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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32. RPG Superstar 9 Season Dedicated Voter. Organized Play Member. 350 posts (670 including aliases). 1 review. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character. 2 aliases.


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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Good luck and enjoy the retirement. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

John Mangrum wrote:
Question for Curtisin about the megalonyxa: As a PC species, how you would you tag them for age of maturity and maximum age?

My apologies as it never flagged the question. I'd probably set them around the set age as dwarves. They're slow to grow into full maturity, but they survive for a long time once they get there.

So something like this:
Age of Maturity 40 years
Maximum Age 250+2d% years

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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I'm quite frankly thrilled to announce the launch of my Starfinder adventure on StarfinderInfinite.
Into the Void is a special starter adventure, where the heroes start out as blank slates and build themselves up as the adventure progresses.
By the time they finish, they'll have created their characters, and the adventure will lead them into the Dead Suns Adventure Path (or wherever else the GM wishes to take them.)
It can be found here: Into the Void

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Yeah don't worry. I'm sure a lot of us are waiting. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

And 2 submissions sent that I finally found time for today. Hopefully they're good enough to make it, though I'll readily admit that they're on a much shorter notice than I'd have liked, due to being busy.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Well, I know I wrote this one, for release:
Aasimar & Tiefling Ancestries

And I also know that I'm working on the next one of those at the moment. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Steven "Troll" O'Neal wrote:
AnimatedPaper wrote:

No claws.

They're a high grav-world race, large, but with reach and automatic heavy weapon proficiency. Not really a lot to them; they don't appear to be in the adventure itself, so they're just...there. They look kind of like a Quokka with a gun.

Neat. I was thinking it'd be similar to the giant ground sloth of a very similar name.

Funnily enough, that was in fact the original inspiration for them. :) (Source: I'm the author of that one, and a few of the others. :P - looking forward to seeing what they look like now, compared to what was turned over. :) )

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Blake's Tiger wrote:
Quote:
. . . Wayfinder contributor
For the life of me, I cannot find out how to subscribe to Wayfinder let alone contribute. My Google-fu has been failing me for a year.

In order: There's no subscription for Wayfinder. It's all free. They release a single book once per year, at PaizoCon (or May this year, since no PaizoCon :() - you can download them all for free on this very website.

They also do Open Calls, once per year - these run for several months each time and have the last 2 times been for Starfinder. They announce these in the Third Party Products section of the forums here, but you can also simply keep up to date by following them on Facebook, where they put it up. You can find that here: WAYFINDER FACEBOOK

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Interested in a new setting? Then it's time to check out Destiny Aurora!
Sort of a mixture of Star Trek and Guardians of the Galaxy, the space opera style setting takes place in a huge galaxy, controlled by two major factions who're more or less engaged in a cold war with each other, while a third faction takes work with the highest payer at any time.

Funded in less than 24 hours, and well above its goal at this point, with 13 days to go, it's unlocked its 3rd stretch goal, but it needs your help to get even bigger! Also of note, is that sheer amount of addons available, and already produces - everything from a plushy to miniatures for both starship combat AND ground combat!

Check it out here: Destiny Aurora !

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Curtisin wrote:
Right. First submission sent. Now to write at least one more. :)

And a second one sent.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Right. First submission sent. Now to write at least one more. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And now it's time to reveal the 4 adventure pitches. We're excited to see what you think of the contestants' work, but remember: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE (Winner)! - Choose your favorite and cast your vote. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And now it's time to reveal the 4 adventure pitches. We're excited to see what you think of the contestants' work, but remember: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE (Winner)! - Choose your favorite and cast your vote. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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All 4 entries have been received for Designfinder, and the judges are now in session. On the 24th we'll be revealing the entries, along with the judges' comments, and voting will begin. Stay tuned. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

