In addition to sleeves of many garments, a cap of human guise is a useful item (and more affordable than a hat of disguise).
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IME/O, spell attack rolls are mainly for cantrips (effectively a no resource, backup damage option that is often at least as accurate and more damaging as a caster using a weapon) and/or magi (whose entire focus is stacking spells with attack rolls on a weapon strike). Maybe for a rogue Magical Trickster, as well. Note, as mentioned, casters' damage output is fairly well balanced with martials' damage output because many of the spells that target saves do partial damage on a failure (but not a critical failure) while (most) strikes do 0 damage on a failure. I do believe that some spells which target AC may need to be looked at to check that they are doing equivalent average damage (especially for the non-cantrips).
Subsystems have a place and are a nice (IMO) expansion to the game so that combat or a single Diplomacy (or other skill) roll is not the only way to deal with an encounter, event, or situation. To the OP, Myth-Speaker (and Acropolis Pyre, especially) is specifically designed around Iblydan culture (contests, etc.) and creative solutions: (page 7) "Like Heracles cleaning the Augean stables or Orpheus charming Hades with song, mythic adventures thrive when PCs can accomplish great feats using cunning and their surroundings. The Adventure Path facilitates these scenes, but consider being extra charitable when players propose their own schemes - especially if they spend Mythic Points to do so." A group in Myth-Speaker that "thinks outside the box" will likely find the AP more enjoyable than one that leans more to a "kick down the door" approach.
"Buffing or debuffing saves" is part of the whole "use your third action or special abilities/attacks to add bonuses to allies or impose conditions on enemies" paradigm of PF2. Intimidation to demoralize (frightened; 'The frightened condition always includes a value. You take a status penalty equal to this value to all your checks and DCs.'), the Bon Mot feat (-2 or -3 to Perception checks or Will saves on a success or critical success); some abilities or attacks can impose clumsy (Reflex saves), drained (Fortitude saves), or stupefied (Will saves). What PF2 does not have is a lot of ways to add a bunch of different long-term bonuses on PCs and/or stack a bunch of different penalties on enemies so that the PCs can just "mash the 'I win' button" and be a one-trick pony that overpowers enemies with a single tactic every time.
Welp. Nale just warned team Xykon (or at least potentially team Oona) that something is afoot...
Maps. I love good maps. Will there be maps of the archipelago and/or individual islands anytime soon?Gosh I hope so. Also, settlement populations please. Soon... From Death Sails a Wine-Dark Sea: This volume also includes a gazetteer of the Iblydan Archipelago...
By that line of thought you might need to have strength and constitution to really use heavy armor and shields. Shields are exhausting to use as they are meant to be used and would require cardio and strength.and bows of any significant poundage to actually deal damage, particularly to armored targets, would requires a whole hell of a lot of strength... Lol That's the entire idea behind the Propulsive trait... Instead of gating it behind needing to spend extra money for a specific value the way 3.x/PF1 did.
The armor property runes that provide item bonuses (slick, shadow, etc.) or energy-resistant tend to be prioritized, unless it compliments a commonly used tactic for that character (such as dread for a character that invests in Intimidation to demoralize). Malleable can be useful for a character that gains armor specialization benefits. Often, however, players may gravitate toward "cool" specific magic armor instead of property runes.
Not to mention the presence of the Egyptian pantheon (before they were banished [back to Earth?] during the Godsrain)...
A question that comes to mind is "ideal for what?" I do have to say that the animist seems to be a decent chassis comparison. Possibly the oracle could be modified to be similar to a more-focused animist, with the mystery being fixed (instead of chosen during daily preparations as with apparitions) but granting spells of each rank to the repertoire and buffing the revelation spells slightly (maybe just adding a +2 to the spell attack roll/DC, similar to how the fighter is effectively one proficiency better than other martials in one weapon category) to justify the Cursebound drawbacks. The oracular curses probably also need to be looked at for balance issues between the mysteries.
