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But yeah uh. Haven't gotten email from filling the form, so is it possible to alter things post player core release or fix formatting error* by just refilling form again, or would that create a duplicate? I'd rather not create duplicates *(as it turns out, I apparently should have pressed enter after each "," to put them on different lines since now edicts/anathema are unreadable because its formatted as one long line and it cuts of the line to go to next field. I spent embarrassingly long time figuring out wording for 3 of them and only first one is visible and just partially. And I didn't make notes or backups because I thought I could just check from doc afterwards x'D) Consider this post a PSA for everyone else filling the form since I'm not only person who did that oopsie with Edicts/Anathema not being readable ^^:
I feel bittersweet at letting my 701 character go, sure he was gm blob I rarely got to play(mostly at low levels then really high levels), but I got really attached to Rahzar's tragicomedic career that formed for him more I played him and when I started to pay attention to what gm chronicles I had given him xD This retirement felt like perfect ending for his character arc, so I feel like elaborating on it, even if someone might find it silly I got this attached to character I didn't get to play at every level of the game. I do wish I got to play him more(I've gm'd more scenarios than I've played overall, so its just natural I have too many gm chronicles), but loved each time I got to play him, if it isn't obvious from this overly long fanfic post I made :p Rahzar's family imposed upon him the traditional Veskarium sense of honor and duty. But despite expectations about glorious military career being placed upon him, Rahzar's true passion was history. He dreamed of becoming an archaeologist and exploring the galaxy. He wanted to be a Starfinder. Further more, Rahzar was disquieted by Veskarium's history of brutal conquest and career of violence against sapient life never sat well with him. But he didn't have any real choices or options to study something else, so history was just a hobby to him. At age of 20, Scoured Stars Incident happened and Society started massive recruitment of new agents, even mercenaries. Rahzar saw his opportunity and took Soldier's Due and left Veskarium. He knew his family would consider quitting military to become a scholar to be unforgivable blemish upon their honor, but Rahzar was determined to follow his dreams and finally he could put his military career into good use. While violence still unsettled him, idea of pursuing his dream career and using his training to protect other explorers didn't sound too bad for him. Violence being only be used to protect others from violence, that is something he could live with. Rahzar was clumsy, but dutiful agent who avoided lethal violence as much as possible. Things were promising to him and his experience from military became useful in missions. He believed he could build up his experience until he could stop being a bodyguard and focus on research. His favorite moments where those quiet periods of downtime between big missions, working on the archaeological expeditions. Sure occasionally Starfinder duties involved things like rubbing elbows with corporate sponsors and such, but introverted vesk could still stand such necessary evils. Everything however changed when Godshield came down and Jinsuls attacked the Scoured Star. Suddenly Starfinder Society was dragged into a war against unreasonable invasive force. And thus Rahzar fought in the war against Jinsuls. It was necessary to protect Society's new allies and innocents under threat of Jinsuls and Rahzar carried no regret about that, but he rose in ranks as the war proceeded. And even once jinsuls were defeated, he kept being sent on military operations. And that bothered him as he became more aware of Society's operation, such as Radaszam's clandestine operations. By time Datch had been stopped, Rahzar had come to conclusion that perhaps she had a point, and that wasn't helped by new realization that Starfinder Society had their own private prison. Sure Luwasi had allowed bunch of mercenaries into society as proper agents, some who still didn't have interest outside of fighting and income, but it was necessary. She made backroom deals and courted new allies, including Zo!, the media mogul known for reality shows that lack any respect for sanctity of sapient life, but she did it because she had to right? Rahzar had mixed feelings about some choices Luwasi had made, but he always respected her especially for stepping down after her mandate was fulfilled. Thus Rahzar ended up voting for Ehu Hadif as his platform of returning back to core Starfinder mission statement appealed to him. It was time to return to peacetime and put aside wartime methods. Then Data Scourge happened. Disquiet inside him worsened as he started to realize that only missions that increased his reputation and career advancement were the military missions he was being sent on. Ehu Hadif was dealt hard hand by Data Scourge, but his value of traditions and stability meant he also continued path of previous first seekers such as more working together with Zo! and keeping up the tenuous agreement with Veskarium. Society's involvement with corporate interests, foreign politics, fighting criminal elements was starting to worn down on Rahzar and he started to withdraw more and more doing paper work and cataloging finds of other starfinder teams working on expeditions involving Kishalee and Sivv empires, while still being occasionally called back to field missions, usually involving military operations. At least occasional charity missions were nice, but why did Starfinders