Cthulhudrew's page

Now, in Elric's stories, Chaos is Evil. I think Moorcock was a bit biased towards Law. I think the Granbretons from Hawkmoon were his attempt at LE, but while undoubtedly Evil, they do not feel that Lawful to me.

Interestingly enough, in his more recent stories (notably his Second Ether works), he seems to have adopted an opposite view, with the Law-aligned factions having a decidedly more evil (certainly at least authoritarian) ideology, and the Chaos-factions being more ideologically disposed towards free will, self-determination, and taking on the role of the "good guys."

Once again, gremlins get no love. :'(

So who had "Conqueror Worm" on their scorecard for the machinations behind Galt?

Time to convince the GM to let me play one in a Tian Xia campaign so they can pretend to be a kitsune and really surprise everybody.

Is that a fox that turns into a spider, or a spider that turns into a fox? The mind boggles.

It will be interesting to see how paleolithic weapons and armor are handled (if at all) in this AP: how they function in 2E, what magic items and treasure looks like in such an environment, if there will be some barter rules, and how such equipment would compare to equipment of comparable level heroes from more technologically advanced regions in Golarion.

Okay, hear me out... 3x 1-20 APs with interchangeable books.

I like this idea. I also think it would be interesting to see a 3 module AP, with a closely or semi-connected "sequel" at higher levels that might come later down the line. Or even replace the final issue "continuing the campaign" sections with "Linking Campaigns" sections that would give tips for linking various short APs together into a longer campaign.

That description of Ant Gnoll reminded that Kender existed at some point in time. My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.

Sounds like it's actually a tall Pugwampi to me... ψ(｀∇´)ψ

Par-kay

I'm here to make known that there's people that want Ghorans.

Yes - I understand they are quite tasty!

The book have been said to be very “lore focused”.

So I would manage my expectations and not expect a lot of “rule” options.

I hope this is true. I have wanted more Mwangi content for years now, and as I still play 1E, I would prefer to have more lore than rules content that might not be easily usable for me.

I wonder if monsters who wait around in their rooms all day use some kind of fantasy "uber eats" service.

We demand a Gremlin ancestry!

Just my opinion, but it seems to me having all enemies focus their efforts on a single PC may make sense from a game/mechanics perspective, but it feels very inauthentic and breaks suspension of disbelief.

I could see a scenario in which- if given a good rationale (ie, seeing someone cast a spell)- a group is directed to focus their efforts on that person, but as a general practice it seems weird to me.

Did Ron Lundeen do twice as much work as everyone else?

Lucas VerBeek wrote:

Wait....there's a Human Ethnicity with a Breath Weapon?!

This shouldn't be too surprising, since I've met some people on Earth who had weapons-grade breath . . . .

"If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were none living near her; she would infect to the North Star." - Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing

Where in Golarion is Eurithina? The architecture looks Tian (even if the name doesn't sound like it), and the image shows up in the Saga Lands, but I don't recall ever seeing this location.

EDIT: Ah! That explains it- it's "Eurythnia"; the name in the image link is misspelled. That is probably just the Tian quarter of the city, in keeping with the original Eurythnia's multicultural population.

I thought one of the iconics was getting replaced. Is that not happening or are they still just not telling us? (or was Mark Moreland teasing when he said we'd seen the replacement iconic after the swashbuckler was mistakenly referred to as Lirianne instead of Jirelle?)

They did say one of those 4 iconics is getting replaced, and that it isn't Feiya. I also suspect it is neither Alahazra nor Quinn, so Jirelle seems the likely candidate.

I am very excited about pants in Pathfinder 2nd edition. For one thing, since item slots are no longer a thing we have the possibility of magic pants which is a thing I have always wanted.

I would settle for a pair of regular pants.

Sounds like we jumped to the assumption that "new race" meant player race.....when they are not actually intended as a player race :P

I'd say that is definitely the case. The description of the subtype and the two examples in the bestiary section don't seem to support the idea of this being a player race at all. Just a new sort of monster.

