Dorian Schiltz's page

Quick context, my personal childhood experience with religion was... not positive.

No further detail needed, I suspect. But I've been thinking about trying to roleplay a cleric.

However any time I consider doing so, the idea of what a cleric is quickly shows up as a subservient, self debasing bootlicker in my head.

The Divine essay in Secrets of Magic... does not help.

I mean... it has a fundamentalist Nethys worshipper saying "Yeah, actually, you really do have to scoop out your brain and replace it with your deity's holy book to be a divine caster." And another worshipper of Nethys who acknowledges this as extreme, but doesn't really challenge the 'unthinking zealot' aspect of it.

Master Silkas protest seems to be 'Wait a minute, Other gods grant divine magic, too!' rather than 'Um... actually, you're not required to think that 2+2=5 just because your deity says so.'

I'm left wondering if there's space for a cleric that thinks like an individual at least a little bit. I mean there's the splinter faith feat, but even that doesn't quite seem to contradict the 'unthinking zealot' portrayal in the essay. If there's space for a Nietzschean-lite cleric who deliberately seeks out situations where their faith will be tested and deliberately pushes the limits of their deity's without breaking them, and with intent to refine them. Or just someone who sees their deity as a friend and confidant rather than a stompy master...

... There was a deity in a pfs scenario that would've been perfect for something like this named Roidira.

Course there's always Oracles if I did decide to go that route...

In first edition, The Alchemist had class feats discoveries that allowed them to grow a tentacle, vestigial arms, a parasitic twin. They could mummify themselves, grow insect like wings. Their familiar could become a tumor on their body, which is an ability not shared by the alchemical familiar in second edition.

The 2e alchemist can't do any of that. And, given that long term buffs are problematic in 2e, and the fact that there's not one single Alchemist feat that fits that theme so far, I'm actually concerned that those abilities aren't coming back.

I'm also wondering if I'm in the minority here, or even the only one, since I haven't seen anyone else talking about it...

Trying not to be confrontational about this question, but... I genuinely don't get it. And maybe it's partly my issues bleeding into my play style, but as a cleric you're basically a servant to your deity's edicts, which already kind of sucks but then when you die you go from servant to full on slave, it seems. (that's probably an artifact, to be fair. The afterlives in any d&d setting have rarely been places you'd actually want to go if you had a chance to think about it and knew what was going on in them.)

Even good gods have been known to do things like turn people into bears for changing religions.

In addition to all this, as a cleric, all your power aside from basic class things like hp actually belongs to someone else. You have power not because you personally are powerful but because your god is powerful. It seems like a raw deal unless you go with Nethys, as basically his only rule is "don't give magic to the muggles. They haven't earned it." But even then you're still just borrowing power from a higher being.

But that's not always horrible. Druids do it too, but at least with druids, nature (in golarion)doesn't seem to be something with a sapient mind so much as a collective will. It probably won't take your sapience away unless you do something really REALLY awful.

So, while I get why people in universe would worship then, because that's what most people would do when there's powerful beings that might smite you over minor slights, I don't get why someone would want to make a character who does so.

I posted the following in a "are casters underpowered" threads that is currently ongoing in response to people arguing over whether power level is actually the problem. Addendums are in bold.

I can think of one thing that would help. And it could at least potentially be done without making the wizard more powerful.

The wizard really doesn't have any interesting dumb wizardly things to do during downtime since pretty much all spells are focused on being balanced for adventures, I mean yeah you can craft scrolls, but that's your job, not something extra.

Druids can cast tree shape and sleep as trees instead of going to the inn starting at level 3. Wild druids can turn into animals and spend hours in animal form as long as they pick up form control at level 4. possibly without even changing back, I can't find anything that says you can't refocus while a focus spell's still in effect.

I want spells with downtime role playing potential, too, but prestidigitation doesn't work for that anymore because it cleans and Cooks more slowly than actually cooking and cleaning and Tires you out much faster, unseen servant doesn't last long enough for this, since it's sustained it lasts ten minutes at most, and animated objects are too expensive to use for this. even an animated broom costs 15 gold, and you'll probably end up making more powerful ones in the process of animating your cleaning crew

I mean, you get resplendent mansion at level 17, but that's a long time to wait to actually feel like a wizard when you're not out on adventures.