CrystalSeas wrote:
Link

Much appreciated! It all got posted in a bit of a hurry, so something must have slipped. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And the votes are now in. Your Final 4 of the Designfinder Contest are now about to start writing their adventure pitches, and the winner will get to complete their adventure, and have it released. It is up to YOU, the voters, to ensure that the most interesting adventure gets to release. :)

For now, you can see the final 4 contestants and their entries on the Open Gaming Network

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And the votes are now in. Your Final 4 of the Designfinder Contest are now about to start writing their adventure pitches, and the winner will get to complete their adventure, and have it released. It is up to YOU, the voters, to ensure that the most interesting adventure gets to release. :)

For now, you can see the final 4 contestants and their entries on the Open Gaming Network

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And Round 3 for Designfinder is now over. The judges have their comments in, and everything is ready for you to see! Voting is coming live a little later today (who knew webmasters needed sleep???), but it'll be ready for you later.

In the meantime please enjoy this round of VILLAINS!

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And Round 3 for Designfinder is now over. The judges have their comments in, and everything is ready for you to see! Voting is coming live a little later today (who knew webmasters needed sleep???), but it'll be ready for you later.

In the meantime please enjoy this round of VILLAINS!

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Less than 30 minutes to get your submission in if you're in Round 3 of the Designfinder contest!

(Oh, and to RayOfLight: THAT was the entire hope of the DesignFinder Contest. Just like Jacob, RPGSuperstar is what got me started!)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And the results are now in for Round 2 of the Designfinder 2018 Contest!

Please head on over to see if your favorite won, and feel free to discuss them on our forums (links to all are in the comments).

Also, we're now opening up for the Round 2 discussion threads and the Critique My Item threads for those who have an interesting in talking about what's happened, and what can be done in the future. :)

A hearty well done to all those who made it this far, and a good luck to those who now move on to round 3!

RESULTS

Critique My Item

Round 2 Discussion

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

1 person marked this as a favorite.

And the results are now in for Round 2 of the Designfinder 2018 Contest!

Please head on over to see if your favorite won, and feel free to discuss them on our forums (links to all are in the comments).

Also, we're now opening up for the Round 2 discussion threads and the Critique My Item threads for those who have an interesting in talking about what's happened, and what can be done in the future. :)

A hearty well done to all those who made it this far, and a good luck to those who now move on to round 3!

RESULTS

Critique My Item

Round 2 Discussion

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

That sounds like a solid idea. :)

Most publishers have a "Contact us" option somewhere on their website, so have a look. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Depends on the type of project. If you don't want to go into publishing it yourself, then look for a Publisher that matches what you do.
If you have a fantasy horror idea for a class book, don't go to someone focusing on Sci-Fi Comedy. Basically, you'll have a better chance of getting accepted if you try with something they already work on (and have success with).
Secondly, do NOT send them the full thing, at least not to begin with. They are unlikely to read the whole thing to start with, and just like Paizo, they do not want to run into any issue with rights for the contents.
Ask them politely first if they could be interested, and send them a short pitch for what it is (500 words or less), and see what they say. If they're interested, they'll let you know from there. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

And for anyone following along at home, Round 2 Voting is now ready. Each of our contestants has put in their (hopefully :P ) best efforts, and it's now ready for you to see it too!

Please go HERE! and you'll be able to cast YOUR vote on your favorite location. Voting closes on the 2nd of July, and we reveal the 8 participants who go on to round 3 on the 3rd!

Good luck everyone! :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

And for anyone following along at home, Round 2 Voting is now ready. Each of our contestants has put in their (hopefully :P ) best efforts, and it's now ready for you to see it too!

Please go HERE! and you'll be able to cast YOUR vote on your favorite location. Voting closes on the 2nd of July, and we reveal the 8 participants who go on to round 3 on the 3rd!

Good luck everyone! :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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You can vote and yes, we expect you to vote for your own, and then 7 interesting ones.

