Cyrad's page

Hooray!

Joshua Birdsong has confirmed that your interpretation is the correct one, Squark! (Starts at about 22:20.)

Runesmiths no longer need a free hand to Trace!

I'm loving this for Runesmith builds, but still completely baffled as to how this works given the stated rules.

I guess we can now also perform Treat Wounds and Battle Medicine without needing a free hand?

let's hope this gets codified. I don't want to waste time at the table having a debate with GM about this

There's a great deal of confusion over whether or not Runesmiths like Palemi need a hand free to trace runes. That's ordinarily required to use artisan's tools, but deleting that requirement from trace rune in the playtest and giving Palemi a glaive has raised questions. A definitive answer would be welcime.

This.

Do runesmiths need a free hand to Trace Runes? If so, do feats like Engraving Strike or Pattern Flight waive this requirement?

RAW, the iconic runesmith cannot Trace Runes while wielding his glaive, because the action requires artisan's tools, which has a usage of at least one hand. He cannot use his glaive with Engraving Strike, because the action says he's using the Trace Runes action.

Just feels really weird given it's a martial class that's encouraged to use shields and weapons.

Cyrad wrote:

The pre-gen Runesmith has a glaive. How can the iconic use Engraving Strike if Trace Rune requires an artisan's toolkit, which requires a free hand?

I suspect that the Spellstrike-like feats where you Trace as part of a weapon attack (like Engraving Strike, Engraving Maneuver, Swiping Trace, and maybe Dance of the Bloody Ink?) are supposed to not require a free hand because the weapon is automatically tracing the runes for you, but sadly the feats don't actually say that.

This is what I thought as the feats explicitly say you use the weapon or attack to trace. Especially awkward as many feats only work with weapons and not with unarmed attacks.

The pre-gen Runesmith has a glaive. How can the iconic use Engraving Strike if Trace Rune requires an artisan's toolkit, which requires a free hand?

I think several people in this thread are perhaps not accounting for the fact that the spotlight is incredibly easy to shuffle around

This isn't lost to me. The envoy is also a martial support that can grant debuffs and party-wide buffs as well.

And they also can add their Charisma to damage.

And they also much more interesting ability benefits than giving a -1 to a saving throw or attack roll.

Role effects are not weak. Just really boring for the amount of overhead required for managing the spotlight and roles. And the class doesn't have much outside of that other than Hardlight Prop and focus spells, which have their own issues.

Cyrad wrote:

My initial impression is that the class has a solid and fun chassis, but the basic role abilities feel really underwhelming.

Also, there's no mention of what the HP and Hardness of Hardlight Props are. Does it use the same Hardness and HP as the object it's mimicking?

I don't think they use HP or hardness; the description says:

The prop lasts for 1 minute or until any creature other than you
attempts to hold or interact with it, whichever happens first.

No, it says "The prop lasts for 1 minute or until any creature other than you

It says "Interact." Striking the prop is NOT an Interact action.

My initial impression is that the class has a solid and fun chassis, but the basic role abilities feel really underwhelming.

Also, there's no mention of what the HP and Hardness of Hardlight Props are. Does it use the same Hardness and HP as the object it's mimicking?

Im a little dissapointed so little was said compared to previous blogs considering how controversial this playtest was. I was interested to hear more about their plans for the classes. Its cool daredevil is getting more hp though I guess, thats neat.

I still really hope Slayer's Mark Quarry will be changed and their trophies will be made more interesting cuz both of those were really dissapointing to me in the playtest. Hopefully those fall under the changes that they didnt mention here but theyre still planning to make

Hard for them to provide details when they're still figuring out what changes to make with the classes.

I wouldn't be surprised if Slayer got a total overhaul. Its class features read more like an adventure subsystem than a chassis for a player character. Very little actual meat on its bones.

As of the release of the Year 8 intro scenario, all of our scenarios and quests will be repeatable! This will apply retroactively to all previous scenarios as well.

Additionally, it is with great excitement that I can announce that we are returning to printing full stat blocks in our scenarios! Full stat blocks will be printed alphabetically in the back of our scenarios.

