Ogre Brute

Dean HS Jones's page

169 posts. Alias of djones.



Silver Crusade

Hiya CS!

I'm afraid I cannot download the single file version of this book (one file per chapter works OK)

Seeing an "Access denied" XML error

Silver Crusade

Hi CS!

I figured you guys would appreciate some feedback on the Amazon fulfilment portion of the Playtest sales.

You already know about Amazons delay in dispatching orders in a timely fashion for items to arrive on the release date so I’m not going to address that, and as I grabbed my parcel on the way out the door I have no feedback yet on the quality of the product itself. Based on the packaging it seems to have arrived unharmed.

What I’m not impressed with is that despite the already exorbitant shipping fees I’ve been stuck with import taxes. It’s not a lot and I had the cash on me to pay at delivery, but it was not something I remember being advised of in advance (I could be wrong) and I felt a little embarrassed that my consierge paid the fee for me.

Based on my own experience with shipping merch online I usually expect to see a tax warning and that it’s on me to pay import tax, so maybe because it was a third party fulfilment this was overlooked by me or or omitted, I don’t know. It was a bit of a nasty surprise is all.

I don’t blame you guys and I’m not seeking a refund but I probably won’t get your next product that is Amazon-fulfilled.

Silver Crusade

Recommend removing the fluff text first sentence 'about the size of a coin'.

1. Inconsistent with the text style for Shrink

2. Potentially confusing if later equipment is added that can hold size neg items but might reasonably be expected to be too small to hold a coin eg the classic "Hide a shrunk item inside a Poison Pill Ring", which I imagine when written will hold 1 item of size neg.

Silver Crusade

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A skill feat to be androgynous, requiring that you be trained in Deception to use it.

I think this needs some rethinking before it goes to live for reasons I hope would be obvious.

Silver Crusade

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Got my shipping notice 7.5 hrs ago. Wheeee

Silver Crusade

Hi CS!

I had to replace my credit card, and I've added my new card details to my account.

I currently have an order pending for the pre-order and I'm concerned if I monkey with the payment method associated with that order it'll affect my order.

Are you able to switch it for me, or will the sstem automatically try the new default method, or something else?

Thanks in advance! <3

Silver Crusade

We’ve not yet had a blogpost on traps, and I’m hoping PF2 makes them more relevant, but something came up that comes up a lot.

Which spells are considered traps for the purpose of Disable Device. Various Symbols in PF1 are; Alarm apparently is not, but often gets houseruled to be.

More clarity on this would be appreciated and being able to bypass a magical alarm seems in-keeping with the rogue class fantasy to me.

Silver Crusade

I'd like to be able to add mundane and magical options to items without having to worry too much about the legwork of calculating and balancing it myself (also that means it's in the SRD, might be in PFS and will probably be in Herolab).

I'd like to be able to cram several spells into one wand, I want to make my arcane focus ring ALSO a poison pill ring AND also a ring of thieves with a mini thieves tool kit built into it and then enchant it because Arcane Trickster!

I want to layer multiple spells on my spellbook so it floats in the air when I read it, and the pages glow, and it's waterproof, and it's a Blessed Book, AND I can shrink it down and stash it in the hidden compartment of my focus ring. If I can encrypt the text or add a lock and mechanical traps to the cover and binding, or make it an animated object, so much the better!

While we're on the subject of spellbooks, currently a spellbook is 'thing where your spells are stored that sits at the bottom of your backpack or in a pocket dimension if you know that spell'.

While I totally agree there should be a penalty to a wizard who loses their book, perhaps there should be something to encourage a wizard to have his spellbook to hand, to make for some more exciting and risky behavior?

I want to be able to enchant a spear or other polearm as a staff, because the major difference is pretty much only the shape of the head anyway.

These don't have to be in the core rulebook of course, but it'd be nice to see.

What other magic item options would you like to see?

Silver Crusade

The Arcane Trickster is neat-o, and something that *really* frustrated me about the 5e implementation was 'You only get to learn illusion or enchantment spells, and you can't add precision damage to spells because I said so!'

I even tried to create sneaky versions of other classes; sneak attacking with Channel Ray and negative energy is a sufficiently weird attack mode that it's something I wanted to try!

So, I'm hoping that the new rules support sneak attacks with stuff other than daggers, so long as an attack roll is actually made.

