Outsiders" (not technically a category anymore but everyone know what I mean) if they had some method of turning off their regeneration outside of dealing damage with the correct energy type.

Imagine that you need to restrain the Outsider, bind it in a ritual circle, and then chant a specific ritual ending with its true name, and that destroy it (including the "soul energy" that created it).

Probably involves some additional potential check to learn the true name of the creature by inspecting its body.

Is it likely that you can do this quickly and easily? No.

Having the right energy type is the quick and easy way. But having an option (if difficult) to kill the outsider without it seems pretty cool to me.

Yeah, there are plenty of evil deities that at least have some level of believability to why they are there and why people follow them.

And for others like Rovagug, "crazy cultist wants to end the world and doesn't care if that includes them" is a pretty common (and fun for players) trope in fantasy. They're like nihilists, who also want to make sure no one else is having a good time because they aren't.

While I enjoyed Dilbert, the legacy of Scott Adams is difficult. He said things publicly that I can't agree with and kept company with those I would not.

He was a complicated individual for me to square with in life, and remains so in death.

Something that just occurred to me....

Burrow doesn't let creatures go through rock. So caves (which are made of rock), ironically wouldn't allow a cave worm to burrow through.

Edit: I have the big dumb. The cave worm also has the Rock Tunneler ability, which allows it to burrow through rock, albeit at 20ft speed.

Which actually makes it more reasonable to chase.

Yeah, you can literally make whatever you want down there.

Wasn't there at one point (iN golarion's lore) a huge civilization underground in a continent sized cave, that had a giant false sun thing (I think it was a magical light emitting crystal) so that it actually had day and night cycles and light based food cycles (plants).

Or am I confusing myself with something else?

Feels like there needs to be a more common ability/item to suppress the regeneration of a creature that is at Dying 3, without needing the specific type of damage that would normally suppress regeneration.

I wouldn't call it niche, but at the same time it's not common for PCs to try to get chaos damage. And without a forewarning from the GM, it's kind of an impossible fight.

Urgathoa established a deviation from Pharasma's cycle--souls variously tucked away where the river can't reach them--evidently out of a refusal to let something as plain as Death stop a good party. Pharasma violently opposes this--again, is this an actual ontological good, or simply one person's conviction?

Well, it depends on how you want to define good.

The way I understand things is that without the cycle of souls the multiverse will literally cease to exist and collapse on itself. Undeath degrades that cycle, hastening the end of the universe.

Now to be fair, any individual undead is probably a drop in the bucket in terms of how much it degrades the cycle. But eventually those drops could cause a problem is left unchecked.

Is the universe existing a good thing? Would then end of the universe be good?

lol the dreaded Int +5 worm!

There are just ruins of ancient civilizations left in its home territory. Cities lay half sunk into the earth.

Actually that makes a great campaign concept with amazing combat maps to explore.

That does sound like a pretty gnarly concept.

A whole country basically goes silent, no one knows what happens. Cities lay in ruins, sunk into the ground.

Turns out, a really annoyed group of druids decided to screw one particular city, but the awakened cave worms decided to keep going after the first city was destroyed. The only stopped because some weird geology at play keeps them from getting very far outside that country. They had planned to destroy all humanoid settlements.

does anyone else sort of chafe at the idea of "Evil Gods" and people following them? Like gods confirmed to be on the side of the hells, who will not reward you in the afterlife, and are known to be untrustworthy... but still get followers?

Well, most followers don't know what if any reward they actually receive in the afterlife is. Even the good ones.

The evil gods tend to provide much more concrete direct benefits to the ardent worshippers, to attract them in the first place.

And with Lawful Evil gods, it's usually boils down to the contracted person doesn't read/understand the fine print (or else they wouldn't sign).

Edit: I will add, within the context of Golarion, I will always consider Undead/Undeath to be inherently evil because of the way it damages the overall cycle of souls and risk ending the universe. It's also why Pharasma (creator of the multiverse) bothers to get involved. And other methods of avoiding death are also damaging, they're just so much less common that it doesn't get brought up much. But there are (I believe) Psychopomps dedicated to exterminating mortals who have artificially extended their lives using methods other than Undeath.