--> Insert Kermit the Frog flailing about happily meme <--

Overall, I did not enjoy the class at all.

The class lacks substance in its game mechanics, which are verbose but provide little gameplay value. Its core gameplay loop does not work as intended due to severe usability issues with Mark Quarry and On the Hunt.

Even if all the game mechanics worked as intended, the core class features feel way too derivative of other classes, like the Thaumaturge's Esoteric Lore, the Outwit Ranger's Hunt Prey, and Investigator's On the Case, all of which have better support for accomplishing the fantasy the slayer is meant to fulfill. I also don't find On the Hunt and relentless actions engaging at all.

Trophies are a neat idea, but the feature lacks substance. The class has almost a whole page of rules about the logistics of trophies, but they don't do anything by themselves. The trophy rules also feel completely superfluous. The game already has a system for attaching items that buff your equipment: talismans.

All of the trophy game mechanics are encapsulated in Slayer's Arsenal, the only class feature with any substance. Yet, even that one has its own set of severe issues, especially with one of the options being the only class feature that enhances the martial class's attacks and damage.

Aside from Mark Quarry feat taxes, I do like many of the class's feats, especially the support for combination weapons and the feats that let you do new things with your Slayer's Arsenal.

I feel a lot of the problems stem from a superficial approach to fulfilling the Monster Hunter fantasy. Mark Quarry and Trophies read more like an adventure description rather than concrete gameplay mechanics.

As a fan of the Monster Hunter series, I feel a better approach should focus on preparation and doing cool things in battle.

In Monster Hunter, making sure you have the right weapon, the right consumables, the right equipment, and the right buffs are crucial, with each combination also characterizing your gameplay expression. My vision of a monster hunter class should enable and facilitate these preparation decisions. It should be the ideal martial class if you already know what you're fighting. Make preparation be the core feature. Make it a martial that can choose options during daily preparations, like an animist choosing apparitions or a wizard preparing spells.

Most martial classes feel "static" and force you to choose a specific fighting style and stick to it. A martial with a preparation mechanic would set it aside from others. This approach also prevents the class from feeling too derivative of the ranger and thaumaturge, which are flavored as adjusting their tactics style on the fly rather than falling back to how they prepared for the fight.

GENERAL NOTES

- On the Hunt is way too situational. By the time you legitimately benefit from this, the battle is already mostly over.
- On the Hunt suffers from the "bag of rats" problem where you can easily cheese it by killing a small helpless critter to trigger the effect.
- On the Hunt is really boring for what seems like a potentially powerful ability.
- Mark Quarry has a lengthy text, but it's mechanically a worse Outwit Ranger's Hunt Prey with a lot more restrictions. The fact that there's so many feats to overcome these restrictions is a telling sign that it desperately needs quality-of-life changes.
- Mark Quarry has crippling usability issues. 1) If you don't know the monster exists or have no clues about it, you cannot use this ability at all. 2) It only works on a single specific monster. So, if you find tracks from a pack of werewolves, you will only get the benefits for one of the werewolves when you fight the pack. 3) If you find out the monster is lower level, you get no benefits at all and basically wasted your time. 4) Most monsters in published adventures have a level lower than APL.
- Trophies are "empty mechanics," with verbose game rules that provide no actual value or gameplay by itself. There's a long explanation for describing trophies, how you collect them, how you store them, and how many you can have at a time. However, the class feature doesn't actually do anything itself. You could just delete this entire class feature, add a couple of sentences to Slayer's Arsenal, and the class would be exactly the same.
- Slayer's Arsenal is the only class feature that has any meat to it, and it's marred by having an obvious choice that the class needs to actually deal any damage.
- Bloodseeking Blade is the obvious choice of Slayer's Arsenal. It is the only option that actually makes you better at killing things in a class that's all about killing things. A class that's literally called "slayer."
- Chymst's Eye is actually quite interesting. Unfortunately, it's essentially a once-per-dungeon ability that lasts only 10 minutes.
- Ignition Vial deals exceptionally little damage for a once per minute ability that's supposed to be your bread-and-butter martial action. Compare to Explode, which essentially deals 2d6 per level with a similar cooldown.
- Consecrated Panoply has awesome flavor with Safeguard Charms being fairly useful.
- Hunting Spikes has cool flavor and good action economy, but being unable to benefit from runes essentially makes this class feature weak and unreliable. 7th level is *way* too late for the spikes to gain +1 striking, especially when the spikes have the stats of a simple weapon.
- Warded Mail must always be a level-0 item, but it grants proficiency in heavy armor, which is always level 1 or higher. Repelling Shield feat raises a similar issue. It could be argued that the text merely says your starting armor must be level-0, but Warded Mail uses the same language as Bloodseeker Blade, which has a feat that lets you use an advanced weapon.
- Armored Shelter seems useful as it saves you from wielding a shield. I really like it.
- Martial classes typically get class features that grant bonus attacks (flurry of blows, Reactive Strike, Retributive Strike, etc.) or a damage bonus (rage, swashbuckler finisher, inventor's overcharge, weapon ikons, etc.). Slayer gains no such ability, with exception for Bloodseeking Blade.
- Instant Enmity and Pack Slayer feel like feat tax. They're way too mandatory to make your main class feature actually work as intended.
- Blood Rush should be part of the class feature. Again, another feat tax.
- There's no support for unarmed attacks. What if I want to play a slayer that punches bears?
- I really like the support for combination weapons