Silver Crusade

Something PF1 didn't do brilliantly were poisons and traps; poisons performed poorly in play for their (very high) price, safe use by players was marginally available and traps were less than threatening a lot of the time.

A few months ago Jason Buhlman asked for feedback on which 3PP resources we use, and I called out the old Traps and Treachery 3.0 3PP quite forcefully; I guess we all know now what that was in aid of!

So, can we look forward to a blog post on the subject of traps, poisons and general skullduggery in the near to mid-term future, and can we look forward to cunning and deadly mechanisms with lethal toxins, if not in the core book (which will already be packed) then perhaps in a source book?

Also, follow players and GMs, would this be of interest and use to you guys, would you buy it and is it exciting in concept?

Silver Crusade

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Having seen a few retools of game mechanics at my non-TTRPG employer I’ve pulled a few design philosophy ideas that are probably something already being looked at, because they’re kinda obvious, but I’m posting my 2 cents anyway.

Gradual improvements to raw numbers are nice, sure, but they’re not something to get excited about. Something PF 1.0 did that was wonderful was try to set it up so at each level there was either a class feature or a talent choice. Not always of course, but a lack of dead levels with no cool new toys as a general rule is a really good thing.

Feat taxes are something that are famously unpopular too, because people consider them distasteful minor improvements that people only take to access cooler options.

Without wanting to make the MMO comparison because of how D&D 4e turned out, World of Warcraft had much the same problem in its first iteration with talent tree options like Improved Hit for 1%. +1% to hit isn’t cool, it doesn’t give you fun new options, but it was absolutely essential for you to take to generate threat/do damage, so everyone took it.

Eventually the Blizzard design team took the step of just baking it directly into class design. If something is so essential that it’s a choice EVERYONE trying to fulfill a role takes, it’s not really a choice.

So I’m absolutely on board with either removing very commonly taken options like Combat Expertise or with very boring options like Lightning Reflexes/Iron Will or, preferably, sexing them up a bit so they’re cool enough that you want to take them on their own.

A really great example of that’d be Dirty Fighting, the 1e feat from Dirty Tactics Toolbox. While it had a narrower set of feats it unlocked, it unlocked some, and it made them better, it bypassed some usual restrictions, it made the following feats a little better and it had functionality on its own. Great feat.

Silver Crusade

Hi CS!

My Starfinder Core Rulebook is due to ship August 25th as order #4355174.

Please allow this order to complete and ship, and cancel the subscription for the Starfinder line after that.

It's not that I'm in any way dissatisfied with the product, I'm very happy with the PDF and I'm sure the hardback will just great, it's just I can't afford the shelf space or the shipping cost to Europe for an ongoing physical subscription.

My other subs are just great as they are.

Thanks in advance!


Hi Paizo CS folks,

I started a discount rate scenario subscription and it seems not to be running any more; I don't recall cancelling it.

Was there some sort of payment issue or something?

Thanks for your time!

2/5

Additional resources lists "Feats: All feats on page 6, and pages 9–18 are legal for play with the following exceptions and clarifications: the Befuddling Initiative, Poison Shot Deed, Verify, and Wasp Familiar feats are not legal for play"

Fair enough.

The Ratfolk racial feat Scurrying Swarmer from page 23 isn't included in that list of pages that are legal, but it's also not specifically called out as illegal either; I assume that this is because Ratfolk weren't an accessible race. Again, fair enough.

However, while I'll assume illegal for now, it'd be helpful to know get a specific ruling on this in the Additional Resources for folks with race boons.

Thanks in advance!


What little we know of the setting lends itself to a lot of speculation and generates a lot of questions.

Here's one that occurred to me:

If Golarion is missing and Absalom Station has taken it's place but the rest of the solar system is present, where do the aiudara on Castrovel go to now?

What other questions do you folks have? Please post them here so we can wrestle with them together!


1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

In Giantslayer it's entirely possible to set yourself up with a 15ft reach weapon, and since you're fighting large creatures with reach it's an important question.

OK, so in order to attack you a giant would need to get to 10ft. If you have a reach of 15, will the giant provoke an attack of opportunity because their front 2 squares passed through a threatened square, or will they not provoke because they still occupy that square and have not therefore left it?


So there's a good chance that when August rolls around I might be involved in a Strange Aeons campaign, which I'm anticipating eagerly.

