This... is what I expected. I'm gonna finish up my Abomination Vaults campaign, then find a new system. Just the last straw for me. Have fun, everyone.
I don't know what the access on it would be like in PFS (I don't play it), but I've considered the Soulforger archetype for a magical girl character of my own. It shows as 'limited' under access on AoN, so presumably it's somewhat available.
Also, for those who don't have the funds to commission artwork for a product, there are lots of extremely good artists who put up stock art on sites like DriveThruRPG for relatively reasonable amounts. Earlier today I was looking at an artist, Dean Spencer, who has an enormous amount of amazing stock artwork for relatively reasonable prices. There are options.
As a GM, I'd probably take the Wolf animal companion as a baseline for the ancestry, giving 6 hp, low-light vision, scent 30 feet (imprecise), and a 1d8 bite, with the rather significant disadvantage of being a dog. I'd reduce the speed because that seems a bit much, dropping it to 30 feet (but add a speed heritage or feat). Then I'd mix and match various ancestry feats from other ancestries like gnoll, shoony, and catfolk to build a set of ancestry feats for it, adding in the support benefits from the Wolf as options that were slightly modified to fit. I'd just use the two free boosts like current errata for attributes, but if I had to do two boosts and a flaw, I'd vary it based on breed, with +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Int being the baseline from the Wolf (assuming one physical and one mental boost). With that, I'd probably build the character depending on the style I wanted, since I could see it as a bunch of options, whether rogue, ranger, or monk. *drops his two copper in the bowl*
Personally, Starfinder isn't for me. It's just... not what I wanted when I heard about Starfinder. I wanted something more like DragonStar, where it was full spellcasting (9 levels) with classic fantasy species, plus high tech. It just wasn't what I wanted. As for mythic... Kaiju fights feel like they'd fit. I'd like the greek-themed region for it as well. I also feel like having mythic as a concurrent path is no different than something like Free Archetype.
I'm sorry, but in a thread about what we want from mythic (yes, it says stories, but I consider it more general), saying 'why not just start at higher level' is pretty danged insulting from my point of view.
Personally, if it's not Pathfinder, I'm not going to get Pathfinder adventures that use the content. Even if the PCs didn't get it in Pathfinder 1e, some monsters used the rules in adventures. Not to mention that at this point, my gaming group has scattered to the four winds, and not all of them are willing to learn a new system even if (and it's a very big if) the system is programmed into a VTT. Pathfinder is reliably updated on several VTTs, which makes it a good stand-by. Tertiarily, I really don't enjoy narrative systems like FATE, despite the fact I've tried to enjoy them. They just don't work for me.
I have been making a lot of drow with AI art of late. I just adore the look and feel of them. Oh, hey, I used different profiles in the same thread. Whoops. Ah, well. I'm afraid that I don't have any uploaded where people can easily view them. I use Novel AI and save them to my hard drive (and don't want to clutter my business HD with personal stuff). Let's see if one I uploaded to Discord works, though... Linky. This is for an 'eclipse elf' style, using a solar eclipse background. Anyway, I should specify that 'adore the look and feel' was specifically in regards to drow. Getting the AI to generate art I like is significantly more difficult (and getting it to generate truly black skin is like pulling teeth). Considering all the issues with copyright and other stuff, my primary use for it is as example artwork for artists, for me to help visualize some secondary characters in my books, and to depict characters in VTTs.
I have been making a lot of drow with AI art of late. I just adore the look and feel of them. Making them as cavern elves is just disappointing to me. The elf ancestry feats suck.
I have a custom setting where the gods all died in a massive war, and fragments of their power were bound in their equipment, crystalized blood, and other remnants of them that were scattered across the world and planes. Those who claim them gain a piece of their divine spark, as well as being able to grant spells to followers and such, but if you're killed, others can claim your divinity as well. Mythic is ideal for the stories in that setting, and I haven't found any substitutes to be very satisfying.