As long as you do NOT comment on your own entry (except perhaps to do a polite thank you). Engaging in defense or anything similar of your entry might cause you to be DQ'ed.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Yeah, you're only seeing the prep work. I'm not activating the links until later today. :-P

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Round 2 is now over for the contestants in the Designfinder Contest, and the judges have retired to the 9th layer to deliberate!

The 15 entries (we had an unfortunate DQ) will be revealed, along with the judges comments, comments on the 26th, after which you'll be able to vote on your favorites to go through to round 3! - Once revealed, please feel free to comment and discuss the various entries, UNLESS you're one of the contestants. In that case, you should refrain as it could get you disqualified.

And may I say that some of the entries we've received were really good, and were places I'd want to explore with my own gaming group.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Round 2 is now over for the contestants in the Designfinder Contest, and the judges have retired to the 9th layer to deliberate!

The 15 entries (we had an unfortunate DQ) will be revealed, along with the judges comments, comments on the 26th, after which you'll be able to vote on your favorites to go through to round 3! - Once revealed, please feel free to comment and discuss the various entries, UNLESS you're one of the contestants. In that case, you should refrain as it could get you disqualified.

And may I say that some of the entries we've received were really good, and were places I'd want to explore with my own gaming group.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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That's an oversight on our part.

A map has been emailed in PDF to all competitors, and there's now 2 versions of the map up on the site itself, one in JPG, and another in PDF.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And now, the moment you have all been waiting for.

And slightly early too!

The reveal of the DesignFinder 2018 Top 16!

Well done to all those who entered, and congratulations to all the competitors who made it through to round 2!

The link can be found in the first comment, and each individual item can be discussed on the Open Gaming Network forums (Clicking on the item's name will take you there, though you will have to sign up to comment!)

See you for round 2!

It'll be up on the navigation bar too, as soon as our webmaster wakes up. :P

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

What sort of geeky statistics would you like to see? :-)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Don't worry.

No one was disqualified for forgetting their name and location. IF people put it into the item itself, then it would be DQed.
You will however, need to identify yourself, should you go on to Round 2, but then I will be in touch. :-)

At this moment in time, all submissions are anonymous to the judges, and I am the only one that can tie each item back to the original submitter.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And with that, we've reached the end of the Open Call of the Designfinder Contest 2018. For those interested, we received more than 150 submissions, which, given the short amount of time allowed by the contest (and the fact that we didn't announce it ahead of time), is really impressive!

Thank you to everyone who entered, and hopefully, you'll all follow along to see the winners. :)

I know that some of the veterans from the RPGSuperstar will be asking this question though: "Critique my Item, will it be back?" - and the answer is - that's up to the competitors. I hope that people will take the opportunity to share their creations and get feedback on their items where possible, but we do ask that people wait a few days after the reveal of the winners, so that they can get their time in the bright lights. :)

See you soon. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

There is now less than 24 hours left of the Open Call! If you're still on the fence, it's time to get your item submitted!

Good luck! :D

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Hi Toni,

We don't answer the emails unless people proceed to the next round.
If you PM me the name of your item though, I can confirm if it was received for you. :-)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32 , Dedicated Voter Season 9 aka Curtisin

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For anyone still keeping an eye on this particular thread, and hoping for RPGSSuperstar, you should check out the Designfinder Contest 2018! It can be found here Designfinder Contest

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

There will be a forum going live on the site soon, so people can discuss the following rounds. And good luck - and since I know you were part of the Blazing 9, if you have any contact with any of them, tell them to join up too. :-)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

So this time it's weapons that are up for a look, and hoo boy, do I like what I see here. Weapons retain the Simple, Martial and Exotic ranges (though what these actually mean does change a little for exotic) and it seems as if the higher up the weapon, the more capable it'll be, both in terms of damage and abilities with the weapon.

