Doktor Weasel's page

]The DM as an AI isn't going to be a real thing for a long time. Not as more than a gimmick. Or unless they're really just making scripted video games.

And for the VTT if you go too far with it, it's not just 3rd party creators who can't do much, but GMs can't really do anything but run official adventures with no changes or improvising.

From what I was seeing, it sounds like the "AI GM" might be mistaking an ability to solo-play pre-made modules. Basically like you said, a scripted video game version of the module. And good point about it being too closed would eliminate GM's ability to do anything else.

Some more thoughts based on the big leak from D&D Shorts about WotC's plans for D&D. It's likely that openness never was the threat to their profits that they thought it was. D&D has huge market share even with the OGL. And third party content likely draws players to their product (and the rule book purchases and various other types of merch). If this new online environment they're working on is as amazing as claimed, they'll have many people flocking to it. They've been able to pour the kind of money into development that no third party is able to, and they've already got the head start in development. If that really is the future of gaming like they're betting on, then licensing is basically irrelevant. They own the platform (I seriously doubt it will be opened in any way), and will control all the micro-transactions that are the apparent income source they expect. So this whole ordeal was likely a counter-productive distraction, even if it didn't provoke a backlash the value would be debatable. They were trying to kill competition, but if their plans are successful, they don't have any competition. I guess possibly the big concern might be if some major video game company that isn't a current competitor decides to get into things, someone like say Microsoft might be able to afford to make an even grander VTT.

AceofMoxen wrote:

Even with Hasbro (seeming to) back down, the ORC is still important!

I mean, there's no guarantee they won't try it again when the dust settles. That's why the ORC being managed by an independent entity is important.

And recall that this isn't even the first time they've tried this. Back in 2008 they tried to stop people from using the OGL with the GSL, and a clause in it that anyone using the GSL couldn't make any OGL content. This part was stripped after outcry, but the GSL was still more restrictive. And now 15 years later they pull a similar stunt. WotC in control means there will always be an incentive to try to do this again. Having something universal and not controlled by any company with a profit motive in it will be useful.

Ironfang Invasion changed things up a bit and got us an erotic statue of two male hobgoblins, that might be someone else's work. Maybe inspired by these. "an erotic onyx statuette of two hobgoblin men embracing (worth 630 gp)"

I did love this little long running Easter-egg, and how it ties into a major plot point in the setting. Succubus porn as plot foreshadowing. Who'd have thunk it?

And now I got curious so I'm searching for them. I've found five scattered among the adventure paths:

Curse of the Crimson Throne Book 1 Edge of Anarchy:

I really thought there were more of these. There may be some with different wording I didn't catch.

I'm thinking of an all doppelganger party. Nobody realizes that anyone else is a doppelganger. They think they're being sneaky and infiltrating a group of other races. Wackiness ensues. At one point they try to impersonate each other, and they still have the same party. A impersonates B, B impersonates C, C impersonates D and D impersonates A. Nobody says anything because they don't want to give away that they're impersonating someone else.

Or there's a sword, in a chest, in a dungeon, but all three are PCs. It's like a Turducken party.

I honestly think the truly bombastic fear mongering examples people like to give... Well, I've never seen them, and don't know of anyone that would want to play it. It would be a small market. Most people would not talk about it or say how there unsavory content.

The market would sort itself out.

I am admittedly a writer, so to see people so eager to silence others is concerning.

The big examples I can think of would be dreck like FATAL or that leak of Star Frontiers: New Genesis with racism inserted. FATAL was a flop, and is only remembered due to it's extreme terribleness being unintentionally hilarious. So this being a good example of your point about the market sorting it out. And the Star Frontiers thing is more a copyright issue. But the later does point to why companies would likely want something like this in their brand compatibility license, as having that associated with your brand would be problematic. But in the ORC itself, it's not really necessary. That someone is using an open license doesn't really reflect on anyone else the way associating things with their brand does. Especially since the ORC won't be owned by a specific company.

I had to go back and reverse-engineer where i got that from. You're correct that it's not in the current OGL, it's part of Paizo's compatibility license.

Quote:

4. Usage Restrictions

The license granted hereunder is expressly limited to use of the Compatibility Logo and Font in printed books, electronic books, and freely available websites that are compatible with Pathfinder Second Edition. Anyone seeking a license for any other use should contact Paizo at licensing@paizo.com.

You may not use the Compatibility Logo or Font in a way that suggests Paizo owns, endorses, or is in any way responsible for any part of your Product, or for any conduct of your business, or that suggests that you have any relationship beyond a mere license with us, unless we have a separate agreement that lets you do so. You also may not state or suggest that we guarantee your Product's compatibility with Pathfinder Second Edition.

The titles of your Products may not include any Paizo trademarked terms (or marks confusingly similar thereto), including "Pathfinder," "Pathfinder Second Edition," or "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game."

You may not use Paizo's trade dress for your Products or advertisements—that is, you may not design your Products or advertisements to look confusingly similar to Paizo's products or advertisements.

You may not do anything illegal in or with your Products.

You must use your best efforts to preserve the high standard of our trademarks. You may not use this License for material that the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive, or inappropriate for minors.

You may not release any Products under this License until August 1, 2019 (the release date for Pathfinder Second Edition).

I also like the wording on this better than WotC's. You must make your best effort, so trying and screwing up isn't grounds for termination, intent is important. One example I'm thinking of was some of the concept art for PF2, showing Orcs with very gorilla like features, such as knuckle walking. This was apparently intended to be a way to make PF's style unique, like they did with Goblins and Ogres in Rise of the Runelords and Kobolds in the new edition. But it was brought up that it was kind of getting into Unfortunate Implications territory with all the racial baggage around orcs and the history of depicting other races as more like apes, so was scrapped. So I'd say if that wasn't caught and scrapped, it wouldn't be a violation. It'd be an embarrassment and probably get an apology and ceasing to use the style when it was called out later, but the intent wasn't malicious, so wouldn't result in a license termination.

I also like how instead of making Paizo the sole arbiter of what is offensive, it defines it as what "the general public would classify as "adult content," offensive or inappropriate for minors." Which makes it so it's not as easy to use as a loophole to terminate a company's license unless they actually did intentionally do some awful stuff (like the case with Star Frontiers, which is being used as the justification for this clause).

