Fireday's page

(CW: Conspiracy theories, antisemitism, bio-essentiallism and genocide. Spoilers for the entirety of the AP and for Pathfinder's Second Darkness AP, naturally.)

One of the most recent announcements for the upcoming new edition of Starfinder has been that the reptoids as a whole will be "yeeted" from the game and its lore going forward. This is, unequivocally, a good idea considering the whole reason reptoids exist as a concept in pop culture is as an antisemitic dogwhistle in real-world conspiracy theories. The fact that nearly all of Starfinder 2e's dev team is in agreement on this attests to that.

This does put The Threefold Conspiracy's overarching narrative in limbo, however, as the whole story is both a tribute to conspiracy-theory-inspired sci-fi like The X-Files and Men in Black, and essentially an encapsulation of what Alan Moore once said about conspiracy theories: "Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham-fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the CIA, you really have nothing to worry about. If however, you have a name similar to somebody on a list targeted by the CIA, then you are dead."

And in all honesty, part of me is wondering if it's better to just leave The Threefold Conspiracy behind entirely, given how even if you rewrite the reptoids out of the AP's plot, that plot still hinges on the more broad tropes of conspiracy theories in general, especially of a small population of aliens or some other form of "other" hiding in plain sight among the regular population attempting to steer it in some way for their own nefarious and inscrutable purposes, which is gross on its own, reptoids or no reptoids. Even if you replaced the reptoids with astrazoans or endiffans, and shifted their motivations to more straightforward ones of accruing power or money, the core remains just as problematic. This isn't just about the reptoids, the grays fill a similar role in the plot, even if they aren't specifically shapeshifting, and they've honestly always had a problem of seemingly being an entire species involved in a conspiracy to the point that roleplaying one as a PC was uniquely challenging in ANY Starfinder campaign, let alone in Threefold Conspiracy itself.

It's similar to the position the Second Darkness AP is now in and how the Remaster is leaving the drow behind in the OGL. Even if you were to retcon the drow as being a cultural group of the ayindilar "cavern elves" or just kept them as literal drow without the specific problematic tropes of "The Dark Fate" and a culture-wide inclination towards evil, Second Darkness' plot is predicated on the notion of The Dark Fate and the existence of the drow being the elven people's "dirty little secret" that the Winter Council is desperate to keep hidden, fearing public knowledge of it would turn public opinion against elves worldwide in a "guilt-by-association/ticking time-bomb" kind of way, which prompts the AP's antagonist to begin her fall to evil as she first attempts to discover a way to commit genocide on the drow, then becomes a drow herself due to how evil that is, becoming what she hates and then doing a complete 180 and deciding to turn the genocide on the surface elves instead while the majority of drow in the AP don't actually want to war against the surface elves in the first place. Without that plot element, the Winter Council has no real need for a conspiracy in the first place, drow or no drow, and thus the plot of Second Darkness doesn't really materialize. This, along with the many, MANY other issues that AP had, makes it kind of unsalvageable in terms of Pathfinder's canon, and thus it is probably best treated as a failed experiment and cautionary tale about holding on to old, problematic tropes out of nostalgia, a lesson on what NOT to do.

With that in mind, do you think Threefold Conspiracy might be in a similar, unsalvageable position due to just how much we've come to understand conspiracy theories as a whole are no joke, and that maybe our nostalgia for the sci-fi that inspired it is misplaced?

(This is a VERY difficult and touchy topic to discuss, so please, PLEASE be careful. However, I will NOT tolerate excusing the reptoids as a concept in discussion, far as I'm concerned David Icke can go to hell!)

Would playing an Oracle using the Ash Mystery that was introduced in the Blood Lords AP feel "too obvious" from a narrative standpoint? So "on the nose" it feels tacky or embarassing?

It feels almost like a natural combination, not even like peanut butter and jelly but like crunchy peanut butter, peanuts in peanut butter. But at the same time, I don't want to roleplay like a hack.

If you're a medium-armor-proficient class, is it worth taking Armor Proficiency to gain access to heavy armor without going into an archetype that scales it like Sentinel or Stalwart Defender?

