DangerMouse99's page

The thing I find kind of funny about the barbarian remaster is that there’s basically no reason now to ever be out of the rage state if it's at all relevant, so why have the buffs be tied to rage rather than just making them be on all the time? I know it’s for flavor and legacy reasons, and I don’t know if it would be a good idea to actually drop rage and just have the buffs be persistent, but functionally I don’t think it would make much of a difference at this point.

Ronald the Rules Lawyer just released a video on the remastered Alchemist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbufOX8_aZg

Why do I bring this up in the Barbarian thread? One of the things he revealed is that the Bestial Mutagen no longer gives an AC penalty. To me this indicates that Paizo has decided that trading AC penalties for increased offense is no longer a good trade-off in most situations, so Rage losing it's AC penalty is most likely intentional.

Recent D&D editions tend to have a revised edition roughly halfway through their lifecycle, give or take a year or two (2e Revised, 3.5e, and 4e Essentials. It remains to be seen how long the 5e revision currently in development lasts). Of course Paizo is under no obligation to follow this cycle, but if they do that means PF 2e has 3-7 years left.

Eaten by Chyzaedu wrote:

I don't really understand this "not being locked into a course of action" thing- are you saying like someone casts a spell at you and you react to get +2 to your saving throw, but then someone counterspells it, so you would let the first reactor take back their reaction?

Eh, I probably can't give a simple explanation because it's a complicated issue.

Things that are a simple "either it did or didn't happen" aren't what I'm really talking about. I'm talking more about a case where someone decides to move toward a target, and that target has a reaction that allows them to move, or do anything really. The originally mover might decide they no longer want to move to the person that was their target. They'll have expended the movement up to the point where the reaction triggers, but can decide what to do with their movement after that point.

We're also "generous" in that if you have an action (for example) that allows multiple attacks that (assuming there is no restriction on who can be a target) you can change targets if the target does something that would make you want to change.

Overall, it's in player's favors because it gives them flexbility in situations where they might otherwise say "okay, I do nothing then".

I’m pretty sure that that’s all RAW. There’s nothing that says you have to commit to a destination before you start a stride, or commit to specific targets before you start a multiple attack activity, and can’t change your mind if circumstances change mid-action.

There are other options for extending the length of a campaign. The most obvious is to just slow down leveling progression; your players may or may not like the slower pace though. The other is to introduce lower level PCs that tackle lower level challenges in the same campaign, and have the players alternate between which PC they’re playing. This makes the most sense in a West Marches style campaign, but even in a more standard campaign it can provide a nice change of pace for players who might get bored of playing the same character for years.

I've seen a proposed house rule for Investigate where it gives you a free Recall Knowledge check at the start of an encounter. This brings it more in line with the other exploration activities.

I find it a bit weird that Scout, Investigate, and Search all seem to describe the same in-fiction activity (looking around carefully while exploring) but all have distinct mechanical benefits that you have to choose between.

I would think it would lead to less violence overall, as followers can’t justify killing someone just by knowing their alignment. Instead they have to witness them doing something that’s actually evil.

It'd be interesting if having your weapon at the ready was an explicit Exploration action with some other benefit--you know, the idea that you can't move at normal speed while wielding your huge sword.

The way I run this is if the players are doing exploration activities, it's assumed that they have their weapons out, but if they're not, they don't unless they explicitly say so.

Another thing they did is tone down poison damage on some low-level monsters. Compare the original and remastered versions of the giant centipede and hunting spider, for example.

This is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but something I’ve always found annoying has been cleaned up. The monster version of Sneak Attack is no longer listed in the Ability Glossary, which means it no longer has hidden rules about what weapons it works with. Which means that kobold warriors can now sneak attack with their spears, like their stat block says!

This plus explicitly listing which creatures are immune to bleed damage shows that Paizo is cleaning up some of the “obscure rules hidden in places you wouldn’t think to look” problem what PF2e sometimes has.

Honestly I was interested in playing in this ap until someone on the forums spoiled the grim reaper is someone you have to fight. Grim reaper is way overtuned, I can't see a fight against it ending without any deaths. I just played through extinction curse and there was hard fights but we did it all without any real deaths.

I'm okay with character death if you get bad rolls, make mistakes, etc. but grim reaper just feels unfair.

That happens in the very last fight of the AP, so if a character dies it's more of a sad thing to happen at the very end than something that can derail the campaign. Also, it's not literally the grim reaper, it's a supernaturally empowered aspect of the big bad's psyche; if it using the grim reaper's stats is deal-breaker for you, ask your GM to pick out a different stat block to base it on.

There is a bit of a problem with the rule, and that is what happens when you have a large encounter with many players and multiple monsters. Since it takes so long to reach your next turn (as the downed PC), it is not unlikely that you will be healed and then dropped again before you get to act, force-delaying you even further. You could feasibly go for 3 or so rounds without ever having a turn. That's especially frustrating if you've got fast healing running but it never does anything because your turn keeps getting 'skipped' by your initiative moving back.

For this reason, I think it's fine to give players the choice of where they want to be in initiative after being dropped. Essentially, not forcefully moving them at all, but letting them Delay without having to make recovery checks or triggering any other ongoing effects, though at most until right before the foe that dropped them.

I’m still relatively new to the system, so let me know if this isn’t actually a good idea, but couldn’t the healer delay their turn until just before the downed PC? It seems to be that would at least guarantee the downed PC would get their turn. I guess it gives the enemies more chances to kill the PC by attacking them while dying, but most enemies shouldn’t do that IMO.

Into the Unknown (https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/271107/into-the-unknown-book-4 -running-the-game), an OSR hack for 5e, has my favorite random encounter system. One of the cool things about it is that finding signs of a potential encounter is more common than an encounter itself. These can include things like monster tracks, a flying creature spotted in the distance, sounds of a nearby battle, or a column of smoke on the horizon. This both provides an opportunity for player decision making (do they pursue the possible encounter, ignore it, or take steps to try to avoid it?) and makes the world feel more alive, with creatures that exist as more than something that pops out and attacks the party.