Pathfinder ancestry boons for Starfinder Society when?

I want to play my space kholo dangit!

Characters can continue using playtest rules even after the conclusion of the playtest period. Once the final version of a previously playtested class is published, any characters using the playtest version must rebuild to use the new version of the class before their next game.

You have no idea how much I wish this was the case for the Impossible Playtest. I loved the necromancer so much and have so many awesome character ideas for it. The year-and-a-half leading up to Gen Con 2026 has been extremely painful.

Cyrad wrote:

Are resurrection dragons the replacement for umbral dragons?

Nope! The only dragons that we're not maintaining going forward are the chromatic and metallic dragons. Anything beyond that is fair game to remaster. I can confirm that remastered umbral dragons will be showing up in Draconic Codex.

I can't put into words how happy one of my players is about this.

Are resurrection dragons the replacement for umbral dragons?

I always appreciated having the full stat blocks of monsters in the back of each PFS scenario. I'm pretty upset that's going away.

Not having to flip between bookmarks for each monster was such a godsend, especially for multi-table specials.

Sweet! A 9-12 by Ivis!

I’m 110% for excuses to throw money at Paizo and improving customer experience. No doubt a lot of work was put into this.

That being said, I’ve grown to absolutely loathe loyalty point systems. They’re uncomfortably manipulative and are often more hassle than they’re worth. I also don’t like having to buy things just so I have the privilege of buying things that other buyers aren’t allowed to buy.

Thank the Lord that mods and turrets are getting worked out. Mechanic damage was way too reliant on mods, which I found mostly unusable.

It kind of defeats the purpose of having a turret if you have to stand next to it all the time to buff it.

Cyrad wrote:

Does the drone get the dying condition like companions or are they destroyed at 0 HP? If destroyed that would be pretty awful and unlike the inventor construct.

It's probably destroyed. But for basic, non-mechanic Robot Companions:

"If your robot companion is destroyed, you can spend a week of downtime to replace it at no cost."

For Drone Exocortex Mechanics:

"During your daily preparations, you automatically repair your drone, restoring it to maximum Hit Points, even if it’s been destroyed."

And at 6th level you can take this Tactical Customization via the feat and daily selection:

"Emergency Reboot: If your robot companion would be reduced to 0 Hit Points by damage, as a free action with the concentrate trait, you can initiate an emergency reboot. If you do, your robot companion is reduced to 1 Hit Point and shuts down completely for 1 minute. During this minute it becomes immune to damage, can’t be harmed, and can’t take any actions."

That's pretty awful. If the construct goes to 0 even once, you basically lose your main class feature for the rest of the day. The inventor's construct can go down three times before they're destroyed.

Does the drone get the dying condition like companions or are they destroyed at 0 HP? If destroyed that would be pretty awful and unlike the inventor construct.

