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Ectar's page

Organized Play Member. 1,104 posts. 2 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 5 Organized Play characters.


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A significant part of the reason I posted this thread here and not in the Pathfinder General Discussion is because I guessed that this forum gets significantly less traffic, so it'd be less likely to end up the same way as the original thread.

On top of it just being a more appropriate thread location, since it's more about Paizo than Pathfinder.

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Maya Coleman wrote:
Unfortunately, literally over night, it had divulged to vindictive name calling and personal harassment, not to mention over 50 flags.

That is disappointing to hear. Thanks, Maya.

As I said in that thread: you're crushing it.

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That's the thing we're all ostensibly trying not to be.

Yesterday in the Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion channel, a thread was posted expressing consternation about a perceived lack of communication, spurned by the Runesmith/Necromancer playtest ending without a post about it on the website; though there were posts to Facebook and bluesky, and a concern for the company given the departure of certain developers.

It was not, general, a happy nor positive thread, though there was some push back trying to paint a somewhat brighter picture.

As of when I last read the thread, last night, the mood was dour. However, it had not devolved into personal attacks, hatred, or the like.

So I was very surprised this morning to find that thread deleted. Not shutdown, not locked, simply gone, as though it never existed.

Now, PF2 General may not have been the best venue for that thread, so I see every potential reason to move it somewhere more appropriate.
It's possible it might have devolved into something awful, as hinted at above. Perfectly reasonable to lock the thread and delete the hate.

But I think deleting the thread entirely goes too far, into the realm of over-moderation. I've done a bit of community moderating, certainly not on the scale of Paizo, though. One thing I've found pretty consistent is that the best way to upset people who are discussing something they don't like about an organizationis to shut down that conversation. It swiftly takes people from reasonable and upset/unhappy to furious and vindictive.
It's a great way to get people to leave your community forever.

It's kind of sardonically funny. The thread with a major theme of concerning lack of communication gets silently deleted.

I love Pathfinder. I quite like Paizo, generally. I disagree with the way they handled this situation and I think it does themselves more harm than good.

If you, fellow forum poster, feel a desire to post in this thread, I implore you to keep a civil tone. Open, honest, but self-restrained dialogue is incredibly important to me and is a benefit to all of us here.

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Oof.

These really run the gamut from cute to cringe to either "I don't get it" or "doesn't make sense without additional context" and I'm not sure which.

Can someone explain the Tengu? The words make me infer something about playing cards or gambling, but nothing in the character design says that to me.

The The Incredibles reference felt the same way. Is that character notably similar to Syndrome? I'm not familiar.

Mr.23 & >6' gets a cringe pass because the designed leaned into it with the fish picture. Funny.

Orc together strong is a surprising reference.

To not be too dour, I quite liked the investigator, the earth kineticists, and the plague doctor.

But boy the weak opening with the Kholo (I think)
and the other two I mentioned first really took the wind out of the sails for how much I might have enjoyed these.

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Finoan wrote:
One, how did you manage to accomplish that? I'm not aware of any way of getting a -1 in more than one stat using the standard rules.

Voluntary Flaws. It's optional, sure, but it's in the player core.

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Many APs seem to be written from the perspective that the players can, and probably will, attempt to murderize their way through most obstacles. Parties are a notable exception. Parties are the venue of extended roleplaying experiences.

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Tridus wrote:
magnuskn wrote:
TheTownsend wrote:
I agree Drow are no big loss, with no specific Lolth equivalent I think they always felt a bit unmoored in Pathfinder. A lot of the other changes I also agree with, disentangling Oni from a very western concept of Giants feels like a good.
As someone who has run AP's with quite a number of Drow in them, I gotta disagree. I still find the un-personing of those NPC's to be a big storytelling mistake by Paizo.
After Second Darkness and its explanation for why the Drow exist in Golarian, I'm perfectly happy never seeing them again. Even though I think Paizo had already walked back a bunch of that, the whole thing just left a sour taste.

GMing the first 5 books of Extinction Curse, Shraen became one of my favorite locations in The Universe.

Real shame that it'll never be used again.

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I use a mix of premaster and OG remaster versions of Long Jump, instead of the newest one. Chosen by the player prior to attempting:
1.) If they want to jump to a particular square, premaster. Set the DC based on how far the desired jump is.
2.) If they want to jump "as far as they can" OG remaster. This means they can, in fact, overshoot by rolling high.