I love dark elves. That's at least partially because my introduction to the Forgotten Realms was due to one of the Drizzt books (Sojourn, yes, I found them out of order due to the school library only having the one). At the same time, I'm not as fond of the 'classic' depictions of them being always evil or the like. One of the dark elf characters I want to play are pretty straightforward. It meshes the ancestry with the game Sunless Sea, where I could play a dark elf swashbuckler exploring a vast, underground sea with its horrors aboard a steam ship. The other is from an online RP I was once in, where the protagonist was a mage (she'd probably be an Arcanist in Pathfinder 1e, not sure in 2e). She was the last remaining member of a former ruling family of dark elves who weren't on bad terms with surface elves, but were overthrown. Half her soul was eaten by a daemon, so she ended up summoning a succubus and merging their souls to survive, making her a strange half-succubus hybrid, and for years she made her home in a stalagmite at the bottom of a lake of magma, quietly crafting items and rescuing slaves from the local markets as she could, before finally deciding to leave the underworld. I'd put her as Lawful Neutral, and I'd like to play her sometime. In my own novels dark elves are different, but that's a whole different subject (they're primarily lawful in it). Suffice to say, I really want a drow ancestry. *shuts up*
I mostly want to see them treat elves better than they were treated in PF1e and in Starfinder, and not make them arrogant, xenophobic arses. I'm really bitter about how they were depicted in both. Elves are one of my favorite species, as evidenced by the fact I almost always play them. I want Kyonin to feel like a functional nation, not as a stereotype.
My main concern at this point, since most of the ones I had with the playtest were addressed in the post, is that the damage types of elemental blasts weren't discussed. I really want the option of cold for water or electricity for air. Aside from that, the broad strokes look good to me.
If it's a typo it shoulda been errata'd three years ago. Ah, I mistook this for an advice thread. I'll see myself out.
It seems that the basic armies by level table, which should be on page 63, is missing from the players guide. I thought the same thing, and looked for it several times. I finally found it on page 69. I'm betting it got moved, and the editors didn't catch the error.
One of the things I've considered doing when I run this is adding a few bits and pieces of ruins across the Stolen Lands, remnants of different kingdoms from different times, and having odd, recurring sculptures of Nyrissa without giving too much other information. If it's across multiple kingdoms and huge time frames, it gives them some clues.
There is one elven feat at level 17. It allows the character with it to not count against the total number of targets of teleportation spells that target more than one character, and guarantees that teleport arrives no more than a mile off-target. Compared to catfolk getting three options, such as to use their Cat's Luck reroll once per hour, or getting a DC 17 flat check to ignore death, or a reaction to move after an opponent misses and it doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity. Or several ancestries getting permanent flight. Or gaining a permanent enlarge effect. Just a couple of examples. I don't care about bloat if the feats that are granted to older classes feel worthless in comparison... which for me, they do. Though having seen Squiggit's reply, yes, having looked at Skeleton, they're even worse off (and gnolls get no level 17 feats, which sucks).
I'm pretty frustrated by the lack of new content for older ancestries/classes, and even the core rulebook ancestries aren't necessarily spared from the lack of new content. I was playing an elf in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, and when I hit level 17, I found one feat that was utterly useless to me available. I had to go all the way back to level 5 to find a feat that might be useful, and it never got used in the campaign. I compared it to the automaton and a few other more recent ancestries, and felt like I was getting the short end of the stick.
I've backed the Roll For Combat Year of Monsters bit, and I'm already plotting and scheming characters. Assuming I can tolerate kineticist (I am so, so hopeful... and trying to restrain my hopes because of how they got dashed previously), I'm totally plotting a hydrokineticist slime, wood kineticist nymph, homebrewing a venom-kineticist stheno, and others. ...I'll never get to play them all. >_<
I just hope they don't ruin my favorite PF1 class like they did my second-favorite PF1 class.
They didn't add Kickback to the damage either, which is 2 damage on a crit for the arquebus, and if you're assuming both have an 18 str you can add the Large Bore modification for 120 gp to double it to 4 on a crit. Which gets the bonus damage pretty much identical between it and the longbow. Admittedly, I played through Fists of the Ruby Phoenix with an arquebus sniper, and the damage he dealt was disgusting, especially since he partnered with a fighter using the Sniping Duo archetype.
I'm amused because I've had the idea floating around my head for years of having a magic item develop sapience and hijack the spare clone of a character. Hopefully the intelligent magic item will work for the idea! I'll admit that I'm stoked for about half of the ancestries... the only one I really want that's missing is the ability to play an angel.