I've suggested in the past to "simplify" down to three ability/attribute scores: Body (merge Strength and Constitution), Energy (merge Dexterity and Charisma), and Mind (merge Intelligence and Wisdom). This would 1) align each of the new scores with a saving throw (Body to Fortitude, Energy to Reflex, and Mind to Will) so as to severely reduce the motivation for a "dump stat," 2) allow differentiation between the strong/tough (Body) and nimble/trickster (Energy) tropes, and 3) possibly allow casters to more easily separated by prepared (Mind)/spontaneous (Energy) instead of being all over the place.
I would note that the Slumber hex is very good, especially in combination with Evil Eye + Cackle. However, this may not be as thematically appropriate. The spell anticipate peril (from the Fate patron, which is probably very appropriate for a harrower) would gain an extra 2 min duration from Harrow Chosen. 1st level witch spells that would also benefit include comprehend languages (+20 min duration), detect secret doors (can maintain concentration for +2 min), pierce facade (+20 min duration), and twisted futures (affect 2 extra targets, lasts +2 rounds).
It is one of the limitations of PF2 that gaining a widely applicable "Lore" is restricted to the Cha-based bard and thaumature classes (the Bardic Lore feat can be picked up via the multiclass archetype; Bardic Lore is still Int-based, however); or by taking an archetype. An elf witch or a wizard can leverage the Ancestral Longevity/Expert Longevity/Universal Longevity ancestry feats with the Loremaster archetype to fill pretty much the same role (possibly a bit better, by selecting applicable lore skills [which often have slightly lower DCs] for the expected encounters).
PF1 Magus had no subclasses Sorry, but this needs to be corrected. There were essentially three (generally speaking) PF1 magus "subclasses":
Note, other non-magus classes had archetypes that could let them act as a pseudo-magus (arrowsong minstrel bard, ectoplasmist or phantom blade spiritualist, etc.).
I just want to say that the way Chk Chk's narrative jumps around in the story really highlights the (almost) ADHD/manic shirren mindset.
For a centaur archer, maybe a go with thaumaturge (a bow without the volley trait, such as the gakgung, as the weapon implement) and then take the Eldritch Archer Dedication at 6th?
I developed two for the playtest:
I mentioned two in the player's guide thread:
For a third, how about a dwarf/forge ranger (Vindicator of Pharimia; Domain Initiate [Fire] as their 1st level ranger feat) with the Obari Wanderer background (a dwarf sailor wearing coral armor; seriously) and taking the Hunter's Calling...
Yep. I'm glad Thog got a pass on this. Though unclear what happened at the end, IE did the sacrifice work or not. It does look like Nale's horns grew in the last panel...
It might have been young druids who were being taught Wildsong, and one of them accidentally livestreamed the lesson on the infosphere, thinking they were just recording it for themself. What happened to the student who livestreamed the lesson is likely part of the cover-up that led to a bigger cover-up, leading to The Gap.Druids caused the The Gap because someone taught a non-druid Wildsong. One thing led to another and things got out of hand. And somebody probably then used the livestream to create a Wildsong sound-board to replay Wildsong phrases...
Granted, I'm looking more at a centaur/budding (green)speaker, Student of Apotheosis background, witch (Spinner of Threads patron; Seneschal class archetype) who's hero-god patron was killed by Ongalte... probably taking the Demagogue's Calling.
Cool. One hopes that the Adventure Path will be a chance to make the Mythic Rules work better with certain classes that they currently don't really attach well to, since the Player Guide doesn't say anything like "don't play a Kineticist or a Magus." For the Myth-Speaker AP, as it only goes up to 10th level, the mythic callings are (mostly*) focused more on skills than class. So, which mythic calling the character takes really doesn't impact kineticist or magus much. For instance, a minotaur kineticist (Earth gate, fork to Wood at 5th) with the Artisan's Calling (crafter/stonemason) would probably work pretty well for the Myth-Speaker AP. *- Sage's Calling is probably best with a caster for the Mythic Counterspell/Steal Magic combination
If we're including archetypes: Warrior of Legend. Somewhat agree. IMO, Warrior of Legend almost pushes the character into taking the multiclassed Exemplar Dedication ASAP (8th, or 9th as a human with Multitalented), if allowed, for the Skin as Hard as Horn ikon so the immanence resistance at least can counteract the cursed weakness.