If you don't recall, OG remaster basically said roll Athletics and Jump that distance, rounded down to the nearest 5ft.
Current rule is to roll Athletics and jump up to that distance.

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Will never not be disappointed that the Acadamae was not one of the primary 6 schools.

Lepidstadt is nice, though. Interesting but grounded.

The School of Rooted Wisdom has to do a lot of heavy lifting to illustrate that arcane schools can be salvaged.
But if it succeeds, it will probably be the best arcane school to the point of overshadowing the others. Which, I'd be fine with, assuming a few more arcane schools get printed soonish. The extant schools barely cast a shadow as is.
/end hyperbolic-wizard-rant

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I remember this from an episode of Whose Line is it Anyway?
The category was: "Things to say to start a fight"

I think this thread beats out Ryan Stiles's iconic answer.

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magnuskn wrote:
moosher12 wrote:

Probably not Spring Errata, but I really hope Starfinder 2E's Traversal trait comes to a future Pathfinder 2E errata patch.

For those who are not keeping an eye on Starfinder 2E, the trait works as follows:

Disembarking the Starfinder Second Edition Playtest wrote:
One new element we'll be introducing is the traversal trait. This new trait mostly applies to player-facing rules that reference Stride. When it applies, traversal allows the use of alternative movement types (burrow, fly, and swim) to be used in place of land Speed, akin to how Sneak works. Expect to see this greatly impact some abilities used by the envoy and solarian (to name a few).
I'll never get why you can't jump with those extra movement abilities. Flying is fine, but jumping is apparently quantum physics too difficult for a mere adventurer to comprehend.

I get it. As a terrestrial creature myself, walking and running take substantial less concentration or intentionality than jumping. I don't find Leap to be especially useful and the other jumps take two actions, so it doesn't make much sense to allow them as baked into other actions.

Perhaps add a clause into Quick Jump that the feat also adds the Traversal trait to Leap, Long Jump, and High Jump. I think that'd be a solution.

I'd like it even better if Powerful Leap added the Traversal trait to Leap, with one of those special notes making the Traversal trait apply to High Jump and Long Jump as well, only if you also have Quick Jump. As is, I find the trained feat Quick Jump stronger than the expert feat Powerful Leap, so I think it'd be better to add that extra functionality to the latter.

I must admit: the idea of someone using Sudden Charge to Leap twice and Strike is hilarious.

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Castilliano wrote:

Also, familiarity lessens the wonder.

Four horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Yawn. Just studied those elsewhere.

Apocalypse Riders?
WTH are those!?

Interesting. I have precisely the opposite reaction.

Apocalypse Riders?
Eh. Just something made up by the writers.

Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Wait, I've heard of those!

I definitely do not mean to disparage the writers or their creations! Just, to me, the familiarity gives something to immediately latch on to and associate with.

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Justnobodyfqwl wrote:
Alchemic_Genius wrote:

I really wished paizo would start caring about giving us more utility options in the playtest phase. It's really hard to give data about how fun a class is when all we're given is a basic suite of combat abilities which are mostly damage focused.

Like, the rune of binding is incredibly cool; but it's also, like, level 17. I also really like the rune of sorrow. Make no mistake, I think the blasty Runes are fun and important too; but I'm not a fan that blasting is one of the few things a low level runesmith can do

I can understand that Paizo probably feels as if they understand out-of-combat balancing more than combat balancing, and thus want to emphasize combat abilities in playtests

However, I think the non-combat abilities of a class are core to it working! They make up a huge part of what makes a class distinct and interesting, and presenting a class without them will always be less satisfying

Also, I think the difference between Player Core Pathfinder 2e Skill Feats and Starfinder 2e Playtest's Skill Feats proves that they're willing to make skill feats much less niche and much more inviting to actually pick. Out-of-combat abilities seem more important than ever to Paizo, and I wanna playtest that!

They may fully feel they understand how to balance utility abilities, but not including any ignores the opportunity cost of acquiring those abilities. So even if the Runesmith has good and interesting damage options in the playtest, that doesn't necessarily mean that including a bunch of utility options in the final release will be satisfying.

Like, the playtest Commander had a tactic to grant a climb speed; pretty good utility. However, because it competes with combat tactics, most people who posted on the forums reported not taking it. That kind of information is still valuable.

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Thralls are still creatures. Creatures can be learned about through recall knowledge.

It is worthwhile to learn that they cannot take independent combat actions and can be destroyed by any damage and are always hit by attacks. (That's maybe a critical success amount of information, but that's not hard on a DC 13).

