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Apparition’s Quickening MIGHT be broken…but you’re giving up a lot everyday though to get extra uses of quickened spell so it might be balanced still.

Earth’s Bile – Being able to sustain up to 3 of these seems problematic, especially when you can hop around with sustaining dance. I think this should be limited to 1 active casting. If so, it might need bumped up to d6s. Still, it was very effective against multiple enemies from my experience, even with a single instance each turn.

I go into the issues with these two at high level play in my writeup for my Night of the Gray Death Ch 2 playthrough. Tl;dr: we generally agreed that Earth's Bile is incredibly problematic and overly centralizing to the build due to its tendency to not even provoke while doing damage per action comparable to Fireballs, and Apparition's Quickening becomes significantly less balanced due to lacking a 1/hour timer or something similar, as Animist players can and will just burn all of their spirits in the Boss Fight to spam Quicken with no repercussions in most cases.

Thanks for the writeup!

Adding some personal observations on a few of the options I haven't seen mentioned, notably on a few of the effects I disagree with/believe some of the power was not acknowledged on.

Motionless Cutter: Cool ability conceptually, but suffers from a myriad of issues. Each attack has to be vs a different target, so you cannot focus fire a single enemy; it is also a 3a, meaning you have to be in reach of multiple targets at turn start as you do not have time to Stride. All of this is on top of requiring each attack to hit in order to continue striking, and as the class does not have accelerated accuracy scaling like the Fighter, more often than not hero points will be required in order to successfully hit all of the attacks. All in all, it feels a bit like a trap option, especially if you miss your initial strike and have to pass turn.

Thief of Moonlight Transcendence: After having seen a player run this in a Night of the Gray Death Chapter 2 run, I can state that the Incapacitation effect is not a problem with this ability. Failure results in a target being functionally blinded for the whole combat, which is an insane initial fail result when fighting mobs, but against bosses, the Transcendence is still at minimum a 2a Stride+ Invisibility for 1 round, and noteably that is Invisibility, not the Invisibility Spell, so it does not break on a hostile action. Considering Last Ruler does not have a rider effect for when the enemy passes their save, I would argue that this is the stronger ability due to its consolation effect.

Eye-catching spot is actively bad as a 2-action, as it restricts your application of your Body epithets by making them harder to trigger, and is slower than the comparable Martial class option through the Battledancer Swashbuckler's Fascinating Performance/Focused Fascination. Considering how bread-and-butter the Root Epithets are to the individual playstyles, I don't think any Body transcendence should take longer to activate than the others.

Thousand League Sandals immanence is a bit strange, but is made valuable by boosting allies on the Transcendence, making it a very good option for either kiting opponents or running them down.

If I remember anything else, I'll drop it here as well; thanks for the thorough writeup in any case. +)

Howdy howdy, Animist Board! This Saturday, I recently ran a party of e through a truncated run of Night of the Gray Death, Book 2. We ran 3 encounters (1 modified) from the module, utilizing expected gold for the chapter (Starting wealth for lv 16 and the war chest collected from Chapter 1), followed by a replacement final boss fight against an antiparty of 3 Lv 17 PC builds utilizing the bare minimum equipment. The party consisted of 2 Exemplars and 2 Animists, the first being a melee Sage Animist utilizing the tree stance from level 16 and a Monk Multi to Flurry of Blows, while I was running a second caster-focused Channeler Animist built by the same player as a GMPC. 2/3rds of the party played this module both on release and as part of a similar playtest for the Kineticist last year, while the third was playing blind.

I had not constructed this build, and was playing it as suggested by the player that did: by spamming focus spells ad-infinitum. Since this is a Core class, we ran it using Core refocusing rules, so with the assumption that we would be able to refocus for a full three FP between combats, time permitting.

tl;dr: It ended up being kinda disgusting.

Encounter spoilers below. Skip to the end for a tl;dr.

Fight 1

Fight 2:

FIGHT 3:

Fight 4: No spoilers since it was a custom fight, vs Bard 17, Fighter 17 (Shatter Defenses Focus, Orc Duskwalker), and Kineticist 17 (Water focus with Metal and Air impulses mixed in.) Focused on the Animist's perspective, this went about as usual, using Channeler's Stance +2x Earth's Bile start to melt through the Kineticist's Wall of Ice opener.

If I was more familiar with the build and the type to metagame that this was the boss fight, I could have played more optimally; the character had Apparition's Quickening and hadn't used it yet, so it wouldn't have been out of the realm of possibility to Sustain twice, off a ghost and cast a Spell as the third action, allowing me to drop a Volcanic Eruption instead of just doing Earth's Bile x3 the whole fight (17d6 [avg.59.5] +20d4[50] +27 for 136.5 avg dmg base +Clumsy rather than 30d4+27 for 103 base) or mix in some extra utility spells, but as-is it still worked sufficiently for the combat. Additionally, having a sustain-only build meant that the Combat Reflexes Fighter with reach was unable to Reactive Strike, making it more difficult that usual to punish bad positioning (like the time I moved closer to the enemies to catch more of them in Earth's Bile x3). Even Grapple does nothing to impede this build. The best I could figure out over the combat was to Trip the Animist, as it shuts down Sustaining Dance while making them never want to stand up since Standing Up provokes and is a DPS loss over simply sustaining Earth's Bile from prone.

All-in-all, the build worked well in the fight despite literally only spamming Earth's Bile, and dealt enough damage to make the Animist into a priority target despite not using any actual spells and only being played with half my brain in between running three unique enemy characters.

Final thoughts: Earth's Bile is incredibly toxic to game health, even at high levels. Other options in the kit need to be incentivized; as-is, it is such a powerful and easy-access option that it disincentivizes active play for the Spellcaster and encourages getting into a rut and checking out mentally between turns. The Healing Focus Spell is not as bad but still toxic for similar reasons. Unless focus spell balance is getting significantly buffed in Core, the spells are just straight-up problematic. Possible suggestions would be to make it 2a, make the AoE target a set area that you cannot re-choose every turn, nerfing its damage, or making all of it persistent damage. Additionally, Apparition's Quickening is very strong, and probably should be limited to 1/hour as is to prevent the player from absolutely dumping on boss fights exclusively. As is, the class is suffering from success, most specifically in that their always-available options are too centralizing to encourage using daily resources.

I apologize in advance if any of my insights here have been already discussed in other threads; I had not intended to play the Animist for this playtest and only had the opportunity due to a fluke, so I haven't been keeping up with the discussions. I hope this is useful for furthering discussion.

Hurl at the Horizon does on of two things. If your Meapon Ikon is a thrown weapon, then the immanence increases its range by 10. Cool, cool. No problems here. If it's a melee weapon, though, it gives it Thrown 15. Well, okay. The issue is that it doesn't give it returning. Further, due to the fact that it's only a thrown weapon as the result of an immanence effect, there's no way for anything *else* to give it returning.