Will there be an AP that neatly fits as a continuation for this one for the destinies part or mythic?Mythic campaign, 3 books, and starts at level 1? Seems low level for a campaign about the players becoming "hero-gods"Mythic content in 2nd Edition breaks into two categories, roughly equating to levels 1–10 (mythic callings) and levels 12–20 (mythic destinies). This Adventure Path will focus on the mythic calling side of things... The AP after Myth-Speaker, Revenge of the Runelords, will start at 12th level with the PCs each choosing an initial mythic destiny dedication feat. It is supposed to be a lose thematic continuation of Seven Dooms for Sandpoint and not Myth-Speaker, however.
Huh. I wasn't expecting that. Although the instructions did indicate that a loophole was possible: "And don't try to loophole it by cutting up your best boots or whatever. It needs to bleed, that's why it's a blood sacrifice."
Druids as a specific class may not exist in Starfinder. However, the Xenowardens organization and the Xenodruid connection (or Elemental connection in the SF2 playtest) for the mystic class fill a similar "nature-focused caster" niche. For SF2, note that the rules are almost identical to PF2 so you can just port over PF2 druids into Starfinder with minimal tweaks (mainly skills and skill feats, along with available weapons and armor).
It can't be both?Guns are a genre issue, not a realism issue.Also very true. Yes, it can be both. Lack of guns is a genre conceit in many fantasy settings. Disregarding the historical presence of firearms and gunpowder artillery (going back to fire lances in ninth or tenth century China and cannons by the 13th century) in favor of late Medieval/early Renaissance (14th and 15th centuries) armor and weapons; some of which were developed because of the presence of gunpowder weapons. Honestly, for D&D and Pathfinder the presence of advanced alchemy should argue for a more widespread and earlier adoption of gunpowder than in real world history; gunpowder is (almost literally) dirt-cheap compared to magical weaponry and shooting guns (like crossbows) is much easier than learning archery (there was a reason crossbows were banned in Europe before the Crusades; you could teach someone to shoot a crossbow in a few months and a crossbow bolt could kill a fully armored noble). The realism issue with guns has to do with reload times; muzzle-loaders are slow and even breech-loaders take a relatively long time in game rounds/actions. There was a reason guns (outside of mass battles) were often "fire once and switch to cold steel" before revolvers, percussion caps, and magazines. TBF, playability concerns similarly sped up in many cases the expected fire rate of bows and crossbows.
A couple of comments, as a Starfinder subscriber: 1) The SF2 playtest seemed to be pretty decent at adapting the SF1 content to the PF2 game mechanics, with some rough spots. The SF2 vehicle rules (to include space-/star-ships) need to be determined and the "ranged meta" doesn't quite work as well as it did in SF1 (but that may be more on account of how restricted the playtest weapon list is); plus some of the playtest classes are a bit meh compared to PF2 classes in similar roles (solarian vs. kineticist for instance). 2) I believe Paizo has indicated that there will be a Numeria PF2/SF2 "crossover" adventure path at some point.
I don't get it. Why are the books not available for free to download on free RPG day itself? Short answer: Marketing and support for RPG stores to hold on-site events.
So currently there aren't rules preventing you to have 2 ikons in same item. Yet you still restricted to have only one ikon action and need to transfer your spark between these ikons as normal. Pretty much this. You can (arguably) have one item that acts as two weapon ikons, but you explicitly can only have one ikon immanence effect active at any time. No "doubling up" of immanence for two ikons in the same object. By placing your divine spark into one of your ikons, you empower that ikon to accomplish deeds beyond what it could in mortal hands. Each ikon has both a passive immanence effect and an active transcendence effect.
It's the mind smith archetype, specifically the Mental Forge feat to give the mind weapon the Modular (B, P, S) trait.