Is there a way to convert a saved Pathbuilder setup into text that can be copy-pasted into a Profile if you're doing play-by-post, like there is in HeroLab?

I'm trying to figure out a build for a character concept I've been workshopping around here for a long time now.

I'm finally applying for a run of Age of Ashes with this concept and actually getting the character put together now that the Remaster has made Warpriests so much more fun to play and it even has Free Archetype in the recruitment, which is quite freeing, but I'm once AGAIN struggling with how best to get the concept working without compromising too much of the class' core competencies to do it.

In order to properly depict the character's belief system, I'd been planning to use the Syncretism feat to pair the elven goddess Yuelral with a dwarven god, and then use Magus to add some more fire-based spells to the character to reflect the prophetic visions of fire and destruction he receives from Dahak that manifest into real fires under stress, counteracts by his parents steeping him in dwarven and elven crafting techniques to use fire as a tool of creation, transformation and purification (the fires of the forge, forest fires burning dead wood to make room for new life, etc.). The eventual plan would be to take the Crystal Keeper archetype as soon as it becomes available in Age of Ashes' storyline, because generally an archetype introduced in an AP is best used in that AP itself from a narrative perspective.

A problem arose when I realized how tight archetypes are with actually granting spells, so I figured in order to better reflect the theme, I should probably bite the bullet and get the Fire Domain, but that kind of complicates deity selection.

The initial concept was going to syncretize Torag and Yuelral, as they both have Earth and Creation as part of their domain selections and are kind of two sides of the craftsmanship coin (Torag for metal, Yuelral for wood, both for gems and other stones). But Torag doesn't have Fire as an option, so to get it, I would need the Splinter Faith feat. And while that DOES fit with the theme, as it's an unusual focus on something that's ultimately just a component to the forges Torag blesses, but it would mean needing to take Syncretism at a later level, potentially wasting a feat slot that could be going to a more "meat and potatoes" cleric feat, especially since they're already tightened by taking Crystal Keeper as a multiclass. Plus I'm not sure if by RAW Splinter Faith acts as a substitute for Domain Initiate, or if I have to take both.

The other option would be to instead start with Torag's brother Angradd, who DOES start out with Fire as a domain and thus I can just take Domain Initiate. Angradd and Yuelral also gel in a different way, with Yuelral's edicts to teach magicians and jewelers, preserve elven knowledge and magic, and to use magic responsibly with Angradd's edict to instruct others in righteous ways and his position as a god of traditions. The problem THERE is that it lessens the focus on the other aspect of the character's theme, using crafting as a way of taming fire (especially since Angradd's divine skill is Athletics rather than Crafting), and it kind of encourages the character to be more "aggressive" than I'd initially imagined them, like they should be boldly seeking out Dahak's influence to stamp it out rather than the kind of fearful "I have to protect Breachhill or my nightmares will come true and everyone I love will die!" mentality and a character arc of gaining more confidence and mastering his power over fire.

So I'm not sure which direction I should be taking this guy in, what's the more satisfying option from a narrative perspective, and how to build him beyond that as I have very limited experience actually playing 2e and character building, and I don't think any of the current optimization guides for Cleric have been updated for the Remaster yet. So I am once again seeking advice on finally realizing this character, and hopefully setting him off into Age of Ashes so he stops living rent-free in my head. Thank you in advance for putting up with me asking about this so many different times.

With the new language specifying clerics choose a SINGLE deity in the Remaster, will things like the Syncretism feat and pantheons no longer be supported going forward?

Now that the Remaster has given the Warpriest a glow-up, I'm wondering what kind of Shield serves their needs best. My immediate instinct is the Staff-Storing Shield from Secrets of Magic, since both they and Druids can get the most out of it, while Sparkling Targe Magi can use the Fused Staff feat to plug a staff into their weapon, freeing them up to use whatever shield they want. But I'm wondering if I'm getting tunnel vision and if such a character might benefit more from one of the other kinds of shields.