My post went largely unresponded to, ones relating to this usually do it seems like, though enough people favorited it that I felt like people might want to talk about it at least.

I guess I'd just like to be able to do this sort of thing in addition to blowing up enemies, it doesn't have to be focused on, just possible. Especially since we know from PFS scenarios that wizards do such things in Golarion.

Are there any spells on the arcane list that can still be used in such ways? Would you want to see such spells added, even if as rituals?

I think it's a good question, a lot of people seem to think it's closer to the deity/worshipper relationship than I really wanted it to be. I sort of always saw it as a teacher student thing, and in a different thread James Jacobs implied it was more like the bard and their Muse.

What's everyone's view of what a patron does for the witch and expects in return?

I sort of made this thread because this one got no replies other than mine and the OPs response to mine and I was actually hoping to see everyone's view on it, so I thought focusing on a more general question might help I guess...

I figured this could use its own thread, since it's sort of derailed the arcane witch is unsavory thread.

My most recent post in the thread:

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

See you say that like "it is possible to teach divine magic," is a completely logical conclusion to draw from "there's an ancient, ludicrously powerful occult artifact that makes you a god if you touch it." I don't follow your logic at all.

Let me be explicit then:

If an "insanely powerful artifact" can grant Divine power, then Gods are not needed to grant Divine power.

Therefore, we've established precedence already that divine power is not strictly limited to Gods that currently exist.

That already means that "gods said no" is not necessarily the case, because people (players even) can become gods.

We have absolutely no clue what the starstone even is beyond "thing that came from the stars that makes people deities," it could have been made by a god to distribute godhood freely. That god would likely have been killed by other gods for making it, so we wouldn't know. Gods are jerks like that. The point is, an odd corner case that we don't know the precise mechanism of can't be taken as the rule.

Quote:

What I gather is that divine magic is either inherent(sorcerer) comes from faith in deities(cleric) or comes from faith in what the deity's get their powers from(Oracle.) It requires devotion, not study.

Sure, in the context of them, that is the case.

But that's an arbitrary distinction that is literally rooted in the lore of "gods said no" and "divine power doesn't work that way".

To my response would be: "why? Why does it functionally have to work that way?"

The answer is it doesn't. There are plenty of reasons to say something works a certain way or it doesn't, but to say that it has to in order to work at all? I would question that highly.

In pf1 the only rough equivalent to the 3.5 archivist is an inquisitor archetype that still requires faith in something.

This leads me to believe paizo wants to keep divine magic tied to faith. You are free to rail against that decision, of course.

There are plenty of polytheistic pantheons that do not follow the paradigm of divine power being inherently controlled in such a way to limit any and all access to its usage.

After all gods are dependent on domains. A domain is inherently something a god draws its powers from, because a domain does not belong to any one god, it belongs to many.

So in that sense, why can a witch not draw power from what provides the domains their power?

What makes you think something provides power to domains, rather than domains just being fundamental building blocks of the universe.

And more aptly, why can a witch not draw power from the essences that Divine Magic is derived from itself?

Because... that's the Oracle's schtick?

This is evident in Sorcerer's, Demons, Angels, Oracles, etc.

They do not devote themselves and yet they have these powers.

Oracles are either devoted to the things deities get their magic from, or something is devoted to them. Devotion is involved either way.

Who is to say a Witch can't steal the ability to use these powers by say "tapping a divine vein" or something of that nature?

Are we saying that unraveling the mystery of where divine power comes from is inherently impossible? Are there no patrons that would seek to expose this power?

Maybe they can't. Maybe there are such patrons, but tbh they would be rare. Odd corner cases that would be better served by a class archetype in the final book or elsewhere.

I thought I posted this earlier but apparently it didn't take.

So before the release a number of posts suggested that the rules were going to be modified so that some of the scaling damage for weapon attacks comes from the character, but I can't find anything about that in the rules, it still all seems to come from the striking runes.

Were those posts mistaken, or did I miss something?

Wizard players across the world were rather upset that unseen servant can't be used for its intended purpose anymore. While improved from its 1 minute long playtest duration, it now has max duration of ten minutes, and it can't act on its own, defeating the purpose of using it for household chores.

Of course, many are quick to suggest just hiring a human butler.