Now, beyond the 'starting in an asylum, Lovecraftian horror, insanity' beats, not much is known about the AP, so I don't feel bad about asking for build advice for it.

I like the look of the Occultist as appropriate to the AP, and if I'm going to be going a bit crazy as power increases I want to start off that way, so I'm picking up a raven familiar with one of my feats and giving it the Figment template for a hallucination so vivid other people can see it and talk to it.

But how does getting the implements work exactly? For example, if I choose a transmutation implement as a weapon, do I get a freebie MW like a bonded item or do i need to buy it?


Please post here and we can see if we can arrange a mutually convenient time for me to run a scenario or two online to fill up your boons before the official close date. All I ask is that you create feedback threads for the games


The gadgeteering adventurer is practically cliche and I love a good cliche so I grabbed up as much stuff as I could.

Here's the random crap I cart around with me in my masterwork backpack:

wand of cure light wounds, air crystal, alchemist's fire, cardice oil, flash powder, holy water, unholy water (you never know) phosphorescent gel, smoke pellet, smoke pellet: pepper, smoke pellet: smog, tanglefoot bag, thunderstone.

I also added a number of masterwork tools

I will likely switch to a Handy Haversack before adding more stuff


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In a regular game or an AP it might be tricky, but doable; in PFS you might despair of ever being able to bust out the spooky voice and the tights.

This thread is all about your interactions between your vigilante and the rest of the party. What are things that you've done?

For myself, so far I have:

1. Spotted something weird before anyone else thanks to a lucky choice of day job and slipped away to change without telling the rest of the group.

2. Announced that the entire job was beneath my dignity and that I was sending a lacky, then flounced off and returned in my alter ego.

3. Foreshadowed my alter ego's appearance as 'an ally' then pretended to gather information and get kidnapped and locked up for my own protection by the vigilante who then covered for me in the group, then gotten 'released' in time to go home.

4. Tried the foreshadowing and kidnap thing again, but this time it was in an arctic wilderness so it was less convincing that the social was in a safe place.

5. Went back to the same town as in 1 and said 'Hey, maybe this guy will help us again!', pretended to get cut off from the party when I sabotaged a tunnel and joined in.


I walked into this scenario half expecting more diplomancy to start, so as usual I was in my social persona. As I had been to Oppara before in Among the Living I decided to foreshadow the appearance of the Vigilante by talking about how he had helped the Society the last time I was in town.

It wasn't a bad choice my any means, but the scenario starts with a choice of social skills, either bluff to help a venture captain slow down the antagonists or bluff, diplomacy or intimidate to aid escaping NPCs.

I tried to take combat notes, but since the scenario was played in French I missed some stuff if the initiatives look in a weird order, because I either missed or just didn't bother writing down unimportant things.

As we had a whole party of 6 and I had just added a permanent bluff bonus while in social mode thanks to the boon from the playtest chronicle for 4 sessions, I opted to slow down the soldiers. The rest of the party however, decided to search the house for what I imagine were victory conditions and the NPCs were not moving very fast.

In the third round I opted to drop the bluffing and try to harry the NPCs out, which was successful except that the VC was now failing his bluffs and the door was being battered down.

Having gotten the party in agreement and completed the evacuation, I urged the party to move on while I collapsed the tunnel behind us...also taking advantage of the chance to be alone to switch personas.

The Fox then joined the party, explaining that he had been wathcing the party since they had entered Oppara, that the social persona had been cut off by the falling ceiling and was unharmed, but trying to find another exit and would catch up later(finding exits was another victory condition, so the party were fine with it) and that he would help them get the refugees to safety.

The party was encountered vermin in the sewers; The Fox rolled perception and was able to act in the surprise round, dealing 15 NL damage including a full hidden strike hit for max damage and a bonus from Omen. Sadly The Fox has not Know: Nature and was unaware that vermin are immune to morale effects, so no Intimidate roll from Enforcer.

The party Magus hit for 18 damage, the Fox hit again for 8 lethal and the Vermin was subdued.

I'll gloss over the details of the next encounter and just describe the villain: an aberration with reach.

The Magus took 8 in the first round from an attack of opportunity as he moved to engage, missed his attack and was slammed hard and went down.

The Fox missed.

Warpriest stablised magus

Samurai challenged.

Priest Enlarge Person'd himself

Wizard Acid Arrow: miss.