Where on Golarion do you think one might encounter the name "Gadeon?" (While it superficially resembles the name "Gideon" from Judges 6-8, it's actually the name of a king of Dumnonia, a kingdom that comprised modern-day Cornwall and the south-western part of modern England.) Does it sound more Taldan? Varisian? Elfy or Gnomish?

Would I be able to get away with naming a character this or do you think people may look at the potential nickname of "Gad" and assume he's referencing the con artist from Mendev who's the protagonist of the Pathfinder Tales novel The Worldwound Gambit and novellas The Ironroot Deception and Sweet Ichor? For that matter, does it sound too much like "Gandalf?" Am I overthinking again?

I just stumbled across this quote from Ursula K. Le Guin's classic, The Lathe of Heaven, and I thought it was a great way to think about how someone who worships the Prismatic Ray may think, in its discussion of dreams (Desna), hope (Sarenrae) and emotion/imagination (Shelyn):

You don't speak of dreams as unreal. They exist. They leave a mark behind. Hope is a slighter, tougher thing even than trust... . In a good season one trusts life; in a bad season one only hopes, But they are of the same essence: they are the mind's indispensable relationship with other minds, with the world, and with time. Without trust, a man lives, but not a human life; without hope, he dies. When there is no relationship, where hands do not touch, emotion atrophies in void and intelligence goes sterile and obsessed. Between men the only link left is that of owner to slave, or murderer to victim. . . . It is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception and compassion-. . . and hope.

I'll definitely be keeping this in mind if I roleplay a Prismatic Ray aligned character going forward! I don't really have a point here, but I thought it'd resonate...

I'm interested in doing some light homebrew to update the shotel from its 1e incarnation to the modern Pathfinder, and am wondering just what collection of statistics and traits to put on it so it's balanced against other weapons.

While it is an "exotic weapon" by 1e's rules, I don't think that necessarily correlates to it being an Advanced weapon, since some of the weapons in that same category, like the katana, are now classified as Martial weapons. But mostly I'm hoping to make the shotel martial for accessibility reasons, because as it stands there's no good reason to take an Advanced sword unless you're a tengu, a Fighter, or a tengu Fighter.

The next question is the specific traits. Backstabber is likely essential, given the purpose OF the shotel was to reach around an opponent's shield to stab them on vulnerable spots like the kidneys or lungs. Most weapons with that trait are also some combination of Agile and or Finesse, like the Dogslicer or Fighting Fan, and accordingly do lower damage than the 1e shotel's 1d8, which I assume would push it over the line into Advanced weapon status. The Dogslicer does appear to be one of the closest equivalents to the shotel, along with the Lion Scythe. But the Lion Scythe unfortunately is a Knife class weapon, whereas the shotel is undeniably a type of Sword like the Dogslicer.

In addition, should Versatile S be considered as a trait? While the 1e stats only have the shotel do piercing damage, real-life shotels did have a cutting edge, usually on the inner curve of the blade, making it function a lot like the sickle it evolved from. But again, that may be overdoing it.

So I'm kind of lost as to how to gauge the number of stats to make the shotel balanced and I worry that to most accurately represent the weapon it'd HAVE to be advanced, meaning it'd be an inefficient weapon in the hands of a Rogue, a warpriest Cleric or a Magus. Any advice you homebrew gurus out there might have would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

The text of the Syncretism feat specifies different benefits depending on which Cleric doctrine you follow.

Given if you multiclass via the Cleric Archetype, you don't actually pick a doctrine, where does that leave a character who picks Syncretism up via Basic Dogma (especially since the only prerequisites for Syncretism are "you follow a deity?" Would it make more sense to just say Syncretism can only be taken if Cleric is your character's initial class, or to homebrew some third option, like the feat suggests if the Cleric is neither Cloistered nor Warpriest but another secret third thing?

Springing off this discussion on the impending destruction/disappearance of one of the Pact Worlds, I figured we could use a thread discussing the more positive side of this development: Thurston has also stated a new Pact World will replace the lost one, the first Pact World outside the Golarion system itself!

So, which planet do you think it'll be?

