Dragonchess Player's page

On the devil advocate side for nanocyte as an archetype, it's possible that it could end up (very roughly) like the cavalier PF2e archetype where you get to choose various nanite "powers" (expanded from the android ancestry feats, maybe). "Doing cool things with nanites" does seem to be a niche that has a broader application than limiting it to a single class (or ancestry).

What about Wild armor even working with, lets say, Wizard Polymorph spells? Does it work or not? I haven't found any definitive answer other than some who say "armor of the wild only works with druid wild shape because the enchant only mentions druid wild shape."

As mentioned, the wild armor quality only works with wild shape.

For actual polymorph spells, note that as long as the spell doesn't change the character to a form with the "animal, dragon, elemental, magical beast, plant, or vermin type" (such as alter self, fey form, giant form, monstrous physique, undead anatomy, and even [technically, by RAW] ooze form), you can still use all equipment normally: "If your new form does not cause your equipment to meld into your form, the equipment resizes to match your new size."

Regarding imaginary weapon and using the multi-classed psychic archetype on a magus: with imaginary weapon getting a slight downgrade and the amp language change to prevent using an amped cantrip to spellstrike, maybe force fang will get a slight upgrade?

Or maybe just expand the "hybrid study neutral" available feats that provide additional conflux spells to provide more ways for a magus to contribute in a magical fashion while recharging their spellstrike. Granted, that probably won't satisfy the "must use spellstrike every round" crowd.

Regarding Asmodeus, one of the justifications for worshiping him is that he promotes ORDER. Even if it may be a harsh order (especially for those lower in status); frankly, the evil aspects are considered less important to the higher-ups than maintaining control (and their place in the social hierarchy).

Add in some propaganda (both from the state and Asmodeus' priests) and a place like Cheliax can keep things together for a while.

I can’t imagine not wanting all the bombs, half a dozen mutagen options, 3/4 of the elixirs, a new poison every couple of levels, and a few foods (e.g.Owl Screech Egg). If your GM allows infused items to make bottled monstrosities without the craft requirements those are also easy picks.

Pucker Pickle and Galvanic Chew can also be useful for the party in a lot of situations.

The class for someone with system mastery, OCD, but without analysis paralysis. I present to you the Alchemist.

OCD is not accurate. However, the alchemist does require a player to understand what each item does and prepare and/or react accordingly; rather than focusing on a handful of options (or even just a couple).

Personally, I wonder if the biohacker will end up as an archetype or possibly combined with another class (like the precog getting rolled into the witchwarper).

From a thematic standpoint, you could make a case for either. It might make sense to add the biohacker as a "sub-class" of the mechanic after the tech book is released; it could also make sense to merge the SF1e biohacker, evolutionist, and nanocyte classes into a single SF2e class.

There is even the armored hulk archetype that gains proficiency with heavy armor, with increased movement (+5 ft at 2nd, improving to +10 ft at 5th level) too!

My table want to be sailors. I know there's a nautical component to MythSpeaker, but I think an 'exploration' AP where the PCs are sailors / traders, might satisfy their itch.

You may be in luck, with the recent announcement of the upcoming Lost Omens High Seas book...

I could see an AP, or at least a stand-alone adventure, based on it.

what I'm saying is that a lot of the way this topic gets framed reminds me of the framework used to say "All Orcs are evil, they have absolutely no real world counter parts, so how could just saying this entire ancestry are a group of big ugly brutish thugs that we can kill with no remorse be problematic?"

That's why I chafe at "This god is wrong and bad, so no matter what principals it espouses they, and all their followers, can be slaughtered without question".

The issue that people are bringing up is that Paizo has already moved away from that mindset...

The enemies that the party fights in most Paizo adventures (apart from some that are intentionally set as morally gray or even casting the PCs as "bad guys/girls") are enemies because they are bandits, committing crimes, oppressing others, etc. You aren't sent to fight a group of orcs "because they're orcs," but because "this group of orcs is slaughtering your neighbors."

There is even the Triumph of the Tusk AP where the PCs are working with, or even taking the role of, orcs trying to prevent being conquered/killed/turned into "cannon fodder" (again).