Similar to Salamileg, I would love to see a martial commander-style character. It would be nice to see it, as the archetypes I've seen in PF2 so far just don't quite cut it for me. I'd also like to see a heavy armor specialist of sorts in PF2 that's not the Champion, though this could be something as simple as a class archetype for the fighter that swaps legendary weapon proficiency for legendary armor proficiency. *makes a note to look at doing that a little later in the day* Last is something I've wanted since 3.5, and every attempt at it has been a bit too narrowly themed, an arcane knight of sorts. The hexblade and duskblade came close, but they didn't quite fit what I would like. In PF2e, it'd probably be something along the lines of the champion, but with arcane-themed focus spells and abilities rather than divine. Magus doesn't fit what I'm thinking of at all because of its spell slots. I've got some others in mind, but they're more setting specific (my setting, to be precise), so I'm not bothering to mention them.
I've been building an archetype that gives access to magical stances (similar to Wild Winds Stance in that they cost a focus point to enter) and some associated special moves to allow some neat stuff. One example is that I have a group of neutral dark elves in one of my settings that are all about fire dragons, and the stance is all about fire resistance and not suffering from smoke, while the techniques are things like fire breath, a flying meteor charge, and things like that. I decided to make it so all of the abilities can be used outside the stance, but they're more powerful in the stance. All that said, yeah, I'd love to see more stances for other classes as well.
Hate the Free Archetype rule (as in the one where you can choose any archetype feats from it, not the one where you get a specific archetype dependent on the campaign) with a burning passion. Other people like it. To each their own.
Do you have a reason for this strong dislike? I'm not baiting, just genuinely curious as to why so many people dislike them as much as they do. I have to assume it's mostly due to aesthetics (I can't say for sure because it's a gut feeling thing). While full plate and rapiers fit an era where guns existed, they feel like they fit in fairly well with the high fantasy aesthetic. Some series I have read use guns in fantasy settings in ways I don't mind. It fits the world, so I can go along with it without issues. Similarly, some universes use guns and I don't mind those at all. Heck, I write a series of novels that has technology at or superior to Starfinder as well as more powerful magic in it, so it isn't that I dislike genre-mixing. I think the main thing is that when I'm going for a high fantasy fix in a RPG, guns don't fit into my baseline assumption. If someone offers me a chance to play in one where guns are a part of things, I'd consider and decide, but it isn't my first choice. I suppose it might just be that I don't consider it traditional, but I don't know. It's easier for me to add in something that's optional than it is to excise something that's part of the core assumption. Likes and dislikes can be a really messy subject.
I generally don't like guns in fantasy games. There are exceptions (I prefer to play pirate games with guns and cannons, for instance, and I am working on a Victoriana-style adventure which includes repeating rifles and revolvers), but in general I really dislike it without specific buy-in. If firearms were ubiquitous in Pathfinder, I never would have bought the game to begin with. It wouldn't be the game I wanted to play, so I simply... would have discarded it entirely. I suspect that's a good part of why things are separated the way they are in Golarian. Things are generally modular, so you can bring in the aspects you want more easily while excluding things that aren't part of the base assumption. Now, my own attitude toward gunslingers and the like has softened a little, I allowed a gunslinger in my Night of Gray Death campaign that just started, but I generally dislike them in games of the sort. I think that the adventure lends itself to a feel that makes guns feel more acceptable to me, but that could just be internal quibbling. Anyway, yeah. If Paizo ever goes all-in on guns everywhere in-setting, I'll probably stop buying anything set in Golarion.
My personal experience, as a player and as a GM, is that a single higher-level creature is going to be absolutely brutal for the PCs. It will crit hard, be difficult to hit, and be very frustrating in general. While this can be good for major boss encounters, it isn't something I would use lightly, because by their very nature these monsters tend to focus their full potential on one character at a time. What I personally recommend is that when you go for an extreme encounter, that you instead build it out of lower-level creatures. I was a player in a converted Red Hand of Doom campaign, and when the GM put in an at-level or level plus one boss, but with tons of minions (level-2 or even -4) all over the place, it was a blast. Lots of chaos and madness just because there was so much going on. It was a threat, but we could focus down small parts of it and reduce the enemy potential without having enormous strikes ripping us apart. There were a few encounters where we were punching up, but even going against a level+2 in Pathfinder 2e can hurt, a lot. It sounds like a bit of bad luck and the nature of it being an extreme encounter nearly undid your group, which sounds... accurate to the difficulty.
