Cleavis Morerats's page

As a goblin merchant, I don't see 1st level characters flying as a balance problem at all, it is a market opportunity! Today I might be able to sell 10 arrows for 1 silver coin, but as soon as a party of first-level flyers defeats an opponent and words get out arrows will be in such a high demand the price will skyrocket!

Now would anyone like to buy some arrows before the price goes up? I also have wands of magic missiles for sale, or whatever it is you call them these days.

Many are still suffering PTSD from the Against the Aeon Throne 2 species-specific vending machine snack illnesses.

Don't say that too loud or everyone might start taking the Irongut Goblin heritage. But if you do welcome to the family. Have some Morerats stew, our family pot of stew hasn't been empty or cleaned in 7 generations, we just keep adding more rats!

I want to build playable object show character, but tsukumogami is not there

Might not be able to do it exactly but can come close or at least have a very unusual character.

Start as an Automation then take the Ghost archetype to become a haunted object. Or Automation with the tiefling versatile heritage for more of a demonically possessed object, could ghost archetype on top of that if you wanted to.

I keep seeing the title of this thread, "Wolves in Sheeps' Clothing," and the first thing that comes to mind is, doesn't Pathfinder 2e have more clothing options? With alignments gone, wolves are more likely to have a more diverse taste in clothing. A wolf in ducks' clothing, perhaps. I happen to have a discount on ducks' clothing right now if you hurry.

I legitimately cannot see how a PF2 combat could take 4 hours. I'm not sure I've had a single PF2 combat that took more than 40 minutes. Were you fighting multiple Level+3 enemies or something?

My subjective opinion is that combat in PF2 is much brisker, particularly at high levels, than the previous edition, but YMMV.

We had a boss fight in PF2e that lasted so long that I didn't have time to reload my sling. Any of the fights our group had that went long was due to 1/2 the party getting paralyzed.

I'm much less concerned about what God is going to die. It may be shellfish, but I'm much more concerned about which PC will die next. I've been a good goblin. I sware on all my pointy teeth. I really hope it's not me. Please don't make it me. I still have adventuring to do, and trash to find and sell...

As a goblin merchant (sorcerer), it wasn't until my fifth scenario I played that I even used a spell from my class in combat. On my second scenario I had cast a single damage spell using a scroll. The rest of the time I used a sling to good effect in combat.

Altho it's not true that goblins can't read, it's that we are just too busy to have time to. It would be nice if there was just one word at the start of each chapter and the rest was pictures.

Just in case it wasn't obvious why humans and goblins get along so well, it's because if rats like to live around humans, why wouldn't goblins! So if you're going to take time to list a city's stats in a book PLEASE list the number of rats in the city. It's important to know when traveling if I should bring my own rats to eat.

As a goblin merchant, who makes a living finding and mending trash, I'd like to see a random table for trash that I can find. As the humans say, "one person's treasure is another person's trash." Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against elves, they have REALLY nice trash, but they just don't leave it lying around like humans do.

Not every character has to be good at everything, that's what parties are for.

At least in my local PFS group, all of our near TPKs haven't been from not having optimized characters it's been because all of our martials were reduced to zero HP in the first round of combat before any of them even got a turn. This happened to our Barbarian so many times that he started hiding behind the casters and throwing javelins.

Anytime we have failed to complete the entire mission objectives it's not been from combat it's been from martial characters getting multiple crit failures on social skill checks. Just about every thread about optimizing characters or improving a class I've seen is centered around combat.

Squiggit wrote:

The problem is when someone builds their character around flavor, has issues, and the best advice anyone can give them is to tell them to stop. That's bad.

I feel like it's possible to have a theme that's too narrow, and when you run into problems, and people tell you "your theme is too narrow" that's neither disrespectful nor unhelpful.

Like if you decide "I'm going to be the fire guy" and you have no ways short of "using a weapon" to do damage that's not fire damage, when you run into a devil and you have a hard time then "get a second damage type" is not actually bad advice.

Like we expect martials to carry backup weapons for when you're fighting a monster immune to your main type, and a ranged weapon for when you can't reach whatever it is that you want to fight. Your theme shouldn't stand totally in the way of "planning for contingencies."

I think too narrow is more of a problem than flavor, it really depends on the flavor too. If you pick a single rule to spell type as a flavor, that might be too narrow to do much with. As a goblin merchant, merchant isn't really built into the rules other than as a background so there's lots of room to play around with to make it work. My class is sorcerer, and I started with zero combat useful spells. I don't see why a merchant would have a problem using a simple weapon to defend themselves so mostly at first level used a sling to good effect. Merchants need something to sell so I always have a backpack filled with consumables for every situation (strategic shopping). At 2nd level, I took the alchemist archetype to make throwing bombs more effective. As a merchant, I have no problem filling in my shortcoming with materialistic things like magic items.

Flavor characters tend to make good support characters, I generally won't play my goblin merchant unless the party has 2 martials and a healer, if the party dosen't I have an optimized fighter or healer I play instead.

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."

As a goblin merchant, I'm not much of a killer, but that saying, with a bit of modification, makes for a great saying for a merchant to live by.

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to sell something to everybody you meet."

As much as I love that saying, I must admit that selling things to my wife will be hard. It's much easier if you can sell something to everyone the first time you meet them. Otherwise, you have to keep a list of all the people you have met but have not sold something to. I think this is a great goal but will get tricky over time to keep track of. It might be easer to own everything and sell it all to one person. Oh, that's a good goal too!

If you're selling to everyone, then if they have an alignment or not doesn't matter.

Ruzza wrote:

I mean, the thing is - all of these are balanced, just not around the same point. This means that spells that always feel effective tend to rise to the top. Like sure, a fireball hurled into a room is instantly more gratifying than Rouse Skeletons which allows your to spread that damage around over a longer period of time with a single action.

