Pathfinder Society GM. 5,503 posts (5,726 including aliases). 26 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 33 Organized Play characters. 1 alias. 
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Mark, thank you so much for clarifying all this and answering questions.
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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.
Thank goodness. Playing a braggart swashbuckler through the Slithering was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in PF2e. It wasn't even the oozes that were frustrating. That was almost four years ago, and I still fail to convince myself to ever play swashbuckler again.
The text says "Weapons with the kickback trait don’t gain that
Full stop. I agree this change was probably meant to be a buff to long air repeaters, but that's not what the text says. At the very least, I think it should be clarified in PFS sanctioning. There will be GMs who will interpret this in the worst way.
I feel like the solution there is to not buy an air cartridge firing system for your long air repeater then. Long air repeaters have an air cartridge firing system by default, as per the firing system's description. The text makes it clear that any weapon with the system doesn't benefit from the kickback trait. I also can't find any option in Guns and Gears that lets you replace it with a gunpowder system.
Page 151: Long air repeater table entry updated to clarify that it is two-handed. It now has the kickback trait. Was this an intended nerf to the long air repeater? Weapons with air cartridge firing systems get all of the drawbacks but none of the perks of the kickback trait. The one-handed air repeater already felt like a much better weapon because it does the same damage, only requires a single hand, and has the agile trait.
That's awesome news. Thank you for all the hard work in revisiting previous releases and the commitment going forward!
A JWM pirate adventure on the high seas? After merfolk releases? Heck yes!
Is a tactician considered to be a squadmate for the purpose of his own tactics?
The playtest ends on the Friday of Origins Game Fair. Is there any chance to extend it to the end of the weekend?
On one hand I would prefer that the players of clerics of Gorum would need to figure out what is next for their PC and continue building from there. Do they become a fighter? Do they go to a new god? I think that would add a lot of good fluff to the campaign and characters. Play a thaumaturge or a divine witch/sorcerer. Keep pretending to be a cleric. "Gorum's not dead. He's just sleeping!" I did this with an Arodenite in 1st Edition. Honestly, now I'm kinda tempted to do it with a summoner having the time traveler background.
Already planning two merfolk characters. It's going to be painful waiting a month for this book.
I love this one for more reasons than I can list!
Good to see that Desna will NOT break the first, second, and third rules of the Dark Tapestry. Have absolutely NOTHING to do with the Dark Tapestry.
Still not working for me, even after clearing my cache.
The problem with a status penalty is that it doesn't stack with Demoralize I'm saying that it's an antipattern to make a Charisma-based skill monkey class have a combat class feature that makes using Charisma-based skills redundant in combat. This is why I suggested making the ability to cause off-guard at the cost of requiring a skill check. Alternatively, maybe Get 'Em could give you the choice of whether it's AC or a saving throw that gets a penalty?
The problem with a status penalty is that it doesn't stack with Demoralize If I were designing Get 'Em, I would make the ability require a check with a skill based on Leadership Style. If it succeeds, the target is flat-footed. If it fails, the target just receives a -1 circumstance penalty to AC. Lead by example grants a +1 circumstance bonus to damage per weapon die and the envoy benefits from it on the triggering attack.
This is a class I've been looking forward to. I really like the directive system, but the Envoy's class features make it feel like a worse rogue or investigator.
Spoiler: I don't understand why the class has Charisma as its key attribute. Almost none of the Envoy's class features use it. Compare to the alchemist, inventor, thaumaturge, and investigator, who all have important class features that use their key attribute. Is there a reason why the class does not let you choose? Why can't Leadership Styles determine the key attribute like rogue Rackets do? Why can't there be envoys who lead through Wisdom or Intelligence? Restricting it to Charisma hampers character builds and concepts for pretty much no mechanical reason. Get 'Em's AC penalty does not stack with off-guard, which makes other actions like Demoralize or Create a Distraction feel like a better use of your action economy. Get 'Em's lead by example ability's damage bonus does not stack with many weapon traits. It also has worse scaling, given that most such weapon traits scale based on weapon dice. Does the envoy benefit from Get 'Em's lead by example on the attack that triggered it? It seems like a "no," which really hurts its usefulness because you have MAP and already had to spend two actions. I really like Size Up's purpose and flavor, but it's a weaker and more restrictive Pursue a Lead. Size Up takes between 1 to 60 minutes---Pursue a Lead always only takes only 1 minute. Size Up has a frequency of once per hour---Pursue a Lead can be done once per 10 minutes. An asset must be a person while a lead can be a creature, item, small location, or anything that the GM allows. Size Up has complicated rules for how much information you already know before you can designate something as an asset---Pursue a Lead only requires a single clue. The circumstance bonus from Size Up only applies to Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perception, and any check to Recall Knowledge. Pursue a Lead works