Look, I get that PFS/SFS exist in a ecosystem that in part relies on game stores. But there just isn’t an argument for social responsibility that says “paying real world money for in game benefits” is justifiable. In any economy.

Why? It's a PvE game. You can benefit from it without buying anything. The RIP benefits largely just keep your character from becoming unplayable. The money goes towards small-time retailers in an industry with low profit margins. Most game stores and gaming places in my area charge $25 to $40 table fees anyway.

I'm struggling to see what's socially irresponsible about this.

Pathfinder options at reasonable AcP costs?

Simplified rewards system that don't punish you for not finding all the "treasure bundles?"

Treasure that's actually treasure you can keep and instead of having to buy it?

Bespoke rewards and content, including two ancestries?

No mandatory faction system?

Shorter scenarios?

Oh yes please.

I'm interested to see what PF2 content will be allowed. I'm itching to play a runesmith as a graffiti artist inspired by Jet Set Radio.

So far, I'm loving everything I see, especially being able to start at higher levels. There's a lot of concepts that just don't work until level 4 or 6 and even more that don't work until level 2.

Howl of the Wild 74 (Thlipit Contestant archetype)

The lash unarmed attack cannot be used with Lunge (Player Core 142), which is listed as one of the archetype's additional feats. It appears the feat was listed with intent of being used with the archetype's unarmed attack.

Suggestion Add the following sentence to Thlipit Contestant Dedication's text: "Treat the unarmed attack as a melee weapon for the Lunge feat."

But, but, I wanna make water weapons, too!

Looks like the Thlipit Contestant's Lunge feat still doesn't work with the lash attack.

I am a little disappointed that the fey eidolon and dragon eidolon did not get updated. Fey eidolon still references spell schools, and it would be nice if the dragon eidolon got updated with respect to the new lore.

I appreciate the commitment and enormous amount of work of making this happen.

Cyrad wrote:

Losing half the Ancient Osirion pantheon is incredibly brutal. Neither War of Immortals nor Divine Mysteries elaborate how it happened. Only a summary in War of Immortals.

My friends who love Egyptian-themed characters are devastated by this. Even those that bought the books were totally blindsided by it.

This affected one of my local players, who had a brand new cleric of Anubis, and was hit hard by the news. It was simply awful telling him about this.

I have two friends who took some convincing to not just give up on PFS entirely. They were excited to play their Osiriani characters and had artwork drawn and commissioned.

I wasn't expecting almost an entire iconic pantheon to get wiped out, especially one tied to real-world mythologies with a major presence in popular culture. I'm hoping future releases elaborate on this and maybe provide new Osirion deities.

Losing half the Ancient Osirion pantheon is incredibly brutal. Neither War of Immortals nor Divine Mysteries elaborate how it happened. Only a summary in War of Immortals.

My friends who love Egyptian-themed characters are devastated by this. Even those that bought the books were totally blindsided by it.

Cyrad wrote:

Oh heck yes!

And it looks like Rokoga Gin (from a side bar in War of Immortals) became a god afterall!

So that's who that is! It had been bugging me when I cought their name as I perused the list and found nothing in a google search.

I think they're a playtest gunslinger made by one of the authors? There's an old reddit post about the character as a way of the drifter with a nunchuku and hand cannon.

Oh heck yes!

And it looks like Rokoga Gin (from a side bar in War of Immortals) became a god afterall!

RESTRICTED

..
All dead or missing gods (pages 312-314)

Ouch, that's really rough, considering what deities are included in that list.

I only have an issue with skill challenges when they're designed poorly or run incorrectly. A good skill challenge encourages roleplaying. A bad skill challenge forces players to roll-play.

A good skill challenge has the GM present an open-ended problem and allows players to decide how to solve it. Specific skills are only mentioned when the GM adjudicates the player's proposed solution or when players are stumped and need a hint.

A bad skill challenge has the GM present a problem and then explicitly lists the solutions. GM lists the skills; player rolls the one with the highest bonus; end turn. There's no decision-making here. Chases earned their notoriety because they almost always fell into this structure in 1st Edition.