The biggest assumptions about religion in Pathfinder (inherited from AD&D and D&D 3.x) are:
1) Ethics and morality (embodied in the planes) are inherent sources of power in and of themselves;
2) deities actively impose and enforce belief systems, actions, and taboos among their worshipers or at least their priests.

Attempting to apply moral relativism and/or real-world historical interpretations of religions is something that would be more productively discussed as a homebrew topic. The Golarion setting doesn't incorporate those assumptions.

This rigid explanaition of the divine cosmology restricts a lot of people's perspectives, and entrenchs a lot of western ideas. Like the idea of holy vs. unholy, that's a western mono-theistic idea.

Eh. Not exactly.

Yes, it draws upon Zoroastrianism (which influenced all of the Abrahamic religions). However, the "Cycle of Souls" has significant parallels to Buddhism; just as "good" has parallels with the Buddhist concepts of enlightenment and the Eightfold Path.

Also, many polytheistic religions have embodiments of "evil" such as the asuras and rakshasas in Hindu myths.

I just want to add to the opinion that "dungeon-style" gaming doesn't require an actual dungeon.

A "dungeon" is less a physical structure than an adventure paradigm with the following characteristics:
1) Limited choices to "advance" to the next encounter. Instead of an "open map," the party is constrained to a set number of "tunnels" and "doors;" the location could be in a building, a heavily overgrown forest along game trails, or even narrow streets and back alleys in a town/city as well as underground.
2) The players (usually) set the pace. Although there are some "dungeons" that have a hard time limit for the party to "solve," this is the exception in many campaigns. For the most part, the party can freely make multiple runs at exploring the location and/or leave to rest and recover.
3) The "dungeon" location is mostly self-contained. There may be some narrative connections to the nearest community ("home base"), but usually what happens in the "dungeon" has limited or no impact on the party's interactions within the community outside the dungeon.

Also note, the mega-dungeon is not the only type of dungeon. The most common form of dungeons in recent adventures is a narratively-linked series of small dungeons that the party explores in sequence rather than a single location.

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

It just seems like whoever is in charge of Communications and Marketing doesn’t seem to have the Paizo Blog and the Paizo Live stream aligned

Not to get too into Paizo culture stuff but it kind of feels like there's in general a lot of siloing and lack of communications between divisions. Consider the lack of Impossible Magic on Paizo's own website, or the recent stuff with errata, or various divergences between PFS and eventually dev rulings in like... really fundamental ways on a few issues. Sometimes it just doesn't seem like there's any sort of internal communication.

OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 wrote:

Given this is a general thread about Impossible Magic, possibly revealed in a Paizo Live stream?!?, I’m kinda getting really weirded out about the way Paizo is marketing things.

The current landing page of the site has a Paizo Blog about the Order of the Amber Die, and has for a few days. Why, if the Paizo Live stream has revealed Impossible Magic, does the landing page of the Paizo website not also have a blog with the same reveal embargoed to go up at the same time?!?

It just seems like whoever is in charge of Communications and Marketing doesn’t seem to have the Paizo Blog and the Paizo Live stream aligned.

Which is a long winded way of saying that there are those of us in this community who do not engage with the more “social media” conversant information channels, who prefer to read text and who end up feeling left behind in the information/news stakes *even though they diligently check the site for news*.

yeah it's pretty frustrating. That was like a 2 hour stream. I really haven't got time for that when I could read the same information in 2 minutes. I don't know what's up with the communication but it's definitely taking a while to filter out to everyone that doesn't have a couple hours to watch a twitch stream.

I assume it'll show up at some point next week, but the lag between them is really odd. I don't know what is going on lately but it feels like there's internal issues that are blocking things moving along smoothly (this and the errata as a couple of recent examples).

I'm speculating, but this might be a sign that Paizo is transitioning from a smaller corporate structure to a medium to larger corporate structure. In a smaller company, communication seems better; but that is usually because a person is often wearing multiple "hats" (in charge of more than one function). However, that is not a very scalable way to do things; the workload increases too much for the "cross-functional" managers to keep up as the organizational responsibilities grow with the company's size. Unfortunately, when the functions get separated it becomes more difficult to get everyone on the same page.