Fireball also has a longer range, the ability to hit flying foes, a better AoE, a damage type more likely to trigger weakness, and does as much damage in a single casting as Rouse Skeletons will do over 3 rounds assuming you don't drop it to sustain something more effective. In what situation is Rouse Skeletons ever the more effective choice?

When you are in a room filled with gunpowder or oil, and you're not a Charhide Goblin. I know because my wife's side of the family is Charhide Goblins, and my side is Iron Gut Goblins. Bottomless Stomach, If I could swallow and then throw up items on demand, now there's a spell that would make my mother proud. (I'm soo taking that spell when I level up enough.)

Even if a fireball did a billion 6d damage, Why would a necromancer choose Fireball over Rouse Skeletons?

If you're only willing to use spells with the most effectiveness, then yes, your selection is going to be limited. If you build your character around flavor, then all the options are on the menu. Paizo or anyone else is not forcing you to play either way. It's a choice you make for yourself.

The quickest way to fix a character that is underperforming "the math" isn't to fix the class or rebuild the character to optimize it better or for the GM to adjust every encounter balance, but for the GM to add or change some treasure found to have magic items that help that character fill the gap, and the game rolls on...

GMs if your player's characters need magic items I'd be happy to sell them those items.

Mr. Morerats you always cheer me up whenever I see you but I think for me casters like Psychic and classes like Kineticist seem to embody the idea of a theme in just ways that are a lot more fun than just picking a few spells that fit what you want to do

It brings me great joy to know this smiling goblin brings you cheer. I had not considered Psychic as a class for a merchant, but I'm now intrigued by the idea, what better way to know what people are looking to buy? I'm now determined to make Psychic my next archetype I take.

There's much more fun to be had than just picking a few spells as a merchant. It's quite a challenge finding uses for all my spells. For example, our party needed to travel a long distance, and was running out of time. You can imagine how horrified I was when we realized the only way to get there was to take a dog sled. Just hearing of the foul furry beast, I drew my dog slicer and was about to attack, but logic overcame my better goblin instincts, and a compromise was made. The only way me and the other goblin in the party were going to get on a dog sled was if they put a bag over our heads. Time goes by slowly when traveling with a bag over your head, so I kept casting time sense, then asking "Are we there yet?"

As a goblin merchant (sorcerer) I feel PF2e is great at themed casting.

Cantrips:
Approximate: Merchants have lots of counting to do this saves time.
Bullhorn: There is no better way to announce sales at the market.
Infections Enthusiasm: Great way to help me and my assistant to persuade a customer to buy something.
Time Sense: Great way to make sure you don't miss the best times of day to sell stuff.
Detect Magic: If it's magic, I'm certainly going to charge more for it.

1st level spells:
Alarm: Got to protect the shop at night.
Mending: If I can fix something I find, I can sell it for more.
Illusonry disguise: This is how I check the prices of other shops in the market without them knowing.

2nd level spells:
Draw Ire: Since I'm well trained in deception, diplomacy, intimidation, and goblin insults so, Draw Ire is a great way to give those skills a bit more punch.

Out of all the spell casters I've played, this character is one of the few, if not only one, to have actually used all the spells they know.

I was actually afraid to play this character at first. I didn't want to be the cause of a TPK but it's been surprisingly effective and fun to play.

And yes my mother named me Cleavis after a meat cleaver :)

I wouldn't be adverse to dropping the sorcerer class entirely. "I have special blood" is like the worst premise for "I use magic instinctively." IMO.

As a goblin merchant, My whole character background and concept is built around My sorcerer's bloodline. As the story goes, one of my distant ancestors was granted 1 wish by a Janni, so they asked the Janni to teach them how to make gold. So the Janni shared their bloodline and taught my ancestor several cantrips and spells that were very useful to merchants and not much else. In each generation of my family, at least one of the children is borne with the same gifts.

I play this, so at first level, I can only take cantrips and spells that are useful to a merchant.

The sorcerer archetype is a little harder to explain how your character acquired a bloodline, but in my case, it would still work out, I'd just be the first generation.

Might be good to have some ways to explain how characters got a bloodline from another species, especially for archetypes. Maybe some rituals that allows a creature to share its bloodline or a darker ritual to steal a bloodline. Could also be some thing an alchemist could brew up.

As a goblin merchant starting with zero class feature that helps in combat, I figure the best thing I can do to support the party in combat is to buy, trade for, or find all the consumables I can carry. So the alchemist archetype has been a big benefit helping me be more accurate throwing consumables.

As the story goes, one of my distant ancestors was granted 1 wish by a Ginnie, so they asked the Ginnie to teach them how to make gold. So the Gennie shared their bloodline and taught my ancestor several cantrips and spells that were very useful to merchants and not much else. In each generation of my family, at least one of the children is borne with the same gifts.

First level is rough but we start adapting after that and learn 1 or 2 more useful spells but we're still merchants at heart. Long term, I think I may take a new archetype every time I am able to. I like the idea of a well-traveled merchant having lots of different skills. Will likely be looking at future artchetypes that use charisma and benefit social skills

As a proud member of the Morerats family, and a merchant of fine trash. I love that human saying "One person's treasure is another person's trash!" Words to live by I tell you. As for our family name Morerats, we're named after the pot of soup that's been in the family for 6 generations, never cleaned or emptied once! We just add more rats! So as a proud father of several children, I dream that someday "if" they survive one of my children might grow up to be a dual gate kineticist. What a proud father I would be knowing one or more of my children had mastered the 2 of the elements most connected to our family. Only to find out the kineticist teaching doesn't even recognize the goblin elements of rats and trash! I'm so ragging mad at this that I could burn a village down...again.

At least the kineticist recognized the 3rd goblin element!