So I'd hope any morality clause in the ORC would be more like the one in the Pathfinder Compatibility License and not the WotC one. But I'm not sure it really should have a restriction on Adult Content. That's fair to not want associated with the Pathfinder brand, but having an actual open license I think should be open for exploring more mature themes (Paizo of course leaned into this a bit early on). So would probably be more appropriate to be left to the individual companies and their brand licensing.

Since it's pretty clear that the entire point of this OGL update is to kill their competition, and ensure another Paizo never rises from the ashes of their own mistakes again, why WOULDN'T they abuse that part of the license to stifle competition?

Agreed on everything, but just an ironic side note on this part. The funny thing is that it's this exact same behavior that in part gave rise to Paizo in the first place. For 4th Ed WotC switched to a more restrictive license, and in its' first draft tried to make it so anyone who used it couldn't use the OGL anymore. That part was eventually dropped, but the damage was done, companies fled from WotC and their new GSL, and Paizo created Pathfinder so they could have a currently supported game to write material for. Now once again WotC is going to a new edition (although I suspect one that'll be better received than 4th), and once again are trying to introduce a more restrictive license and again make it so anyone who uses it can't use the OGL 1.0a. And once again companies are fleeing, and creating their own open systems to continue doing what they have been, in this case Kobold and MCDM, previously Paizo.

You'd have thought they'd have learned their lesson from 15 years ago. But they have not. This time it's even worse. They're still trying to put that OGL genie back in the bottle, but it was designed specifically so they couldn't.

I'm pretty sure I was aware of "Tolkien had some pretty problematic ideas on race" (which includes his conception of Orcs from which all fantasy orcs derive) well before there even was a twitter.

Just the idea that there are sapient species who form societies, use tools, create art, etc. that are okay to murder without conscience because of what kind of thing they are is the hobby's original sin.

In my group, I often joke about how eating or making things like clothing out of the bodies of sentient creatures is universally regarded as evil... except if it's a dragon, in which case it's tradition, that makes it ok! Crunch all you want, they'll make more! We'll get entire pages on how to butcher dragons for armor and magic components, etc. It's kind of a weird moral loophole that just got grandfathered in due to the murderhobo mindset that came with the game in the 70s (as Oceanshieldwolf says above, most likely due to the war-gaming roots of the game and combat focus). There's a lot of baggage that's been grandfathered into the hobby that's still being unpacked.

Paizo has been pretty good about this, especially recently, even though they stumble at times. The early Paizo material certainly went hard on the evil orc trope. But since then they've been working to give them much more nuance, with orcs telling Tar-Baphon to pound sand and the write-up of Mwangi orcs who generally get along fairly well with their human neighbors. With the Belkzan Orcs being a particularly nasty orc culture, much like how Cheliax is a particularly nasty human culture.

Of course this is getting rather off topic. Which is the license. It is great to see so many companies and individual creators coming together to create a universal open license for the hobby to thrive with. I would like to see more companies that aren't even involved in OGL or D20 etc getting involved, to really turn this into a truly universal license.

And on the other hand I do have a question, are there any companies sticking with WotC and the OGL 1.1, 1.2 or whatever numbering they're going to use for the restrictive stuff they're pushing?

Worms is clearly a reference to using worms as fishing bait. They're teasing the new Bassfinder AP. PCs will have to brave treacherous rivers, with hoards of stirges while trying to reel in "The Big One." Special rules for other hazards including sunburn and the dreaded Running out of Beer.

More seriously, I really don't have much clue. Worm the Walks villain?

Rust I likewise don't have much clue, could be early encounters have rust monsters, but that's not really much of a theme, just something that exists. Rust does bring to mind Numeria, but apparently that's been ruled out. It kind of brings to mind Alkenstar too, but we've just had something there.

Spiders makes me think of Grandmother Spider and the Anadi, maybe something set in their homeland of Nurvatcha? I think they've shown up in a few things lately, but they're cool so deserve some more love. And going to southern Garund, off the standard Inner Sea map would be fun. I'm sure they'd weave some great nets for the Bassfinders at least.

mikeawmids wrote:

You can't have drow as the bad guys anymore cos' of Racism,

This is pretty reductive and inflammatory. It’s also wrong; there’s Evil drow in Extinction Curse and the Bestiary, and the lore about the Great Houses being demon-worshipers didn’t go anywhere. There’s still cruel fleshwarpers lurking beneath our feet, if that’s a story you want to tell.

The issue has always been presenting *all* drow as irredeemable villains, something Abomination Vaults has touched on, and several other sources have worked to scaffold (the reformed Twilight Lanterns, Nocticula’s redemption) for the future. If an AP gave us drow victims and allies alongside the baddies, I can’t imagine anyone being much too mad.

While Paizo has been certainly trying to get away from the whole "Always evil" thing for ancestries, there might be some resistance to applying it to drow, at least in significant numbers. There's been a lot of backlash against the "Drizzt Syndrome" where so many Drow were the good rebels against the evil drow society, and people got tired of it. I think this is part of why Second Darkness really emphasized the evil. Of course that's not a non-negotiable reason to oppose non-evil drow, and certainly can be reevaluated. The way ancestries are done in PF2 also removes the problem of PF1 and D&D where Drow were straight up unbalanced compared to most PC races, which might have been another reason.

Maybe. Second Darkness is not exactly beloved of the community and I recall reading somewhere that the creative team would like another bite of the elf apple. You can't have drow as the bad guys anymore cos' of Racism, but an AP where you all play as dark elves and adjacent ancestries, focused on GoT style political maneuvering/backstabbery could be interesting, but is maybe too similar to the underlying themes of Blood Lords to happen anytime soon.

I've had a similar idea for a while, which I'd love to see. Darklands adventure, where all the PCs take darklands ancestries instead of the standard core ones, Caligni instead of Human, Drow instead of Elf, Duergar instead of Dwarves, Snirfivlin for Gnomes and maybe Derro(?) for halflings (only one without a direct counterpart in the darklands). Could go multiple ways, like exiles and rejects trying to escape the worst aspects of their home civilizations, or like you mentioned focus on political skullduggery, or even maybe raiding the topside as an inversion of being surface dwellers delving into the Darklands. Lots of potential in that, and considering Paizo is doing more and more "themed" parties, it could fit with that.