perform work suited for Stewards and Knights of Golarion? He started to wonder if he quit being soldier of Veskarium to instead being soldier of Starfinder Society. Things came to boiling point for him after he was involved with series of secret starfinder operations, including wetwork against Eoxian undead involved with Corpse Fleet and promotion to Forum membership. No matter the reasons, Rahzar couldn't help but feel he was being rewarded for violence and he started mustering grudge towards Guidance. Even though he was involved in lot of paramilitary operations, Rahzar did his best to avoid casualties on opposite side, but destruction of undead target, no matter how vile, and being the invading force was too much on his conscience. Rahzar was in bad headspace for long time afterwards, but after failed attempt at First Seeker candidacy, working to recruit new starfinders and helping new agents and tons of introspection and therapy he came to a realization. Reason why Rahzar was sent on so many military operations was that he was good at it. He was better warrior than he was a scholar and he had talent for killing even if he refrained from it. His family hadn't been wrong per say when they thought he was wasting his potential. But more importantly, he could have all along refused if he wanted to. He could have just refused assignments and stayed as helper in archaeological expeditions and if he truly didn't trust Society, he could have just quit like he did the military. He wasn't held down by his dream to became a starfinder, it was because he genuinely trusted judgement of his coworkers and leaders. Luwasi, Ehu Hadif, Guidance, even Radaszam, he didn't believe any of them would compromise society's ideals for personal gain nor that they would ask him to join mission if they didn't genuinely need his talents for good cause. The thing holding Rahzar on path of violence he detested was his trust in Society and he had never stopped loved wonder of discovery no matter what. He had always had that sense of responsibility his family tried to impose on him, just towards people he could believe in. But that responsibility was conflicting with his conscience and personal philosophy and that's why he felt miserable. This realization brought him inner peace and by end of seventh year in Society, he had resolved that if Society needed him to be a soldier, he would use his talents as long as needed, or at least as long he was able to. He would advocate for new agents to pull back if missions were rough on their mental state, but he was unable to follow on his own advice. Then the life threw an another curve-ball and Master of Nomenclature made their offer. To others, the offer to become a Steward of Scoured Stars was giving up their freedom to explore the galaxy, but to Rahzar it was something else. He didn't give damn about becoming a godling or anything like that. It was a solution to his dilemma. He would have to give up ability to see in person what wonders galaxy had to offer, but Scoured Stars had multiple lifespans worth of archaeological work needing to be done and Rahzar never wanted to be an aggressor, but was always ready to be a protector. Protecting Scoured Stars alongside Jadnura and dedicating himself to study its wonders and preserve it, it was the perfect new path for him. He could still help Society, but now he had something only he could do and he didn't need to sacrifice his conscience. He could stop being a soldier. By allowing himself to make another selfish choice, he could be himself. And now he had all the time to recover and find his peace. (Rahzar could easily be LG if not for fact he genuinely doesn't like going out of his way to fight bad guys and be a hero and that while he is ready to help people in need and do charity, he is really just some guy who wants to do his studies dang it)
Reading other people's comments, I kinda feel like while its nice paizo is setting up expectation that "no, sorry, we won't ever really have level 14-16 tier scenario", it kinda feels like allowing people to ask for "high level scenario, when?" constantly is probably less controversial than straight up telling them "never!", especially when it kinda seems like high level AP content is becoming rarer as well as 2e goes on. Like there are going to be bunch of folks who would try out SFS2e otherwise, but just kinda never bother due to thinking that "its not the 'real' game really, I'd never get my cool character concept to high levels, I just wait until I get chance to join campaign that does" But yeah, I was mostly surprised that level cap is this low despite allowing pcs to start much higher level AND all scenarios being replayable. There are ton of experimentations with this organized play campaign iteration and I'm was thinking that lot of these could have been gradual like "let's test replaying all scenarios AND higher starting point before putting down the foot on level cap due to some scenarios barely selling and barely being played"
Not sure if this is deep lore or something but Instant Spy says it has the same mechanism as a "clockwork spy (Monster Core 2 70)." (P71)... The original Clockwork Spy listing is Bestiary 3, page 48, so ... is there a Monster Core 2 partially lain out somewhere in the depths of Paizo with Clockwork Spy on page 70? That makes for almost twice as many A-C entries as Bestiary 3 to push it to page 70... hmmm ... exciting I think its stronger evidence of dragon themed book tbh
I am thinking that whoever wins, Abrogail II will survive through it even if Cheliax's contract with Hell ends up being nulled in the end because I kinda doubt Cheliax will completely fall as nation. Like maybe they manage to put themselves in "strong" position but lose their biggest asset which can be a pr victory as well.
