Grankless's page

This is a huge faux pas: an event to celebrate Earth, and every item on sale is physical. This means more paper and more pollution.

You want to celebrate our planet? Put digital products on sale. This looks like an excuse to get rid of stuff collecting dust in your warehouse.

To give a response that isn't just trying to insult you for no reason: broadly speaking, this is the intent of almost all sales of physical objects. They want to get stuff out so they can hold more new stuff. It isn't wasteful because these books already exist and are printed; they don't do anything if they aren't bought and used, and destroying unsold stock (which I'm 99% sure Paizo doesn't do anyway) would *actually* be a tremendous waste.

I imagine this is mostly being called an Earth Day sale and not an Easter sale just so they could have a sort of theme going on for copy purposes.

Really cool dungeons, very glad to see stuff like the sidebar describing where all the cultists are in the second floor of the dungeon. More things like this are super good - anything to maximize usability of the book!

I am a little disappointed that we haven't really gotten in to the megadungeon sense yet, they're just really big dungeon floors with no real connectivity. But they're really good ones.

The class expansions and lore book expansions by Team+ on Pathfinder Infinite - the Classes+ and Lost Omens+ lines - are super good. Super interesting, heavily playtester, and beyond all that: exciting to look at. Highly recommend.

In general, check out Pathfinder Infinite - other great stuff are the classes by Vasco Duarte such as his Blood & Sigils book, as well as the ENORMOUS content expansions of OfflineEnigma such as Sailors of the Sightless Sea.

Glad to see you're already 33% funded! I really think you should move some of the basic info about what's in the book to the front page - as is, the front page of your campaign essentially gives 0 information about what's inside it. You don't even explain what psionics are except at the very bottom of the FAQ page! You've gotta try and appeal to people who don't know anything about this kind of obscure 3.5/pf1e bonus ruleset.

As well, do you have any previews of content?

Grankless wrote:

I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?

Faerûnian pantheon and their wall of faithless there was even addon in neverwinter nights 2 that was fully dedicated to that specific issue

Thing is, the Wall is canon (and so stupid). I'm talking about just straight up making up fake things to be mad about.

Thank you. (and yeah my phone autocorrected DSP for some reason).

I wanted to be sure given how out-of-the-public-eye they've been these past few years.

I'm so fascinated by the extent to which people will just straight make up things about Pharasma so they can get mad about them. Do any Forgotten Realms gods get this treatment? Probably Mystra?

I'm certainly interested, but need to ask for clarification: did you get anyone from FSP's permission to lean so heavily on their name for advertising?

90% of America was not 'either Christian or Jewish' in 1974. That makes it sound like it was about half of each, but Christians made up roughly 80% of the population and Jews weren't even 2%. Jews are not an appendage of Christianity, we're our own faith and culture. Politicians don't talk about the Torah - they talk about the Old Testament. For almost everyone, those are Christian references, with Jewish people as an afterthought. That's why many don't like 'Judeo-Christian.' Because it is just 'Christian, but we want to pretend we speak for Jewish people too.'

And of course, the term also serves to other Islam as a religion with a similar heritage. Like, Abrahamic is perhaps not a *sufficient* term to describe Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but it's still a much more useful term than "judeo Christian".

Are you capable of making a single post on this website that isn't openly and obviously insulting towards Paizo staff? Your constant contempt for the people working on these books makes me extremely hesitant to value anything you have to say about them, and this goes for basically every post you make. Seriously, tone down the vitriol.

The vast majority of games outside of the DnD lineage and like. Cyberpunk and BRP. Don't have NPCs using the same construction rules as players, because that's frankly ridiculous and I don't know why it was ever the idea besides old fears that GMs may somehow "cheat" by letting NPCs just do things that make sense. Which is how we get such high quality PF1E character options as Site-Bound Oracle or Dreadnought Barbarian.

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Moreover, if somebody tells you that a word you use makes them uncomfortable, they haven't actually taken that word from you. They can't physically stop you from saying the word! What's happening is that they're trusting you enough to tell you that they have a bad experience with the word, so they'd like to avoid it where possible.

If enough people do this, it turns into a Thing, but even then, it doesn't change whether you can say the word. What changes is that the hurt that used to be private is now public, so when you choose to say the word knowing that the word might upset some people, you will look like a bit of a wangrod for it.

So when somebody says "I want to say the word, don't take it from me," what is more accurately being said is "I would rather people not tell me when the things I say upset them."

Like, sure, this thread struct me as strange, too. I've never had any reason before this thread to associate the word 'crusade' with islamophobia... but you can bet there's a little checkbox in my head next to the word that says "muslim people might not like this one, further awareness needed" which is good enough for me because I am not a gaming company with a host of muslim fans (although several muslim coworkers).

Although I knew well of several rather famous crusades waged against islam, I tend to think of a generic word for a mission with a devoted purpose that happens to contain the word 'cross' in it because of its religious origins, and has connotations of war or fighting. Evidently, that isn't true for everybody. Isn't the diversity of the world exciting?