Weapons will now also come with traits, and where in PF1, it was often simply a matter of choosing the weapon that caused the most damage (perhaps with a slight eye towards the actual damage type of the weapon), here, each weapon will have it's own niche to fill.
The Examples given are greatsword (large dice and P/S damage types), a bo staff (d8 damage), reach, trip and parry (making it a defensive weapon, that monks can use as a monk weapon) and finally the glaive, which has reach and does d8 points of damage, just like the bo staff, but comes with deadly d8s (causing extra damage on crits) and forceful, giving extra damage on attacks after the 1st one, each round. - A few others are mentioned, but in general, it certainly looks like each weapon will have it's very own niche to fill, as indicated by the traits it has.

Critical specializations also give each weapon (group) something unique to offer on a critical hit with that weapon. While the spear one isn't really drilled out mechanically it sounds quite nice, but I have to admit that the axe one almost made me salivate. As someone else has already talked about, I wonder if the Cleave feat still exists and applies or if that has been replaced by the sweep weapon trait. Regardless though, I cannot wait to play around with axes once more on my dwarven characters, and basically pull a "Gimli" and start counting (it still only counts as 1!).

Finally, there's weapon quality, which was hinted at in a previous blog. Poor, standard, Expert, master and Legendary quality. Each level above standard grants a +1 to hit (supposedly replacing the current masterwork and magical enhancement bonuses to hit), but I'm guessing that poor grants a -1 to hit.
This is a really flavorful addition, which doesn't change much mechanically, but suddenly it becomes important to note the quality of your opponent's weapon, and the loot you're picking up. No one needs a poor sword after all, but that legendary one, even if it is not magical, would surely be worth something. And a villain wielding it is not someone you want to ignore.

Let's hear your thoughts. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Time to have a look at the various Deities and some of the domains and the choice taken was Shelyn, one of the classic Golarion deities.

As expected we get the alignment of the deity, and nothing appears to have changed there, though there's no mention of worshipper alignment, the clergy is mentioned (and doesn't appear to have changed from how it's been done in PF1), though there is a mention of both the type of channelled energy (semi-implying that some deities might have different ones than before where it was always based on alignment, though I'm guessing that it'll mostly follow the alignment divide regardless).

The Edicts are next, and together with the Anathemas, they dictate the tenets and tendencies of the faith. They're more ironclad for actual clergy, though it is mentioned that lay worshippers will try to stick to them too (or at least feel bad if they break one of the church anathemas).

Favored weapon is as expected, but a little below is a mention of the signature skill of the deity, as well as the domains (which have changed from before), and finally some spells. It no longer appears that the deity's spells are tied to the domain, as they can be used as much or as little as the cleric wants. (Unfortunately, it's not clear if that's in a similar manner to the cantrips or orisons of old, but I suspect they will be).

The Domains themselves have changed as well. There are no elemental domains for example, and the list is much shorter than before, though it is mentioned and more domains should be very easy to add, due to their make-up.

Finally, we have the domain powers which range from "that's OK" (Enhance Victuals) to "WOW!" for Artistic Flourish, which allows you to upgrade an item all the way up to legendary levels, though it is expensive. Being able to boost items such as weapons and armor in this way though is really nice, even if the effect only lasts 24 hours.

Basically, I'm liking what I'm seeing, though there isn't quite as much information to mine out of this blog entry, at least in my opinion.

What are your thoughts?

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

It's time to talk clerics, and it seems something was revealed that I had either missed before or which hadn't been mentioned. That characters get an ability bonus to their key ability score, in this case, Wisdom. It makes perfect sense for someone who's been working most of their lives towards a single purpose that they get this bonus, so I'm all for it, although I do wonder how it'll affect multi-classing.

So you get the expected abilities like domain, channel energy, and divine spellcasting, but a few things have changed. Like before, you get your deity's favored weapon and you get access to domains, though you only get one of them. With the domain you do get special domain powers, spell that are cast with spell points, and which are better than cantrips, though not as strong as your "best spells". - Looking forward to seeing how that'll scale, but I'm guessing we'll know more in the next blog.