There is a thematic clash issue with firearms. Not just the "Keep guns out of my fantasy!" mentality, but that everyone has completely different ideas of what firearms would entail and what they want out of them. There's a weird hodgepodge of tech-level assumptions going on in PF1. We've got 14th century hand-cannons next to 19th century revolvers and rifles. The differences between them are dramatic. The gunslinger class was kind of built around the idea of 19th century gunfighter tropes, but with earlier tech which wasn't really compatible. There's also the issue that lock types weren't' even addressed at all. I'm assuming the default assumption for most guns is flintlocks (in this case including the earlier snaplock, snaphance, dog-lock, miqulete lock etc and not just the "true" French-lock flintlock), but that skips wheel-locks, match locks and the lock-less hand-cannons. And then advanced firearms completely skips over the cap-lock step to go directly to metallic cartridges. Of course the other weapons and armor have a big age range too, with rapiers sitting next to kopeshes. So maybe it's not really a concern. But it does have a bigger mechanical difference. But I think before firearm mechanics are done, there needs to be a firm decision of just what is wanted out of guns. High-damage, slow-reload curiosities best suited for en-mass battlefield use, or rapid firing cowboy six shooter action? Trying to do both at the same time gets confused.

I actually kind of like the high-reload time encouraging people to carry a whole brace of pistols dangling from ribbons (also double barreled pistols). It's got the coolness of being like Blackbeard bristling with pistols, the fact that it was actually done, and the price, bulk and action requirements keeping things in check. And once you go through your six or whatever, you still have to take quite a while to reload the things. PF2 lacks the massive incentives of PF1 to specialize in using only one weapon type, so this could also encourage the Golden Age of Piracy style combat of blasting with your brace of pistols, then switching to your sword to finish things. In PF1 that'd require too many feats split between melee and ranged weapons to be useful, but seems more doable in PF2.

Sooo... This mean kobold plushies are definitely happening right?

Right?

:P

Plushies!? Plushies are for cute things. Kobolds are fierce and terrifying little draconic warriors, not cute. I mean does this bloodthirsty brute look cute?

...oh. He totally does. Absolutely adorable. Ok, plushy time. ;)

Kobolds will be core in PF3. The end will be upon us. All hail Groetus.

Kobolds will be core in PF3, and the Free RPG Day adventures will be focused on Flumphs. Who will be core for PF4. Flumphapalooza!

Oh these sound fun. I also love the title Little Trouble in Big Absalom.

I was curious if the We Be Goblins line of Free RPG Day adventures would lose something now that they're a core ancestry and not just an odd change of pace. Giving Kobolds a chance to shine sounds like a good option. Especially how popular the little scaly dudes are. And with PF2, they're likely to not have terrible stats like they do in PF1. The theme of wacky shenanigans with little misfits does seem to be continuing. And while I don't play Starfinder, I wholeheartedly approve of skittermanders. In fact, I think they should make an appearance on Golarion in PF2. There's an entire world here that could use their help.

I'm curious if this group of Kobolds will be the focus of all the PF2 Free RPG Day offerings, or if there will rotating concepts.

I haven't been active on the forums for a while. I'm glad to see my opinion is not unique.

I just found out that this book has a Bag of Weasels as a magic item.
So I think it's officially the best book ever.

Dwarven Throwing Axes that can be used as a hand axe or throwing axe, and not require two different weapons with minutely different stats, would be cool.

It's already there, just not dwarven. The Hatchet now combines the throwing axe and hand-axe into a single weapon (as it always should have been).

While I do like having a lot of weapons, I'm also hoping that things don't bloat up too much. PF1 started to get a few too many weapons which were basically the same thing with arbitrarily different stats. The springblade and switchblade knife are two different versions of the exact same thing. Do we really need a gladius? It's just a specific type of short-sword. Bec-de-corbin and Lucerne hammer were basically the same thing. They're both variations on the pollaxe with a hammer and spike on either side of the head instead of an axe-blade on one and spike or hammer on the other as was common. They just came from different regions and the Lucerne hammer had longer prongs on it's hammer head (the prongs are to help give purchase into armor, not pierce as spikes, same with a mace's flanges). In fact, most polearms are pretty much just variations on a theme: blade, hook, spike and sometimes hammer. There are only so many ways you can make those functionally different. Should a volgue and a halbard have different stats? No, the dividing line between the two is pretty thin, A bardiche is just a specific type of greataxe, bills and glaives aren't really different enough to justify different stats etc. We don't need to go the route of Fantasy Imperium, which had 63 pages of illustrations of it's bloated weapons list and another 10 of armor (I rechecked). Most were slight style differences of the same weapons and various regional names were slapped onto them arbitrarily.

Likewise I'd like to avoid the habit of some later PF1 weapons which were just plain better weapons. The falcata was a longsword and battleaxe in one (I do rather like falcatas, and forward curved swords in general, but it's not a super-weapon). The Orc Butchering Axe is an even greater greataxe, the horn-bow just an even stronger bow. It was like an arms race (well I guess in a way it literally was). Weapons had to top what came before.

There's room for new weapons. But let them be actually new weapons, not just different stat blocks for slight variations.

I'd kind of like to see something sort of like those weird German dueling shields that show up in so many old fencing texts. They're just bizarre, and would fit a fantasy niche of shields with offensive capabilities. As far as I know they were really only used for judicial duels aka Trial by Combat (notice the odd clothing most of these people are wearing, it's at least partly ceremonial). But they're usable one-handed with a weapon (either a club or sword was used depending on the region), in which case it is basically used like a large shield. They're also usable in both hands as an offensive weapon in their own right. Rules for this could be a bit weird though. Maybe something like: When used with a weapon, it functions as a standard heavy shield. When used in two-hands it has the weapon stats of <insert stat block here>.

As for stats, I'd say when used as a weapon it's probably a 2-handed piercing weapon, maybe with Versitile S, likely with Grapple and/or Trip (they are often shown with hocked parts that can used to snag someone. Probably have the Parry trait due to being a literal shield.

For one-handed offensive shields. There is this thing. The text calls it a Hungarian Shield, but this image is about all I've seen on it. There is a known style of shield known as the Hungarian Shield but they're a bit different in shape and don't have the blade.

The main party that causes issues is the one from Wrath of the Righteous. They've got not just level 20 but 10 Mythic tiers. In some cases they're quite literally godlike. Our solution involved high mythic characters to ascend off plane to deal with higher issues as demigods.

The others can be dealt with with high-level threats keeping them in check. But mythic is a real game-changer.

I'm throwing my hat into the ring for a plant humanoid. We haven't seen one, and with the Sylvari from Guild Wars 2 being so popular, I think it's time.