on Perception and virtually any Charisma-, Intelligence-, or Wisdom-based skill check. Pursue a Lead's bonus also increases at a later level, but there's only 5 levels of Envoy so far. The bonus from Pursue a Lead can also be granted to allies without any feats. Saw It Coming is cool, but it only works if your asset is an enemy. What if the asset is a hostage or a neutral party your enemies are trying to harm? Saw It Coming's circumstance bonus to initiative is deceptively situational. You already get the bonus if you roll Perception or a social skill as your initiative. In fact, Saw It Coming's bonus will be *worse* if Size Up's bonus increases at a later level like Pursue a Lead does. It's also worthless if someone Scouts or you have Improved Initiative, which one of the Leadership Styles grants for free. So Stealth might be the most common use-case? But circumstance bonuses to Stealth are easy to get, and you will likely have one if you're Avoiding Notice while having cover. I like the idea behind Leadership Styles, but, as mentioned before, many of them are hampered by the fact you always have Charisma as your key attribute modifier. An Infosphere Director will have to decide to either ignore Charisma or become MAD for little benefit. As others said, I don't know how you could ever reliably use Guns Blazing's acts of leadership. A MAP does not carry over after a creature's turn unless they Ready an Action to Strike. The only way you can trigger it is if you can Strike as a reaction or if the creature takes a Readied Action to Strike before your turn. Even then, you won't get much use out of it, because most, if not all, directives last until the start of your next turn. Am I missing something here? If there is some way to use this, it needs to be more clear.
Punk dragon with sword lip piercings. I like it. But will we get any pretty dragons? (As much as the fortune dragon is beautiful in their own way)
Oh you cheeky... Well played.
Download the boon. It's only assignable to the character that earned it so there's no choices to be made there. Spoiler for PFS #4-13: Within the Prairies: You gain access to your choice of a drake rifle. The boon only applies to the character played in that scenario, and you're limited to purchasing only one drake rifle.
Spells with verbal components now simply have the concentrate trait. Spells with somatic components now simply have the manipulate trait. Spells now have "costs" instead of material components and "loci" instead of focus components. Spell components are technically NOT traits. They're just a rule that's part of the Cast a Spell activity. Player Core changed Cast a Spell so it no longer has this rule. No explicit substitution is necessary because all spells with verbal components already have the concentrate trait and all spells with somatic components already have the manipulate trait. Page 5 of Remaster Core Preview document makes it clear that spells are reformatted so these traits are directly on the spell statblocks instead of using spell components as a placeholder. What this means is that all spells now require speaking, which automatically adds the auditory trait to Cast a Spell.Source? Adding the auditory trait to nearly every spell sounds incorrect to me. The spell effects do NOT gain the auditory trait. The Cast a Spell activity gains the auditory trait because: Spellcasting and Cast a Spell now require speaking (Player Core 299). All speech has the auditory trait (Player Core 419). Actions and activities with the auditory trait require speaking (Player Core 453). The auditory trait makes the distinction that auditory effects require the target to hear it while auditory actions require speech to perform.
I heard a rumor that spells will no longer have the verbal and somatic component traits in Remastered PFS. Is this true? If so where might I find that rule/errata? See this document, which says "players and GMs must use the remastered rules of the game immediately where possible." Player Core removes spell components from the game. Instead, spells have relevant traits. The Cast a Spell activity also has been changed so that spellcasting always requires gestures and verbal incantations unless said otherwise.
What this means is that all spells now require speaking, which automatically adds the auditory trait to Cast a Spell. Spells with verbal components now simply have the concentrate trait. Spells with somatic components now simply have the manipulate trait. Spells now have "costs" instead of material components and "loci" instead of focus components.
That said, was hoping that since Androids are being actually created in Starfinder timeline, was hoping to see an option for them to emulate non-human Ancestries, especially non-Medium ones.I want to tackle this comment, because it has come up a few times. The team is VERY excited at the possibility of doing more with the "android chasis" but also don't want to complicate the Core Rulebook design too much. That being said, there's been a fair amount of hype for us exploring "Xenometric Android" as a potential versatile heritage in some future products. :) Seems like a great opportunity for a Starfinder analog to the Mixed Ancestry versatile heritage. A science fantasy setting would have many more ways to create hybrid creatures.
OK, so please correct me if I'm interpreting this wrong. 1. We cannot publish Infinite products under ORC, but that's OK because we don't need to anyway? 2. If we publish an Infinite product based on a Paizo ORC product, we don't need any additional license beyond the Infinite license? 3. If we use Open Game Content from a Paizo OGL product, we have to publish it under both OGL and Infinite license as normal? 4. If we use setting/characters/etc but no Open Game Content from a Paizo OGL product, we don't have to publish it under OGL with the Infinite license. This is because the it's the Infinite license is what allows us to do that, not the OGL?