The one thing that caught me though was the concept of anathema, which is something I've missed quite a bit in other games. A consequence for violating the tenets of your deity. It's left a lot to player and GM discretion, but it does make sense to include something like this within the game.

There are no real surprises within the spellcasting section, it's pretty much as expected from what was revealed earlier, though it seems that Wisdom (and presumably the other casting ability scores) no longer affect your bonus spells, which should streamline things a bit.

Finally, there are the new cleric feats, such as Communal Healing meaning that you get regain hit points when you cast heal on someone else (quite handy so that you don't have to heal yourself too, at least separately). Also worth thinking about it Turn Undead, which finally makes a semi-return during critically failed saves, instead of being a replacement for damage! That allows it to be much more utilitarian than the current version.
You also get the opportunity to get more domain powers using the feats or allowing your channeled energy to remove certain conditions instead of simply dealing damage.

Some of the new metamagic feats are quite cool as well, I especially like the Reach Spell version, so that you can extend the range of spells by 30 feet. While 30 feet might not seem much on longer-ranged spells, it also affects the touch spells and THAT can be very important, allowing you to use touch spells from a safe distance.

But what do you think about this preview?

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

And today we see some more details on Alchemy, so let's see what we can find.

First, it seems as if magic and alchemy are being completely pulled apart, and from looking at the previews we can see that the alchemical items no longer seem tied to spellcasting slots, so it's not a matter of using a spell in a different manner.
So what do we have?
Well, I'm not going to deep-dive each item, that's not what the purpose of this post is, but we can see that each item does come with a set of descriptors, something called "Item X" (1,2, and 4 are presented here - not sure yet what that means, so I'll refrain from theorizing on that one), but I did notice a little interesting change here. It's clear that some lessons have been learned from Starfinder, and one of the things I liked about that system was the simplification of encumbrance, and I see that Bulk has made its entrance here. It's certainly an easier system for figuring out how much your character can lug around as opposed to just weight.

Each item also includes a method of use, which seems to be a simplified way of letting people know how many of the old slots are used for it (such as held, 2 hands - so presumably no use of two-handed weapons for you) and some of them include an Activation "cost" as well, i.e. how many actions it takes to use.

It also looks like poison has taken a look at the condition stages for afflictions, poisons, and diseases of Starfinder - so that it now has stages of what's going on, instead of simply inflicting ability damage. It's an interesting change as well because while the ability damage did the job, it was kind of boring to see "Oh, I now have -5 on my Constitution), it's much more interesting seeing stuff like the debilitating effects of the poison as it feels more narratively effective. It'll be interesting to see how it'll interact with restorative magic and the Heal skill.

Each alchemical item also comes with a cost. Now it doesn't say whether that's a price to buy it, or the cost to craft it, but I'm going to guess that it's the latter, since selling Sleep Poison for 5 gp is really cheap, especially if the alchemist (as hinted in the text) has to obtain it from the Drow.

Finally, there's the mention of Resonance Points. Now 2 of the alchemical items specifically state that they require no Resonance points, but by way of deducting that must mean that they normally do. The question then simply becomes "Is it the alchemist paying the resonance cost on creation of the item, or the final user of the item who pays?" as there are almost bound to be situations where those are not the same person.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on today's blog?

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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So this week we look at spells. The first change is one that's already been mentioned before, which is that spells now take 1 to 3 actions to cast, i.e. verbal, somatic and material casting actions, which is an interesting change. It means that, given the right combination, it should be possible to cast multiple spells in a single round. It also seems, from some of the previews that some spells will have options that allow you to use several of the casting actions, to make the spell more powerful. I'm quite keen on this change as it allows an added degree of flexibility with many spells.

The next change is heightened spells, the ability to cast spells at a higher level, apparently without using a feat for it, and with it having an additional effect. The most obvious is of course heal, which is now one single spell, but which can be heightened and allows you to use that single spells as the healing spell for each level (though arguably the previewed regenerate spell is more powerful once you get access to it, provided your group has a chance to do some downtime). - being able to combine that with the use of MORE actions to really make that heal spell pop is just a godsend (no pun intended). But yeah an AOE Heightened heal spell sounds really good to me.