Well we are getting leshys. A return of Ghorans from PF1 would also be nice.

Doktor Weasel wrote:

The big problem is the assumption that they still control the artifact. That's the part that really requires the PCs to be holding the idiot-ball.

Here's the fix I would suggest. The Onyx key creates 8 shards that can open doorways and 1 sardonyx shard that can create a doorway to the vault that holds the Onyx Citadel. When a shard is destroyed, it will regrow on the key over time but it will not regrow if the shard is merely "elsewhere" rather than actually destroyed.

So the PCs, in possession of the Sardonyx shard, take possession of the Onyx Key, but some number (>2) of shards are unaccounted for as the artifact never regrows the full 8. Azaersi could have handed off like six shards to lieutenants and sent them back to the prime material plane.

Thereby, the PCs didn't make a greivous error, but then Oprak still has the use of the stone road- they just can't replace the shards if they happen to get destroyed.

That's a really good solution. I didn't quite remember all the specifics how how it worked, so I wasn't sure if something like this could happen. But yeah, one or two shards remaining with subordinates does solve the problem, they were just out of reach, not allowed as part of a bad negotiation. It does limit the potential use of the stone roads, and means that most of the network is controlled by someone else (possibly Kragodan) which may or may not conflict with canon, but also leaves them as a bit less of a threat.

The only reason Oprak needs to exist is "to have a Hobgoblin nation in the inner sea." If you don't want that, just leave that particular mountainous region that the Nirmathi weren't using as part of Nirmathas.

Both "replacing Azaersi with a different Hobgoblin" or "Wiping Oprak off the map" are really easy edits, I feel.

Yeah, those are fairly easy to do. Different hob would be my bet. The big problem is the assumption that they still control the artifact. Having it seems to be a major feature of the country, so removing it is more difficult. That's the part that really requires the PCs to be holding the idiot-ball. "Hey, this invading army has a super weapon that allowed them to take over almost two entire countries in a short span of time and was being planned to be used to nuke-level effect... after we defeat them lets just let them keep it and hope they decide not to be naughty with it. Again." What?

Edit: Yeah, sorry that this has gotten a bit spoilery. But it's basically already being spoiled by the core material. At least it's not like Tyrant's Grasp, the most recent complete AP is spoiled by the core book.

The biggies would most likely be things that were popular in PF1; the various 'mostly human' races (but doable for other base ancestries, all the plane touched, dhampir, changelings etc. Also kitsune, ratfolk and tengu. Maybe a few of the weirder PF1 races too, like Ghorans and some aliens for adventures elsewhere in the solar system, lashunta, kasatha, triaxian, etc.

Beyond that, I'd kind of like some more non-human ancestries. But I'm concerned about how things will balance with the current ancestry system. I don't want watered down things that kind of resemble the base creature. For example, a strix that can't fly from level 1, isn't a strix. Some kind of sentient ooze creature could be fun, and it's an unfilled niche. Mezlans are really cool, but are a bit high-powered for a playable ancestry, and again run into the watered down problem. Appallies might be doable, but being amorphous is a problem.

Also, it needs to be said, flumph. And I'm not really joking (much) on that either. They're fun, they're friendly, they're all sorts of weird. All big pluses. The PF1 Kineticist writeup always reminded me of flumphs by mentioning "or a grasping appendage" when referring to having a free hand.

And while I'm being a bit on the silly side, skittermanders. Maybe the Divinity had a population of them onboard and they were recently set loose and are now out to help an entire world of nufriends?

Honestly more I think about it (and more I re-read the ironfang invasion stuff because I had honestly forgot about things like human skin tents) the more I dislike the way they have gone with it especially the part where they just let her keep the onyx key and the stone roads.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more it just doesn't sit right with me. It kind if feels like they're assuming the PCs were frankly, really stupid, and inept negotiators. When I first heard about Oprak, I figured is was probably less the less militant people in the defeated remnants of the army that set it up. But Azaersi still in charge and in command of her stolen super weapon? Uh no. By the time negotiation was possible, she has basically lost. She has no leverage, and the PCs have all of it. And she already proved she can't be trusted when she launched an unprovoked invasion with intent on genocide. So why decide to give the store away? Did they pay her war reparations and formally apologize for being invaded too?

Maybe there are more details to it that I haven't seen yet. I haven't read the Lost Omens World Guide yet, so maybe there's something that makes this less of a boneheaded move by the PCs than it seems.

It's great to know that my particular campaign, in which we lost everything and fought back tooth-and-nail to restore peace to the land and free the people that were being oppressed in the Vault of the Onyx Citadel, is utterly invalidated.

Seriously, how can you just up and decide that one particular ending of an AP is just categorically wrong? And moreover, why on earth would people fighting for a free nation suddenly take pity on a woman who took everything from them and would continue to run a tyrannical regime on a plane with indigenous cultures?

This is honestly one of the biggest reasons I'm not playing 2E. This was an awful, awful way to handle this, and a big middle finger to anyone who played Ironfang Invasion and didn't show 11th-hour compassion for seemingly no reason.

Any canonical ending will invalidate all other endings, so unless the timeline was stuck and the earlier APs never mentioned, some games were going to be invalidated.

That said, I do agree that parts of this ending don't really sit right. When my group played it, we certainly took Azaersi out and reclaimed the artifact. Playing as an all dwarf party (which works really well for that campaign) might have had something to do with it, but I think we'd make the same decisions anyway. She had a stolen artifact and used it to murder and enslave people wholesale. That's not something you can just go "Oh, well you've had a bad life so we'll let it slide." We might have agreed to some kind of peace settlement, but removing Azersi from power, abolishing slavery and most importantly not keeping the artifact would most likely be non-negotiable positions. And at that point we'd be negotiating as victors. She's a bloody-handed butcher who's people were doing things like making tents out of human skin. I think Oprak is an interesting idea, and kind of cool. But assuming the PCs just let the butcher walk and keep her stolen war-machine just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially since she was beaten by that point. Although some of this might also be due to GM interpretation. I haven't read the modules, I just played them. So a lot of the GM facing material didn't reach me.

Oprak can still exist even if Azersei is taken out though. If she's gone, than a less militant leader could take the remnants of the army and fall back to the mountainous regions. Nirmanthis and Molthune might then agree to a peace deal that allows them to keep existing instead of having to go and dislodge them from the harsh area where they could easily wage guerilla warfare. Them having control of the Onyx Citidel is problematic though.