Other than the options already mentioned, vigilante might also be an interesting choice (depending on the campaign). The vigilante also has a broad range of archetypes (instead of or possibly in addition to the avenger/stalker vigilante specialization). An avenger vigilante may even be more advantageous than a slayer, considering both the social and vigilante talents.

Fort will still be a weak save, however.

So what is everyone's theories on these Impossible Spells?

My thoughts are Impossible is a new trait for spells that are extremely powerful but come at a cost like a Doom or Drained effect.

Similar to the Bloodrager Dedication? Possibly.

I'm glad it turned out Secrets of Magic was rolled into this book. There was so much speculation about that to the point it was almost assumed by some posters I was worried there'd be a riot if that wasn't the case.

TBF, a straight Remastered version of Secrets of Magic was probably "impossible" considering how prevalent the OGL elements were in several sections. The only question IMO was how piecemeal the updated versions of the contents would be released; like the elementalist archetype in Rage of Elements, the runelord archetype in Rival Academies, etc.

Kind of a tangent from the errata blog, but I just want to say I appreciate the addition of the Starfinder Second Edition specific forums.

But Cheliax would have second thoughts about allying with demonologists...

Asmodeus and the rest of the devils hate demons. As does Cheliax.

Also, I'm not sure why Belkar seems to be affected in the last panel.

I don’t see the doubling effect on Belkar, so I assume his alignment and protection is working normally.

Yes. The aura around Belkar is (still) from the protection from evil effect he activated when Nale arrived ("Reruns." "Ngnnh.").

Interestingly, Serini doesn't seem to be affected either (but Sunny is).

(trying to avoid spoilers) IMO, either concept would be thematically appropriate.

It just depends on how heavily you want the specific character to lean into the runelord theme vs. a Thassilon/Varisia theme...

I believe that Geb also throws shade at the Whispering Tyrant for being short-sighted: once everyone is undead (Tar Baphon's apparent goal), then the entire population becomes a limited resource with no way of replacing losses...

Not to mention that certain types of undead (especially vampires) require living/freshly killed creatures for sustenance.

Part 2 is the section that me and other Venture Agents can't agree on at all. My understanding is that you use your skill proficiency or Simple/Martial proficiency, whichever is lower, but my original read of it agreed with you in that you used the BETTER of those two.

Yes, that is what the rules text states: "up to your proficiency with the listed skill (if higher than your normal proficiency for this weapon)."

For purposes of proficiency, you treat this martial weapon as a simple weapon or this advanced weapon as a martial weapon, up to your proficiency with the listed skill (if higher than your normal proficiency for this weapon).

Since skill increases can only raise proficiency to Expert at 2nd or 3rd, Master at 7th, and Legendary at 15th, it can be a bit of a boost. However, the weapons with the professional trait aren't that "good" compared to other weapons in the same category (damage and other characteristics).

The professional trait essentially just allows the character to use either the proficiency level for the weapon category (simple, martial, advanced) or the proficiency level for the skill associated with the professional trait on that weapon, whichever is higher. That's it.

For your example, a character would add their Expert, Master, or Legendary proficiency bonus from the Crafting skill to their attack rolls with a hammer if it is higher than the proficiency bonus they gain with martial weapons. If the character doesn't invest sufficient skill increases in the Crafting skill to exceed the normal proficiency with martial weapons, they treat the hammer the same as any other martial weapon.

The other benefit of the professional trait is that a character without proficiency in martial weapons can use a hammer without penalty as long as they are at least Trained in Crafting. Or use a polyglove if Trained in Computers.

As mentioned, Starfinder 1e isn't truly compatible with D&D 3.5.

However, if you want a "sentient four legged robot dog operative" (or something close, at least) I'd recommend the using the following PF1e rules (which are fairly close to 3.5):

1) Create a "robot dog" race using the Race Builder rules (possibly a variant of the wyrwood);

2) Leverage the rules from the Technology Guide (including Tech Equipment, the Numerian Scavenger archetype for rogue as an "operative," etc.*).

You should definitely also talk to your GM on if they have other ideas/restrictions.

*- rules relevant to technology

Deriven Firelion wrote:

If you want more of an old wizard feel, try the imperial sorcerer.