Better yet, have the worm tunnel a city for years, causing the ground to collapse and destroy the entire city "Lion King 1 1/2" style.

That does actually seem technically feasible with enough knowledge and understanding of ground foundations. The trick would be tunnelling out just enough so that nothing collapses, until you get the whole city's foundation in the condition you want, and then you take out a few key pieces and watch everything fall.

Of course, such a feat requires way more engineering knowledge than even average intelligent species are capable of doing on their own.

I didn't know Paizo did that...

I hope they're not getting greedy and greedy. Another option would be their own Pathfinder VTT.

Well Paizo isn't a software development company, so they'd have to partner with another company. And there's already a lot of VTTs out there, so distinguishing yourself and making a market seems pretty challenging. I don't see it as very likely.

As far as ending the discount, I don't think it's a greed thing. I don't know how the contract functioned for providing a discount for the purchase of the modules, but if I understand things correctly the module isn't Paizo's product. It's the VTTs. And they had worked out some deal to reduce the price for people who already owned it. It may have simply been the VTT publisher trying to win market share, or even Paizo giving some sort of compensation (unlikely).

Unfortunately I don't think there is much Paizo can do about this situation. The issue lies with Foundry and what they accept.

What you may be able to do, is get Paizo to talk to Foundry about accepting the localized versions the same as they would the English language versions.

The problem I see with a system to provide a discount to those who already own another language version is that it will take time and cost to set up some sort of verification system (and I'm not sure what that would even look like). And then how much of a discount is appropriate?

Looking at current rates, 1 USD is worth about 5.4 Real.

I guess my thought or concern would be, would this discount end up such that someone (a US based Brazilian earning US wages for example) be able to buy the module from the Brazilian publisher first, then get the discounted English version, and pay less than if they bought only the US English based version? I don't know the answer. I'm not even sure there is an answer.

But any kind of system like that seems overly complex and not good to me.

It's better to go directly to the source and work with Foundry to try to get them to accept the other publishers versions.

I am playing a spontaneous occult caster, am I able to swap my Mythic Magic feat spells when I level up or at any other time?

Nope, I don't believe so. Once you choose them, they're set without any specified way to change them.

Though you can presumably use retraining rules to get around that. Where you might technically need to retrain out of the Mythic Magic feat into something else, and then back into Mythic Magic but I wouldn't run it that way. I would simply have you spend a week (the normal amount of time for retraining a feat).

Remember, mythic magic doesn't care about your spell casting at all. It works even if you can't normally cast spells.

It simply lets you choose 3 first or second level spells (any tradition, because it doesn't matter if you can cast spells). The spells have to require 3 actions or less to cast and can have a duration of 10 minutes or less. You can then spend a mythic point to cast those spells, and in doing so it uses your mythic proficiency to determine the spell attack roll or DC as appropriate, and is automatically heightened. At level 14 you gain 1 3rd level spell, and at level 20 you gain 1 4th level spell.

This was a lot of words and examples to say: Whether your game is cozy or not, dungeons need reason to go into them, and there should be consequences other than death if you fail.

This is probably the most important thing.

Dungeons need to have consequence for failure, or else they cease being meaningful. Those consequence don't have to be death (or rather it can be short death with other more meaningful consequences).

Claxon wrote:

Honestly, the worm running away from enemies makes sense, but it's also kind of a death sentence. Unless the PCs can deal enough damage in one attack or has a high enough escape artist they'll die pretty quickly. Holding your breath....you can hold for 5+con mod rounds. Likely to be somewhere around 8 to 10 rounds. But! Attacking costs you 2 rounds of breath instead of the 1 you normally lose per round. And Escape also has the attack trait, so it likely also reduces your held breath by 2. Meaning you've got probably 5 rounds to deal enough damage (in one attack) or escape.