(at least I can be glad I don't need to re-tell dwarf lore x'D I mean I couullld locate few interesting adventure hooks I never mentioned, but yeah geezus, just looking at my dwarf lore post from three years ago now made me feel exhausted. Glad that part of the process I've already done and with new high helm book people can just read that instead so no need to comb 3.5 and 1e early lore books of questionable canonicity status)
Andoran is another one of those countries where lot of people perceive them as "they are more interesting as source of npcs for other adventures. Like eagle knights, steel falcons, twilight talons or grey corsairs fighting cheliax and so on" rather than as interesting country with interesting locales themselves. Well I hope everyone has learned so far that even most seemingly boring country has interesting details. Or I hope so at least, I'm writing this before reminding myself of detail xD Arthfell region has several interesting conflict looks, like imperial loyalists and conspiracy to restore noble houses, but hook I like is that Alvis, what used to be small fishing village until it grew, is home to Andoren Alchemical Society and they are apparently dumping their alchemical waste to water. So besides potential pollution themed environmentalist adventure there, I mean just imagine monsters born from alchemical waste in Apso Bay xP Cyremirium in same region also had weird problem with thousands of dead fish showing up everytime moon fades to black. (sounds like job for dark archive xp) Overally lot of locations in Andoran have connection to fey, both friendly(for example, "In truth, the town is protected by three kindly fey who, when settlers came to this area, brokered a deal with the newcomers via their followers among the Primordial Ones rather than fighting them off. Believing they could live in harmony with the settlers, the dryad Gillialara, the nereid Cymewray, and the lampad Yvenliss agreed to care for the town’s citizens, providing them with food, access to clean water, and a supply of valuable quartz to trade with others in exchange for peace and a life of balance with nature.") and hostile(several darkmoon valley modules should make that kinda clear) and its common enough theme to be noticeable. Unfortunately to me personally I don't find fey stuff as standout of a thing by itself, they aren't among my favorite creature types ^^; Still yeah Andoran has lot of stuff for people who love stories involving fey. There are also lot of druidic and primal themes(heck the local druidic major faction is called Primordial Ones) in Andoran, nature vs industry and etc. Basically, Andoran is land for political intrigue and nature vs civilization adventures. My preference is for weird eldritch mysteries and fleshy organ growths so not as much stuff to me x'D Still yeah, I won't say lot of the adventuring sites aren't cool: Black Forks: Creepy monastery with massive pool of black stagnant water. Funny thing about this very eldritch location is that the campaign setting book refuses to go into detail to explain any of the weird stuff there or even what hostile npcs or monsters could be found in the location. We know that it was built by bunch of monks fascinated by waters and they started to do violent self torture rituals, then they got slaughtered by goblins who threw their bodies to water which attracted some kind of horror from woods that killed everything else on its path as it started to move to farmlands. Group of Taldan soldiers managed to turn monster back but never returned alive and nobody found trace or evidence of the monster and eventually settles took region back from goblins with villagers leaving the site alone. And now there is group of cowled folks called Tenders doing mysterious rituals. Basically Black Forks is mystery box that refuses to give direct answers about what exactly happened, but it sure does sound potentially cool xD Candlestone Cavern is one of my favorite adventuring locations from dungeons of golarion just because I kinda want to run dwarf "we will get to bottom of it and release the flesh eating gas to clear it of undead at all cost" adventure xP Point is, its a cool mega dungeon, I like those. Claes Redoubt is subterranean azlanti ruins but the adventuring site description just details attempts of one guy to find it and what dangers where in the way, so we don't actually know WHATS in there besides it was some kind of refugee caves. Its bit of bummer to me since hey I want to know what is there to be discovered xD This book loves leaving mysteries vague in adventuring site advertisements. Andoran also had Droskar's Crag(among other cool things, there were couple of adventure modules in area iirc) which was one of potential location of axe of dwarvish lords. I forget, what was post remastered name of that item and where it was canonically in the end? Nogortha Necropolis was cool but dunno if we see much of pathfinder wendigo anymore since I don't think they got reprinted or renamed. Occarin was small village with secret. And the secret is that it has VERY large percentage of changelings and most of them never hear the call because another secret is that some of the changelings work for their hag mothers and choose most potential candidates to target with the call to become hags. Sooo yeah. Andoran has lot of things if you love lycanthropes, primordial druids, fey, the weird bee-man, Talmandor and hags. I glossed over lot of the examples because I'm the fan of esoteric weird occult stuff xD
Habit, company policy, same thing when I try to be concise and lose the nuance in progress xD But yeah, I do add that technically the adventurer's guide also mentioned it since it had version of Council of Thieves post the ap, but sadly we haven'ts seen the new phantom thief esque thieves guild (instead of blue collar noble mafia) after that book yet despite it being cool new retooling of the faction