To that suggestion I say, HOGWASH! Are we not mages? Do mages not have a long history of doing things like summoning foul demonsto send notes that honest footmen could've taken for a silver piece? Where is our sense of dignity?

So what is a proper mage to do to get their chores done? Well while it takes considerable expertise (because you need to crit success a DC 20 arcana check, so you need to roll a 30,) a broom can be animated to sweep floors, and similar constructs could be made, a mop to... well mop, a rag to wash dishes.

Of course, such rituals are not easily found, and require a considerable expense to cast. But the effort in finding them is well worth it. (Rituals are uncommon, and even a -1 construct is 15 gold, so unless your gm is reasonable enough to give you a discount for making a bunch of constructs that aren't going to be combat useful past level 2, you're spending quite a bit of gold on it.)

So yeah, basically I figured out a way to sort of get what you got from 1e unseen servant. you can pretty much animate objects for this a la sorcerer's apprentice, hopefully without the whole mucking it up part, but it seems prohibitively expensive, and you need a secondary caster, so it's not just you doing it which kind of sucks as well.

But if your gm is willing to work with you on tweaking it a little here and there it should do.

The argument on potency runes is repeatedly rehashed, though it was dead for a time, it has recently resurfaced in a preview thread, a question asked and answered by the developers on potency runes going up to five. On players wanting magic items to be important.

The problem of course is that the more important magic items are, the more reliant upon them The fighters, monks and barbarians are. And rangers too now.

Alas, Dependency is not awesome. It in fact sucks. It is a horrible thing found in real life. It is why I love to take options like the void kineticists no breath. Like the legendary proficiency survival skill feat. To know that a character is capable of besting dependency on even basic needs is a beautiful and precious thing. To see the basic needs of sleep, hunger and thirst overcome by will and skill is incredibly, even if it is just a game.

As such it may not surprise you to know that I'd love the idea of a monk being able to punch a dragon out, not because he has magic handwraps that he's worthless without, not because he has power from some sun God but because his will is absolute and indomitable, and he trained and fought until he was a force capable of doing so. Because he is a monk and therefore awesome, and needs these magical trinkets that others find so important.

Yet a high magic item setting is golarion.

It's a complicated question then, how to make these items useful, without making fighters dumbnormal oafs that need magic swords to win fights.

Without making monks dumbnormal karate people that need fancy handwraps.

Without making barbarians dumbnormal drooling berserkers that need a magic edge.

I envy not these developers that must either balance on the razor edge of this conundrum, or choose to side with one end of it while alienating the other. Yet tis not a low magic setting I seek, but a high magic one where still a fighter can be more than some numbnuts with a magic sword. The current rules make the sword over shadow your skill. Magic weapons trounce the determinative power of the fighter's will. Magic handwraps render the monk's quest for physical perfection impotent. The barbarian's rage slams against the wall that is magic armor. The sword deals much damage. It equips you, so that you can have the honor of being it's wielder, you pathetic peasant. You have no right to want to have any strength of your own, for I am escalar, the Uber magic sword of +5ness.

I sadly and simply cannot see a compromise, a balance of any sort, is it possible to resolve this? To satisfy both requirements? I see no way, and find myself concluding unfortunately that pf2 will ultimately not be the game I sought.

Pf1 never was ideal to me, admittedly, just preferable to 5e with it's unpalatable skill system. Yet it turns out 5e made classes not be lame without the magic items. Therefore awesome. 5e with pf2's skill system. I wonder if it can be done... Musing...

At any rate, the main point of this post, is this at all resolvable? Or should I just be looking for some other rpg?

So I'm trying to make an oozemorph shifter in pfs. Only I wanted to make her like a slimegirl, and they're blue(or some other unusual skin color.) I figured I'd be an undine since they're the only race I can think of that actually has blue skin. The problem being that even if I'm an undine as a race, I don't think fluidic body allows me to turn into... the race I already would be... since undines are native outsiders and not humanoids and the oozemorph faq said you'd need the appropriate spell for a non humanoid oozemorph.

And sadly, I can think of no other pfs legal race that can have blue skin. Well maybe elves can, but that might be considered too similar to a drow even though I don't want to be a drow...

So, Is it at all doable? Preferably at first level? Actually, heck, Since polymorph spells still require a disguise check could I deliberately fail my disguise check and be blue that way?