0 rounds, actually. Once the worm has Burrowed up, gobbled up the Barbarian, and Burrowed away with no tunnel, the worm is under no obligation to return. Like, ever. If I ate something that didn't agree with me, I might want to flee the battle, too.

Even if the Barbarian kills the worm from within by punching it, he still has to Escape or cut his way out. And if we rule that "Oops, there's nowhere to escape to," or if we rule that doing so results in him being buried alive (environmental rules state that this makes him restrained and unable to Escape on his own), then the worm doing even the first round of this strategy is an uncounterable default kill against the Barbarian.

That's why I prefer the explanation of "Oops, the worm is too fat now." It's a bit unrealistic, but it's at least playable.

I agree with you.

I was saying 5 rounds until you suffocate in the worms stomach.

But to your point, if the worm can burrow without leaving a trail after swallowing you, then you're practically dead unless the GM just wants to give you a heart attack by having the worm eat you, run away, and then pop out and spit you out in a nearby spot.

I think an important aspect of "Dungeons" isn't that it's a physical underground structure. A "dungeon" can be pretty much any set series of encounters that need to be done together, and any attempts at leaving and returning will yield a place that isn't the same as when it was left. The
dungeon residents could have all packed up and left, they McGuffin may have been moved, etc.

For me, basically any planned series of encounters qualifies as a dungeon.

That said, once characters hit sufficiently high level death wasn't a real risk. Cast a raise dead and you we're back in business. Oddly, PF2 has made it much harder to come back from death.

In a "Cozy" style game I would expect death to be a sidetrack, not the end to a character. As long as at least one party survives, there is some sort of side quest that can be done to get people back into the game. Perhaps it means going to the powerful cleric in town and signing a contract to raise your friends, but now you have to complete a mission for them. You alone are technically on the hook, but your friends would surely help you right?

Claxon wrote:

What happens if it meets the rupture damage while the worm is underground, leaving no tunnel?

Then the GM has told a pretty poor story?

I mean...actually I agree. And that's why I've said repeatedly something to the effect of, "GMs, don't be a jerk and just don't do that."

It's not likely to be a story that players enjoy being a part of and certainly won't feel like a collaborative storytelling effort.

Debilitating shot is good against "boss" type enemies. Single enemies that are higher level than the party, where robbing them of a single action might be incredibly powerful, because it might deny them the use of a "super awesome 3 action ability". And it can be used every round, as long as the fighter hits. Which incentivizes the party to debuff the boss as much as possible to allow the fighter more accurate shots, to keep them slow. It's amazing in the right circumstances. But if you're fighting multiple opponents it's probably not worth doing.

The best thing is, it really encourages the group to strategize and plan around its use. So, while it's a strong ability it's exactly the kind of ability I'd like to see more of. Something that encourages tactical group play.

Easl suggestion does make some sense, better sense arguably. To expel the creature from its gut, the worm needs to have open space to do so.

That partially resolves the problem, the worm can't just vomit you out into a space that's lethal.

But it's not a complete solution, because what if the swallowed character is trying to rupture the worms gut? Cause ya know, it's being digested and holding breath/suffocating. The creature has no idea whether it's underground or not.

What happens if it meets the rupture damage while the worm is underground, leaving no tunnel?

Honestly, the worm running away from enemies makes sense, but it's also kind of a death sentence. Unless the PCs can deal enough damage in one attack or has a high enough escape artist they'll die pretty quickly. Holding your breath....you can hold for 5+con mod rounds. Likely to be somewhere around 8 to 10 rounds. But! Attacking costs you 2 rounds of breath instead of the 1 you normally lose per round. And Escape also has the attack trait, so it likely also reduces your held breath by 2. Meaning you've got probably 5 rounds to deal enough damage (in one attack) or escape.

And honestly, for most characters the light weapon you're required to use while swallowed means it's most likely a backup weapon. Unlikely to have the full runes you normally would have. Meaning dealing damage to get out is pretty unlikely. I hope you've been pumping skill increases into acrobatics or athletics. If not, you're pretty screwed.