You're mostly right, of course.

But one thing that I used to enjoy pre PF2 was the wizards niche as the Know it All character. The Hemione Granger of spell casters.

Of course, Int no longer fully scratches that itch anyway with Religion and Nature being based off of Wisdom (which is a SUPERB change in general but does hurt this particular fantasy). And Legendary Arcana (depending on how the GM runs things) is a thing much more likely to be taken by the wizard than the sorcerer.

Personally, I'm a bit disappointed that the loremaster archetype hasn't been Remastered (yet, maybe?). A wizard (or witch, or Int-base psychic, for that matter) taking the loremaster archetype can be the "know it all" caster; possibly even better than the bard or thaumaturge.

Using the elf ancestry feats of Ancestral Longevity, Expert Longevity, and Universal Longevity in conjunction with an Int-based class and the loremaster archetype Quick Study feat allows the character to essentially "prepare" additional fields of knowledge they want to make RL checks about at the start of each day (and even switch one of them at a moment's notice).

Virellius wrote:

Takes place in Alkenstar.

Not the Deadshot Lands? Alas.

I believe James Jacobs mentioned earlier this year that there might be an AP in Arcadia "soon-ish." As in within the next couple years or so.

Obviously, it won't be related to the Runelords.

If you are looking for in Lore reasons to make fire arms more common, a decorated scholar has been working with a team to recreate the amazing devices that have trickled out of the Alkenstar Duchy, and a major break through was recently made.

As mentioned, the Uncommon and Rare tags are mostly just an indication that it might not suit every campaign or that not every character should have access automatically (such as the clan dagger for dwarves, curve blade for elves, hooked hammer for gnomes, etc.).

As far as Golarion-specific lore to "allow" firearms in Ustalav, note that Stasian tech is smuggled out of Irissen to Ustalav. Queen Anastasia also has guards from Russia with c. 1917-1918 firearms, so it could also make sense for some of the "more primitive" Earth firearms (equivalent to some of the "basic" ones from Alkenstar, such as coat pistol, flintlock musket or pistol, arquebus, blunderbuss, dueling pistol, etc.) to be smuggled as well.

I just want to note that for a spontaneous witch, you can still use the pre-Remaster Flexible Spellcaster. Personally, I think the reduction in spell slots from 3 to 2 is worth it for treating all prepared spells as signature spells; especially since the witch also has hex cantrips.

As a homebrew, you can probably just apply the benefits without requiring the dedication feat at 2nd level (which opens up taking another archetype, if desired).

I believe, as it was raised in the other thread, that the GM is confusing "meaningful" with "difficult."

This was a common attitude during D&D 3.x/PF1e because of the way character optimization often made APL +3 combats "challenging" (what would be considered moderate encounters in PF2e) and APL +2 or lower combats "easy." However, PF2e's rating of encounters is much more accurate; even Paizo initially skewed encounter difficulty too high in Age of Ashes (from the feedback on the AP) before getting a better feel for the system.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Plus, the "typical" party back then was usually six to eight characters instead of four.

I never knew that. When would it have been that tables slimmed down to 4 to 6?

When D&D 3.0 based the CR/encounter math around a party of four.

TBF, in 1st/2nd AD&D you pretty much needed at least five to six characters just to "cover the bases" in low- and mid-level play. Also, the minimum ability score requirements for the "subclasses" (and races, for that matter) made it difficult to qualify for certain characters other than the "standard" cleric, fighter, magic user, or thief unless using a generous generation method.

For smaller groups, it wasn't uncommon to have a player run two characters. Also, henchmen were not uncommon (there were no "cohorts" from the Leadership feat).

I just wanted to note I was asking about an "ideal" party of four, not the "standard" party of four.

The "standard" party of four is a bit of a relic from the 1st/2nd Ed AD&D days (with the "subclasses" of cleric, fighter, magic user, and thief). Plus, the "typical" party back then was usually six to eight characters instead of four.