My group has gone fully laptop based for PF1. We even do more than just the sheets, we use a virtual tabletop and a projector to handle maps and movement as well as show character art and such. Maybe I've just gotten lazy and complacient, but I'm not sure I could do PF1 with a paper sheet anymore. There are just too many moving parts. Using auto calculations is incredibly helpful, as is having basically an infinite amount of room to write all the info needed.

I was at one point kind of looking forward to going back to a simpler paper sheet for the PF2 playtest, in large part because of the distractions issue. But quickly I broke down and went digital again. Every level you have to change basically every number on the sheet, and that gets to be a bit much. Also probably some of that laziness I mentioned earlier.

Having the electronic devices can certainly contribute to distractions, the whole group is guilty of this and I know I'm one of the bigger offenders. "Ooh, shiny!" But in the end, for us I think it's the right choice. We go about 12 hours a week, so maintaining a laser focus is probably not going to happen anyway. And most of the distractions are about people chatting than the electronics anyway. Since part of the game is for us to hang out, we take that as an acceptable loss. A group with less time will likely want to keep tighter discipline. But digitization does really help with a lot of things. We can keep an accurate record of where each of those numerical modifiers are coming from, not just using some number you have on your sheet that you no longer even remember what's taken into account and what isn't. Apps like Combat Manager really help make the GMs job easier, with initiative and condition tracking and easy access to monster stats. Hopefully there will be a PF2 version coming soon. Using online resources for rules lookups is also much easier than hunting around for just which book something was in. PF2 might be easier to run without the assistance, but it still helps.

Make shoes not war!

I can't help but wonder whether a new Ancestry was necessary for the Hobgoblin. Surely a Goblin Heritage could have sufficed considering Half-Elves and Half-Orcs?

The different size category is a pretty big incentive to make them a distinct ancestry. Plus they're very distinct and not just a breed of goblin. I doubt they can even interbreed (although a hybrid goblin/hobgoblin would be interesting).

I like the new design. It shows a common gobliniod heritage. While a lot of the PF1 artwork tended to look more like blue-grey orcs with longer ears and no tusks. And I don't think Orcs have been gobliniods since AD&D 2nd, and they certainly are separate in Pathfinder. So they should look more like their actual relatives (especially with the lore that they were created from goblins) and not something they're unrelated to.

I figure the GM approval part of being Uncommon can also cut down on the "But I'm the hob who likes magic!" characters. They're already subject to GM approval for their suitability to the campaign, and hobgoblin wizards could be given more scrutiny. Plus the INT bonus makes them good alchemists as well as wizards. And hobgoblins do like alchemy quite a bit.

Generally speaking, class names, spell names, and such are player facing, not necessarily in-world terminology. Going around calling every angry warrior you meet a barbarian is likely to get you hung from a lamp post or prickly tree in some places, and it's pretty unlikely that anyone is going to self-referentially call themselves a rogue or champion (and much more likely that someone who does self-reference themselves by either of those names isn't actually a member of either class).

*Starts tilting at windmills*

Monk is likewise terrible. Again, it's not what the class is about. The class is about punching people in the face and doing wire-fu stunts. Nothing at all about monasticism. And it introduces confusion where monks aren't all Monks and Monks aren't usually monks. Whenever there is mention of a Monastery I have to wonder if it's for religious ascetics or face-punchers, or is there a weird situation where they're all the same.

While I'm at it, spell levels really should have been renamed. The unified presentation of everything makes it worse in this edition than previously. Item 3, monster 3, feat 3 are all things appropriate for a 3rd level character, Spell 3 is a spell that requires a 5th level character...
*rides off to go fight against the uselessness of the letter C*

THere have been quite a few changes, not just to spells. Are you going to come up with an in universe reason why characters need a feat to get attack of opportunity? Why wands work differently? Why 10th level magic exists? Why shield block is a thing now, but nobody for thousands of years prior thought to block with their shields?

To each their own, I suppose, but for me, “ it’s a new edition of the game and some things work differently” is a perfectly servicable reason, and far simpler than trying to come up with in-universe explanations for all of that.

Yeah, I figure most of these things are abstractions anyway. So there's a bit of room to mess with things. Kind of like how prices have changed. The exact pricing of things isn't really important world lore, same with exact spell effects. But I do think Deadmanwalking is right about how these spells will likely be done if they return, and that it's very possible that they will.

I'm hoping a lot of classic spells and items do come back in later books. I miss the Portable Hole, and this joke being relevant. Also fun crazy spells like Mad Monkeys (seriously, how can anyone not think that spell is awesome, everything is funnier with monkeys) and Explode Head (it even does area of effect damage from the head-shrapnel! HEAD-SHRAPNEL!!) Also more serious spells like the whole Create Pit line (great combat control, at least in theory, almost every time I saw it used they saved or were able to climb right out. I'm still a bit bitter that the magus didn't get those, so they could make a pit and then shove someone into them, seems perfect for the Magus. There's some potential for that kind of use with the new action system), or Blood Biography (great for investigations, it might need some refinement to keep it from being a plot-destroyer though).

I don't think its too bad that a Undead Army needs generals to command it. For me it adds to the flavour and gives the players opportunity for fun roleplay with their undead subordinates.

One general per 4 soldiers is a pretty high ratio though. That's a lot of subordinate casters. Even in PF1 the hit die limits meant true armies were basically impossible without an absurd number of high-level subordinates commanding them. A 20th level character could have 80 1 hd skeletons or zombies. Hardly an army. Tar Baphon required a unique mythic ability to ignore the limit. Sentient undead are both easier and harder. Since they're not directly controlled, there is no limit, but they can also tell you to pound sand.

Doktor Weasel wrote:

Yeah, Dwarves should really get their clan dagger for free. 2gp might not be a lot in the grand scheme of things, but that's 2/15 or 13.33% of the starting wealth. It's probably not a weapon most PCs are going to use much, so that's a sizable chunk for something that's almost entirely flavor.

Also, why are they peircing with versitile blunt? That seems really weird for a dagger. Is it just a heavy spike with no edge? If it cut's umbilical cords, it's probably got an edge, so why blunt and not slashing? Is the dagger on page 284 (right next to the clan dagger entry and looking very dwarfy) supposed to be a clan dagger? That's a choppy looking knife. I supose the blunt is coming from the gem on the pommel. This is not the most vital thing, but I like to know how things are supposed to work. And the current description doesn't explain it.