______

Villain tried to move away, either fleeing or getting distance, then slammed the Large priest for silly damage.

Fox followed, failed an acrobatics roll to avoid provoking, took damage

Samurai ranged attack, hit

____

Fox took multiple slams from Villain, hit 0 and successfully bluffed to feign death

Samurai: archery attack again, hit

Priest and Warpriest channeled energy

Fox stood up, pulled out an alchemical weapon ready for next round

______________

Villain attacked Samurai for some damage

Enlarged priest smashed Villain into pulp

_____________________

Potential obstacle before the final fight could have resulted in a messy combat, instead I Intimidated my way through it.

I only use Bluff and Diplomacy in my social persona; the Fox just Intimidates.

_________________________________

Moving onto the final fight

Fox attempted to intimidate, rolled intimidatingly high, rolled NL damage and was given a chance to will save due to interaction; revealed the Boss was an illusion.

Boss then attacked from invisible with a rapier and shocking grasp for 14

Moving into initiative, the Fox burned Omen's daily charge to swift intimidate, made it inflicting shaken on the boss plus 2pts NL, then attacked and missed.

Boss critted Samurai for 25 pys and acid, Samurai down and dying

Warpriest stablises Samurai; others do things that are not very interesting

Fox bumps shaken to frightened with an intimidate and 3 more NL; the modifier to will save is enough for the wizard to colorspray him into submission

_______________________________________________________

Lessons learned: with a 1 minute change time it should be possible, even in a crisis situation, to swap personas if you can find a plausible reason to put a bit of distance from the party and if you're not actually in initiative

Don't bother attacking; it is better to Intimidate. Always Intimidate.


This one was a tricky one; it was heavily diplomatic, so it was really a toss-up as to whether I would even get to use the vigilante persona, because it's heavy social to start with and there's never any privacy.

After negotiating the first obstacle and basically getting stuck with Problem, despite some heavy diplomacy and then switching to intimidate when that didn't get the desired result, we headed off to the second obstacle. This was easy because I basically took 10 for 20 on most things and rolled nicely on a high DC intimidate check to deal with Problem at least until we got back from location 3

My stalker-senses tingling, I managed to slip away while the party was distracted by the appearance of the first combat, and since there was some talking before initiatives the GM rolled d10 to work out how far I was through my persona switch.

The combat was over within the 4 rounds I needed, and one of the party was highly suspicious due to his trauma from the Overflow Archives and his amnesia about the warning I gave at the start (not to mention their concern that the social persona was somewhere in the wilderness now, alone and freezing to death).

The last combat was undead, which was a problem for me, because I couldn't use the alchemists fire I had brought with me, didn't have a lethal damage weapon and I forgot that I had holy water (and now I think of it, wand of cure light wounds), so I ended up grabbing an improvised and helped batter it to death.

The Vigilante needs always to be prepared.


The main action in this scenario takes place diplomatically, so I spent a good 50 percent wandering around town in my social persona smarming NPCs. I warned the group in advance that I was a professional diplomat and poor at combat, but that we were being followed by my ally, who would likely help them if needed.

When the first nightfall came I announced that I was going to schmooze the bars for information, but instead switched to vigilante and lurked the streets. Failed intimidation check and learned nothing, GM the next morning announced that the faction I was investigating had flooded the streets with mooks looking for the looney who was beating up people in alleyways.

After trying and failing to schmooze the faction that the vigilante was investigating, the social nearly got a crossbow bolt, so that evening, while the party were discussing our best move I slipped away, lurked in their hidden base and just threw in my 2 cents to the conversation.

I explained that after the social had put himself in harms way, I had removed him to a safe house I established in the town and said that I would be aiding the party. We decided to head to the Event. I separated from the party, switch to social and swanned into the Location past the guards who were looking for the vigilante, then concealed myself and switched back, ready for the Event.

Following the Event the party and I made our escape with the NPC, into a combat. Hidden by the party wizard's Obscuring Mists and using my daily use of Omen to double dip for quick fear, I successfully intimidated the enemy into fleeing; we let them live to spread word of the terrible wrath of the Fox.

Due to time constraints we skipped a combat and went right to the finale; the Fox announced that the party would take Social persona with them and that vigilante would make his own exit form the dangerous situation; I then switched back to social and we made our escape.