Congratulations on the new job, Mark! I hope that it treats you well, and that things just improve for you in the future. Also, your general willingness to communicate, your general kindness, graciousness, and enthusiasm is admirable. Everything I have seen of you has indicated to me that you're a wonderful person to associate with, and Roll for Combat is lucky to have you.
I absolutely, utterly... well, as Temperans said above, it's a 1/10 for me, and banned in all games I run because I don't want to have anything to do with it. It absolutely fails to deliver on what it's name implies. The Inventor does a better job of fulfilling the class fantasy for me, and after reviewing the Summoner, I absolutely refuse to purchase Secrets of Magic because of it.
I'm in the same boat as breithauptclan. I'm willing to pause things as we're determining the result to let people pore over their sheets to see if they have a way to reverse it. As a GM I'll even remind players of options they may have. All of that being said, once the result has been decided on and we've moved on (generally from the room where it occurred), what's happened, happened. Which isn't to say things haven't been rewound in my games before. In a Kingmaker game I was running, the players had terrible luck, all but one of the characters died, and the last character fell to their death due to a sabotaged handhold while fleeing. Since it was a TPK, I considered, then went with the whole 'it was all a dream', since the players were okay with it. They took it as a prophetic dream from the gods, and decided to explore elsewhere and come back to the location in question later.
We're getting another look at it in the Blood Lords AP, which has me very excited; anything Southern Garund piques my interest. Alas, the fact it's in Blood Lords means I won't be seeing it. But I'm hopeful that I'll hear some about it indirectly. Maybe from a friend who gets the APs still.
Since I vented about things that I didn't like in the other thread, it's only right to praise what I do like here. 1) The Saga Lands - My introduction to Pathfinder was Pathfinder #5, Sins of the Saviors, so Rise of the Runelords had an outsized impact on my view of Golarion. I particularly love Varisia, even if some individual elements feel like they could be handled better. The whole setup of the runelords themselves (and that some of them were at least quasi-redeemed) was enjoyable for me. 2) Taldor - This one gave me mixed feelings for a while, but the whole trope of the 'empire in decline' is vaguely appealing, as is the fact they decided to turn things around near the tail end of PF1. It might not be my favorite thing in the world, but having one of these huge empires that doesn't feel almost nauseatingly self-righteous and also isn't pure evil is nice. 3) The River Kingdoms - I just like having an area in the relatively known world which is perfect for kingdom building. It's the exact opposite of Taldor in a lot of ways, with enormous amounts of freedom. 4) Numeria - This one surprises me, because I don't like sci-fi in my fantasy most of the time. I still don't like the overall presentation of the country in other material, but Iron Gods managed to scratch an itch I almost had forgotten I had. 5) Kyonin - I'll admit it, this one is iffy for me. I don't like the way it was portrayed in 3.5, which has been said was a mistake, so I'm just generally hopeful that eventually Paizo will return to an elven nation that for once isn't in decline. With the whole Whispering Tyrant thing, I'm hopeful that'll happen! It's kinda lucky to be on this list. Honorable Mention: Holomog. We don't have much detail about it, but I really want to see more based on the fragments we have.
One place? That's not nearly enough to include everything I dislike. I tend to just ignore areas I don't like, though, so it took me a bit to think about them. And I should add, sometimes it's really little things that make me lose interest in regions. The Mana Wastes - I like guns in some types of fantasy stories, but not in most games. Add in unreliable magic, and my interest is pretty much negative. May as well lump in Nex and Geb while I'm at it, as neither have any appeal for me. Cheliax - I found them overdone, and a year of Cheliax in PF1 just solidified my dislike of the faction/culture/region entirely. Rahadoum - Due to my own history and cultural history, religious bigots are as acceptable as any other bigot in my opinion. This may as well be a non-existent hole in the setting as far as I'm concerned. Andoran, Thuvia, Druma, Razmiran - Their themes just aren't interesting to me. Meh. Mwangi Expanse - The adventure visiting it in Age of Ashes piqued my interest a bit, since I liked things somewhat, but not enough to buy the book for it. And I have pretty much zero interest in the theme of Strength of Thousands, so that didn't help. Maybe there'll be another adventure that draws my interest, but it may be that the region just isn't for me. There are very, very few regions I actively dislike, despite all of this. Mostly Cheliax and Rahadoum.