Personally, my mind immediately went to Pulonis, or "The Planet Formerly Known as Vesk-6." Given pahtras are joining the core ancestries in 2e, and the rumblings of a pahtran independence movement behind the scenes throughout 1e, especially during the Drift Crisis, it would not surprise me in the slightest if, much like Vidrian in Pathfinder, the pahtras finally overthrew their vesk overlords in the transition from one edition to the next and immediately reached out to the Pact Worlds as a means of solidifying their independence and preventing the Veskarium from retaliating.

I think it could create a lot of roleplaying potential, giving the Pact Worlds and the Veskarium new reasons to be glaring daggers at each other, the Veskarium needing to contend with the humiliation of such a loss as well as the fact that their primary rival is now right on their doorstep.

Granted, there's some holes in this speculation too: if a pahtra revolution were indeed successful, fast-tracking the newly independent planet into the Pact Worlds would be an unprecedented diplomatic move, and one the Veskarium might use as a casus belli to try and conquer the Pact Worlds again, especially since they likely wouldn't want another sovereign territory within their own star system, so for this to happen it'd probably require a much more pressing threat to keep the Veskarium from simply attempting to reconquer Pulonis while warning the Pact Worlds to stay out of the affair.

I'm not sure if this should go in this forum as it's seeking roleplaying advice, or if it should be in the Lost Omens board because it's primarily a lore-based question with no real mechanical aspect. If its in the wrong place, please do not hesitate to motlve it, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

One of the most specific anathemas of the elven goddess Yuelral is "Never cut a gem for aesthetic purposes." I understand the intent of this commandment: as a goddess of nature as much as jewelry, Yuelral wants her faithful to emphasize a gem's natural beauty as opposed to beauty imposed by artifice.

But if I'm roleplaying a Yuelral worshipper who wants to hold to this anathema, does polishing a gem without actively faceting it count as cutting? Where do cabochons fall? Or are Yuelral-worshipping jewelers limited to exclusively rough gemstones?

What counts as "aesthetic purposes?" Does cutting them to specific sizes for varying purposes or fittings break this taboo? What about intaglio or cameo jewelry? Do the gems of dwarven clans (like the ones used in the pommels of their clan daggers) get special exemptions because they're required to be cut in specific ways to be identifiable as the clan in question (especially since there's a prominent temple to Yuelral IN the Five Kings Mountains, as we learned in the Highhelm book)?

I'm just trying to figure out how aesthetically my character's work should look when I describe it.

It has just been announced that among other things, Paizo is going to be looking into newer forums to go along with updating their website and storefront.

This makes me incredibly worried about how the play-by-post games here would handle such a migration. It would be like coming into a movie right in the middle, especially if you can't cross-reference with the early part of the game as the older forums are left behind! What if some GMs decide it's not worth the trouble?! These forums are the primary way I engage with Pathfinder/Starfinder AT ALL because I don't have enough friends IRL interested in learning the systems and as the one with the most knowledge of it the role of GM would default to me, a thought that absolutely TERRIFIES me. Some of these games I've played in for literal YEARS, and there's dozens more that I've been in that petered out and died unceremoniously! I don't want to just cast all that aside and start from scratch!

How do I handle this? How much time do we have left? Mentally I'm running around screaming with my metaphorical arms flailing like a metaphorical Muppet...

Can the Cavalier archetype work okay for Thaumaturges, or is Thaumaturge's action economy too fiddly to accommodate a mount?

A friend of mine elsewhere on the web asked a couple of questions that kind of straddle the boundary between game advice and lore, so I thought I'd relay her questions here and see what answers you fine folks might have:

Is there anything in the rules/lore that say what would happen if a witch were to come into opposition with their patron? If a witch attacked their patron would they even be able to use their powers?

I don't think there's any explicit rules in this regard except that patrons don't grant or revoke power like a deity does, since they don't have edicts and anathemas to break. They are instructors, not masters. And a lot of this DOES depend on GM fiat to put the witch in a position of conflict with their patron in the first place, but I'm not sure what else to tell her. Thanks in advance for the help! :)

Is there any specific rules regarding attaching shield spikes to meteor shields?

Sparkling Targe magi aren't really meant to shield Bash, are they?