Myth-Speaker will only go up to 10th level, so any kineticists will only use the mythic callings and not mythic destinies in this AP. The mythic callings are focused around skills and not class abilities (for the most part). Kineticists may take an appropriate calling based on the skills they want to focus on. Some feats may also be useful, depending on the particular kineticist: Arms that Cut the Waves, Feet that Stride the Sky, Become Shadow, Godspeed, Read the Wind, Arc of Destruction, etc. Or you can go with a calling that suits the character theme, instead of trying to choose the most "mechanically optimized" one. For instance, a minotaur kineticist (Earth gate, add Wood) with the Artisan's Calling (crafter/stonemason).
Cribbed from an earlier source: “Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious, and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies; they have neither the fear of God nor fidelity to men, and destruction is deferred only so long as the attack is; for in peace one is robbed by them, and in war by the enemy.” Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
I wonder how much is an overreaction to Cha being historically the most common "dump stat" (outside of a few classes/"builds" that required/focused on Cha) before PF2... However, in PF2 it seems that Int is now the most common "dump stat" if not required by the class. It also seems that the Cha-focused classes got a bunch more and/or better goodies than the Int-focused ones.
It reduces spells that used to have broad applications to just being a thing you use in combat, and then you drop them the second the fight is over. I all but shouts at you, "This magic is for combat only, we haven't made any high level spells that aren't balanced around their application for killing stuff."... many many features and spells that used to have durations of minutes/level were reduced to lasting a single minute (shapechange, once one of the coolest spells around, is absolutely heartbreaking now)...How is this an indicator of PF2E being more gamist than simulationist or sacrificing a "living world" for game balance or what have you? I'm not contending that PF2E doesn't lean more to gamism, it's something I like very much about the system, but magic spell durations are an odd metric to use given that magic doesn't exist. I'm genuinely asking for some clarification here. Missing the forest for the trees, here. In PF2, long-term magical effects are almost entirely provided by rituals instead of spells cast from slots.
But now I'm wondering...did they bring him back so they could sacrifice him to create the tie to the fountain? Possibly. Or they need a NE participant, along with Nale (LE) and Sabine (CE), for some sort of ritual.
Thog's fixation on "[getting] to pet a puppy with three heads" is also perfect.
Either Sabine is trolling or she missed it. "I even got written up for not wearing steel-toed sandals." "How does that... even work?" "Oh, you have to go to HR and they make you sign a thing."
A way to conceptualize "hero-gods" (mythic callings) as opposed to "demi-gods" (mythic destinies) is the story of Arachne: a "mythic" weaver (artisan's calling), but not a "deity-level" (godling destiny [Creation domain]?) weaver.
As far as the Magical Crafter thing goes, I think that could be an interest class archetype for the Inventor. Removing the normal innovation options for unique ones like a Magical Construct, a Staff, or a magical consciousness that can later be slotted into an item to make it function as a magic item. Or the inventor can... just take Magical Crafting (and possibly Monster Crafting, if they increase proficiency in Survival). PF2 does not require the casting of spells to craft most magic items. Although a class archetype that would allow the inventor to change certain magical properties of their innovation during daily preparations could be interesting.
IMO, the horsechopper is often tempting for a two-handed reach weapon; especially with the Haft Striker Stance feat (one weapon with all three damage modes). Unless for a Dex-focused character, which would incline toward a dancer's spear. For one-handed reach weapons, breaching pike (Clumsy 1 with critical specialization) and chain sword (Finesse) are also contenders IMO.
I keep expecting classes to have these dynamic systems where you juggle unique actions and situationally fit them in to create this semi-complex action puzzle. The exemplar comes close with managing immanence and transcendence between ikons, IMO. I pretty much agree with the consensus of "disappointing" classes: non-bomber (or possibly toxicologist) alchemists are a bit weak, gunslingers and magi have action economy issues (and don't consistently feel damaging enough, apart from some very specific cases), inventors are too reliant on Unstable mechanics, investigators need GM buy-in for most of their class abilities to function properly, witches are flavorful (especially the Remaster version) but a bit weak, and wizards are kind of meh (more so with the Remaster version). It's a bit telling that the advice I usually give to people who want to play a witch or wizard is to look at adding archetypes instead of staying with the base class.