Ah, right, another of my gripes that I forgot about earlier. I dislike the Summoner in the strongest possible terms. The entire approach to the class compared to 1e just completely frustrates me. I refuse to buy Secrets of Magic because of it.
and there are people dead set on arguing against Free Archetype being widely accepted. I'm in a game with the rule at the moment, but I've already decided I'll never play in a game with the rule again (hyperbole in this, as I'm talking about being able to choose any archetype you want). Mind you, I don't gripe incessantly about it, but personally I find it incredibly frustrating. I'd say my biggest gripe about the system is that Paizo seems intent on not adding more class feats and is over-using archetypes. And I like the archetype system!
Oh wow, I'd almost forgotten about Cthulhutech. Such a weird setting. I think I still have the rulebook PDFs around somewhere... I do like some aspects of the setting for Anima: Beyond Fantasy, but it was a bit too monolithic for me to really get into. Well, that and the combat system was too hard for my group (or me) to deal with properly. I'd love to convert it into a d20 system sometime... started on that ages ago, but petered out.
I have a love/hate relationship with Eberron and Faerun, while Golarion is... tolerable, but certainly not my favorite. Faerun: This is the first campaign setting I encountered, and really, via R.A. Salvatore, the first fantasy setting I really immersed myself in when I was in middle school (while I read the Tolkien books earlier, they were too dense to appeal in the same way, and I was too young to fully 'get' them). So for me, this is where everything began. It was huge, it had tons of magic, and plenty of neat things to do! Yet the more I played in it, the more things ended up... weird or disappointing to me. It was a bit of a letdown when I found information about Halruaa, and the treatment of the 'new world' was incredibly uncomfortable, as I've got a decent portion of native blood, and look it. I think I like the deities more (in general terms) than in other settings, but what happened during the transition to D&D 4e kind of soured me on it permanently. Eilistraee in particular, but the whole spellplague soured me on things, coupled with some dramatic shifts in lore. I still love it as it was for the most part. Eberron: First, I need to note that I'm going off the 3rd edition (3.5? I don't remember.) D&D version of the setting, not anything more recent. I love the magitech in the setting, the idea of the dragonmarks, and the manifest zones. There is so much rich detail in the setting, and it's incredibly impressive to me. Oh, there's some things I don't like about it. I don't care for the moral ambiguity some people like, or how indistinct the deities are. The warforged and the Last War... eh, I can deal with it, but I'm not fond of it. I like the idea of sentient constructs, but the general same-ness of their appearances and the fact that they're supposed to not be built anymore (yet there are somehow still 1st level warforged around) bugs me. I'm not as fond of the portrayal of the drow in the setting, but they can definitely be neat. So many things to mine in the setting. All that being said, I just... don't really play in either of them anymore. I've run a few APs in Golarion, but it's too much of a kitchen sink for me to really enjoy. Add to that the fact I'm an author with my own settings, and it really screws with things. Which is why I've started dipping my toes into commissioning freelancers to create PF2e material for one of those settings to see if it's something I want to do more with. That's my view on things. Alas, never had much to do with Grayhawk or the older campaign settings, so I don't know much about them. Midnight intrigued me, but more in a 'I can't pull my gaze away from this slow-moving train wreck' sort of way.
To be clear, is that referencing me voicing my thoughts on what I like in Eberron? If so, I apologize--I tried to be clear that I was just trying to express my own feelings on the setting. The warforged and deities are among my favorite parts of the setting. Oh, most definitely not! You weren't going through and countering my post point by point. I was just trying to veer back on-topic, and was considering what posting habits get my dander up the most when in forums. Had someone trying to debate me into submission about how I chose to set up a planet in my novels a couple of weeks back, and it came to mind. Edit: And I want to specify that it's a personal dislike of the entire setup, and a bunch of things not making much sense to me with the warforged. It's great that they work well for other people, but they don't work well for me (the automatons in Guns & Gears run into the same issues in my head, but I like them a little better). Anyway, not going into details, not the thread for it.