As sad as I would be to remove such an evocative sounding word, if it indeed causes so much upset, it's not worth keeping. If Paizo chooses to drop it in the future, that's between them and their sensitivity consultants to decide--and if not, too. Sometimes the group that feels most strongly about a word is actually quite small (see the pushback against the word thaumaturge a few years ago)

...

That guy was indeed just copying and pasting posts from older threads about lich phylacteries, making incorrect claims about Orthodox Christianity while trying to use them as backing for his claims, and was a brand new account.

It was unambiguously trolling.

Arcaian wrote:

This trend of further distancing enemies from PCs by giving them 'natural armour bonuses', 'special abilities', and 'monster exclusive feats' is a blight on the industry. It kills any sense that the game is anything but a game, and doesn't even attempt to obfuscate the various tricks that have historically been used to make NPCs seem closer to PCs - they're not even trying to rely only on giving monsters huge ability scores to give them the power level they need, instead they're just giving them arbitrarily abilities that PCs can't get for no reason. At this point, why even have feats and bonus types for monsters?

(the game is in fact a game! it's good to make game design decisions that make life easier for the GM, especially for making custom content! this is not reflective of the mythic rituals discussion, but neither is your post!)

3.x, which I prefer even to PF1, gave PCs access to nearly everything you listed by giving rules for playing monstrous PCs. Thus that system had almost perfect parity between what a monster could have and what a player could have. So your example is completely incorrect.

As a forever GM I find anybody who needs a simpler game must either have a group that is extremely difficult to GM for, is lazy and doesn't want to spend time on game prep, or is simply a poor GM. It isn't hard to have a rule zero, set expectations for the kind of character power levels you're comfortable GMing for, and then fix any outliers as they pop up in play. This forum makes it seem as if Pathfinder's player base can't communicate with their fellow players and nobody has friends to play with and has to resort to PUGing with the dregs of the earth who live only to break the game and make the GM's life hell.

I think blanketly insulting anyone who doesn't like games in exactly the same way you do is not any kind of way to make a point, and your words also reflects that you seem to have 0 experience with rules light games.

I had no idea there even were hag gods other than Gyronna.

I think it's safe to assume that 0% of Gorum's blood went in to space at FTL speeds to cross the galaxy, impact earth, and somehow just cause financial institutions to catastrophically fail instead of like, give someone superpowers.

JiCi wrote:

Maybe you guys can help me fill the blanks here...

ARCADIA
ANCESTRIES
- Syrinx
- Rougarou
- Wyrwood
- Deep one hybrids

HERITAGES
- Mitzenki catfolk
- Ningyo merfolk
- Sasquatch vanara
- Coatl nagaji

DARKLANDS
ANCESTRIES
- Sekmin (serpentfolk)
- Xulgath (troglodyte)
- Mongrelmen (could be folded into fleshwarps)
- Ulat-kinis (skum)

HERITAGES
- Sekmin nagaji
- Drathnelar gnomes (svirfneblins)
- Vegepygmy leshies

CASMARON
ANCESTRIES
- Panottis
- Harpies
- Cyclops
- Wemics

HERITAGES
- ...

So many of my players are going to drop out of Pathfinder because they can't remember or pronounce the names of all the new and revised things.

Even for those who will stay, they're not using any of the new terms; they'll simply say "skum" instead "uulat-kinis" for example.

Makes it much harder to immerse yourself when you don't keep the vocabulary relatively straightforward. I'm also going to have a much harder time recruiting replacements with the way things are going.

I feel like the main thing you post about the people you play with is that they're all willing to quit playing the game at the tiniest change in the status quo, such as the company forming a union.

Honestly, the big "where are they now" of NPCs is a better aide to me as someone who ran Hell's Rebels than any sort of campaign-specific advice. Thanks for that section! Thrilled to see that Nurla Botve is running around still, and has somehow gotten worse.

I'm a huge fan of everything I'm seeing here.

Times like these that make me pray 3e just throws out attribute mods in general. Certainly for ancestries.

Oh nooooo, minotaurs can get a slightly higher middle value on some attribute mods and can add reach to weapons that don't have many traits. How scary.

I'm still kinda hurt that Alchemist, the original "not caster but has caster effects" didn't have Legendary DC to be on par with the casters.

For Kineticist, who was the second "caster effects on a not caster" I am ok with having Legendary DC, for Remaster Alchemist I HOPE we get legendary DC, but for the Commander... I'm not really seeing why there should be class bugdet spent on that.

Especially with Commander having martial weapon scaling, I don't like it. It should be either one or the other, either martial weapon scaling, or caster DCs.

I'm not really fussed about a class with no damage booster mechanic and a non-striking KAS getting good DCs on its very rare save abilities.

Incredibly glad this playtest is running longer than a month!