Cantrips are also changed, to now automatically be of your highest level spell, though you can still use them at will. That means that not only do you not run out of spells and options, but the options you have are far more of a viable fall-back option than the ones that are currently available in Pathfinder 1. I have to admit that I really like this particular change, though it could potentially unbalance the magic users, but on its own, I'm very much on board. It also makes perfect sense for an archmage to have more powerful cantrips than a mere apprentice.

Spell Points I'm on the fence about however. While the idea of swapping domain, bloodline and other powers over for something more broadly usable is a good one, I think we need to see some examples of this before we can pass judgment about whether it's a good thing or not. As a general rule, I'm against having pools of points of any sort. Not because they're a bad design, but because they're an added thing for a player to manage when gaming and accounting can really bog down gameplay.

10th level spells: Now this'll be interesting, and it makes sense to move wish and miracle to this level due to the sheer flexibility of them, and the sheer wonder of what it SHOULD be possible to do with them. (See your nearest copy of Aladdin for details :P ). The other spells that are mentioned, we, of course, have no details on, but I'm guessing that the critical failure that's mentioned in today's blog is for fabricated truth and that it pertains to this line "The target believes the fact for an unlimited duration.".

Rituals: Give me those magic summoning circles. The idea of planar binding and other spells of that nature going wrong is so central to a lot of fantasy and horror stories, that it's hard to understand why it's not built into the system already. That said, other systems, like Dungeon Crawl Classics, have dived into the deep end of this particular pool, with some very interesting results. I like this addition a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Game Masters can come up with, for wicked ideas, when that evil wizard completes his ritual and summons some beast from the dark netherworld.

Three final notes to make: The saving throw is now no longer specified in the short "blurb" text, but it's contained within the description of the spell, and there are now apparently more descriptors of the spells (just from the ones we've seen today, we have Death, Healing, Necromancy, Negative and Positive - at a guess I'd say that Necromancy appears to be remaining a schoold with the others being descriptors, but could it be that Necromancy (and the other old schools) will now be descriptors instead? We shall see).

My final note might be a bit of a stretch, but one thing I definitely noticed is that there's no mention of SPELL RESISTANCE. Could it be gone? If it's still there, I suspect there may have been some changes to it.

What are your thoughts on this?

Until next time,

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

So yesterday we had a look at the halfling and gnome ancestry (am I the only one slightly bothered by those two not being presented in alphabetical order? ;-) )

Before all of this, I should preface this with SMALL CHARACTERS NOW DO THE SAME DAMAGE AS MEDIUM SIZED ONES. - Thank you, I can now finally make my Gnome Barbarian.

This does give us a look into them, as they're both Small with speed 20 (so slower than the Goblins), but with 8 Hit Points, so more than either the Goblins or the Elves, but slightly less than the Dwarves at 10. That was about as expected. It does seem like speed is now tied to Size, at least somewhat, but we need a Medium-sized character that's not known for its speed (or lack thereof) to compare. So humans, half-elves, or half-orcs should reveal that.
We also get their ability bonuses (about as expected), and it's now confirmed that everyone gets 2 set boosts and 1 customizable one. However, something that caught my eye was THIS mention "At 1st level, your ability scores all start at 10." - They mention that you can still roll, but it seems as if the "10 in stat" will now be standard - I have to admit that simply having stats as a 10 will NOT be the standard, as opposed to rolling or point buy, as I think that would homogenize the characters a bit too much, even with the ability score boosts. But it'll depend on how it's handled, so we'll see how it works.

The ancestry feats for the halfling seems to reinforce the "David vs Goliath" style gameplay, being able to take down bigger opponents, with things like Titan Slinger granting you extra damage, and of course being particularly stealthy. The one feat that I think sticks out is Lucky Halfling, as the ability to reroll a failed (or critically failed) skill check or saving throw could be a potential lifesaver.