So, if you get this feat for a melee ikon, then the only way to make use of it is to throw your weapon ikon away and not get it back. As use cases go, that's... niche. We'll call it niche.

I wrote a hypothetical revision to this issue in the rules questions thread that I'll likely be submitting alongside my open feedback, included below.

Okay so I thought of a solution to this problem- give the feat a Transcendent Action:

Hypothetical Transcend for Hurl at the Horizon wrote:

Transcend: The Sky Answered [one action] Requirement: Your most recent action was a strike with a Thrown weapon. Effect: Providence united you with your weapon once, and continues to do so. Make a Thrown Weapon Strike against the same target as the preceding strike as your weapon swiftly flies back to your open hand. If the previous strike was a miss, the target is Flat-Footed to this attack. (Could potentially add in that it doesn't count MAP if the previous strike was a miss due to flavoring it as part of the same attack, but probably too strong) Your weapon returns to you, and you may Interact to Ready the weapon or choose to let it fall to the ground in your space.

This would help kill two birds with one stone: giving more low-level Weapon Transcend options, and adding a pseudo-returning effect. Plus, we already are going all in on Thor references so why not.

I started a separate thread to discuss the issue of the spark being stuck where you don't want it when you miss with the initial attack.

My quick response is that if you really wanted to Transcend Body or Item in a turn when it started in the Weapon, you could do that regardless of having Noble Branch. The only benefit of Noble Branch is in the niche where you think the Transcend damage is more valuable than doing other action X, but other action X is better than just a second Strike. So if you hit you transcend, but if you miss you do X. I find it hard to believe there are many scenarios where you can find this action X.

Agreed, generally. The other action X in our run and confounding factor for this example was named [Mournful] No Scar But This. There were almost no turns where I figured that attempting a second Strike with MAP would be better than flexing to Scar and using its Transcend to both Dazzle my opponent and heal with no check required. That said, I don't know if by this logic I would have even been better off using my Weapon Transcendence in the first place unless we were desperate to finish off an enemy, as the extra survivability is just that good.

So in the game, it might be better to classify No Scar But This as an Action A, an action you're better off taking in all circumstances over an option that ranges from niche use to trap option.

Falgaia wrote:

Reposting my thoughts on Noble Branch here for discussions sake after having ran through the Slithering module and roughly ~11 difficult encounters with it:...

If i may ask why were you so fixed on switching your icon every turn? You’ve shown in your analysis that the effects are similar in terms of the damage,. And if you think about whenever you would have missed using the strike before you wanted to transcend noble branch, if you would have power attacked, you would have missed anyways. But now you don’t have to swap if you don’t want to, and if you don’t swap you can do something meaningful with the third action, like stride/assurance trip/ demoralize etc. In your initial post it seems as though your main complaint is that you don’t transcend on a miss, but if you miss your strike and want to switch the action economy is the exact same.

I just can’t wrap head around how noble branch makes missing worse when you get similar effect on a hit, for LESS initial action investment.

From what i understand the real downside of noble branxh is that the damage will never crit, but that only matters if the attack hit anyways.

Honestly, I've been trying to wrap my head around it for the past half hour, and the more I think about it the more I think that the reason it feels awful as a player is largely psychological. While on a hit you have a choice, on a miss it feels like a rugpull due to the choice being removed from the options by a power outside the player's control. Being forced onto a plan B doesn't *feel* good even if it is functionally and logically better than a hypothetical power attack miss in this case.

Sometimes things feel bad because of psychology rather than math; that's unfortunately a part of game design sometimes.

Reposting my thoughts on Noble Branch here for discussions sake after having ran through the Slithering module and roughly ~11 difficult encounters with it (Due to aiming to complete the scenario in one day, we cut out a lot of the chaff fights and had both Archive of the Sun delves turned into run-on encounters due to scouts alerting adjacent rooms.)

- Noble Branch is kinda bad compared to the other weapon ikons. The raw damage with no save/no attack roll is neat, but the Transcend ability relying on your first strike having hit is bad. As-is, I'd much rather just have the Power Attack analog from the Hammer Ikon, since it does a functionally similar effect for the same functional action economy and still changes your ikon on a miss. There were a lot of rounds where I was forced with Branch to either waste my last action to swap Ikons, or attack with Map and be forced to stay in Weapon Ikon. Just feels like a weaker choice than Hammer and I'm not a fan.

I guess the one current benefit of Branch over Axe is that if you miss the initial strike, you can 1a swap spark to a different Ikon and still have the action to Transcend it, whereas with Axe your miss was your transcendence so you wasted the 1/round already. Pointing this out since I did at least have reliably good fallback options in regards to Mournful Scar and TLSandals, although I generally found these turns still felt like the lowest points of Mt experience given how often they were coming up due in part to awful rolling (and three rounds spent unsuccessfully trying to roll a 14 while pinned to the ground by an Aurumvorax). Personally I'd prefer the option to transcend out of the weapon even if the previous strike hadn't hit (maybe something like reducing the damage output but make it push the target back 5ft automatically with no hit requirement or 5/10ft any direction if the previous strike was a hit, leaning into the flavor of the Polearm Crit Spec default option?)

EDIT: I think part of the reason the effect feels bad that goes unsaid in my initial posts is that you only have the option to Transcend if the previous strike succeeds, and usually you plan your turn around hoping for at least a strike 1 hit. If you miss, the option is gone, and suddenly you're having to re-plan your last two actions on the fly, which leads to a lot of player stress and frustration in the moment and makes the initial miss feel even worse. I think, reflecting on it, that the Noble Branch is good from a versatility standpoint due to the reasons I mentioned in the second quote, but the issue is that it doesn't feel good or fun in the moment when you're suddenly having to replan everything or rely on Plan B to cover, if you even have time to do so (since Stride>Miss>Swap just wastes your Transcend completely for that turn and is not an uncommon turn; that said, there isn't really a functional differencebetween a missed Axe Transcendence and a missed Branch Attack in that example.)

Agreed. My personal suggestion given the flavor of the epithet would be to give it an icon Immanence effect that made you equivalent (or even just closer to) Fighter proficiency while Weapon Ikon was active. (Maybe make part of transferring your spark to your Weapon Ikon be a "declare a target, gain +2 circumstance bonus to strikes against that target while your spark is invested in your weapon? That way it would still have a reason to encourage swapping as targets change) Putting the strength of the route into an Immanance effect would make up for the numerically lacking ability, plus if your accuracy was higher it would make it a bit more reasonable of a gamble than it would be at standard martial proficiency.

Thinking back on the idea of balancing a bad transcend option with a stronger Immanence, I thought up another idea that would probably be less controversial than an option that gives effective Fighter accuracy.