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I want to become the lord of bones.

I think this is actually a pretty pervasive issue. Most class specs have just not quite enough support, imo.

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It'd be cool if there was a way to flag a particular forum post as being a potential errata candidate, and not just a regular rules question.

Sardonic commentary aside, it's been refreshing to see you working hard to try and wrangle us forum goblins.
More than that, it's sincerely appreciated how you're trying to open up long-closed lines of communication.

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Tridus wrote:
Trip.H wrote:

Staves becoming Invested items will change every single user of that item group that's already at max investiture.

This actually kinda sucks, as my PCs take archetype casting and use low level staves for utility. One little Alchemist is super fond of her Librarian's staff, and twice during APs the ability to take 10 min to use it's ability to quickly store a mini-library in the thing to read later has been super useful.

After this change, the decision to use/invest in a staff is as big a cost as for any of the evergreen passive items, like boots for +5 move spd.

I cannot afford to sacrifice some meaningful combat potential for the sake of a flavor item like the Librarian Staff. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Whoa I missed that! I don't think thats actually what it means though. The rule that was changed itself doesn't mention staves or give them the Invested trait.

The part that mentions staves is an explanation, which itself seems wrong because nothing in the rules after this change says that staves are invested that I can find. Is there some other part I'm missing?

Quote:
Page 219: The text on investing items didn’t allow for items that are invested but not worn, such as staves. Change the first two sentences to “Certain magic items convey their magical benefits only when invested using the Invest an Item activity, tying them to the PC’s inner potential. These items have the invested trait, and most are worn items.”

I think you are correct. Some held items are invested. Staves, typically, are not. So the rules change is fine, save for a poor example.

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Rogues are darling and refuse to be killed.

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Fall 2024 Monster Core errata:
"Page 238: Add reach 10 feet to the greater nightmare’s jaws Strike."

Ladies and gentlemen: we got 'em

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Perpdepog wrote:
Ectar wrote:
Perpdepog wrote:
There's also Carryall, though you'll have to wait until 9th level to do it. Good news is you'll be able to carry around I think two or three thralls on it? Just stack 'em up!
No go. Thralls are undead creatures
Which is why I said you need to wait until 9th level. Then you can cast it as a 4th-rank spell, which can carry creatures.

Neat. I didn't realize that spell got changed in the remaster. Cool!

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Perpdepog wrote:
There's also Carryall, though you'll have to wait until 9th level to do it. Good news is you'll be able to carry around I think two or three thralls on it? Just stack 'em up!

No go. Thralls are undead creatures

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Alternatively just:

Free Action
Trigger: You roll initiative.

There's precedent for it with Gunslinger initial deeds.

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I find this hilarious.
And I almost feel like it's fine?

It scales terribly and requires the necromancer to get very up close and personal with the enemies.

Fwiw, I think it'd be against 7 damage. The fact that the thrall has only 1 hit point, I'm fairly certain is immaterial.

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2-fold suggestion:
1.) Baseline +1 thralls on the cantrip
2.) Instead of summoning two thralls, summon one with a swim speed. At higher levels, instead of summoning three thralls, summon one with a fly speed.

In both cases, they get one action per round that they automatically use to stay in their current square. Skill modifiers equal to Necromancer's class DC if the fluid requires swim or fly checks.

If another Necromancer ability or spell would cause a thrall to Stride, it may swim or fly if they have an appropriate speed.

Super spitballing on this one, but I like it on initial thought.

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Also means you could never use one of the/ thralls created by the reaction to attack.

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All of this. 100%

It doesn't feel like a classic depiction of its namesake.

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Almost every ability that utilizes the thralls does so without any regard for the fact they are supposedly undead creatures.
Bone Spear transforms them into a projectile, Life Tap consumes them, Muscle Barrier transforms them. Dead Weight kinda works, but barely. The strength of the grapple is necromantic, not muscular so the fact that a creature has to do the grabbing is almost immaterial.

There are very limited options to use the thralls as, well, thralls. Can't have a thrall grab me that drink off the counter. Can't have a thrall hold a torch for light (or even be lit aflame for light since it would be immediately destroyed).
Want to use a thrall to set of a trap? (Like in the class's description) Better hope it's a pressure plate and not a trip wire or a trapped lever.

Let me use my not-minion minions for something other than fueling the real focus spells.

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Barbarian am find traps.
Spirit Barbarian am deal positive or negative damage to many haunt.
Barbarian am smash complex hazards.