How about Dynamo for Vanguard? It's both a device that converts mechanical energy in to another type (usually electric) and is a name for a dynamic person.

I second Dynamo as a more suitable name for the Vanguard.

If their Infinite Worlds ability could be expanded during ship combat, I could see that being useful in hindering enemy movement (or, if using a suggestion I made in the first impressions thread for having their ability provide beneficial effects, to assist the PCs ship instead). Creating gravity wells or miniature black holes would certainly be disruptive to attacking fleets!

These are pretty interesting. Kind of reminds me of Ambrose Chase from Warren Ellis' Planetary.

I do wonder, though, as written their Infinite Worlds ability seems only useful for making the world around them hazardous terrain in some manner. I think it would be cool if they could also use it for the opposite- for instance, making difficult terrain regular terrain. Using it in beneficial ways, and not just as a hindrance.

I think you're confused as to the point of that ritual. It's a replacement for those creatures ability to summon other creatures of their type in 1e. In 1e it was a flat percentage if the summon would work. It's to give them a way to still have the ability to call other creatures of their type to their side while in different planes. Otherwise the plot of a lot of 1st edition adventures would not be able to be converted over easily.

Not confused about the reason for it at all, I just don't think that the Ritual treatment accomplishes what it set out to do to replace that 1e summoning ability.

As it stands, the ability as written basically is useless. Either the ritual has already successfully summoned demonic allies for the villain prior to the arrival of the PCs (in which case it is really just a matter of setting the encounter appropriately), or they have not. The time frame to summon allies makes it extremely unlikely it will ever impact an encounter if they have not already done so (unless the PCs take an awfully, awfully long time to kill the demon.)

Likewise, the Critical Success/Success/Failure/Critical Failure effects will never come into play unless a DM is really intent on playing some kind of random game of chance with (essentially) himself, and have the PCs show up while the demon is battling with other demons, weakened from that battle, dead(?) from that battle, or the PCs show up while the Critically Successfully summoned allies are serenading their summoner because they are so ecstatic to be called on. Or he feels like deciding randomly if the demon succeeded or failed.

I get the intent, but using the Ritual mechanic for this purpose is very silly in this situation. It should either have its casting time reduced to a point that it is useful in combat, or should be changed from a Ritual back into some other natural ability (or just disregarded entirely and replaced with some kind of staging suggestion for how to build encounters representing demons with already summoned allies).

To add to the topic-

I still find myself shaking my head over the demon/devil summoning rituals from the Bestiary. As written, they can't be used by PCs which really makes the failure/success element of the rituals pointless, not to mention just the oddity of making them a part of their combat statistics anyway (since it isn't something the demon/devil is going to cast in combat; it should just be mentioned as encounter building to set the level of difficulty of an encounter appropriately).

My rule of thumb: if you have to parse the language so much that you're forced into defending your preferred interpretation against a sizable opposition of opinion that you yourself solicited, then your preferred interpretation is probably not the intended one.

So don't do it.

No! KOBOLDS AS CORE RACE!

Pfah. Why have lousy kobolds when you could have precocious, fun GREMLINS?

I keep scratching my head at the purpose of the Abyssal/Infernal Pact rituals from the playtest bestiary. I understand that these are present to detail how demons and devils in PF2E summon allies, and to illustrate how their summoning in 2E is different from 1E, but I don't quite understand why they are presented as rituals, rather than just as a special ability or even just as a textual description.

As they currently stand, they can only be used by NPCs ("must be demon/devil" respectively), which means that the mechanics involved- the critical success to critical failure spectrum- will never see use in-game. (Unless the GM feels like playing dice-rolling games by himself to throw some randomness into his own encounter building process for some reason.)

Am I missing something? Is there some reason the rituals might actually be useful in-game that I just can't conceive of?

But seriously... kudos for getting my last name right. It's a rarity.

And here I was thinking that it was just Uncommon.

Thanks for pointing this one out, as it's a good example of hyperbolic rules text that might make sense for a PC to deal with but implies a lot more fundamental on a mass scale about a setting that uses the rules to simulate reality.