For a small AC boost when mage armor isn't active/feasible, a haramaki has no ACP or ASF for just 3 gp. At higher levels, it's also more cost effective than bracers of armor for the same (total) bonus and can have more armor qualities (up to +10 and can include qualities for light armor, those with a flat gp value, etc.); granted, total AC for a haramaki only goes to +6 instead of +8.
So it feels to me like we are mostly in agreement on that. PF2 could potentially be played in a way where noncombat focused characters would be fun to play even though they are not very useful in combat. But that isn't how this game is normallyI think PF2 isn't well designed for a campaign focused on things other than combat. It doesn't have great rules for long stretches of play where combat doesn't happen, and spends so much page count on things only useful in combat that it doesn't sell itself to RP-focused groups the way other systems might. Well maybe people could use the mechanics laid out for exploration mode (Player Core, GM Core) and downtime mode (Player Core, GM Core) if they don't want to rely on pure rolelay... Or maybe even use encounter mode for things other than combat (such as "a race to disarm a doomsday device before it detonates, or even an impassioned negotiation with the queen"). GM Core even provides specific structure for social encounters... Are the social encounter rules as detailed as the combat rules? No. But they don't need to be, as you don't have to account for all of the different spells and weapons, positioning, maneuvers, conditions, etc.
Ranged attacks are often a good idea. Note that you can have a "full arcane caster" that is decent to very good at both ranged attacks and spells: [cavalier or fighter or ranger]* 1/wizard (archetype and/or school of choice, although some may not work as well as others) 6/eldritch knight 2/arcane archer 3/eldritch knight +8 ends up with BAB +17 and 9th-level spells at 20th level. For those that dislike casting from prepared slots, there is a similar character route that requires using ganzi (Weaponplay oddity) instead of a dip in another class to gain proficiency in all martial weapons: [arcanist* or sorcerer] 6/eldritch knight 3/arcane archer 4/eldritch knight +7 also ends up with BAB +17 and 9th-level spells at 20th level. *- probably blood arcanist or school savant, although brown-fur transmuter could also work for some switch-hitting later on
Ranged attacks are often a good idea. Note that you can have a "full arcane caster" that is decent to very good at both ranged attacks and spells: [cavalier or fighter or ranger]* 1/wizard (archetype and/or school of choice, although some may not work as well as others) 6/eldritch knight 2/arcane archer 3/eldritch knight +8 ends up with BAB +17 and 9th-level spells at 20th level. Being at least a decent archer lets you conserve spells for longer adventuring days, especially at lower levels (when you have few spell slots), since you don't have to cast every round to "be useful." Also, spells (plus Enhance Arrows and Imbue Arrow) make the character an even better archer. *- cavalier (emissary) for Mounted Combat (if you want to use Mounted Archery with phantom steed at higher levels), fighter for the bonus feat, or ranger to use wands of cure light wounds and/or wands of barkskin without Use Magic Device checks
IMO, Alternity (TSR's last RPG) had a similar problem: It was trying to be both a level-based and a point-based system; instead, it ended up doing neither that well. A bit of a shame, really. Like Dangerous Journeys, it had some interesting ideas.
It's not as if TSR and WotC were the only game companies that used the courts to go after competitors. I still vaguely recall Palladium's lawsuit against WotC (back when WotC was a small fry*) over Primal Order. *-before the release of Magic: The Gathering, let alone being acquired by Hasbro
Liberation is also a fitting cause for a fey-themed champion, tying in with the whimsy of the Eldest, which doesn't require holy sanctification. The fey and the Eldest are also less concerned about "Holy" or "Unholy" issues in general. Plus the "celestial realms" that supposedly inspire the Grandeur cause are different from the First World.
No idea, but I do love the tiny horn bit. Sabine is still awesome. :) "Itty bitty little horny wornys!"
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