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I don't have the book, but I haven't seen almost any complaints about the Animist, except that it's complex, which most people are taking to be a good thing. Pretty cool since I remember it being heavily criticized in the playtest.

I will concede that the reactions here alongside my initial trepidations means I'll probably skip on this book. Maybe I'll grab it as a pdf in the future when there's a Humble Bundle or something.

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Archpaladin Zousha wrote:
TheFinish wrote:
Mammoth Daddy wrote:
TheFinish wrote:

There is no art, it's presented as the chapter opening for the Mythic Vault part of the book.

** spoiler omitted **...

You’re a gem! Thx!! And RIP ** spoiler omitted **

You can also press F to pay respects for:

** spoiler omitted **

I'll say one final thing I found funny, leave the rest for when the book comes out: several people in Razmiran have been empowered by the Godsrain and are challenging good ol' Razmir, but the man has not stepped out to fight (yet).

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Could you or someone else expand on "Dragon Gods"? I have a PC heavily invested into draconic deities.

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4e was even more granular than that: it also had the critical condition at 25% hp.

I don't think most would go so far, but having a threshold of 1/(n+1), with n being the individual creature's level difference with the caster wouldn't be the most arduous solution.

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I'm cautiously unoptimistic about what we've heard so far.
It feels to me like there should be some direct way to translate mythic power to non-mythic power.

For instance, a level 20 non-mythic party, I imagine, beats a level 1 mythic monster. And a level 2 mythic monster. But at some point, that changes. And it seems like that would change before the mythic monster was level 24. So hopefully there's a kind of guidance on where that line, blurry though it may be, is.

And to curtail the comments of "only mythic parties should be taking on mythic monsters", it was a commonly recommended path to mythic ascension in 1e that the PCs would defeat a mythic monster at the conclusion of a long quest. So there's plenty of narrative precedent for it.

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Spamotron wrote:
Ezekieru wrote:
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the previous level 26-30 creatures were re-balanced to be level 21-25 but with many new Mythic abilities put onto them. Their increased threat level would still exist, but it'd exist under the framework on the PF2E system instead of what they were in PF1E.
Yeah, from the various hints devs have been giving that's my impression as well. If Baba Yaga or Varklops are statted in 2E their math will be that of a level 25 creature, not 30. But they'll have rulebending Mythic Abilities that will have the likes of Treerazer going "Wait, you can do what?" Before squishing him like a bug.

If a level 25 creature can squish another level 25 creature like a bug, that sounds like a good indicator that the first creature should have a higher level.

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I'm interested to see how in the world this system is going to be balanced. Not that original Mythic ever was, but with the tight math being such a selling point of the 2E system, this preview seems to fly in the face of that.

Mythic proficiency sounds bonkers, even if limited in scope and number of uses per day.

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How does the character have 18 starting strength as a witch, when Int is your key ability score?

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If Pathfinder and Starfinder are to be compatible, I think there is some credence to the discussion. Gas giants aren't exactly uncommon.

(Though I do admit to a certain amount of intentional silliness)

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TheSageOfHours wrote:

If we are talking about potentiially renaming monk in a way that preserves the many different things it does, what about Cultivator? It covers the wide array of abilities monk has rather well and always had cultivation fantasy elements.

Cultivator makes them sound more like horticulturists than martial artists, imo.

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I mostly feel it in the stat blocks, tbh.
Alignment was always an easy shortcut for how a monster might respond to some stimuli or the kinds of worshipers a deity might attract.
I have found the Edicts and Anathema to be somewhat more cumbersome in determining those things regarding the latter, and descriptive text woefully inadequate for the former.

On the one hand, alignment's removal theoretically gives a GM more leeway to use a creature in a wider variety of scenarios, by the other hand requires the GM to select monsters from a larger pool with less guidance.

Besides, WRT monster alignment I always considered the listed one as "typical", not absolute (except for fiends and celestials) . So I don't actually buy in to my own point about using a given monster in a wide variety of situations.
I just find the removal irksome as pertains to the shorthand of monster and deity temperaments.

Regarding player character alignment, I see no significance since the removal.

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RAW Aid goes crazy. After a few levels the DC becomes trivial and the bonus is often relevant.
Your third action for a +1 or better is nuts.

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Easl wrote:

Getting back to Ectar's original post, the answer appears to be "no to going up, if your baseline is Paizo's October 2023 post which Michael Sayre links to. Yes to going up, if you were unaware of that announcement."