Hilary Moon Murphy? Dang, I'm seeing a lot more familiar names!

So he became an exemplar by eating god berries.

Great to see a familiar name up there.

Any chance we can get a clarification for Thlipit Contestant's interaction with the Lunge feat?

Thlipit Contestant lists Lunge as a feat, which only works with melee weapons. It seems clear that the author intended that you can Lunge using the archetype's lash unarmed attack, but that's not the case as written. Otherwise, it would be incredibly weird that an archetype revolving around an unarmed attack would have a feat that doesn't work with it.

Dustin Knight playtest scenario? I'll have to give that one a shot.

I've had some genuinely horrible experiences at the table, and even I would not want this.

I would like to advocate for a boon to take Werecreature Dedication. Even though I made him as a skinwalker in 1E, and never got to play him, I think the Society would benefit from having a weretiger fighter who hates mornings as a member. This would also tie in with my request for character import from PF1 for characters under a certain level (4th or so) in order to get some of those unused GM characters played.

Or at least lower the price of beastkin. I never understood why they're Rare despite untamed druids and barbarians being incredibly commonplace.

The book is absolutely amazing.

What weapon is that tanuki using?

The remastered draconic and demonic bloodlines for the sorcerer completely replace their focus spells with new ones that have different names. Would the team consider making a ruling that draconic/demonic sorcerers can choose whether to gain the Core 2 focus spell or the CRB focus spell? The old spells grant unarmed attacks, which are desirable for players with melee combat sorcerers. Removing them would also be incredibly disruptive for PC concepts that rely on them. I'm not seeing any compelling reason why these focus spells should become totally inaccessible. It appears the spells were replaced in order to grant less niche options.

Also, the Draconic Options Table in Lorespire appears to have a typo: the Crystal Dragon erroneously has fire damage instead of piercing damage.

Some options (such as draconic barbarians and sorcerers or the dragonblooded versatile heritage) require or allow players to pick a specific type of dragon, which affects spellcasting traditions, skill training, and similar choices. Players may use the options as listed in Player Core 2, or select a dragon from the Imperial or Primal dragon families using the Draconic Options Table below.

Characters which have been rebuilt using their Remaster Rebuild may not use the chromatic or metallic dragons for any of these options.

1. So new sorcerers can never choose the dragon bloodline options in Core Rulebook?

2. Is there a way for new sorcerers to get the old demonic and dragon bloodline focus spells? The ones in Player Core 2 are completely different, and there are character concepts that would prefer to have the unarmed attack spells instead of the new spell attack spells.

3. Is there an error with the Crystal Dragon option? Crystal dragons have breath weapons that deal piercing damage, but the crystal dragon bloodline has fire as their damage.

Some ancestries had a pair of ancestry weapon feats at 1st and 5th level. The 5th-level feats have been removed and their effect (adding critical specialization) is now including in each corresponding Remastered 1st-level feat. Characters that took one of the following 5th-level feats replace that feat with another feat of their choice immediately

4. Does this apply to non-remastered ancestries with these options?

5. All remastered ancestries have lore feats that grant Additional Lore with their respective ancestry Lore. What about non-remastered ancestries? I have a kitsune with the Kitsune Lore feat that took Additional Lore for Kitsune Lore.

I'll be there with bells on my toes!

(Metaphorically speaking)

Mark, thank you so much for clarifying all this and answering questions.

Are Paizo-IP video games allowed on Infinite, provided that the uploaded product does not include prohibited file types?

I'm glad there's now a way for fans to sell IP merch, but this is basically the death of Pathfinder and Starfinder 1e content, with only a month of advanced notice. This means I'll have to scrap a project I've put a lot of hours into. I also tend to release my ancestry titles with conversions for previous editions. I won't be able to do that anymore.

Now this is the kind of class I was hoping for when playtesting the witchwarper way back in 1st Edition.

This all sounds like good stuff, but the article doesn't touch on what mysteries actually do now, aside from adding a few spells to your spell list and determining what happens when your cursebound condition goes up.

The second biggest issue I had with the oracle is that the class didn't realize the fantasies that the mysteries are supposed to enable.