Slashing before cutting. Blunt forever after ;-D

Dwarves have addamantine umbilical cords. It blunts the blade permanently. :)

how do you "seed" a dungeon with consumables when crafting the consumables in the first place is, economy-wise, a TERRIBLE decision by the crafter.

Not specifically consumables, but I've always had a similar issue. There are a lot of items that are just bad, so who is making them? Where are these Rods of Wonder coming from? There can't be any significant demand for them, they're useless items that only gets printed because it's iconic and produced a few chuckles back in the 70s. Or my favorite punching bag for this edition, the Bracers of Missile Deflection. They're crap, a mundane shield is much better, who would want one? So who's making all the stuff that your party immediately says "It's useless, sell it," and who's buying it?

I was initially slightly concerned that the transferability of runes would be a bit too 'gamey' and feel like enhancement gems in Diablo or something. That concern was unfounded thankfully (at least for me). Runes are great. I always liked to stick to single weapons and upgrade them as I went, this makes that easier to do. And no longer has the issue where upgrading a +1 holy sword to +2 holy no longer costs an arm and a leg because it's effectively upgrading a +3 to +4. Now they no longer compete. I'm still not quite sure about spiting the pluses and striking, but at least neither competes with anything else, so that's fine. The transferability that concerned me at first, is undoubtedly useful. A cool magic weapon isn't going to get tossed on the sell pile because nobody in the party uses that kind of weapon "Oh, a +5 Holy, Fiend Bane, Phase Locking battle axe. That'd be perfect for my demon-slaying paladin... except I've got all my feats concentrating on longsword, so I'll have to pass..." Now you can transfer the power to your longsword. Of course feats and class features no longer tie you quite so tightly to single weapons, so you can just take the axe. This also allows you to keep some item with story or emotional significance. No longer junking your ancestral sword when you find a better one. So yeah, runes are great.

I do wish they allowed runes for shields. I understand that using runes to increase the AC would get out of control (it did in PF1, and would be worse with the tighter math), but I think there was still room for shield runes. The potency runes could have gone to increased durability instead (basically the Sturdy Shield in rune form). This would allow more shield customization. Floating, Spellguard, Arrow Catching and the like could all be runes instead of individual shields.

Yeah, Dwarves should really get their clan dagger for free. 2gp might not be a lot in the grand scheme of things, but that's 2/15 or 13.33% of the starting wealth. It's probably not a weapon most PCs are going to use much, so that's a sizable chunk for something that's almost entirely flavor.

Also, why are they peircing with versitile blunt? That seems really weird for a dagger. Is it just a heavy spike with no edge? If it cut's umbilical cords, it's probably got an edge, so why blunt and not slashing? Is the dagger on page 284 (right next to the clan dagger entry and looking very dwarfy) supposed to be a clan dagger? That's a choppy looking knife. I supose the blunt is coming from the gem on the pommel. This is not the most vital thing, but I like to know how things are supposed to work. And the current description doesn't explain it.

Longstrider is a status bonus, which stacks with Boots of Bounding which are an item bonus. The monk speed bonus is also a status bonus, so still the fastest rocket elf-monk that I can see off the top of my head is still 85 foot movement speed with permanent 4 actions a turn at 20th level (38.6 mph Zoom!). But this can bump the speed of non-monks decently.

And as for alchemists and consumables... Yeah, the consumable pricing is just absurd. The only reason to ever use any higher level alchemical items is if you have an alchemist in the party making them for free. Non-infused alchemical items are just a waste of money.

And from what I've seen, consumables are worse than even in the playtest. The terrible pricing was commented on at the time, so it wasn't just an oversight but a conscious decision to make the pricing so bad. My guess is that's a consequence of taking out resonance (an idea that should never have gotten as far as the playtest. Yeah, I'm still bitter about Resonance. It will forever give me pause that Paizo thought it was worth trying). It really looks like the main thing they were looking at for consumables was how to prevent 'abuse' but giving less thought to what would make something that you actually want to use.

The price scaling of healing potions is particularly bad. And it doesn't need to be, considering free healing is easily available with focus based healing and Treat Wounds. But it does encourage guzzling lots of cheap potions instead of a single higher level version. The price her HP healed on average scales like so:

Minor: 0.89 gp/hp
Lesser: 0.85 gp/hp
Moderate: 2.13 gp/hp
Greater: 8.51 gp/hp
Major: 75.76 gp/hp

That's absurd. Particularly the Major. The playtest had bad scaling, but it was much better than this. The playtest ratios were: 0.67, 0.62, 0.93, 1.74, 4.85, 17.01 respectively (there was one more potion and the levels varied a bit from the final).

The one thing that starts to make healing potions and other consumable prices start to make some sense is looking at them from the point of view of percentage of total expected lifetime party wealth at the level of the item. Here's the numbers for that:

Minor: 2.29%
Lesser: 1.23%
Moderate: 0.97%
Greater: 0.75%
Major: 1.98%

So the major is still overpriced even using this metric. I'm hoping it will get fixed in the errata. Dropping it's price to 1500 gp would make it fit into the progression much better by being 0.59%, and continuing the trend of parties being able to afford more potions of an appropriate level as they go up in level. Makes the GP/HP ratio less obscene too (but still pretty bad at 22.73 gp/hp). It still feels dramatically overpriced, but there would at least be some justification for it. I haven't run the numbers adjusted for how much HP characters would have at those levels. So if the higher level potions don't give as much of a percentage of the total HP as the cheaper ones at the level of the potion, then it'd go back to being bad scaling.

I think shroudb's batch pricing is also a good idea. Especially combined with the repricing of the Major, it might actually be kind of worth using.

Only Grenade that looks useful is the one Soldiers can make as that's at least 'reusable' and you can splice some effects to it later I think.

But is this just wands being king again or are staffs also up there too? Playtest looked to try to improve staffs but I haven't really checked that section too much.

From my read, staves don't look too great. They still require 1 charge per spell level, and each day gain a number of charges equal to your highest spell level, and you can only prepare one staff. So effectively it's a wand if you use the highest level spell. Although there is a bit more, prepared casters can spend a spell slot to get that many charges extra (only doable once a day, so you can get double by expending a top level spell), while spontaneous casters can cast any spell for 1 charge plus using a spell slot of that level. It looks a bit better for spontaneous casters, in that they can supplement their spell repertoire with the staff. There's also an added benefit each staff gives, for the school staves it's generally a +2 on rolls to identify magic of that school.