If you want a "repressive atmosphere" by a "domineering government with a vast spy network of secret police dedicated more towards surveilling its own populace than outside threats," then Irissen might work pretty well (even under Anastasia). The Cold Sisters are the winter witch secret police that spy on everyone, from the serfs to the nobles, to ensure that Whitethrone receives all the taxes due and people (including the non-humans) are following the decrees/laws.

And you also have to worry about fey, giant, troll, and winter wolf "enforcers."

Yes. Leave leet in the dustbin with jive (including, "fo'shizzle", what I consider the rapper-/Snoop-popularized redux).

Jargons suck, no matter how "cool" they may seem at the time.

1337: Limited Time Offer

Rich didn't do anything special for the number AFAICT, but I suppose that particular dialect has long since vanished into history.

Thankfully, IMO.

Yes, no one character can do everything. However, if a character doesn't contribute except in a narrow range of situations then that hurts the group as a whole.

Like the stereotypical barbarian that dumps Int and Cha as far as possible for the highest starting Str and Con (and, yes some players still may not have them carry a ranged weapon at first). Other than smashing enemies in melee, what do they add to the party's capabilities?

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Speaking from (both personal and observed) experience, not having secondary (or even tertiary, in some cases) options when your primary option doesn't work (or is significantly reduced) can hurt the effectiveness of the entire party. Not just the individual PC.

I'm not sure what you mean, because this sounds like a character build issue and not a team build issue.

Hyper-specialized characters are a team build issue, not just a character build issue, because they force the rest of the party (or the GM) to cover for that character's short-comings.

Derklord wrote:

And a tank isn't even a thing in this game.

yes it is - it can be done typically 2 ways, someone with lots of AC, or someone with lots of HP.

He may be using the MMO terminology of tank as "drawing aggro." Not the original RPG terminology of a character with high defenses and causing high damage.

IIRC, the only other former Runelord (apart from Sorshen) that is not canonically "dead" is Alderpash. But he's still stuck in the Abyss as a lich and a prisoner.

Dragonchess Player wrote:

This isn't a competition or "DPR Olympics." Although I do admit to a certain amount of optimization is probably required to sufficiently cover all the bases, I tried to set the conditions very broadly so that "one-trick ponies" and hyper-optimized "builds" for a narrowly focused campaign are not the obvious choices.

This just sounds like "optimizing fun", which simply doesn't work. I think your very premise is inherently faulty.

Not optimizing for "fun." Optimizing at least somewhat for breadth.

Speaking from (both personal and observed) experience, not having secondary (or even tertiary, in some cases) options when your primary option doesn't work (or is significantly reduced) can hurt the effectiveness of the entire party. Not just the individual PC.

Just look at it as not every epithet being "optimal" for every ikon (and vice versa). Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Personally, I'd replace the the vigilante with either a bloodrager* or a (chained) synthesist summoner (likely also with the blood god disciple archetype as a half-orc).

The brute archetype for the vigilante is sub-par.

*- possibly with the primalist and spelleater archetypes and 4 or 8 levels in dragon disciple

You do interesting things without common/usual mistakes which is why I read your posts.

Thank you.

PF1e is a pretty big toolkit to tinker with, although I've mostly moved on.

For those that want to participate without using all the options on Archives of Nethys, just provide some context like DM_aka_Dudemeister did: Core only, organized play, "we only allow a, b, and c content/don't allow x, y, and z content." I'm just asking what people's "ideal" party composition would be at their tables.

This isn't a competition or "DPR Olympics." Although I do admit to a certain amount of optimization is probably required to sufficiently cover all the bases, I tried to set the conditions very broadly so that "one-trick ponies" and hyper-optimized "builds" for a narrowly focused campaign are not the obvious choices.

VMC

... It is probably a good idea to use either this variant system or normal multiclassing, but it’s possible for the two systems to be used together. In a game using both systems, a character can’t take levels in the secondary class she gains from this variant.

The two of my "ideal" characters that use VMC, the druid and the fighter, are single-classed... The oracle and wizard that use multi-classing and/or prestige class(es) don't. Granted, since they are both archers and casters they don't work well if they have to give up half their feats on VMC.