On the other hand, think of the campaign potential. Pathfinder Adventure Path: "The Forsaken Army- a mysterious leader has rallied the masses of ignominiously rejected laborers across several nations into a powerful legion with one goal in mind: revenge!!!"

Sir Richard Francis Burton spoke something like two dozen languages. Many Europeans are multilingual.

I am definitely not a fan of the change to languages in 2E. I am not really sure what the rationale behind it was (simplification, presumably). It certainly feels a bit overtuned with the changes to bonus languages, in addition to the rarity levels on languages and language related spells (like Tongues). If the intent is just to have everyone speaking Common and ignore complications of language, then just toss them out entirely.

I really don't care for the "one crafting feat = craft anything you want" idea; it just breaks verisimilitude for me. Not to mention that it doesn't really work with standard fantasy tropes (he was a poor blacksmith who became legendary for his crafted armor.. oh, and he could also build ships and castles, and cobble together a mean pair of shoes in his spare time; somehow doesn't have the same ring to it.)

I think I understand the rationale for it (streamline it), but the end result loses out as a result IMO.

Performance suffers from the same issue, IMO.

5) Bitterness. Okay yes this one is personal. I have said that one of the ways I curb CLW spam is limiting the ability to find them. I basically just moved them to Uncommon. This seems to be however a bad move on my part from some of the responses I saw over some of the topics. So everyone's cheering for something I did and got flak for. K.

This is actually (perhaps unintentionally) an interesting point. Not the bitterness, but the reference to the issue of CLW spamming.

From discussion in the Resonance blog post thread (as well as items and others), it was made clear that one of the reasons behind Resonance was as a stopgap to help ease the issue of CLW spam/healing and similar "abuses" of PF1.

However, with the introduction of this new Commonality/Rarity mechanic, wouldn't that serve just as well as Resonance, without adding yet another resource pool to keep track of? Simply rank certain types of items with different levels of rarity to prevent unlimited purchases.

Whatever. It is a good way to manage "things". But it is a DM tool and not a mechanic. I think making it official is just kinda weird.

Agreed. If the presentation of this is as an "optional" ranking system or something for the benefit of DMs who might find it a streamlined way of setting up some guidelines for their campaigns, that's one thing. But the blog makes it sound as if in PF2 this is going to be a mechanic (or for those who don't seem to like that term being applied to it, another TRAIT to be applied to weapons, armor, items, spells, and other things), then it seems like overreach to me in a revision that had as one of its goals rules simplification.

\Aroden's Victory

Requirement: You must be Aroden to cast this spell
Effect: You win.

This just in:

Mark revealed the secret of what really happened to Aroden!

I like this in theory, but I can"t help but feel the concept would be more fitting in a campaign guide or accessory, rather than adding another layer of complexity to the baseline "core" rules.

I'm getting this impression too: it seems like they are trying to cover the hybrids in the base classes options.

It looks very much like it. The barbarian preview had some things that felt like bloodrager-like abilities; ditto the monk and brawler; and the ranger has some slayer and hunter-like qualities. Mark's comment earlier made it sound like- even if not necessarily a conscious design choice- a hunter-like character could already be built with the playtest version of the ranger.

One thing I absolutely do not understand is the complaint that it is narratively inconsistent with the previous edition... As far as the setting is concerned this could always have been the norm but it just never came up.

I believe that the complaint comes from that concern about the setting more than the mechanics. If the campaign setting were changing with the new edition, then it probably wouldn't be as big an issue. Since it is not (still Golarion), I don't see anything unreasonable in people finding some disappointment that the mechanics don't fit what they have come to expect in the game world.

Saying "it never came up" in a world where many of the players are or adventured with spellcasters who should probably have been familiar with this concept, seems like a stretch.

Except 9 L= 0 Bulk. So the tracking only matters if you reach full #s. a series of check boxes on a character sheet should handle it quite well

DM: "What's your bulk?"

Player: "Hang on. 5 plus... 6, no 7 L. So 5."

vs.

Player: "Hang on. 5.7. So, 5."