My time [to go through campaign setting books] has come once again. Not just for stuff that could be expanded, but to showcase funny and endearing stuff from these nations xD So Taldor has lot of interesting past to explore and also explore their effect on areas that used to be part of them, lot of noble house shenanigans(some people might be like "pfft, who cares about shenanigans of rich and powerful, they suck", but there are still fun stuff like joke marriage proposal between human grand duke and a dwarf that turned into genuine love and now scandalizes the nobility in Krearis region) and etc, but I assume this thread is probably more interested in more esoteric and obscure matters or at least cities and regions that would be fun to explore xD Like Kazuhn City which has heavy "Kowloon Walled City" vibes. (basically half is abandoned, quarter burned down and the "empty" section is divided by wall from the "polite society") Another interesting site at Kazuhn region is Peguduor a massive azlanti refuge site that was populated by munavri, caligni and other azlanti descendants but is now mysteriously empty of what must have been tens of thousands of people and contains apparent secret temples to Scal. Pastorling from Lingian is small hamlet with nothing of note, except really really good bakery. Except that person who owns the bakery and runs the humble place is running massive crime syndicate and smuggling operation despite that bakery is doing well enough she wouldn't even need to do crime. I just had to post that one because npc got really cool art for what is really funny concept xD Mut from Oppara has self run lighthouse filled with traps, guardians and wards, so most people haven't seen the place's lantern and thus can't confirm whether popular legend about it being a solar dragon's still beating heart is true. I just light idea of lighthouse dungeon with possibly shiny beating heart, so had to mention it xP Old Sehir: Super popular tourist site that is only 150 year with fictional history reaching antiquity and all local elves and dwarves have given up on trying to convince humans that its in fact not actually old ancient taldan site discovered about 150 years ago. Karakuru, the City of a Hundred Fountains, known for bathouses and fighting style rondelero that combines peasant dances and noble weapons. Bafra's Face: adventuring location where bunch of spriggan cultists and gargoyles are trying to build stone god/colossus, would be nice to see if they finally managed to finish animating the colossus with war of immortals and all xD Blackwood Swamp: besides smugglers and local iruxi enclave, there is sunken azlanti ruins(due to bad building location) Nacar-Azen which has interesting note of containing lot of schools. Like "Astrarium of Mag dedicated itself to understanding what precipitated Earthfall and what the Starstone was." Its interesting stuff Ruins of Nazilli: adventuring location that has spider cult worshipping Mazmezz. As in cult run by spider monsters xD (note: huh Emorga All-Seer from wardens of the wild was mentioned originally in taldor book. apparently her class was diviner 8 xD) But yeah I don't have time to skim through all countries right now, but if this is helpful or fun I'll continue doing so later xD
(does this mean I don't have to worry about updating my survey answers even if I complete empires devoured in time? x'D) But yeah, I've gotten some feedback ideas even this late in december, but dunno if it helps much at this point anymore. Still super cool blog and its great to see feedback from earlier being taken in account
Eh, you see, we say that all the time, but then I read a novel of theirs like Godsrain and we got cannibalism, despair and body horror. It's not that simple, the developers have reigned in some of the darkest stuff from the start of the setting, but plenty of really dark stuff is still happening. I just wish they would address their changes in-lore, instead of just quietly shuffling the stuff they are most embarassed about into the backyard and shooting it in the back of the head. The War of Immortals would have been a prime opportunity to get rid of a being which rhymes with polka, for example, just by adding the name to the list of gods and other immortals who got lost in the shuffle. See that's the thing. Adventure paths? Contain plenty of horrible murder, torture and body horror. Setting books? Contain lot of societal issues and discrimination. Pathfinder tales book? They get often into very personal street level view of bad stuff happening rather than macroscale "ah yes, bad stuff exists". Thing that people don't get is that setting isn't "less dark", its "rulebooks don't present that side of setting". Like, horrible evil things probably exist in setting, but paizo doesn't feel need to focus on those since there isn't reason to, everyone can have those things in their games if they want to and party isn't uncomfortable with them. Heck even slavery basically exists in setting in spots, its just called something else. Lamashtu hasn't gotten changed. The lore just focuses on talking about lamashtu worshipers who are part of some kind of twisted fertility cult. I'd say one of reasons why lot of orc gods died was that it would have been difficult to work around their past deeds in how setting's front facing side is presented. (TLDR: when people are like "sexism and racism doesn't exist in Golarion", you can tell they haven't read setting books or tales books. There are probably thousand unnamed demon lords of "PG rating banned" that we will never learn about because why would we want to read about someone's magical realm of demonic NSFW torture.)