To look at the specific examples OP gave, HoW did come in at 224 pages and WoI is listed as coming in at 224 pages. That puts both books in between the $59.99 listed for 192 pages and $69.99 listed for 256 pages, and hey look, the prices for both books are in between those two numbers.

Now the prices for the two books are inconsistent while the page count is listed as identical. So that might represent an increase Paizo made between HoW production and WoI production. But (a) WoI is still within the price range Paizo announced in October 2023 for books of it's page count, and (b) it could instead mean that WoI is going to be a few more pages than initially announced.

The discrepancy has me miffed, I'm not gonna lie. The blog post specifies that hard covers are going to vary in price, based on page count, which is something I can get behind. And Howl of the Wild actually perfectly fits the estimation between their listed price examples.

The fact that War of Immortals has the same listed page count and a different price still rankles, however. Especially since it appears to be the only exception to the blog post's projections.

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Interesting. The prices for HotW and WoI doesn't perfectly match any of the examples in that blog post.

Interpolating from the blog post, does that mean that HotW has ~224 pages, and WoI has ~246 pages?

Oh. No, the page numbers are listed on the product page, and they're both 224. HotW matches expectations, but WoI priced higher than was explained as "typical" for its page count.

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Was perusing the War of Immortals blog post and when I went to look at the books, I saw a $67.49 price tag, which I'd never seen before.
Started looking around and noted that Howl of the Wild was $64.99.

Sorting rulebooks by price, it became clear that those are the two most expensive non-Special hardcover books right now. The Core series of books are all $59.99.

Is this the expected price for hard covers going forward? I was already pretty on the fence about buying HotW and WoI before I noticed the price disparity. Like, $5.00 and $7.50 isn't a lot of extra money. It's just kind of a sentiment thing. "Do I really want to pay more money for a book I wasn't super excited about anyway?"

If this is the new price, I'll probably just end up being a little more discerning about which books I end up getting.

Times is tough all around.

edit: Yes, PDFs exist, but I strongly prefer physical books. So in almost all cases, if I'm interested enough to buy a RPG book, I'm interested in buying a physical one.

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Kobold Catgirl wrote:

The real problem with kobolds is that at the rate I'm progressing, they're going to have more heritages than any other ancestry, even account for the versatile heritages they already have access to. XD

I love the ideas, by the way, especially the first two. Sphere of Annihilation kobolds would be so eerie.

** spoiler omitted **

Oh man, it's a small shame Crown of the Kobold King was remade prior to PC2. That would be an exceptional place to drop a new heritage, related to the stuff that lives below that tribe.

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Kobold Catgirl wrote:
Yakman wrote:
maybe, and this might get dark, the more mundane the setting, the less... prolific... kobolds get. their young die in their eggs if they are laid in some random, droll, place. so the little guys have to find weird magical locations to keep the species going... darn... that's pretty good!

Shameless self-promotion (kind of), but the supplement I'm working on right now has a band of mutant-y kobolds who inhabit the Mana Wastes and absorb wellspring magic. :)

But shredder's point was, "sure, but then why is only Arcane [and Elemental] represented yet?" Which I think is a space constraint, personally.

Genuinely, I think the thread is helping me get over my frustrations and look forward. At least the Lore ones, anyway.

I want to read about kobolds with weird sources of power.
Like a clutch of eggs laid near of Sphere of Annihilation (or other raw destructive force since that didn't make the Core jump).
Numerian Kobolds whose eggs were warmed by the residual heat of a starship engine.
Kobolds born into the Circle of the Stones, infused with the power of an Aeon Orb. Or even better, irradiated Kobolds from Vask.

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Could make it so you can only use it against a target you had Aimed at on your previous turn.

It's still very strong, but at least it be more limited. Kind of.

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This feels like a RavingDork post.

While I can't see anything that disputes the supposition, I also can't think of anyone I know personally actually running it like that.

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The Raven Black wrote:


But that left the beloved Kobold Ancestry without a distinctive flavor. So Paizo went for the magical energy sponge idea that helped keep the existing Kobold NPCs around with no need for a retcon, while at the same time opening possibilities for other kind of Kobolds.

Which definitely makes Paizo Kobolds different from the other game's creature.

I think this departure will end up being a very good thing, if unsettling at first.

I think this would sit better with me if the Surki didn't give me a similar vibe, released one book prior.

Or if they leaned into it way harder with their new heritages and feats.

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