Turtle person? Will there finally be a tortoise ancestry? Will the dragon game lose the one advantage it has over Pathfinder?
I'm curious if PFS will let you let you make your own hybrid ancestries or will force you to only use half-elf and half-orc.
No Skittermanders or SROs? Skittermander don't feel like core rulebook option to me tbh Skittermanders are the mascots of Starfinder. It would be criminal to put goblins in PF2's CRB but not Skittermanders in SF2's CRB.
What about spells that have the same name but are otherwise completely different in a way that renders them incompatible with existing options? For example, Remastered Light is NOT the same spell as the existing Light. They have completely different effects. How would my wayfinder work when the remastered Light cannot target objects? And what about Speltrickster? Can I use the old version of light for these options or so they just not work anymore? It doesn’t seem fair when you can still use an old spell if it got a name change but not if the name stayed the same but nothing else.
The dreaded NDA pit claims another one.
Good stuff. But I'm really, really, really hoping unarmed attack builds get some love with the remastered Ranger. Almost all ranger martial feats only work with weapons. Twin Takedown, Hunted Shot, Hunter's Aim, Skirmish Strike, Far Shot, and many other feats don't work with claws and other unarmed attacks, which is incredibly weird for a class that revolves around "hunting prey."
One thing to keep in mind is that the Exemplar is also intended to be a decent buffer for his party. So he isn't going to shine in a 1 on 1 encounter (which is what I THINK you did) I did not strictly do one-on-one encounters, but I admit I undervalued the buffing auras. I did start every fight by Transcending with Thousand-League Sandals, even though I did not have any allies or need the speed buff. Giving all allies a Stride as a reaction is crazy good. The worn ikons easily have the best Transcend abilities, which ran counter to my initial assumptions about the class.
I built several Exemplars to get a feel of the options and the experience of creating a character using it. Afterward, I ran a variety of combat encounters from the 10th level of Abomination Vaults. I was interested to see how satisfying the class felt in combat with the flow of swapping ikons. SUMMARY 1) The class has amazing flavor and many interesting abilities. However, it lacked the breadth of tactical options I expected from this class's design. 2) Lack of medium armor proficiency, incompatibility with unarmed attacks, and weak feat choices at low levels were major limiting factors in character creation. 3) Almost all active feats are Transcend abilities, which compete with one another for usage. This made the class feel like it had less breadth of tactical options at higher levels compared to other martials. 4) Ikon swapping could be interesting at times, but I felt there's a dominant strategy in just swapping between weapon and worn ikons. Most body ikons did not feel useful in combat. 5) Damage feels low unless I'm scoring critical hits. 6) Struggles with constructs until level 7 when you can swap out spirit damage for something else. 7) Having only 2 + Religion trained skills does hurt. Details:
CHARACTER CREATION I built multiple exemplars based on several concepts I love. Out of them, I had two favorites: 1) katana-wielding storm-themed samurai kitsune using Gaze Sharp as Steel, Gleaming Blade, and Thousand-League Sandals
However, I ran into a few obstacles when making exemplars: 1) Absolutely no support for unarmed attacks. This surprised me, especially as many mystical characters in historic literature are unarmed fighters. Plus, the class features do not work with unarmed attacks. Humble Strikes only work with weapons. Weapon ikons have to be weapons, and other ikons have no options for enhancing unarmed attacks. So, even taking Martial Artist archetype is not an option here. It's also a missed chance for foxfires dealing spirit damage, which would have been super cool and flavorful. 2) Lack of medium armor proficiency. This outright punishes Strength builds. I see absolutely no mechanical reason for this, and I strongly disagree with the flavor reason why the class only has light armor. There are plenty of legendary heroes in mythology that wear significant amounts of armor. If low armor is so integral to the class, then maybe give them expert in unarmored defense? 3) Boring 1st level and 2nd level feats. Almost none of the low level feats are attractive. Claim Initiate Domain is the most interesting of the bunch. Sanctified Soul doesn't feel like a net-positive. Twin Stars is a feat tax for dual-wielding that also conflicts with Dual-Weapon Warrior because you don't get a 1st level feat. Vow of Mortal Defiance is cool but I personally despise the flavor. Leap the Falls is not worth a class feat; it's two level 1 skill feats that only work with body ikons, which are the worst ikons aside from the overpowered Scar of the Survivor. Abilities that disrupt healing feel too situational as a player option and horrible as an NPC option, making Thorns of Mortality feel lackluster. 4) Low skills. Might be justified because of the versatility and combat focus, but I'm really missing that one skill increase at level 1. I ultimately chose the samurai kitsune for this playtest. ANCESTRY Sylph Kitsune
STR +5, DEX +4, CON +3, INT +0, WIS +0, CHA +3 CLASS FEATS
IKONS
EPITHETS