Pretty much. I'd like to see some options buffed, but regarding sure strike, I'll just wait to see if spell attack related options actually get improved, otherwise I do feel like they could have just given it like 2 rounds cool down or something instead of once per encounter thing. I do think there is value from disabling "I'm fighter that multiclass into caster and only preps sure strike" as meta, but I don't mind it either.
I do kinda wish people took deep breath and thought what it sounds like in real life before they go around exaggerating things. Hyperbole doesn't make the point more convincing, it makes it sound like you are really angry about something that is mildly annoying at worst.
Thing about Ragathiel is that he actually wasn't THAT extreme. Vildeis is much more extreme, but I don't mean that he isn't that bad because Vildeis exist. Like Ragathiel is all about avenging victims and all that jazz, but his faith did acknowledge possibility of good coming from evil origins. Its more of players who keep interpreting him differently.
I mean we have known for ages Norgorber is a human god. That's exact reason why Aroden hated him, because he was worst aspects of humanity in the there ascended gods from starstone test x'D Mr Gorber's funny name is perfect reveal to me because it perfectly shows how power of secrets IS in that they are a secret not because secret itself is grand. He seems mysterious and scary because you don't know who he is, not because who he actually is. (that said I don't agree that mysteries are always great just because they are mysterious, mysteries have to be interesting to solve and if there is no way to make reasonable guesses, then its just "huh weird thing happened". But I absolutely believe that twist of god of secrets being bit of a poser is great secret.)
I can say that even with quoting English dictionary, the word has negative connotation like that person on going for crusade is doing something ridiculous or self righteous even in context of it actually being used to refer to good cause like human rights or something. (I can't really speak from Finnish perspective because Finnish word for it has primarily meaning of "war to spread Christianity especially to non believers" so its primary use IS in historical context) Like having your cause being referred as crusade I've only seen being used in insulting or belittling context. (also I feel like if word "jihad" would absolutely make Christians angry if used to refer to righteous cause in fictional setting, heck the western fiction using the word I've heard of seem to use it in same negative context as word crusade)
I'd assume Pathfinder Society AP is less PFS AP and more something like Shattered Star or Serpent's Skull where you play as member of society or are closely allied with them. Like how Dead Suns isn't SFS AP, but its AP where you play as starfinder society members. (would actually be nice for me too, archaeology focused AP would be nice and I prefer AP gameplay to PFS gameplay if I can choose x'D)
The Euro-centric origin of RPGs has bitten the industry in the past, even when effort is taken to try to mitigate cultural blind-spots. And "crusade" has negative connotations even outside of the Christianity vs. Islam thing: The Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in the Provence region, the Baltic Crusades in Northern Europe, the Fourth Crusade sacking Byzantium/Constantinople, etc. Yeah, even the quote "main" crusaders were series of unfortunate events where increasingly incompetent and greedy people turned it into increasing farce. I guess its kinda similar to how V for Vendetta made people forget that Guy Fawkes mask is to make fun of guy who tried to blew up the king (because he wanted a catholic monarch on the throne) and failed in incredibly embarrassing way. Over here I don't think school ever taught anyone about crusaders actually having been a good thing, like Crusader Kings game series is probably biggest source of crusader memes and its very explicit about how crusades were greed motivated.