Roswynn wrote:

My girl says back in her day all this multiclassing b@##@*!$ didn't even exist, and the classes were something like man-at-arms, cleric, magic user, thief, elf, dwarf and halfling. I asked her if she's f%!+ing with me and she just laughed O___O

Your girl is right, although they were always called "Fighter" - the man-at-arms category is from Palladium, if memory serves.

I think the very earliest version of D&D (the 1974 set) had the class called 'Fighting-Man.' Although I also think classes and races were separate in that version. This was actually before my time. I started with the Red Box Basic Set (the 1983 version with the Larry Elmore cover) where the demi-humans were classes. I think the races as class was an invention of the "Basic" line, when they split AD&D and the boxed sets in 1977 (the year before I was born). All of this is to say, D&D has a really convoluted history. I still kind of boggle at the idea of making AD&D and Basic D&D as incompatible games that evolved separately. It's a really weird way of doing things.

I feel like the biggest impediment (for me at least) to taking ancient elf for that sweet sweet optimization is trying to come up with a backstory for how I didn't gain a single class level in the last 280ish years.

Like Goblins who are 8 years old have picked up as many trained skills as I have...

I had a hard enough time justifying that for a 136 year old elf. Especially since I reject the idea that they physically mature that much slower. Someone who's an infant for decades is just a bit too absurd for me. I went for having to save up a lot of money for magical college (she's an Arcanist) after her parents cut her off, and then getting distracted a lot by life along the way.

But I've always had a hard time visualizing pre-1st level characters. Before 1st level they're kind of in this nebulous state where they don't really have any stats. Back in AD&D you had 0-level characters, but with 3rd ed that got replaced by NPC classes. I think there's a 3rd party pathfinder supplement with different classes for non-adult characters that get changed into a standard class at 1st level after they mature. I never did get around to checking it out (and don't recall what it was called or who made it), but I thought the concept sounded interesting.

Of course I think the starting ages of elves will be closer to humans now with PF2. It no longer has the starting age table where you can't start younger than 114 if you're doing it all by the table. And it's explicitly stated in the core book that elves reach maturity by 20 (so slightly slower than humans, but not absurd). So I figure starting in their 20s and 30s might be more the norm going forward, which is much easier to justify.

I miss slutty Succubus, inbreed Ogers and childrien-eaters Goblins.

All are still around, just not quite so explicit. A lot of the 'toning down' of pathfinder is simply making such things implicit instead of explicit. This also allows for easy customization at your table. Pathfinder Baseline is just that, a baseline. A group that wants content outside of it can easily have it by simply giving more details.

It's a smart move on Paizo's part to have the baseline be something acceptable to the widest audience. The grit is still there under the surface.

Wandering Wastrel wrote:

Doktor Weasel wrote:

And because I'm a sophisticated adult with mature tastes, I kind of want monkey goblins to have some poo flinging ability. I'm just classy that way.

It shows how far Paizo have fallen away from their original concept of PF1 goblins as evil little pyromaniacs that somebody could write this.

It should be flaming poo. Obviously.

There is a way for goblins to light a bodily excretion on fire in this book, but it's not poo.

I think you've already given it away with earlier talk of a goblin monk sneezing flaming snot at enemies. Plus there was the Fire Sneeze spell in Goblins of Golarion, so it's got precident. But I do think you're missing a major opportunity here for something seriously high-brow.

With the release of the new edition, I have been planning a lot of characters, and a lot of them are elves, for any build that only really work with multiclass feats, this new elven heritage would be a no-brainer.

Elves are pretty powerful in PF2. Especially with their high speed. Mobility is very useful with the new rules. Hit and run tactics can be very effective. And then of course there is the Elf-monk built for speed: the Rocket Elf. Their feats are pretty good too. But a Half-Elf can get elf feats as well as human feats, which are also good.

To be fair, we've been doing this all along, for the most part. Many of these nonhuman ethnicities have existed for a while, but they've been sprinkled around here and there over the course of more than a decade. This was a great chance to gather everyone together in one place right at the start, while at the same time giving the same attention to other ancestries that didn't get that specific attention.

That's true. I didn't mean to dump on you guys too hard. I was more thinking of the whole D&D lineage and other fiction with non-human races. You have at least mentioned these other groups, they just didn't get a whole lot of coverage. But now it looks like they're really getting a chance to shine.

Shame the book doesn't come out until October (I think?) since the character I want to play in Age of Ashes is 100% a Fell Gnome. I don't even know what it does yet (it could do nothing for all it matters) I just know they're a Fell Gnome.

There was a Fell Gnome heritage in the playtest, so it might be similar to that one. At the very least you could maybe use that until the book comes out with the final version.

Unlike most gnomes, you have a connection to some of the darker fey, such as gremlins and redcaps. You can cast chill touch as an innate primal spell at will. The cantrip is heightened to a spell level equal to half your level rounded up.

So there you go. Related to nasty fey, and gives chill touch. I think the final heritages give a little more than the playtest versions, so it might be a bit more than that. Alternately they could decide to go a different direction.

I, for one, welcome our new monkey goblin overlords.

I think you mean monkey goblin pirate overlords. Bit to revive an old meme, they'll probably have to contend with ninja goblins (because they must exist) for overlord status.

And because I'm a sophisticated adult with mature tastes, I kind of want monkey goblins to have some poo flinging ability. I'm just classy that way.

It's bugged me for ages that the setting just straight-up has the Egyptian gods, when the Ulfen, Tien-Min, Razatlani, and Iblydosi get by just fine with fantasy faiths. It felt tacky in the Realms when they did it (though they had the goofy excuse of the setting actually having Egyptians in it), and it's tacky here.

Anyone else with me on this?

Yeah, it seems a bit lazy to be honest. Of course there are other real-world gods and demons that made their way into pathfinder. A lot of the devils, demons and Empyreal Lords come from real world sources, at least in name, including Asmodeus and Lamashtu. These don't bug me so much, but even in those cases I sometimes wish they used original names though.

Katapesh Fried Chicken wrote:

Game mechanics aside, why is there even a Bastard Sword in the game? It's literally a Longsword IRL. They're the same weapon...

And why is Studded Leather still around?