I'm in the process of finally setting up that dwelf flame oracle I keep talking about here on these forums, and I'm hitting what may be the second to last snag: picking his final ability boost (the last one is finally deciding what his first name will be, his last name, "Oreflame" was decided a while ago).

He has all the Strength, Constitution, Wisdom and Charisma I can muster at character creation, and I'm debating whether to put the final free boost in Dexterity, allowing me to get the most out of splint mail later down the line, or Intelligence so I can speak Elven, reflecting the bilingual household he grew up in.

The actual MECHANICAL benefit to either choice is negligible, I know full plate is superior due to the Bulwark trait and thus encourages a base Dexterity of 10 if you qualify for heavy armor (which this character will after taking Champion Dedication at second level), but I like splint mail's AESTHETIC more. I had the idea of him making his own armor by taking an elven suit of chain and enhancing it with dwarven-styled plates to create a hybrid set that captures the aesthetic of his dwarven and elven Heritages at the same time.

What do you fine folks think? I understand this is splitting hairs at this point, but I still kind of don't trust my own sense of taste as to what's "good" for this character after major mechanics are dealt with...

Does the name "Indrazil" sound like something suitably half-way between an elfy and a dwarfy name? Or does it sound too much like something like a drow or a fiend's name?

I'm curious about how the different Magus hybrid studies interact with weapons that have the Two-Hand trait like the bastard sword or dwarven waraxe.

The draw of those weapons is the ability to switch between high damage and high defense as needed. But each hybrid study kind of boxes you in to a specific fighting style. If you're Inexorable Iron, you're never going to really use a shield, you're expecting to take more damage and recover from it instead of mitigating it via shield. If you're Sparkling Targe, your shield is equal to and perhaps more important than the weapon itself, so you're never going to want to lose its benefits by utilizing the Two-Hand trait. Ostensibly, the only hybrid study that CAN take advantage of it is Twisting Tree, where switching between different weapon styles is baked right into its features, allowing you to change your staff's traits on the fly.

Am I understanding this right? Is there a way a Magus could hypothetically switch-hit in this way, like say, Inexorable Iron with the Bastion Archetype? Sparkling Targe with Mauler Archetype? I'm curious because I really like versatility in my characters, so I kind of chafe at how tight Magus can be sometimes...Thanks in advance for your discussion! :)

The question is in the thread title. I still struggle to actually realize characters in play because I get stuck in the character creation phase trying to figure out which things like Class or Archetype fulfill the RICH SYMBOLIC MEANING I've built for the character in my head while not being too clichéd or too like the iconics andI'mdoingitagainAAAAAGGH! D:

If I was making a character with a kite shield (in the original Norman style rather than the heater-shaped shields often called "kite shields" in video games), what shield would I use to represent it?

2e no longer distinguishes between "light" and "heavy" shields. Given the relative size of a kite shield, I'm not sure if they'd count as "Wooden Shields" or "Tower Shields." I tend to associate tower shields with the pavise, but on the other hand, the new Fortress Shield from Treasure Vault may be a more accurate representation of it (even though you can't stand it up on its own to take cover behind it while reloading a crossbow).

What do you fine folks think? How do I accurately map historical shields onto 2e's rules?

Does the name "Honeylyn" sound more like a gnome's name or a halfing's name?

Now that I have my PDF of Treasure Vault, I had a question about the new Gauntlet Bow weapon: It has the free-hand trait, BUT specifically noted you can't reload it with the hand you're wielding it with. But hypothetically, if you had two gauntlet bows, one on each hand, could you use the free hands to reload the gauntlet bow on the opposite hand, or would they cancel each other out, meaning you couldn't reload either of them? I find the idea of dual-wielding gauntlet bows kind of cool, but I can easily see a GM saying, "That is what we in the business call 'sillysauce.'"

My brain is failing me today, but I'm wondering: when it comes to weapons covered by an ancestry's familiarity feats, if the weapon is Martial, can a PC access that weapon if they have proficiency with martial weapons by default from their class, or do they need to take the familiarity feat to have access to those weapons period, regardless of class?

Like, can an elf fighter use an elven branched spear right out of the box, or do they still need to take Elven Weapon Familiarity?