For the gnome the ancestry feats can reinforce their ties with the Fey world (granting more spell-like abilities), their ties with nature for talking to animals and the Discerning Smell, allowing the gnome to appreciate smells of food and drink, as well as unwashed half-orcs. Discerning Smell seems a bit nebulous as it, so I'm hoping there'll be some other mechanical benefit, apart from something like +2 to tracking when using the sense of smell. I feel that feats should present interesting options, not simply flat bonuses.

On a final note, I have to mention the artwork presented here. And that's because I'm very 50/50 on this one. The previous ones I've liked, but this time around I have to say that the Halfling really doesn't do it for me. I don't know what it is, but he looks more like a surly shaved dwarf than any image that I have of a halfling in my head (and I never really liked the hobbits as halflings - so the bare feet are not really my thing).
However, as negative as I am on the halfling, credit must be given for the gnome, as I absolutely ADORE the way she's presented. In spite of being rather heavily armed with the bow and hammer, she still seems to maintain some of the innate curiosity of the gnomes, with the wide eyes, and that crazy hat.

What do you think of the reveals here?

Until next time.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

Ah, bugger. I must have missed that. Just had my hopes up. :(

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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And now we've seen the Alchemist being released, and there are a number of interesting reveals here.

First of all is the revelation that anyone can now learn to create alchemical items like the Alchemist can, by taking the Alchemical Crafter feat, although the Alchemist will still be better at it, as he gets more formulas. Nonetheless, it provides a level of flexibility for other characters.

The bombs also start as being actual alchemical items (a change that I really enjoy the look of), so that instead of "random bomb X", the Alchemist will now be throwing recognizable equipment like alchemist's fire and thunderstones. (Should be interesting to see a damaging tangleweb bag too. Well, one can hope). - Of course, the alchemist's versions will do more damage, but it is a neat little change that makes the items far more useful and recognizable.

Of course, the Alchemist still retains their mutagens, making them more capable in various ways, though the details of the mutagens are still unknown. Presumably, they'll remain pretty close to the current ones.

The Alchemist feats allow the bombs and alchemical items to become more powerful, higher DCs, more accurate, and do more damage. Pretty much what is expected, but Debilitating Bomb looks particularly interesting as it lets you apply different conditions to the target of a bomb. I could easily see someone making an alchemist's fire bomb that also caused the primary target to be sickened or something similar. It would make for some great storytelling, with the target retching as he burns alive. (Gruesome yes, but interesting).

Finally, the mutagen feats allow the Alchemist to warp their mutagens in various ways, like gaining natural weapons, bonuses to Intimidate check or even making him stealthier.

All interesting stuff, but I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the mutagens PRIMARY effects, but hopefully that'll come eventually. That, and I hope it gets possible to make a PROPER Jekyll/Hyde style character, but it looks like the Mutagen feats should make that possible.

See you next time,

Edit: I forgot to mention one thing. They teased the Oracle here. Could that be joining the Core classes as well? THAT would be an interesting choice, and one I'd be happy to see.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

So, with the first ancestry/race turning out to be the Goblins, we're now returning to the classic Dwarves and Elves.
They are honestly, pretty much as you'd expect. Bonus to Constitution and Wisdom and penalty to Charisma for Dwarves (like it is currently) and bonus to Dexterity and Intelligence with a penalty to Constitution for the Elves. Again, as it is currently.
The big reveal here is that it seems as if the flexible ability bonus, where you can assign a bonus to a stat of your own choosing, seems to be universal, allowing for some interesting character choices, with more ancestries being a competitive choice for the various classes. (How often do you see a Dwarven Wizard, after all, the stats are there, but the flavor seems off. Now you can at least get a bonus to the Intelligence stat).