I'm not the first to notice, but a search came up dry. Inflammable goblin gives you fire resistance. Inflammable doesn't mean fire resistant, it means the same as flammable because English is a goofy language. It should probably get a name change or change the mechanics to give the inflammable goblin some kind of bonus when on fire.

Clerics, sorcerers, and bards basically all get the ability to cast spells without bat dookie for free. But in the case of wizards, if you don't want to use bat dookie in your spells, you have to spend a feat on eschew materials.

Kidding aside, to be clear, if you want to replace material components with something else as a wizard, you have to spend a feat, which could be used to allow you to perform melee touch spells from a distance, instead on the ability to cast spells without a 6 silver piece item. This is the worst kind of feat tax. It is a feat tax purely on flavor, there is almost no mechanical benefit over just spending the 6 silver pieces, but if you want your wizard to wave his hand instead of chucking bat dookie around, you have to make the unfortunate decision of either being less powerful mechanically, or not using their magic in the way you envisioned.

This is another thing I always thought 5e got right. You can buy a focus instead of a material component pouch. So if you want a cool staff, wand or orb you can use that to cast spells, or if you really want the bag of bat dookie for some reason, like maybe your wizard is a beautician, you can do that too.

I've mentioned in other threads(and I was pretty upset about it and probably should have waited till I calmed down about this to make this posts, So... sorry.) About not being able to fly to the store and back instead of walking, or be in animal form all day in downtime as a druid(granted you can at level 10, but it burns through a lot of spells.)

Other people have talked about the nerfs to prestidigitation, unseen servant. No longer can you have an invisible imp that fetches your mail or does your laundry.

What are some other things you'll miss if spell durations aren't lengthened? Have any other classes lost some of this kind of roleplay potential?

So at First level each class is trained in a certain number of skills + intelligence.

For Alchemists and Wizards this is 2+intelligence. Fair enough, since they're likely to have 18 int anyway.

For barbarians, fighters, monks, it's 3+ int

Druids and paladins get 4, Clerics and sorcerers get 5, rangers get 6,
Bards get 7

For Rogues it's a whopping 10+int. Pretty awesome actually.

I... look, bards and rogues getting the most skills I agree with. and 2+int is plenty for an int based class, but what's the reasoning behind the other classes? and why do martial classes get so much fewer?

It seems to just be giving the classes the same number as their signature skills, which, since you apparently can't normally reach legendary in a non signature skill, is basically punishing non int based classes for investing in other skills.

I would propose at least giving the non int based classes 1 or 2 more trained skills at first level(maybe leave the bard's at 7), especially the ones that only get 3, otherwise those classes are going to have to give up some con or strength, making them less effective, while alchemists and wizards who would already have a high int to be good at their jobs get to enjoy having 5 or 6 trained skills on top of that.

Then third level, and every 2 levels after, you increase a skill's proficiency. just one. There is a feat to become trained in a skill, but it has an int prerequisite. There isn't a feat for increasing proficiency.

I think skill training needs to lose the prereq. int based classes are going to qualify for it automatically, while non int based classes are again going to have one fewer ability boost in their other abilities.

So I have unchained which is good and all. I made a monk, but it didn't occur to me how playing a monk in magic item Christmas tree land is kind of dumb.

So I wanted to know how exactly you resolve the character conflict of "hi I'm a monk, an ascetic martial artist who relies on his training and skill to win fights" and "lawl I gots to buy a big pila magic items that make me hit harder and more protected!"

It didn't really occur to me until a few levels in. But the issue is basically:

My brain: monks are highly trained ascetic warriors who rely exclusively on their martial arts skills to win their battles.

The rules: ya need an amulet of mighty fists and a monks robe and bracers of armor and a bunch a other magicky stuff to be a monk.

My brain: DOES NOT COMPUTE!

I mean I guess there's vow of poverty but it sucks and is horrible for similar reasons. Plus I don't even know if you can take vows in pfs.

So I need another way of looking at a monk... but I feel like if they lose the whole ascetic thing then what really sets them apart from a brawler?

Also, normally lawful means a strict code of discipline, or something. Well a gm told me that in golarion lawful literally means you always go around blindly obeying the law no matter what like an idiot. Uh... if that's true I don't want to ever again play a lawful character ever... please tell me he was mistaken...