Instead of Peerless giving you your weapon crit spec, have it give you your Greivous Rune weapon crit specs. There are already several martial classes that give free bonus runes (Swashbuckler gives Keen after all) so there is precedent for a passive like this; additionally, having the Cooler Crits innately feels like something that would fit the flavor of the option incredibly well while making it feel less like the vanilla martial option.

Thanks for the write up. Been thinking about Noble Branch... as you say the damage is pretty weak compared to the the other options, but also the transcend not being guaranteed. I've been thinking about this second point a bit.

Since transcending is generally strong for its action economy, and its a limited resource (1/turn), a turn where you dont transcend is a "bad" turn. With Noble branch, activating it is not guaranteed, which can essentially waste your spending the resource. It can also throw off your next turn because it messed with your ability to move the spark.

Much has been said about Reap's terrible mechanics, but it also needs dtating that it has the issue of not being a guarnteed use of your spark.

I guess the one current benefit of Branch over Axe is that if you miss the initial strike, you can 1a swap spark to a different Ikon and still have the action to Transcend it, whereas with Axe your miss was your transcendence so you wasted the 1/round already. Pointing this out since I did at least have reliably good fallback options in regards to Mournful Scar and TLSandals, although I generally found these turns still felt like the lowest points of Mt experience given how often they were coming up due in part to awful rolling (and three rounds spent unsuccessfully trying to roll a 14 while pinned to the ground by an Aurumvorax). Personally I'd prefer the option to transcend out of the weapon even if the previous strike hadn't hit (maybe something like reducing the damage output but make it push the target back 5ft automatically with no hit requirement or 5/10ft any direction if the previous strike was a hit, leaning into the flavor of the Polearm Crit Spec default option?)

Side note, but we actually got a surprising amount of mileage out of using the Sandals speed boost to increase Leap distance, since spe30 increases a horizontal leap distance by 5ft. This was likely due in part to having an Animist in the party (Sustaining Dance is a heck of a drug), but it also made for some clean navigation around field hazards in a surprising number of instances.

Howdy! I'm currently in the process of playing through/just finished a speedrun of the Slithering Module with an Exemplar. My build was running the following feats/options from levels 5-7:
-Noble Branch Ikon (Bec de Corbin, picked up Shifting at 6 to swap Polearms as needed; Born of the Earth Epithet later taken)
-Thousand-League Sandals Ikon
-Scar of the Survivor Ikon (With Mournful Epithet)
-Vow of Mortal Defiance (taken at fourth)
-Claim Domain Initiate (Trickery)
-Tested with both Motionless Blade for Level 6 and Reactive Strike at Lv 7.

Noteable character options that worked with the build were my racial feats (Orc Toughness, Mist child to boost Concealed miss chance to DC6 against me), the Tomb Born background (Reaction to Strike when hitting unconscious)

General thoughts:
-The class is fun! Rare for a playtest! I really enjoyed the more active thought required here in regards to most martials. One thing that stood out to me in character building and in play was that due to the class's action economy and base power, I didn't really find myself wanting to use many abilities outside of my core class option loops. Some more options for Weapon Transcendence would be appreciated for lower levels to add a bit more versatility. Maybe something to encourage doing Atletics checks with the weapon, so that you could Trip/Grapple/etc while still doing your rotations? Had a Necklace of Fireballs, didn't want to use it that much due in part to it not contributing to my Ikon cycling (and partly due to being limited to Polearms and not having the free hand).

-Not sure why Spirit Strikes come online 2 levels earlier than Weapon Spec. I'll take it I guess.

-Skills bad, not sure if I'm a fan of them being Paladin skills but I'm not too torn up over it.

Thoughts on the build feats:
- Mournful Scar is excellent and feels great as a survivability tech. Half Level*d8 healing plus auto Dazzle one target is amazing in 1-v-1's (especially with Mist Child boost). All around amazing option, and was effectively allowing me to 1v1 a Jungle Drake that had me grappled and flown away from the party. There was an extended section of Part 3 where I was in a grudge match with an Aurumvorax that had me grabbed and prone while the other party members were desperately trying to slow Cursebreaker; the Ikon effectively enabled me to tank it's insane rake for a lot longer than I was expecting.

- Noble Branch is kinda bad compared to the other weapon ikons. The raw damage with no save/no attack roll is neat, but the Transcend ability relying on your first strike having hit is bad. As-is, I'd much rather just have the Power Attack analog from the Hammer Ikon, since it does a functionally similar effect for the same functional action economy and still changes your ikon on a miss. There were a lot of rounds where I was forced with Branch to either waste my last action to swap Ikons, or attack with Map and be forced to stay in Weapon Ikon. Just feels like a weaker choice than Hammer and I'm not a fan.

- Thousand League Sandals are great, full-stop. GM thought they were maybe too strong when compared to similar effects; as-is I think it's fine since Loose Time's Arrow exists for similar action investment at level 3, without burning the party's Reactions; especially noteable for our Champion when they were using it to engage. Depending on the GM call, it can end up being a bit weaker if they don't let your party generate Reactions until their first turn, so YMMV a bit.

- Motionless Cutter is also bad. I asked the GM to retrain it out for the ole' reliable Reactive Strike between Parts 2&3 due to it requiring too much investment to function. Unlike a standard 3a, you have to already be in position for 2 (4?) enemies to be within your range while also being in Weapon Ikon already. This is already a lot of setup, but on top of that bad rolls ruin the effectiveness by stopping you from doing the full bevy of attacks. The one time I was able to use it through the difficulty of setup, I ended up only using it to chop down a single mook (the villain of the encounter used a Reaction to throw said mook in the way of my first strike, then bounced strike 2 to that same mook, strike 3 to a different mook, and strike 4 back to Poor Bastard) and it required burning a hero point midway through to get the last two attacks off. I'm not a fan of an ability requiring a hero point to feel reliable. As-is, I feel like there could almost be like a stacking damage bonus applied to the later attacks and it would still feel questionable.

-Due to circumstances, I was only able to use Born of the Earth once, but it was enjoyable in that instance.

Thoughts on feats I didn't take and why:
- Peerless Under Heaven: I hate it, read the thread, it sums up why. Flavor-wise it's the best for this character but it's transcendence is just... bad.

- Hurl at the Horizon: Would have taken but the lack of Returning made it a hard pass. I want to throw my polearm but not if it takes two actions to retrieve.

Wasn't interested in a ranged build, maybe later.

Will playtest more in the future. Good first impression overall!

Huh? No way, that's a terrible use of actions. Shift Immanence is there for when you don't want to use your available transcend action but still need to shift. Spending an action purely for +1 AC or a bit of resistance is a bad trade over just... raising a shield.