Another thing to note is the hit points based on your ancestry/race - for Dwarves it is 10, Elves get 6 (The goblins from last week got 6 as well), so there's certainly some difference in survivability depending on your race (though admittedly 4 HP is only truly significant at the low levels). It does reinforce the idea that certain characters will be more or less hardy though, which I like (and liked from Starfinder too for that matter).

Speed allows (again comparing to the Goblins) to see what to expect from other classes as well. Dwarves are slow at 20' - Elves are fast at 30'. The Goblins then would likely be the new average at 25, so at a guess, that is where we will find humans now too. (Since they used to share a speed of 30).

Again we have the ancestral feats, allowing each race to use the weapons thematic to them (I'm very curious about the clan dagger mentioned in the dwarven one, that could be interesting. Is that a potential "heirloom" style weapon?), and it appears that the Hardy Racial ability of before is now an ancestral feat as well, rather than something that comes automatically. Similarly, the Ancestral Longevity allows an elf the use of a skill provided they bring it to the forefront that morning. That'll allow for some very flexible characters and give designers greater latitude in the skill usages, as any given party is now quite likely to be able to access a particular skill if given 24 hours. (I'd hazard a guess that most adventuring parties contain an elf at this point in any case).

We also get some suggestions for backgrounds, and I'm left wondering if they'll have a mechanical effect as well, or if they're just for flavor. Regardless, it is a nice touch.

And next time, it appears we'll be looking at the alchemist. See you then.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Right, so there's been a lot of back and forth about why or why not goblins should be included in the Core Rulebook. I'll openly state that I'm for it, since I think it's a pretty cool dynamic that it brings to it, and if people can accept Half-Orcs (after all, the descendants of Orcs, even if they're half human), in the long run, I think Goblins could be accepted as well, ONCE THEY PROVE THEMSELVES to their communities. That said, we have no idea how far into the future PF2 is set, or if there have been any earth-shattering events causing a large number of Goblins to turn from their old ways.
That said, the Core Rulebook is for ALL settings, not just Golarion, and there are a number of settings out there where Goblins would be common enough that they could easily feature as a normal race (Dragonlance springs to mind, as Goblins are some of the first creatures that the heroes meet. I could see one of them turning up like a gully dwarf, especially with the help of Tasslehoff Burrfoot). Anyways, the key to remember is rule #1 - What the GM says GOES. That means that if you, as a GM, are not comfortable with having Goblins in your game, simply say that they're out of bounds. Plenty of GMs do this already with classes, third-party products, certain races and even alignments.
This really should be no different.

With that out of the way, let's dive into the actual statistics.
First I think it's interesting that the Goblins got a boost to Charisma (Dex bonus and Wisdom penalty both make perfect sense), and I'm wondering if this represents their ability to grovel their way into people's good books? It'd make for very understandable reasoning for why a villain would take on a Goblin henchman.
The other thing that stands out is their speed at 25 feet. THAT used to be 30 feet (fast for their size), and normal Small size characters used to be 20. - Interesting little change, I wonder what prompted it. (Same goes for the removal of the strength penalty, but I think that's to make the Goblins more viable as fighters).

Finally, the race feats are all interesting and feel like something that a Goblin could have as a racial trend, like their racial love/fascination/unhealthy obsession with fire, for instance, being represented in "Burn it" or their junkyard tendencies with "Junk Tinkerer". As an aside, I expect to see dogslicers and horsechoppers make an appearance in the equipment section if this is to have it's maximum potential or impact.

Anyways, those are my thoughts. See you on Friday for the next round. :)

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

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Planpanther wrote:

Hey, cant you see we are trying to talk about Gobos here!?

J/K I like the idea of degrees of success. Though I think the implementation will need some hardy playtesting. I dont want/need every roll to be a degree of success. Sometimes you are just trying to do something that isn't going to require that level of detail. I am also not terribly fond of save but fail or miss but hit type of conditions. Though on occasion they can allow for some great story narration.

Don't worry. I'm about to post about Gobbos too. :P

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