Just clarifying: the Nimble Shield Hand feat doesn't allow a Thaumaturge who takes the Bastion archetype to use their implement while using a shield, right? You're still supposed to have that hand completely free apart from the actual implement to activate it?

I'm in the process of designing a character who is a dwarf-blooded half-elf. One thing I was looking for advice on in the thread here was filling out the personal pantheon he worships, primarily a blend of elf and dwarf deities.

The two deities I was dead set on are Yuelral and Torag, offering different perspectives on craftsmanship, since smithing is his big hobby. But a pantheon can't consist of just two deities!

Beyond those two, however, I'm kind of stuck. I don't want the pantheon to be too lopsided towards one ancestry or the other. Angradd feels like a natural pick, especially since he's being themed around fire, but then the other elven deities like Findeladlara or Ketephys don't quite gel with the character's themes.

Another wrinkle is that he has dark visions of the dragon god Dahak, to the point of possibly drawing divine power from him (depending on what class I finally choose for him), and I'm not sure if he needs to be included in the pantheon as a result, even though he is definitely opposed to Dahak's influence and machinations. Plus there's just the mundane concern of how many deities are in the pantheon, how many is too many?

What do you folks think? Thank you in advance for any suggestions you might have!

I had a bit of a brain fart and I'm uncertain if I've leveled this character up to 2nd level and simply forgot to update the actual level number to 2 from 1, or if I completely forgot to level him at all and I've been playing through the scenarios I was in with an underleveled character.

Thanks in advance for the confirmation one way or another.

The Elven Curve Blade is kind of in an odd position as a Finesse weapon that is two-handed.

Most classes that rely on Finesse weapons like the Swashbuckler, or at least work well with them like the Thaumaturge, have specific rules that incentivize sticking to one-handed ones like the Rapier and Shortsword, while others who use two-handers generally have enough Strength to not bother with Finesse weapons in the first place, like the Fighter, Champion and Barbarian.

So...what kind of character is the Elven Curve Blade FOR?

How does the druidic prohibition against metal armor and shields interact with armors and shields that are primarily made of a non-metal but have metal components like the studs of a studded leather armor, the mail undershirt of an armored coat (both are classed as part of the Leather category) or a wooden shield with a metal shield boss or shield spikes?

I've had a character idea for the Age of Ashes adventure path living rent-free in my head for literal years now and I'm still struggling to realize it. The basic thrust of it revolves around the Haunting Vision background, with the character himself being the eldest child of a dwarf and elf who fell in love and got married (asking the GM for permission if they'll allow me to put the Half-Elf heritage on a Dwarf, of course). He grew up with the terrifying visions Dahak sent and his parents helped him develop healthy coping strategies, including swordplay, smithing, and worship of both elven and dwarven gods like Yuelral and Torag, showing how fire can be creative instead of just destructive. The problem comes when selecting a class. I've got a bunch of different options that I feel could represent the concept, but none fit COMPLETELY well, and I'm stuck trying to figure out which one to go with:

I'm frustrated. I get a lot of cool ideas for gunslinging characters in Alkenstar, and almost every time I try to build them, I find that they require one thing to be remotely functional in 2e's action economy: the air repeater. Almost any optimization guide I see that involves firearms in the game somehow states that the air repeater is honestly the only gun worth considering because you can shoot multiple times before reloading.

That's all fine and dandy, I guess. I'd LIKE combination weapons to suck less, but I'm willing to pay extra for double runes on an air repeater with a bayonet. But if I'm playing such a character in Alkenstar, there's a problem: air repeaters are explicitly stated in the text to be exclusive to Arcadia. This means a character using them in Alkenstar somehow knows about Arcadia and has the likely massive amounts of money to import one and get it all the way across the world without getting lost or stolen on the way, or they're from Arcadia themselves, somehow know about Alkenstar, and have the likely massive amounts of money to travel all the way across the world for SOME reason, and then they have no ties to Alkenstar that would make them want to adventure there and get involved in its problems rather than just moving on to some other place. And either way, the ammunition air repeaters require simply wouldn't be manufactured there, so they'd have to spend even MORE money finding a means to produce it themselves to keep themselves armed throughout their adventuring career! For an AP like Outlaws of Alkenstar that assumes the characters are locals forced into poverty and desperation by scheming power-brokers in the city, this is obviously a non-starter.