Or for situations where you were hoping to use your weapon transcendence and just... miss. (See Noble Branch and Barrow's Edge requiring a successful hit to activate their transcendence.) Not all fighters have the free hand for a shield as well, but yeah.

I'm currently playtesting an Exemplar with Mournful Scar of the Survivor as we speak, and after a Jungle Drake just dragged me away from the party for an effective 1v1, I took two turns in a row to transcend Body Ikon for the healing and Dazzle on the drake, make an attack with charged Weapon Ikon, and then shift back to Body for the setup into the following turn's Transcend. After the second turn, the Drake dropped me because it was apparent it was starting to lose the trade, lol. Turns out 20% miss chance on call is pretty strong (25% in my case thanks to Changeling's Mist Child).

That said, there is some benefit to staying in Weapon Ikon between turns as well, as there are a few 3act Transcendence activities that would require you to already be in Weapon Ikon to activate. Whether those activates are worth it is another story entirely, however.

Some of these effects, like the Gaze Sharp as Steel's Transcend ability (which grants AoO/Reactive Strike) are powerful, but the Exemplar already has native access, so if you take the Reactive Strike feat (which is pretty much a must-have for melee martials), it feels underwhelming to have one of the main benefits of your Ikon be completely pointless. Instead, these Ikons should either grant more unique effects or improve the effects of the feat if the Exemplar already has them.

An example where this could be applied would be Skybearer's Belt, which grants an effect similar to the Titan Wrestler feat. Unfortunately, any character already interested in using Athletics maneuvers is likely going to take the feat anyways, and the feat actually ends up better once you hit Legendary in Athletics. Rather than granting a redundant effect, the Ikon could grant the feat or give a +X to those Athletics maneuvers if the Exemplar already has the feat.

Agreed. Redundant effects should stack, especially if they are redundant with later class abilities. Perhaps the Gaze Sharp as Steel could improve the AoO to interrupt on a successful Strike, rather than a crit (see Inventor's Unstable Distracting Explosion (lv 10) for a potential precedent) or similar boost. The Titan Wrestler example works well; the Leap the Falls feat is similarly weak in this regard, as it gives you two skill feats only while sparked, so it could potentially stack with those feats to add additional Leap range without being too busted, imo.

I will add this one:

Page 26-27. Fish from the Fall's Edge has got the following trigger: "A living creature within 30 feet would die." This includes yourself, but the whole text talks about "your ally". I think it would be better to have a more specific trigger, or to clearly state that you can't target yourself. Or that you can, if that's intended.

Some effects target or require an ally, or otherwise refer to an ally. This must be someone on your side, often another PC, but it might be a bystander you are trying to protect. You are not your own ally. If it isn’t clear, the GM decides who counts as an ally or an enemy.

So no targeting yourself as written, but I do agree it probably could be clearer. Honestly, the fact that it says "living" at all feels unnecessarily exclusionary after Book of the Dead.

Currently adapting my Fighter for Exemplar use who is an adaptation of an anti-hero character I'm using in my own stories. Since they come from a post-apocalyptic setting that they are trying to end, I'm essentially going to be playing them as a Terminator-esque character who traveled back in time and is on a mission to change the events that led to The Gap (see Starfinder) to prevent it from ever happening and causing Golarion to disappear. (This is very easy to RP by just claiming any important action they do is causing the timeline to deviate since last I checked no one locally knows what the Gap's backstory is.) Flavor wise I want the character to feel like they were pulled off of a metal album cover.

Mechanically, their level 5 build is going to be Noble Branch, Survivor's Scar and Thousand Yard Sandals; root epithet of Mournful and entering into Born from the Earth at 7. Ancestry is Changeling/Orc with Tomb Born background (it is PFS legal, after all). I'm going to be leveraging the Mist Child feat from Changeling against the Mournful effect to really maximize frontline survivability (25% miss chance let's go!) while having Final Spite and Orc Ferocity available to utilize my reaction more often. Should be fun!

First off, I love the Exemplar. Love the concept, love the over-the-top feat names, love the iconic. Love it. There's some stuff that I think would be cool that isn't currently supported, but I assume that's coming later.

The thing I wanted to ask about/call attention to is Reap the Field, the Transcend action associated with Peerless Under Heaven. While there's lots of things that muddy the waters (such as the free movement), it seems like it's the case that unless you are very likely to hit the second target, using this ability is typically a loss of expected damage compared to striking again with the strike action - often a pretty substantial loss. Making the second attack at the same MAP does not compensate for the drawback when you miss, unless you are hitting on a 6. You also must attack two different targets, which usually isn't desirable. You get to change where your spark is allocated, but every transcend action lets you do that.

I get that not every Transcend ability is or should be universally applicable, but most offensive transcend abilities seem to be designed around the idea that in situations where a not-so-numbers-inclined player would think that it's right to use the ability, it is right to use the ability. Reap the Field is only truly advantageous in a limited range of situations, mostly ones where you're willing to risk losing all of your damage for the turn in exchange for the movement.

The transcend ability doesn't seem to be offset by the other effects of Peerless Under Heaven, which doesn't seem especially remarkable compared to the alternatives.

I don't think that this ability is a critical flaw with the class or anything, but as long as it's the playtest window, I figured I'd might as well get it out there.

Again, think the class looks great overall, this one option just jumped out as mathematically questionable.

Agreed. My personal suggestion given the flavor of the epithet would be to give it an icon Immanence effect that made you equivalent (or even just closer to) Fighter proficiency while Weapon Ikon was active. (Maybe make part of transferring your spark to your Weapon Ikon be a "declare a target, gain +2 circumstance bonus to strikes against that target while your spark is invested in your weapon? That way it would still have a reason to encourage swapping as targets change) Putting the strength of the route into an Immanance effect would make up for the numerically lacking ability, plus if your accuracy was higher it would make it a bit more reasonable of a gamble than it would be at standard martial proficiency.

As-is, I suppose Fighters are just on a higher plane than Heaven, whatever that is.

Hurl at the Horizon: Does the weapon return to your hand after being thrown? Asking since otherwise it is not possible for a Melee weapon without the Thrown trait initially to ever get Returning.

Okay so I thought of a solution to this problem- give the feat a Transcendent Action:

Transcend: The Sky Answered [one action] Requirement: Your most recent action was a strike with a Thrown weapon. Effect: Providence united you with your weapon once, and continues to do so. Make a Thrown Weapon Strike against the same target as the preceding strike as your weapon swiftly flies back to your open hand. If the previous strike was a miss, the target is Flat-Footed to this attack. (Could potentially add in that it doesn't count MAP if the previous strike was a miss due to flavoring it as part of the same attack, but probably too strong) Your weapon returns to you, and you may Interact to Ready the weapon or choose to let it fall to the ground in your space.