Regarding anti-magic, that is one of the reasons why all four characters in my "ideal" party can contribute via weapon-combat. At higher level play, the wizard (via arcane archer's Imbue Arrow) can even shut down enemy casters with an imbued antimagic field on an arrow and then attack them using Rapid Shot, Clustered Shots, or Manyshot when their magical protections get suppressed...

One other big reason is to reduce the "need" to for casters to cast spells every round in combat or feel useless; or if they encounter magic resistant foes (of which golems can be very difficult if casters don't have weapon combat to fall back on).

Campaign criteria: is Variant Multiclassing(VMC) allowed? It is a NO in Org Play and with some experienced GMs. Certainly the CORE guys will be up in arms... the option is to multiclass in a standard fashion.

Respectfully, organized play is a specific type of campaign and not "generic." Ditto for house-rules like Elephant in the Room.

The only restriction is not allowing third-party material, not "a limited selection of Paizo options."

Ideally, I like for all ability scores to be covered by at least one party member’s primary or secondary scores. Going through an adventure without a wisdom or intelligence character can be a real pain, but you will even come across challenges desiring high constitution. This often gets fulfilled by random chance, but I’ve seen low strength and wisdom parties before and it’s tough.

Yes.

Note my "ideal" party has a (very! +8 alchemical bonus from mutagen and +6 morale bonus from rage by 20th) Str-focused fighter (with some investment in Con, as well), an Int-/Dex-focused caster/archer wizard (minor illusion focus), a Wis-focused caster/flanker/locks and traps/shapeshifter druid (with some Str- and Dex- investment), and a Cha-/Dex-focused caster/archer oracle. BAB for the characters ends up at +15 (druid, but with +7d6 Sneak Attack), +16 (oracle, but with a +5 competence bonus when using weapons made of wood; explicitly including bows), +17 (wizard), and +20 (fighter). 9th-level spells for all three casters using the cleric/oracle, druid, and sorcerer/wizard lists. The oracle can use the spirit guide's ability to gain a wandering spirit to gain (Life spirit) channel energy when needed.

Basically, they should be able to handle just about any type of enemy or scenario. Unless the GM resorts to fiat or over-powered CR encounters.

I'd love if a party agreed on a theme for class selection.

To be honest, one of the reasons I kept the campaign description "generic" was to make sure the "ideal" party would cover all the bases instead of being a more "specialized" configuration focused on a single type or narrow range of foes/scenarios. "Undead and fiends? Lots of channel energy, favored enemy, and smite evil;" "frozen North? Everybody concentrates on fire-damage;" etc.

I remember several discussions about "single-class" parties (all characters have the same class, with or without allowing multiclassing), but just a few mentions of party composition in threads about character roles.

I'm a little bored at the moment, so I decided to ask what other people think is their "ideal" party of four characters for PF1e, without using third-party options, for a "typical" campaign (non-monstrous communities, primarily evil foes, etc.)?

I'll start with mine:

- Fetchling (Gloom Shimmer and Shadow Magic alternate traits) ranger (guide) 1/wizard (exploiter; take School Understanding [Admixture; Versatile Evocation] at wizard 1st and Quick Study at wizard 5) 6/eldritch knight 2/arcane archer 3/eldritch knight +8 with the Magical Knack (Wizard) trait;
- Half-elf (Fey Magic [Forest; aspect of the falcon], Fey Thoughts [Climb, Use Magic Device], and Weapon Familiarity alternate traits) oracle (spirit guide; Wood mystery) 8/deadeye devotee 2/oracle +3/deadeye devotee +4/oracle +5 leveraging the elf alternate favored class bonus to boost Wood Bond for the first 12 oracle levels and then the human favored class bonus for the extra spells at oracle 13th-16th;
- Half-orc (Scavenger and Toothy alternate traits) druid (river druid; Crocodile domain) 20, variant multiclass rogue with the Vagabond Child (Disable Device) trait;
- Human (Heart of the Fields [Craft/Alchemy] alternate trait) fighter (mutation warrior), variant multiclass barbarian with Combat Expertise, Fast Learner, and Improved Trip at 1st level.

I think when applying stackable bonuses, the order is character-based bonuses (species, class, feats) before magical bonuses (spell/spell-like ability effects, magic items)... I don't remember if it is explicitly spelled out in the RAW, however.