Something that's always bugged me in role-playing games from the olden days to Pathfinder 2e today has been hide armor.

It's almost always depicted as a motley assortment of pelts and tanned leather crudely stitched together. It makes me not wanna wear it if I'm playing a class that requires it like a druid, especially if that druid is something like an elf which is supposed to project a more sophisticated and graceful air.

It feels like any refined non-metal armors tend to be almost exclusively leather or studded leather, which can look downright artful!

Is there a way to get around this, a way I can describe my character's hide armor so it looks pretty with decorations and symmetry and stuff? I'd like to play druids more, but I get hung up on the "crudely-stitched-together-stinky-pelts" look that it seems like EVERY depiction of hide armor has!

Something I've been wondering about personally since 2e came out is how many of us have taken advantage of the fact that many classes are now unshackled from alignment almost altogether, and how many continue adhering to alignments traditional to the class out of habit.

Druids no longer require a Neutral component to their alignment. Monks no longer have to be Lawful. Barbarians CAN be Lawful now. Even the Paladin has gained more flexibility by expanding into the Champion class with Paladin as just its Lawful Good variation. The only exception is Clerics, who arguably got MORE alignment restrictions now that deities have specific alignments they allow for their faithful (sorry, CG followers of Gorum)!

But just because the options are there doesn't necessarily mean people are using them, and old habits can die hard. Playing a Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil druid seems almost a little alien when the class has been defined even before Pathfinder existed as a protector of natural balance unconcerned with civilized morality. How does a Chaotic monk find enlightenment?

So I thought I'd ask: how have you interacted with these new options? Have you played any Lawful barbarians with their rage tempered and focused through discipline? Lawful Good druids enforcing harmonious order for all life to flourish? Or have you felt more comfortable roleplaying the classes with the alignments they've been traditionally associated with, even as they're no longer enforced? One way is not better than another, to be clear! Both are valid ways to roleplay. I'm just curious and thought it'd be interesting to discuss!

My PDF copy of Interstellar Species just arrived and upon seeing naming conventions in each species entry this was the only appropriate response!

Is there any way a character can get scimitars included under the "Simple Weapon" umbrella so they can use them as a Ruffian Rogue and still qualify for Sneak Attack, or is such a rogue out of luck?

Are Garundi clans patrilineal or matrilineal? I'm not sure if it was ever explicitly stated in any of the existing text.

Something I've noticed over the years is I seem to have a strong aversion to playing classes that get by on their wits and steel alone, like Fighters and Rogues. I've always struggled to find them interesting, especially since they don't really interact with the mystical or spiritual sides of the world played in. By the time a campaign reaches the end-game, a wizard and cleric will be discussing the complex magical doohickeys they need to realign to stop the BBEG, and the fighter's just standing around with a bored or confused look on their face.

I've always found more martial classes interesting if they've got some kind of "gimmick" like the Champion's god-given powers or the Magus' spells, and the recently released Thaumaturge is heavenly to me, where by contrast, Fighter and Rogue are classes I've only ever taken as supplements to other more magical classes so they're able to use swords and or to qualify for things like prestige classes in the olden days, and even then I've tried to avoid them in favor of more "gimmicky" classes that just seem inherently more interesting.

This, I feel, is a really bad habit to have for my roleplaying. The best roleplayers are the ones who can take any class and make an interesting character out of it, but I just feel like I'm going to spend any time out of combat or if there aren't any traps to disable standing around waiting while the interesting people are talking...how do I get over this?

How would multiclassing into Thaumaturge from Oracle shake out? How about Oracle from Thaumaturge?

I'm still interested in the Oracle, one of my favorite classes from 1e, but I've learned the hard way that the days of the Oradin are long over, and that as a class in 2e, Oracle doesn't play that well with multiclassing...