Page 26. Motionless Cutter: So long as you successfully Strike with the weapon, you can make another attempt until you make four Strikes this way. When it says you must strike "another target," can it be one you previously successfully did a Strike against with this ability? For example: hit target A, then target B, then target A?

Adding in that if Motionless Cutter's transcend ability cannot strike the same target 4 times, then it should not be called "Severing Four Dragonfly Wings." A dragonfly has four wings; as named, the ability is implying four strikes against the same creature by name. As-is, I'd go so far to say that the "another" in this ability is too vague and could be still stretched to interpret a second attack on the same enemy as "another target" due to this being a separate attack; changing the wording to "a different target from the prior strike(s?)" would be clearer wording.

The Cunning epithet is one that should certainly exist- cunning heroes are plenty famous. In terms of epithets, it's the only one I want to actually play characters described that way.

The problem is that, mechanically, it can hardly ever be used in a cunning way. You get a free feint when you move to your body ikon. Well, feint is melee only, so no cunning ranged combatant, and you probably never trigger this usefully during initiative. You need to feint before an attack, so what you'd want is weapon ikon, but you're not getting that. Additionally, transcending out of weapon ikon generally involves making one or more attacks, meaning you're already on MAP. If you're using a dagger, the classic weapon of the cunning, you're at -8 with one action remaining. So, the only way to use this cunningly is to be in/move into melee with no available flanking and activate the transcend an active worn ikon, and go for body rather than weapon for an attack.

I think there's a bit of a misconception happening here:

After you Spark Transcendence of your body ikon, you can Feint as a free action.

Since this occurs after you Spark Transcendence on Body Ikon, that means it occurs while leaving the Body Ikon, so the feint can immediately flow into a Weapon Ikon boosted strike. (All the Root Epithets work similarly btw) Sadly, due to the Spark Transcendence action being limited per round, this does prevent you from using a Transcendence Attack in the same turn to capitalize off of the feint, but it still works okay as a bit of a boost for the next boosted strike; especially if you Crit as in that case you actually can use your Weapon Transcendence on them during the next turn while still benefiting from the FF/Off-guard.

I'd still argue it's the weakest of the Epithets but it is decently functional in theory.

- My reservations over Eye-Catching Spot were well-founded. The two-action Captivating Charm is just not worth using, and the passive isn't good enough to stay in compared to the other options. I used it once, and I used the generic one-action Shift Immanence. Fascinated just isn't a very useful condition most of the time.

Oof, somehow I missed that this was a two-action. Makes this ability pretty awful, considering we already have classes that can functionally get the same benefit out of a 1a. (Battledancer Swashbuckler/Focused Fascination does the same outcome except you're the one rolling vs the enemy's Will DC instead of the other way around)

There would be some utility to the option if it was 1a, as Fascination is one of the only conditions that can successfully draw Spellcaster aggro assuming you cast it directly before their turn; but having it as a 2a removes the option to ready it for that benefit, and forces you to fully-delay your turn. Oof.

Hurl at the Horizon: Does the weapon return to your hand after being thrown? Asking since otherwise it is not possible for a Melee weapon without the Thrown trait initially to ever get Returning.

Falgaia wrote:

I just hope they add in unarmed strikes of all types. I really want to do a Fleshwarp Exemplar mutated by divinity that uses their gross flesh tail or whatever for combat.

Or . . . like . . . some enlightened martial artist? If we don't want to go the gross route?

Like yes, unarmed option good. Your character is valid. Just . . . just not where my mind first went to when I heard unarmed demigod.

Yeah, I'm mostly saying it should be open to all Unarmed and not just fists. Go nuts with your Goku build.

I just hope they add in unarmed strikes of all types. I really want to do a Fleshwarp Exemplar mutated by divinity that uses their gross flesh tail or whatever for combat.

Quote:

A PLACE BEYOND MORTALITY FEAT 20

EXEMPLAR
Prerequisites Claim Advanced Domain
Frequency once per day
Requirements You have at least 1 Focus Point in your focus pool.
Your domain is not just a representation of your power but of your divine essence and the potential immortality that essence represents. You cease aging. When you would die for any reason, you can immediately expend all your remaining Focus Points as a free action that can be taken at any time and regardless of your current condition to survive at 0 Hit Points, purge yourself of any negative conditions. When you do, you heal yourself for half of your total Hit Points, stand back up in your current square, instantly summon your weapon ikon to your hand, and Shift your Immanence to any of your ikons.

Definitely has Cool Factor, and never aging is always cool, but you have to DIE for it to come up. Not just go down to 0 hit points, but DIE. So it seems less useful (and will come up less often) than a Level 20 feat seems to warrant.

Well, I believe it would work vs Death Effects which is neat at least. Worst case scenario you can tell your allies to include you in AoEs whenever you're bleeding out I suppose.

Adding my Shifting rune question to here because might as well make it a thread for questions.

Shifting Rune. Do you keep your Weapon Ikon benefit if you shift to a weapon not covered by the ikon requirement? My gut says yes as currently written, since it's innately tied to the weapon itself, but seems like an important point to ask.

Similarly, Modular would bring up the same question in regards to Barrow's Edge. Would swapping your Barrow to Bludgeoning keep the bonus?

Current plan is to do a Slithering speedrun since it's a lot of varied combats in the 5-7 level range. If we have time, we might re-run chapter 2 of Night of the Gray Death for Level 17 playtesting.

I'll keep it quick:

Shifting Rune. Do you keep your Weapon Ikon benefit? My gut says yes as currently written, since it's innately tied to the weapon itself, but seems like an important point to ask.

Similarly, Modular would bring up the same question in regards to Barrow's Edge. Would swapping your Barrow to Bludgeoning keep the bonus?

1. Water, because water mages are often lacking in options from many DnD adjacent properties and it has always bothered me. Also they aren't a bad frontliner.
2.All minus Winter's Grasp.
3.Versatile Blasts to have a valid ranged option. (Building Str)
4. Would retrain the Water Barrier option to Winters Grasp sometime after it hits 4+ damage, but low level I don't think 1 point will make or break any combats. I would take human ancestry and rush Heavy Armor proficiency as well if I expected it was going to be a one-shot and not a part of a longer campaign, since the armor proficiency does not innately scale. Likely would use Water Dance to ensure Merisiel is always flanking with me to counteract my weak base attack bonus and set up for her sneak attacks.

Dedicated gate needs a little more bang for their buck, 3 level one feats is great at level one, but they grow further and further behind as levels progress

Around this point, talking it over a bit earlier today with my brother we thought of a pretty decent buff to Dedicated Gates by buffing Stoke Element at 6 slightly-

Add the following rider to the effect: "Additionally, if you use an Overflow action on the following turn, you do not lose your gathered Element; however, you are unable to do any additional Impulse actions for the remainder of the turn."