My method for dealing with a lot of things without (hopefully) being disagreeable is to try to couch things in terms of how it feels to me, and try not to speak for anyone else. I dislike a lot of the 2e APs, but that doesn't mean they're bad. They're just not for me. I don't care for witches, but that's mostly because they never were that appealing to me. I'll just not discuss summoner, because all that'll happen is that I'll get irate. I try to avoid topics that will make me disagreeable. I've also been making heavy use of the 'hide thread' function to try to keep myself calmer. A block function so that I wouldn't have to see some posters would be nice, but not something I absolutely need. That said, something I think some people should keep in mind. Not everyone likes debates. I am pretty much allergic to debates, and find other people trying to drag me into them to be highly offensive and unwelcome.
I already ended up joining Freelance Forge, but thank you for the suggestion! I've hired someone for the initial project, and we'll see how I feel about things once I've gotten that done. I don't want to bite off more than I can chew, after all!
Huh. I wasn't aware of that origin (and never saw the version mentioned in the article), so this is new to me. I don't mind the change at all... though it's going to take me ages to re-train my brain to use a different term.
Since I just learned that I accidentally used the vendor-side link for the series, here's the correct one. No wonder it worked for me, but not other people: Beesong Chronicles
I support the right of UPW and the workers to unionize, and am glad that Paizo voluntarily recognized them. It's a good start. That said, personally I have had multiple extremely poor interactions with unions, and want nothing to do with them. Unions have done lots of good in the USA. But all of the ones I've personally interacted with have been terrible. I hope this one turns out well. I really, really do.
I wasn't sure where to put this, so my apologies if it's the wrong spot. Where would be the best place to look for freelancers to write some PF2 content for me? Potentially for publication, but I'm not set on that just yet. I'm currently basing my assumptions on paying in the neighborhood of $0.10/word USD, but I'm well aware that I don't know what the standard pay currently is, and based that on some research I did over the past week. If you're curious on why I'm doing this, some background below. I'm a self-published fantasy author. While I've written some for both Pathfinder 1e and 2e, and gotten an adventure and compendium of magical items published for PF1 before, I've come to a realization, writing my books and RPG content draws from the same creative well. Unfortunately, this means that while I have started plenty of RPG content, actually finishing it takes a lot more energy than I can usually focus on it. I make a comfortable living (not amazing, but comfortable) writing my novels, and those have to take priority. Yet at the same time, I'd love to have some of my settings turned into RPG material I could use, and maybe even publish it so my readers and others could use them. Which is why I decided that it could be worth hiring freelancers to write the material for me. In this case, I'm planning to start with an Ancestry from my Beesong Chronicles series called the apis (bee-people, mostly female), and if it works out well to see about expanding from there. The idea of a gazetteer for a small adventuring area, a few rules for the LitRPG setting to give it a bit more of that flavor, and possibly even an adventure are all things I'm considering. I have other material I'd like to have created as well, but... baby steps. I have to start somewhere. So yeah. If you know where I should go to contact freelancers, or are one yourself, I'd love to hear from you! You can PM me if you'd prefer not to post publicly.
Alright then. I want to see an AP which depicts the elves of Kyonin correctly, rather than the way that they were introduced in Second Darkness. I want to see an AP with more elves, I loved seeing the society in Part 2 of Age of Ashes, even if it didn't really fix the depiction issues from back in early Pathfinder. I would love to see a Darklands based AP, especially if it involves the dwarven sky citadels or the like. Abomination Vaults and Age of Ashes whetted my appetite, but there wasn't enough for me to truly work off of. I'd love to see a planar campaign, though I know that one would be hard to manage. This is pretty low on my personal list, though. I would love to see Holomog. It's an area which fascinated me when I heard about it, and I'd love to see it. I love to have my characters travel to new places, and see new wonders. It's why I love playing foreigners in campaigns rather than locals, for that 'experience' of seeing things through new eyes. I also love playing in campaigns where the characters are rising up against a great evil. Rise of the Runelords, Return of the Runelords, Hell's Rebels, Wrath of the Righteous... things where you're fighting against something that's unambiguously evil, and where who/what your character is is less important than the overall goal. I like having my character being the person who happens to be in the right place at the right time. That's what I'd particularly love to see in adventures.