I'm doing some shopping for one of my PCs here, and I was wondering about picking up some spell gems. I've got around 2,051 credits to spend (the rest of the total on the sheet is earmarked for some other items).

What holes in my character's repertoire should I get spell gems to fill?

If I'm playing a PC with a pistol, but only multiclassing into Gunslinger from another class, what KIND of pistol will serve me best if I can only have one? The dueling pistol? Double-barrell? Dragon?

Pyronite is essentially dynamite by a different name, right?

Just looking to confirm from my own research, the closest weapon in-game to approximate the haladie is the orc knuckle dagger?

With the recent arrival of the latest round of books (especially Knights of Lastwall, which I'm still over the moon about!), I've found myself in a familiar, kind of frustrating situation: A while back I'd had some discussion with you fine folks here about making effective characters that branched off into a a discussion of meta-knowledge about APs for character creation, and honestly this feels like kind of the opposite issue. I'm getting a BUNCH of cool ideas for characters, but the APs that we currently have (for 2e) don't feel like good fits for them. And when recruitments for other, non-AP, games happen, I'm feeling like it's better to start from scratch with something tailored to the GM's proposal, rather than try to shoehorn something that might not fit thematically. So where does that leave me?

I really gotta say, not only is the Book of the Dead great for the options it presents players and GMs alike, I absolutely adore how much it fleshes out (pun intended) Geb's personality beyond just his rivalry with Nex!

The moments where it's clear his personal biases are showing are perhaps some of the best in the book, whether it's his insistence that undeath is a natural and ideal state of being (and rationalizing it when it clearly wasn't his intention to end up that way, given his shock at becoming a ghost rather than expecting it), or his snide contempt for anyone who might have a conscience, whether that's living undead hunters or fellow undead who don't share his viewpoints like Walkena or Ordellia Whilwren.

There's something I find compelling about villains who stubbornly insist other people are just as bad or selfish as they are as a rationalization for their own selfishness. Even if it's a common villainous trait, I'm glad this is articulated in text now, as for the longest time Geb just kind of seemed like "Tar-Baphon-lite" because the only personality traits we knew for sure he had was he hated Nex so bad he came back as a ghost just to make sure Nex was dead, and that he was quite vindictive given his actions with Arazni, the Knights of Ozem and the Field of Maidens.

I'm excited for the Blood Lords AP now, as it almost feels like the tables have flipped, with Geb as the more interesting personality than The Whispering Tyrant! Great job to the writers who brought this character to unlife!

I've got a Vesk character I've named "Kamlesh-Raydan." Just wondering how people should generally address him. This name together would be his given name, right? So someone just calling him "Mr. Raydan" wouldn't be correct because it's not actually his family name?

Lately I've been trying to come up with ideas for things to play in 2e and each time I ask how to build it in the Advice board, I've gotten similar responses: that the character concept I'm thinking of isn't doable with 2e's options unless I do something completely different and "reflavor" it, usually because it's either too MAD or requires too much multiclassing or because of how casters and martials are balanced in this edition, and it's making me very frustrated.

You can multiclass into a caster class as a martial, but your casting will be a joke. You can multiclass into a martial as a caster, but then you'll be so useless with your weapon it might as well be for show. If you want to melee as a Druid, you HAVE to Wild Shape, even if you have a cool sword you want to use instead. You can play a gunslinging mage, but forget being able to use those cool gunblades, the action economy allows air repeaters and bayonets only! The only way to be EFFECTIVE means to play your class in the most straightforward way possible, the same boring ways everyone else has already played them, or else have to ask your GM if you can "reflavor," and that just feels like cheating to me. Like my concept is "too good for the rules everyone else is using," sneer sneer, and if I was treating the rules SERIOUSLY I'd stick to concepts that are actually workable within them.

I want to like this edition, but every time I come up with a new concept I run into this problem: whatever I want to play is something the rules aren't balanced to support, unless I want to water down the concept to its most generic form, or be satisfied with the cognitive dissonance of playing with a square peg in a square hole and insisting it's round in spite of all observable rules. It's making it hard to enjoy the process of character creation at all, which in turn prevents me from, you know ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME. What do I do?