GAMEPLAY I ran through several combats on the 10th floor of Abomination Vaults. Swapping between ikons proved a lot more fluid than I anticipated and was pretty fun. However, as a level 10 martial, I felt like I had less damage and fewer tactical options, despite the ikons having varied effects. Most active abilities in feats and other class features are Transcend abilities. This combined with Transcend forcing a swap creates a rather big problem where ikons and Transcend abilities were always competing with one another. Most of the class's damage rests in the weapon ikon, which makes the feel problem worse. Also, because most body ikons don't feel useful in combat, there's a dominant strategy where you're just swapping between weapon and worn ikons. On the other hand, the support auras are really strong, even though some of them will become less useful at later levels due to status bonuses not stacking. Brave Epithet ended up not being particularly useful. Most of the body ikons are extremely situational. If I want mobility, I'm better off using Thousand-League Sandals. So Brave never saw any use. There was a combat where I got lucky with lots of crits, which made Whose Cry is Thunder's Immanence incredibly awesome. That was the one time Epithets actually ended up being fun. I never got to use Judgment from Clear Skies. As cool as it looks, it did not feel worth using. The range is too low and my character primarily uses Strength, not Dexterity, which would have make the ranged Strike not particularly great. Were I to make another exemplar, I would either focus on stacking immanence effects or support auras with maybe one go-to Transcend ability. There were two combats of particular interest. The spirit damage was very helpful against a combat of specters, and it was pretty fun to try to end each turn with Gaze Sharp as Steel active to protect myself from the ranged attacks. On the flip side, I struggled against a stone golem, which is immune to spirit damage and has resistance 10 physical. I had to change my strategy to kite the construct with Thousand-League Sandals and use Gleaming Blade's Mirrored Spirit Strike to try to penetrate through its resistance. However, I realized after the fight that I made a mistake: Mirrored Spirit Strike changes the weapon damage to spirit damage. So, I would have been completely useless against this monster. My only choice would be to stick with Thousand-League Sandals to help my allies kite it, and even that wouldn't work if I ran this encounter as written in the adventure path (the golem is supposed to be in a tiny room). Then later, I realized I forgot that Whose Cry is Thunder can change spirit damage to electricity damage. So, I guess Mirrored Spirit Strike would have helped after all! Warning: There's minor spoilers for Abomination Vaults.
Are other mixed heritages possible? And if you can have cosmetic features from heritages you do not have, does that apply to my ancestry’s heritages? Can my talos nagaji look like a sacred nagaji with a snake lower half?
Magus could need Expansive Spellstrike errata'd into a class feature if Paizo is going to remove all these spell attack rolls. I have to agree with this. Expansive Spellstrike already feels like a feat tax for half the magi out there.
Also... you can still use Shocking Grasp, you know? It won't be fundamentally incompatible with the remaster. Archive of Nethys isn't removing it, nor will your old rule book be altered. I imagine pre-remaster content might not be viable for PFS, but home games should be fine. Heck, even PFS might still allow it, since tons of books and spells won't be getting remastered. Parsing out which is which may not be worth it when the real problem of publishing rights isn't impacted by table play. That's unacceptable rhetoric in my view, even putting aside PFS, which is the only avenue of play for many such as myself. I'm looking forward to Player Core, and I think most of the changes will make the game better. However, the Remaster was aggressively advertised as not adversely changing anything in the game. The previews make it clear that's not the case. A popular spell was outright removed and replaced with a completely different one. Light is now incompatible with options that interact with it; even wayfinders don't work anymore. At least one class will suffer a major paradigm shift and require an extensive errata.
I'm not seeing why shocking grasp needed to be changed to a completely different spell. Other spells were kept fundamentally the same despite a name change.I'm just puzzled why shocking grasp had to be replaced by a completely different spell. Thunderstrike is a great addition but why remove an iconic spell that has a fun niche?Literally the whole reason they are doing the remaster, and aluded to in the blog post itself. Still is not a good justification for replacing shocking grasp with a completely different spell. All of the above examples are fundamentally the same spell in both flavor and function. Both scorching ray and blazing bolt shoot one or more heat rays
Shocking grasp discharges a burst of lightning through a touch.
I'm just puzzled why shocking grasp had to be replaced by a completely different spell. Thunderstrike is a great addition but why remove an iconic spell that has a fun niche?Literally the whole reason they are doing the remaster, and aluded to in the blog post itself. I'm not seeing why shocking grasp needed to be changed to a completely different spell. Other spells were kept fundamentally the same despite a name change.
I'm just puzzled why shocking grasp had to be replaced by a completely different spell. Thunderstrike is a great addition but why remove an iconic spell that has a fun niche?
Do spells still require speaking in some way? How does the new Light spell interact with monsters like Shadows? A lot of effects assume you can cast Light on an object. Now you can't do that anymore.
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