This stops Stoke from being a flat action tax by effectively being a stockpiled Gather Element while still ensuring there are no unintended abuse scenarios that would emerge from Kineticist feat interactions; additionally, this makes 3act Overflow Impulses a lot more reasonable to use. Might still need a damage numbers buff, but this would make it an option at least worth considering that is unique to Dedicated.

Looking forward to running Kineticists through Lost Maid of Anactoria to get TPK'd this weekend; burning two feats as a Human to have Heavy Armor Proficiency as a level 5 one-off character is maybe the dumbest thing I've ever been incentivized to do and I will be sure to say as much.

Prepping this for local and Paizocon, and noticing that the Weretiger and Werebat statistics don't match up with the Beastiary stats. As they aren't listed as being unique werecreatures, I'm inclined to treat this as a typo, especially since the Moon Frenzy ability as listed in the scenario does not empower the werecreatures at all compared to what it actually does, and the scenario as-written makes it sound as if the Moon Frenzy ability should be activated as a penalty for if the party fails skill checks earlier on.

Feel free to correct me if this was an intentional edit, but wanted to at least point it out here to get feedback on the issue.

Moon Frenzy description in the Bestiary, for comparison. Bolded part is missing from the monster stats in Guardian's Covenant.

When a full moon appears in the night sky, the werecreature must enter hybrid form, can't Change Shape thereafter, becomes one size larger, increases their reach by 5 feet, and increases the damage of their jaws Strike by 2. When the moon sets or the sun rises, the werecreature returns to humanoid form and is fatigued for 2d4 hours.

The other main discrepancy I'm seeing is that the DC for the Curse of the Weretiger is 3 higher than its Bestiary Counterpart, which feels strange in a scenario where the curse is removed for free; the only way this would make sense as a counterbalance for the nerfed Moon Frenzy is if its assumed that this has a chance of converting a PC into another Weretiger enemy on the spot, which is a whole other can of worms that I don't think any GM would want to have to deal with in a four-hour slot.

EDIT: The Weretiger is also missing Pounce and Rend, but has a unique Wrestle ability; this is what I get for not scrolling down on either page and doing prep in the middle of work breaks. Still think the Moon Frenzy ability feels off in its editted state, however, unless its intended use is to stop the Weretiger from utilizing its Wrestle ability and that's it.

No idea if there will be any reason to be on the far side of the chasm, honestly just doing it in the possibility that something tries to come from there, plus it opens up the space on the ledge for anyone else who needs it, which seems like an okay use of the final action.

Sorry to hear about your friend passing, if you need any time away from the table I'm sure everyone would understand.

Hope the move went well, GM. Apologies for the slow posting on my end; I'm currently distracted with trying to file for unemployment on my end and there have been some days that have just burnt me out these past weeks in the midst of having to find openings, fill out applications and write cover letters/portfolio updating/etc. Going to try to be a bit more consistent moving forward if at all possible.

I am on the map.

Was that linked scenario from PFS 1E>

Yes. Since it doesn't have a season before the number, that means it was from Pathfinder Society Season 0, which iirc were scenarios put out before the CRB officially released and Pathfinder was still a direct offshoot of DnD 3.5.

Judging by the current party comp, I think I'm leaning towards playing my Champion. I'll check their level and update them accordingly; not sure if playing them would drag us to high tier though, so if that is a concern I can switch to something else.

Howdy, I'd be interested in playing this game as someone who is considering running it in roughly a month and a half or so. I can play this as either a Liberator Champion (iirc Level 8, might be 7), a Time Cleric (6), a Flames Oracle (5), or potentially a rogue (5); so I have a pretty wide range of options for this. Assuming we sign up by posting here, I'll try to tailor my pick based on the party composition.

** spoiler omitted **

There is no benefit/bonuses that carry over from one scenario to the next. Each one is kind of self-contained though there might be 1-2 times it mentions if PC's played part 1 or part 2 then you get automatic knowledge for the beginning briefing. The main draw for me was just remembering how much fun i had doing the Perennial Crown parts 1/2 with the same group.

And sounds good for Season 3 - Would be nice to get the same group together again should it work out!

Definitely would be down to play with this group again in the future. I tend to run a lot of the high level games locally, so online games give me a good chance to play the sessions as well. As for what would be the Season 3 baddie, not currently expecting it to be another deity, maybe some organizational threat? Should be interesting to see in any case.

** spoiler omitted **

It seems like crafting is inferior compared to storied talent as far as maximizing income. Storied Talent is a one time buy of X fame, or rather now these days X ACP. Should have rolled my storied talent day job, but oh well.

Storied Talent and Crafter's Workshop (The Envoy's Alliance option that removes the startup time) effectively even out the differences between Earn Inckme and Craft by elevating them both to the same tier of effectiveness; crafting ends up being slightly better due to being able to aim at a lower DC while maintaining the at-level progress, however.

That said, if you only have Storied Talent, it is more efficient to use Earn Income over Crafting, unless your Craft score is just that good that it becomes preferrable.

Zac, my understanding is that you'd buy the formula (8gp) and pay half of the item cost up front (77.5gp). At the start of crafting you were 77.5/155gp progress. Your Crit reduces the cost by 3gp per day (lvl 7, Master, crit success). For 12 days that is 36gp progress on the item for an end progress of 113.5/155gp. At this point you can buy the item outright for the remaining balance (41.5gp), or continue working on it during downtime in the future.

This is indeed how the crafting would work, however if he is just starting the crafting this session, that would eat the first 4 days of the downtime to prep the crafting attempt, unless he has a boon to reduce it from his faction. So Started +8 additional days for 24gp progress, but next session would progress the craft by 36 as you listed above automatically without a need for an additional roll, iirc.

My -2002 is a dedicated crafter downtime build, and its the only reason I know this. IIRC the crafting startup time reduction boons are in Envoy's Alliance (universal and the strongest of the three, but takes longer to acquire), Vigilant Seal (for magical items), and Verdant Wheel (for Alchemical Items).

I'm still here and good to go for whenever the next session kicks off.

As a fun aside, this was the farthest I've seen the boss get in the two sessions I've experienced; that said, it was nowhere near the worst run I've seen. In the run I GM'd, the party thought the boss was going to leave the map after 3 moves (so straight down, no angled turn) and the Barbarian and Mountain Stance Monk leapt the river to engage the boss, splitting the party entirely in half with the spellcasters left alone. This went incredibly badly as the two spellcasters left behind got double Lightning Bolted by the boss from the other side of the field, since they made the mistake of lining up with the charging PCs, and the pregen Kyra was bleeding out at the entrance by round 2, so the Sorcerer had to get Kyra back up while a Troll was rushing in to 1v1 them; meanwhile, the Barbarian and Monk were sandwiched between the boss and the other troll minion (only 2 with the challenge adjustment) and things there went about as well as you'd expect.