Grandfathered, it's just too iconic. Plus it has a stylish punk rock look. Also it fits a niche of being highly flexible but better than padded and normal leather. Of course it wouldn't be all that useful as described and it's just a misinterpretation of images of brigandine, coat of plates, etc, where those studs were rivet heads holding in metal plates. Some of the other bad armors have gradually fallen out, but studded leather has staying power.

The misuse of the term mail for things that aren't maile (chainmail == maile == mail) still bugs me. I cringe whenever I hear "platemail," although it hasn't been in the lists since AD&D 2nd. Banded mail is thankfully gone, joining other non-existent armors like ringmail. And splint mail's new description is much better. It's no longer described as some kind of weird armor made of vertical strips (a full suit of splints, which were historically just used along limbs to augment mail), and instead is now describing an actual real-world armor sometimes called splinted mail. This is a change I suggested in the playtest, so I'm feeling a bit smug (it almost certainly isn't based on me, but I'm going to pretend Paizo listened to my infinite wisdom in this case).

The armor naming bugs me much more than the weird sword names. Because swords never really did have standardized names. But mail always meant armor made of linked wire when it was in use. And some of these other armors are things that only existed in the minds of Victorian historians. Pretty much all swords were just called "sword" in the local language. And even now the distinctions often vary depending on who you're talking to. I would like to see naming a bit more in line with HEMA usage, so I don't have to add extra descriptions when describing real-world weapons to D&D/pathfinder players. "The most popular HEMA weapon is longsword. Well longsword in he HEMA sense, in Pathfinder it'd be called bastard sword. But some consider a true bastard sword a bit distinct from a longsword. But anyways as I was saying..." Having unified terminology across interests would be helpful.

Ok, this is looking pretty awesome. It's long been a bit of an annoyance that only humans seem to have any real cultural/ethnic divisions while non-humans tended to be mono-cultures (well with the exception of elves in previous editions of D&D, where they were always sub-races with their own stat-blocks. Creating elf sub-races seems to be a common game designer hobby). This is common across fiction, how often do you see an alien species in sci-fi with more than one language and culture? Almost never. So this is certainly welcome. It's also good for representation. We've got non-white dwarves now. Awesome. The art is also great.

I'm also liking the rarity gating. There were issues with feats and other options with cultural connections to certain region were taken solely for mechanical benefit. This should help curb the tendency to use options intended to spice up a culture as a power grab-bag.

I think that a book like this could very well become a series. You're clearly not going to be able to cover everything in a single book. And when new ancestries are introduced, they won't have the benefit of this kind of regional treatment. So later installments could fill that in.

An all aquatic races AP, with a party of sea elves, gillmen, deep one hybrids, merfolk, locathah, etc. (do they even have koapoacinth/aquatic hobgoblins in Golarion? Or Merrow/aquatic ogres? I don't even know...) could be fun. For me, anyway. :)

That sounds cool. Also reminds me of an idea I had. Mine was a Darklands game with all Darklander races: Caligni instead of Humans, Drow instead of elves, Duergar for Dwarves and Svifneblin for Gnomes. There isn't an exact counterpart for Halflings, but Derro might work. For a non-evil game, the PCs will likely be outcasts of some type, because of the evil lean of several of those cultures. Paizo does seem to be experimenting with themed parties with Extinction Curse featuring an all circus party and I believe Agents of Edgewatch being all city guard. So Something like all aquatics or all darklanders might be something they'd do.

I don't miss gratuitous use of the word 'whore' to describe women who aren't actual prostitutes (like the newly-renamed 'Night Queens' of Hell, or the 'Harlot-Queen of Geb,' so-called by the colossal misogynistic losers who A) got her killed in the first place by summoning her to fight something even her boss and elder god couldn't decisively destroy, and B) picked a fight with the guy who retaliated by looting the tomb of the goddess they'd gotten killed and raised her up to be his undying queen in the first place).

Oh yeah, that was a really unfortunate set of name choices, and I'm happy to see them go. I think the intent for the Whore Queens was partly to show the misogyny of Hell. It's Hell, having negative traits like that is to be expected. But it was a bit much. Arazni's title was much worse. She's the victim there, multiple times over (including a non-consensual 'marriage') and to top it off she's the one who gets an insulting title.

Gisher wrote:

Rysky wrote:

That’s about the measurements for a human newborn I believe.

A newborn human has a head that is about 14 inches in circumference. That's a bit less than 5 inches in diameter. (And even then the skull bones are separate so the head can compress a lot.) An 11 inch diameter egg is huge.

Ah! I bet that's where the error was. It should be 11 inches in circumference, not diameter. That makes a lot more sense to me.

There's still the issue of being 14 inches long. The 11 inch circumference would be about 3 and a half inches in diameter. 14 by 3 is a really weird elongated shape. I suppose the 14 inches could also be circumference along the other axis, then it's be about 4.5" by 3.5" which is smaller than the ostrich (5.9" by 5.1"). That seems a bit too small. I'm thinking that maybe 7" by 6" might be the most reasonable numbers.

The tricky thing is that this is kind of two different questions, and the two tables given are for different things, and work differently. That's something that threw me off at first.

Table 10-10 (the one mentioned above by Ravingdork) shows what characters should start with if starting at a certain level. Permanent items would be anything not consumable, held items, worn items, weapons, armor, wands, staves, mundane gear, etc. Not all of it will be magic, especially the 1st level items will often just be mundane gear like standard weapons and armor. Non-magical full plate would be 2nd level.

But for how much is recommended to give out at each level is table 10-9. This is done by 4 member party instead of individually. And in this chart each level listing is how much is given out at that level. So A standard 4 person party should be getting 175 gp worth of stuff from when they start to when they hit 2nd level, with the breakdown by items and currency given in other columns (40 gp would be in currency with the rest in items, 2 permanent 2nd level and 2 permanent 1st level items as well as 2 2nd level consumables and 3 1st). Lifetime treasure for the party would be the sum of all levels up to the level they're at. So when starting 5th level for example, a standard 4 person party should have been given about 175 + 300 + 500 + 850 = 1825 gp worth of total treasure from the beginning of the game up until the time they hit level 5. This is different than the starting treasure listed on 10-10. For starting at 5th level a character would have 270 gp total value, far less than the quarter share of the total lifetime party treasure up to that point (1825/4=456.25gp). I assume this is because some of that wealth is expected to have been used up instead of hoarded.