In particular, in Pathfinder 2e so far, only Age of Ashes, Abomination Vaults, Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, and Strength of Thousands pass that basic test.So… all of them except Extinction Curse and Agents of Edgewatch? If 4/6 released products work for you, I’m not sure I understand what the problem is with 2e APs. The discussion drifted to slightly different subjects. Of the APs I'd be willing to run or play in, only Abomination Vaults is on the list of ones I'd run, and I'm barely willing to play in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix. I had to discard the first two characters I wanted to play for Fists of the Ruby Phoenix because they wouldn't fit what the GM wanted for the campaign (or the general theme). Strength of Thousands is pretty much a 'negative interest level' for me due to the magic school aspect, and Age of Ashes spends too much time bouncing around the Inner Sea for my taste.
*writes this line after a bit of typing* I want to state, I do not think my opinions are, or should be universal, they're simply true for me, and I'm writing this as an attempt to explain. Maybe they're stronger for other people, but not for me. Honestly, though, two of your top five don't register as ones that I have issues with. Yes, Iron Gods is tightly themed, but the theme is more on the setting, not the makeup of the characters involved. Kingmaker is a bit more constrained, but not really to me (ironically, that campaign went great for my group... right up until it hit the kingdom building, where it fell apart). It always felt to me that almost any character I could come up with would fit reasonably well into them. Comparatively, Extinction Curse is all about the circus for the initial characters, which constrains a lot more in my mind. Strength of Thousands is very constrained by its basic design. Agents of Edgewatch I discarded because I hate police procedurals to begin with. Age of Ashes... honestly, the setup wasn't too bad, but I didn't care for the 'world tour' aspect. I intend to repurpose some of the individual chapters, though, particularly the second volume (loved the elves of the Expanse, but I'm a sucker for elves). I'm prepping to play in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, so it's looking... alright. At least a tournament is pretty flexible where character concepts are concerned. The Alkenstar AP and Geb one just don't appeal to me at all. I hate undead characters, and am not fond of black powder guns in my fantasy... unless I'm doing pirates or Victoriana/Steampunk, which I'm fully aware doesn't make logical sense (and I hate that fact). Malevolence is an adventure I've been tempted by, though. I've been wary, though, since horror (and cosmic horror) really isn't my thing.
Honestly, I don't really mind that much that I'm not as much of the target audience for the APs of late, just mildly disappointed. Not every AP appeals to everyone (for instance, I despise Cheliax with the fury of a thousand suns, but I really just... ignored things for a year), so it's a matter of waiting until something comes around that I like most of the time. I've just noticed that the gaps between what I like seem longer in Pathfinder 2e. Another aspect is that the tightly-themed APs drive me away, because characters I would want to play don't fit into them easily, unless they match the theme perfectly from the beginning. Like, Strength of Thousands has an interesting setting, but I have absolutely no interest in the 'magic school' aspect of it. Mostly, this is something I've been mulling over for months, trying to figure out, and this thread seemed more reasonable to give my feedback in.
I find the vast majority of PF2 Adventure Paths to be far too... gimmicky? I don't think that's the right term, but it's the one that comes to mind. I prefer APs that allow almost any party to come into it and enjoy the adventure, but most of the 2e APs are too focused on theming the party into very specific tropes. I saw this among many of the 1e APs as well (Skulls & Shackles, Hell's Vengeance, and so on), but there seemed to be less focus in constraining the PCs participating to me. Abomination Vaults is the one that's come the closest to being interesting to me, but literally none of the other APs since the start of 2e (or the announced ones) have interested me that much (though Fist of the Ruby Phoenix is mildly intriguing). Which is fine, because they aren't just for me. I have a friend who commented that he 'must die of happiness' when he saw the Alkenstar AP, and I'm happy he got what he wanted. But... the lack of APs that interest me as a player or GM is driving me away from 2e. Maybe Quest for the Frozen Flame will be better once more is announced, but at present I'm distinctly unimpressed with the 2e APs. Add to that my... extreme, visceral dislike of what was done to Summoner in 2e, and I'm pretty skeptical. Paizo burnt pretty much all of my goodwill since Pathfinder 1e launched in the last year.
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