The only saving grace was that the barbarian just so happened to have a Thundering Rune on their Greatsword, which stopped the boss from healing an inordinate amount by complete accident since no one bothered to roll Knowledge. They managed to survive but the Barbarian was dropped several times over the course of the fight. The Sorcerer also scored a crit with True Strike'd Lv 4 Hydraulic Push to yeet the troll he was 1v1'ing directly into the lava, which proved to be incredibly effective. Fun!

So glad to see that this errata has been issued and this thread created for reporting other issues! I did actually notice one while reading through The Mwangi Expanse today. The shisk feat Quill Spray allows a saving throw, but doesn't specify what type of save needs to be made (I assume Reflex, but it isn't actually listed in the text at the moment).

Follow up question: Is there a recharge time on Quill Spray? One of my local players pointed out that as-written, it can currently be used every turn, which feels incredibly strong for a Ancestry Feat.

If you're out of actions (such as you didn't use a Fly action on your turn) then you'd fall and can use use the Arrest a Fall reaction to prevent damage.

While normally true, Animal Companions and other Minions cannot use Reactions, so this is only really relevant to players with Fly speeds.

Watery Soup wrote:

rainzax wrote:

I will add that leap-frogging over 9 somewhat "robs" you of playing her 3 times over the course of her character life, which I will assume is your intent. Another option (which I'm sure you already know) is to credit the Fall of Plaguestone to another PC, then Bequeath the benefits to Quinoline, if what you are after is just the contents of the Boons. Cheers!

Of her 96 XP, 9 XP are pregen credits and 4 XP are GM credits ...

I'm lucky in that Jakoby (#2001) has played her entire career without a single GM credit, and almost always going in "cold" to a scenario, without me having GMed it first, and by me specifically avoiding spoily chatter of other players in the Bay Area or Discord (I love ya'll but goshdarn do these gamers have loose lips...)

...

On a separate note, we have a second Bird coming. So I'd like to ask the question (which I have managed to avoid thus far): GM - What happens when Ro stops moving during Encounter mode while Flying? Does he fall? If so, does he fall prone? Taking damage? Can he roll an Acrobatics to avoid doing so? If so, what kind of DC are we talking about? Would it be a free action?

I assume he would make use of Maneuver in Flight for this. But am trying to wrap my head around the parameters so I can plan ahead. Cheers!

Flying creatures fall if they do not spend at least 1 action that turn using the Fly action, however if you are flying at ground level you land normally without taking fall damage due to not falling far enough to take damage. You're only prone from falling if you take Falling Damage.

When you fall more than 5 feet, you take bludgeoning damage equal to half the distance you fell when you land. Treat falls longer than 1,500 feet as though they were 1,500 feet (750 damage). If you take any damage from a fall, you land prone. You fall about 500 feet in the first round of falling and about 1,500 feet each round thereafter.

tl;dr there's no penalty to flying if you're just treating it like a Land speed, outside of spell effects like Gust of Wind. You only need to start worrying about Falling if you decide to abuse Elevation cheese.

On another note, I'm having a blast playing this character, and as my area transitions back into physical venues, I've taken time to settle some pre-pandemic reporting discrepancies, as well as just today decided the direction to steer Jakoby into for 9th level and beyond: multi-classing into Cleric and looking to improve Medicine skills.

If you're looking into the Medicine skill, have you looked into the Medic archetype? No spellcasting, but it goes all in on Battle Medicine, and Doctor's Visitation is an amazing feat for action economy.

As for this scenario being almost entirely combats, gotta say I really like what they did with adding the Dolok trees and focusing on tactical complexity to give players a lot to sink their teeth into. If future combat focused scenarios were built like this one, I'd be excited to say the least. Hopefully future scenarios will not have a mechanic that takes an hour IRL to figure out for the sake of timeslots, but otherwise yeah.

Just wanted to casually mention while I was checking over the thread to see how close you guys were to starting part 2 that it looks like we'll be having two characters that are a bit similar on paper once Amada joins. He's a primarily ranged attack Ranger with a Bird companion similar to the vibe I get from Jakoby's build, but the main differences in the build come from the archetypes being used. Rather than going Flurry Edge and taking the faster animal companion advancement through Beastmaster, he opted to go for Precision Edge and Wizard Multiclass to enable self-buffing and spell utility, and has a Returning Trident to function as a switch hitter as needed. Offhand is constantly holding a Staff of Divination for on-demand True Strike, since I figure if you're trying to get one big hit a turn you might as well make it count. Should be fun seeing how the builds compare during play once I jump in at Part 2, and if anything, we shouldn't be having to worry about not knowing what a monster statblock is up to with two Monster Hunters in the party.

Enjoy the rest of the scenario!

Indeed I have.

I've spent literally hours on Pathbuilder working through all the possible ways of tweaking Mandoo to see how he turns out. Unfortunately, Monks are MAD as anything, mainly with STR and DEX. I tried dropping STR to give me some points to throw into something else, but putting them into CHA or INT just resulted in reducing his overall effectiveness way too much. I ended up with a weakened monk and a middling face. Turns out there's a reason that INT and CHA are considered dump stats for monks. I'm no minimaxer, but I want to have Mandoo hold his own in a group. The only viable low-STR versions of him I could build was by putting those points into WIS (to bump his Perception, Will and Survival) and/or CON (for HP and Fortitude) at the cost of melee damage output. Since I'd turned him into a DEX-based archer Monk, I figured I could afford to lose a little melee effectiveness. Now I'm not so sure.

In retrospect, I think my main problem with the original Mandoo was that his stoic taciturn loner personality sucked and RPing him was no fun. I'm trying him out as a more confident roguish character who thinks he's a good talker; a smooth operator with the ladies; and intimidating as hell, but is in fact none of those. Should make for more RP possibilities, especially when his rolls fail to support this view he has of himself. I certainly had a lot more fun playing him that way in this bounty.

Yeah I feel ya there, Stoic is a personality type you have to be actively thinking about in order to get a lot of enjoyment out of RP'ing. For Masei I'm trying to make it work by playing up her awkwardness in modern society with an intent to have her function as the serious fish-out-of-water (heh) straight man of a group for others to play off of. Best of luck rp'ing the overly-self confident type, its a fun character archetype from the times I've tried it. If you have any particular monk build options you're gearing towards later on, I'd be willing to hear them out and give suggestions; I'm still fresh off of building a Stand Still bo-staff monk that was originally an alt-build for Masei so I have some experience building monks if you want someone to bounce ideas off of.

Thanks for running GM, I had a great time with the quest. I always enjoy it when play-by-post GM's are willing to put in the extra effort to RP rather than simply blasting through the scenario at lightspeed. Best of luck with your next game!