Trapped as we were in the Escape route and suddenly thrust into combat due to an ambush, I engaged in combat as my social persona with my trusty sword cane. After dispatching one I flanked another NPC and took advantage of my hidden strike extra damage.

Because I had used a vigilante base ability in my social persona, the GM not unreasonably called for perception checks, one of the other players passed and was allowed to make a sense motive roll vs my disguise to figure out my secret.

Since I had the social grace bonus PLUS the Kitsune racial the DC ended up being in the 50s.


After the briefing my social persona basically announced 'Screw this, I'm wearing courtiers clothing, I'm not slogging through a flooded basement. I have more important stuff to do, I'm sending someone else to help you' and flounced out, returning as my vigilante persona, The Fox (a Kitsune).

Those of you familiar with the scenario may find some comedy

The first couple of encounters were purely social interactions and we were able to diplomancy through them.

First combat was in a dingy sub basement and there was no opportunity to hide and use hidden strike because zero cover plus sunrod makes level 1 Batman wannabe sad.

I tried for a ranged attack, but missed due to ranged increment and melee modifier. Next round I saved my ammo, moved closer and attempted to demoralize

Best decision ever; the GM ruled that as I was the scariest thing present, the creature picked me as the next target and leapt at me, provoking 3 different attacks of opportunity, dropping it in it's tracks.

In the next combat I managed to get off a full hidden strike on a minion, killing it outright.

The primary antagonist however was getting busy and charmed most of the party before I was able to demoralize her into cowering and the party finished her off.

We moved on to the final challenge after having completed the requirements of the scenario and while I smelled a rat I couldn't put my finger on exactly why, which I'm sure will also cause amusement. Not being one for being bullied, I attempted to retrieve one of the remaining mcguffins initiating combat.

I failed my saving throw vs cause fear and spent the next 3 rounds fleeing and the 3 after that running back, missing the combat entirely.


Vigilante play test

I had fortunately taken perform: acting for my day job; as a result I was able to immediately notice something amiss with the performance and slip away to change

Find cover, stealth, move
draw weapon, ready attack
hidden strike attack, attacked for 6/9 hit points
Hit and step away for 3 damage, not flanking hidden strike possibl because my partner moved
Healed with clw

Stealth to cover; double move
Attack max damage and hidden strike, yay!
Enemy still alive, hit me for 8/9 hit points
+7 from CLW
Fumble attack
Flanking hidden strike: table all ask "huh? What's with the d4?"

Open room
Hid behind enlarged person
Enemies dead before a hit

Picked up a short bow, decided to try ranged

Move To a hiding place, hide
Shoot, miss, fail to snipe roll
Enemy Chan energy 3 dam (resisted)
Shoot, miss
Enemy Chan energy 6 dam (not resisted)
Collapse

The level 1 stalker played very much like a Chained rogue and I found I tried to be the Arkham Batman, always looking for an opportunity to strike from hidden, to avoid the Hidden Strike penalty on mere flanking attacks. Ultimately I felt like I wasn't making as big a contribution as I might have, and chances to use my social skills were limited even before the scenario turned combat, partly because at the first hint of something odd I immediately went to change persona (although in retrospect, at level 1 with no talents I would have been as effective in social as vigilante).

The class has potential and I like the dual-split damage of hidden strike, but it was still underwhelming compared to other classes and even to the rogue. Maybe go the other way and make it D8/D6? I'm sure it will improve with talents; hide in plain sight would be a good one.

As I was playing a stealthy skill monkey I opted for finesse, which ran into the standard vanilla rogue damage issues. I experimented with sniping and I won't be doing that again.


Any chance of getting proficiency with shuriken baked in rather than having to spend a feat on Exotic Weapon Proficiency?

Silver Crusade

Hello folks,

I've already built a character that I think looks pretty solid but it never hurts to seek second opinions and I'd love to hear yours. Hopefully someone will have an idea so awesome I'll ditch what I already have.

Rather than prejudice you with what I've already got however I'd like to lay out the restrictions and see what you come up with without me providing you with what I already have, aside from the basic outline. I'm happy to provide my own attempt later if anyone wants.

The character is for PFS so it would start at level 1 with a 20 point buy on stats, but do feel free to give higher level ideas for it to grow into.

The character is a Tiefling.
Fighter with the Armor Master archetype.
He's a Silver Crusade member.

Thanks in advance!