I'm not seeing a substantive difference other than the latter seems quicker and more natural (adding numbers directly rather than adding numbers and counting up letters to add to them.) YMMV.

I think they mentioned in one of the live streams that, like in Starfinder, L stands for Light bulk, and equals 0.1 Bulk (so 10 L items add up to 1 Bulk)

Isn't it more intuitive, then, to make L = .1 instead? So that way you are just adding numbers to get your numeric Bulk rating, instead of adding numbers and letters together.

Is there a way of determining how much resonance I have? How about somebody else? Will this allow for "power level" detection?

I think only Jedi can determine a character's Resonance count.

(On the matter of the cloak, looking back at it after seeing this, I'd expect some people to try getting out of the operate activation action when the hood is already up for the stealth bonus.)

Which is a good argument for not specifying that you need to "raise the hood" in order to activate any of its properties, just indicate that it takes an action (unspecified) to make it do the things it does. (ie, you can use one action to grant a bonus to Stealth checks. You can also use an action to grant yourself invisibility.)

Doodpants wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So if wands are "multi-use consumables" is there a wand-analogue for trinkets? i.e. scrolls : wands :: trinkets : ????

[trinket]-on-the-cob.

Tchotchke - Random little trinket you can't seem to get rid of.

Haha! This totally reminded me of Office Space. Maybe we can change the name of Trinkets to 'Flair'?

"Valeros, we need to talk about your flair."

"But Ezren, I'm wearing the 15 piece minimum."

"That's okay, if you just want to do the minimum. Look at Alain, though, he's wearing 37 pieces."

Cthulhudrew wrote:

Just saying what kind of action it requires should be sufficient, IMO, and leave the creative license to players and DMs to figure out.

I presume so that it can be actually identified in-game through checks and such. That way before the enemy wizard hits you with a fireball from a staff, you can identify it and go "oh, that's a staff of fireballs". Theoretically, you could prevent some activations if you identify it and go "flip the hood off", forcing an enemy to use another action to put it on again.

If that is the reasoning behind it, then I would think there would be consistency with all magic items at that level of detail. As things stand currently with the magic items in this blog, the only one that details specific, descriptive actions needed to activate the item is the Cloak of Elvenkind. The other items just indicate that they need to be activated.

Narrative prose can be useful and interesting in the right context, but I think that for a lot of things in the game (such as magic items and equipment) less is more.

Oh, wow. That picture is so awesome! I am going to have to go look for more of Setiawan Lie's artwork now. That is just frighteningly beautiful!

The activations seem needlessly specific (hood raising etc).

I agree with this. Including descriptions of items for the benefit of ease is one thing (personally, I don't see why all staves of healing would look identical, but it is narrative shorthand).

Going into exhaustive detail about exactly how to "activate" something seems excessive. (Why can't I wrap the cloak around me? Trace some runes on the hem with my finger? Rub the cloth against my forehead?) Just saying what kind of action it requires should be sufficient, IMO, and leave the creative license to players and DMs to figure out.

One quibble, Sea Legs would be a better name for the mechanic covered under Pirate Dedication. The original term refers to getting used to the rolling of the deck.

I see your quibble and find I am in full agreement with it. The term has been pirated out of context here.

Krune looks rather dapper, there. I wouldn't have thought the Runelord of Sloth would put that much effort into his appearance. :D

One other thing that stands out to me about this preview is that it suggests that some of the hybrid classes of 1E (notably arcanist, bloodrager, and brawler) might be being somewhat "combined" with base classes in 2E if only by way of different class ability/feat choices taken, and thus might not eventually get their own standalone classes.

They’re the same Runelords. There wasn’t “Runelords of Virtue” and “Runelords of Sin”. Just Runelords.

That's what they want you to believe.

(This message brought to you by the Eighth Sin, Public Relations.)

My house rule is going to be that "thievery" is the name of the skill, but one can only ever refer to it by polite euphemisms.

Just FYI, "Dancing" has already been co-opted for proprieters of halls of ill-repute. :p