Just wanted to quickly come in to say that I'm a big fan of Mr Wasko's work. Both this scenario and Lost on the Spirit Road have been absolute bangers in the PF2 catalogue, can't wait to see what he writes next.

@BigNorseWolf: I made NPC character pages on Roll20 for the trees and gave them to the players. I'm sure similar solutions exist on other online software. Macros help but the tree character sheets worked fine as well.

@Thod: I'd allow the trees to be placed anywhere, with the caveat that trees placed on the bridge are more likely to be directly targeted by enemies and thus in greater danger in the first round. Doug's logic seems reasonable to me, and I especially don't think trees capable of digging roots ???-feet below ground would have the potential of being swept away by a river.

@Brown Trees: Both as a player and as a GM, both of my groups decided Brown Trees were a bad option for the separate reasons of A) Reflex DC felt kindof low and B) friendly fire seemed like a bad idea.

@combat pacing: I recommend GMs in this scenario especially remind players that tree actions should be automatic as routines do not allow for choices on the players' end. Additionally, any GMs that think they'll run into time constraint issues should try to get in the habit of reminding players who is going next with a prompt to be planning their turn. Having each turn start with a "It's X's turn; Y, you're on deck so be thinking of your next move" helps a ton with keeping players on the ball in my experience. Additionally, I think its a good idea to handwave healing between rounds in this scenario if the group has at least one living Violet Tree and if the enemies are ever reduced to 1 combatant in the first two combats. If victory is assured and the enemy will be unable to leave the field to cause havoc in the camp within the next round, don't be afraid to wrap up the combat to save time for the other fights.

Hey Falgaia, there will be room at either my table or potentially Tyranius's for the 7-10s. Replay for no credit can only be done to make for a legal table and I believe both of us have legal tables for part 1. So would need to either burn a GM replay for part 1 or join starting with part 2. I have no issue if you want to join at part 2, though this will be many weeks away yet.

I'll likely just join at part 2 in that case. I'll be keeping an eye on the forums for when Part 1 wraps up.

Marking my interest in this as I'm planning on running the scenarios locally and would enjoy the chance to play them with my higher tier characters as well. That said, I've already played Part 1 at Paizocon, but I wouldn't be against filling the table for no credit either as a pregen or as a society PC and playing normally from part 2+, just coming in as a PC in part 2+, or whatever else would seem like a good solution.

If any of those options would be acceptable, feel free to add me to the list. If not, I'll keep an eye out as the first tables are wrapping up and be available to fill for any players that have to drop the PbP going into part 2.

EDIT:

Ran the game again at Paizocon, and I had a player request the lines I had pre-written for Jackpot during the openning skill challenge, and realized it might be a helpful aid for other GMs as well. I thought it'd add to the levity of the scene by giving Jackpot a high pitched child voice and having him make various knowing remarks about his own impending doom to introduce each of the obstacles, while also giving Tonbu a bit more of a chance to interact with the party early on so that the second encounter feels a bit more rooted. All of the read-aloud I'd written for this has been included below, feel free to adjust or adlib as you see fit if you want to use it in the scenario's opening.

Favorite recent moment was in Lodge of the Living God, where I allowed the party of 4 small characters to domesticate one of the combat encounters using the basebuilding rules within the scenario to gain steeds with climb speeds.

Favorite moment as a player was when my Gourd Leshy Cleric led a liberation charge to free a wagon of watermelons from an end times prophet that was smashing them for effect in a town square.

Sometimes you just bring the right PC to really make a moment sing.

About to write a review for the scenario as I think it's under-rated at the moment on the store page. No one died in my all-6's 4-man-run but my dice were cold as a GM (at least three Dragon Rot first strikes rolled a 2). That said, the party was not well optimized for the fight with 3 melee fighters (Grappler Barbarian/Druid (Its a weird support build); Intimidate Rogue, and Mountain Monk kicking at AC 26-28) and one caster (draconic sorcerer with Oracle Multi for limited healing access) meaning most of their healing was through Battle Medicine, and even with more average dice I think only one player would have been realistically dropped. The party did have the benefit of having learned that Blood Oozes are weak to kiting from playing Plaguestone beforehand, and they quickly adapted to a combat tactic of using Haste to engage/strike twice/flee to handle the combat by forcing most enemies to move 2+ times to get in range to attack. If GM's think their party will not realize this, it may be a good Recall Knowledge hint to drop that Blood Oozes are not known for their speed.

I rolled low on recharge times for all Forest Rots, but the combat moved fast enough that it only gave me one extra breath weapon using the assumed rule that a roll of a 1 meant that it still had a gap round and not that it could breathe back to back. No one rolled well enough on the Ritual to crit succeed and discover the Fire weakness of the rots, but they still handled them well. AC 22 is not particularly high for this CR, so they ended up taking a lot of hits.

Overall I could see the combat being an issue if any of the following is true: 1. The party is not one of players who are looking for a challenge and are running subpar builds with little thought for synergy; 2. The party is unwilling to modify their tactics to meet the demands of the combat, or 3. The GM is purposefully brutal with monster spawn locations due to the scenario's vagenuess as to where creatures spawn in. In regards to point 1, I think it may be a good idea for GM's unsure of where their party falls to emphasize that they have completed the mission at this point, and that this will indeed by a severe challenge and not a "dangerous" fight in boxtext only. For point 2, this can easily be remedied by GM's prompting players to consider the encounter layout and perhaps attempt to Recall Knowledge. For point 3, there was a point in the scenario where I could have dropped the Round 3 rot directly adjacent to the Grappler (assuming they can spawn in anywhere in the ritual zone), and it had rolled high enough initiative to beat him on initiative for the coming round, meaning it would get a chance to strike thrice before he could react. Don't be that guy as a GM unless the party clearly is handling the fight well IMO, worst case scenario I'd recommend spawning the waves near the center of the ritual site after round 1 as that is at least something players can account for to some extent.

That write up aside, scenario was a blast and I'd rate it 5/5. Tonbu was a bit weak in terms of buildup, but was a cool encounter, the web lurker fight is a good combat intro, the scenario has some nice flavor in between combats, and the obstacle course is fun especially if you play up Jackpot throughout it. (I pre-wrote lines to have him knowingly imply the next challenge and read his lines in a high pitched child voice, such as "I suuure hope there aren't any CLIFFS nearby! I'm just so enamored with NAATURE'S MAJESTY that I would neeeeever know!" and "Oh no! I fell into a ravine, and now there's all this BLOOOD EVERY-WHERE! I need FIRST AID, or else I'll -DIIIIIE!-". I heartily recommend other GM's do similar, the party had a blast with it and our serious grappler was considering leaving the Verdant Wheel afterwards, which I consider a success.) Probably one of my favorite scenarios in PFS2.