That said, other than themes, I'm also eager to hear about what sorts of monster themes or genre themes people are interested in, beyond just generalized themes and regional themes (all of which are still very interesting and important to continue sharing!). Or even PC build themes. We've done 3 of these so far—the "dwarf" and "orc" and "elf" themed campaigns. Would people be interested in us exploring that in other areas, but instead of focusing on ancestry themes, doing it with religions, or organizations, or even classes? I do have niche interests like seeing Kwanlai tengu politics, nexian fleshforges and mutant groups in mana wastes. Never say no to aberration heavy APs, there is reason why I'm big fan of idea of Dominion of the Black alien invasion ap xD In general, seeing Droon, Nurvatcha, Murraseth and Diguo-Dashu in ap would be cool and unexpected because of my usual interest in xenofiction, heck just ap about those haunted clockworks of Clicking Caverns would be cool and also great opportunity to explore Nagajor. Heck seeing Usaro with chara-kau being less uncomfortable is interesting idea with city's new developments. New aquatic adventure would be great, I'd love more shattered continent content, but 2e aquatic campaign wouldn't need to be ruins of azlant sequel. We've already had couple "evil god" campaigns and those were cool, so why not do that for "neutral" or benevolent gods as well? Regarding more "mainstream" interests, I've wanted to see serpentfolk AP once again xD Serpent's Skull is cool concept that deserves second try. I've also always wanted AP that deals with themes of more obscure fiends, qlippoths, sahkil, rakshasa, asura, they all make for good APs I think with potential demigod as big bad behind the main villain or even final boss. Religion based campaigns does sound like good idea, it reminds me of how some campaigns have subtheme of specific god related material showing up often, but it being explicitly their worshipers' campaign would be something new. I've also been interested in faction specific ap (whether playing as member or just dealing with them, I liked SoT and Prey for Death after all, though I think Hellknight pc AP without anti chaos mechanics feels weird and Hellknights are better enemies anyway since most of orders are different variety of fascist civilian oppression methods and with Firebrands I have really specific kind of AP I'd want to see which is playing as serious firebrands and occasionally having to deal with shenanigans of braggarts and how to turn them into effective assets rather than Chaotic Wildcards that ruin the actual plan xD) (also I was sad that outlaws of alkenstar wasn't written as no caster ap, but we have done great as party of inventor, alchemist, fighter and gunslinger even if we keep finding healing staffs xD So I guess that counts as class specific interest, the martial only ap) There are honestly too many ideas(I didn't even get to ramble about serpent or dragon war xP this post is ALREADY too long, how am I ever expected to tell all the lovely ideas I wanna see? x'D) I'd love to see and I feel unlikely any of them would get picked out because they'd need someone with a passionate elevator pitch to work on them so that the wider audience would get excited about them too
Crusade is from pov of non English speaking person even in out of context a weird thing because it directly refers to crucifix aka Christianity and specific series of real life events and its often used negatively to talk about zealous loons on warpath.(like its often used negatively to talk about moral guardians wanting to censorship media for children) Like out of context, when it gets used positively in fictional settings, it looks like its just because word itself sounds cool or something because there doesn't appear to be deeper reason for the specific mostly negative term being chosen? Like, why don't fictional settings just use term "Holy War" to refer to religious faction organizing a war effort, or does that term have even more negative connotations?
Of course, playtest characters are built like PCs. However, I discovered that any NPC designed to fight alongside the PCs even in just a single encounter is best built like a PC, too. The tactical dynamics of a NPC-built character and a PC-built character are different and roleplaying a NPC-built character in a PC party gets weird. Yeah I didn't comment on it earlier when I expressed opinion on it being easier in 1e, but this is why when I converted JR to PF2e, I built all of party npcs as PC builds. Even the ones that were bestiary creatures with class levels and thus didn't have ancestries in 2e. It felt easier to me to replace some of class feats with monster inspired abilities than build them as a monster and then level them up with party. Easy example of this is level 1 PC and NPC: level 1 NPCs' high strike bonus is +9. So all of melee npcs at same level are equivalent of fighters unless GM takes care to simulate how powerful pc would be or otherwise avoid using table strictly. On average PCs have more versatile builds while NPCs have simpler tactics but have stronger bonuses. So PCs can feel overshadowed as result even if balance wise it ends up about even because all of NPCs' rolls feel high in comparison. NPCs are also technically easier to level up, just add plus one to number (or follow up the table and see which levels they get +2 increase instead) but again npc creation table is built in mind around npcs being challenges to PCs, and frankly party allies getting new powers as they get stronger is slightly cooler than them just getting bigger numbers. (that said yeah, NPC statblock temporary allies can also be cool, Prey for Death has good example of that, but I do suspect there is reason why they are only for one encounter usually)
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