I recommend never worrying about this because it will make your life much easier. (Also, in-fiction, it doesn't make much sense.)

I think the new focus spells for Wizard are all around way better than the original ones, and most of the returning ones have been changed to just be better (illusory terrain becoming Earthworks, beguiling words becoming Charming Push)

Also, just noticed when comparing Jin Li's entry between LO:F & TXWG side-by-side. Did he get a stealthrata? In Firebrands his granted Cleric spells are 1st: Jump, 4th: Hydraulic Torrent, and 6th: Dragon Form. Contrasting with TXWG's version which swaps the 6th rank spell for 3rd: Feet To Fins.

Dragon Form is now on all spell lists, where it wasn't on Divine or Occult before remaster.

(There are some people who believe all of Firebrands is an ontologically evil book because it has two feats that are very powerful but also have extremely obvious solutions to their power level (one doesn't have a usage restriction, one was obviously written under the assumption that Tumble Through is not the only skill action in the game that doesn't require you to actually do the activity to say you're doing the activity).

Has it been stated where in Ravounel this is taking place? Is it Kintargo or another settlement in the nation?

I think the reason we will not get an inquisitor is that "divine rogue" and "divine investigator" and "aggressive divine martial" are actually 3 if not 4 different classes.

The basic problem with the inquisitor in PF1 was that it was a really strong set of mechanics, but the flavor was pulling in like 5 different directions. Considering that the latter is what actually comes through with a PF2 update of a class, then it's better to to the inquisitor as several options.

Exactly. The core conceit of Inquisitor, that you're the guy who goes out and Defeats The Enemies Of Your Faith or whatever is just a description of a personality type. Literally any class can be that. Mechanically it was just "how many self buffs can I stack and instagib this random monster I'm fighting" with very little relation between the mechanics and the flavor. I won't miss it. Also the name is silly slash stupid.

Whatever Avenger is is very likely to also have that prescribed flavor, given the name, so... It's probably inquisitor for 2e.

I'm so tickled that we're seemingly getting both a Divine Rogue and (maybe?) a Divine Investigator - is the Palatine really a Class Archetype, and not a standard one?

Said so on stream! It's specific for Investigator.

My current conspiracy theory is that Paizo is testing the waters to potentially turn Adventure Paths into quarterly 192~256 hardcovers permanently.

Starfinder tends to be the place that Paizo first tests new concepts, which started the 3 parter adventure path trend. That line is now shifting to hardcover adventure paths. Seven Dooms had a hardcover equivalent. A standalone issue 200 was a good test product. The campaign setting products shifted to hardcover. And now the stand-alone adventure line is shifting to hardcover.

Stores tend to have an easier time selling hardcovers and they restock more often. 5E shifted to hardcover adventures some time ago for multiple reasons. Quarterly releases sell better. You don't compete against yourself with players buying only a select few of products. This was a huge problem with DND 3E and the relentless Forgotten Realms products. Buyers get fatigue and sales have a huge drop-off.

I think the Lost Omens line has sold a lot better since the shift to hardcover, over the 64 page softcovers of "Pathfinder Chronicles" and "Pathfinder Campaign Setting." (The product is better too in my opinion, it has less inconsistencies. The relentless releases of the previous line had more editing issues. It seems there was some lore that had less oversight since it was being hammered out so quickly.)

Paizo's current release format is a holdover from the APs basically being a Dungeon magazine replacement. They were a magazine company, but the market has moved on, and their place in that market has shifted.

While I think calling this a conspiracy theory is selling yourself short (it's perfectly sound and logical), I think the real mark of this will be when we see the format that Starfinder 2e APs are going to come in. If this does come to Pathfinder, it won't be for another 2 or 3 years at the earliest.

Honestly, I don't even dislike this outcome! I think it's perfectly reasonable, and it'd be interesting to see what the format does for it. Seven Dooms is 204 pages, and it certainly feels like it has "enough" in it - but the more they can squeeze in there the better.

Does that mean there will be no playtest for the mythic rules?

Perhaps the cover art implies that Szuriel will be a deity in Pathfinder Remaster?

Szuriel already had a writeup in Gods & Magic, she's already been a diety.

Also, there doesn't need to be a playtest - it's very likely that the chassis of the divine paths are going to be similar to archetypes.

Grankless wrote:

Kavlor wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Yes; Triumph of the Tusk is a 3rd to 11th level Adventure Path, with the PCs ending at 12th level.

Will mythic rules be used? And is there even any intention of making an adventure that requires mythic rules?

As was stated on stream and reiterated effectively by posts in the very thread you're in: no, and yes, respectively.

Thank you. I apologize for the clarifying question, it’s just that English is not my native language, and I got confused in the discussion, so I decided to ask a clarifying question.

You're fine, I'm sorry for answering so rudely.

James Jacobs wrote:

Yes; Triumph of the Tusk is a 3rd to 11th level Adventure Path, with the PCs ending at 12th level.

Will mythic rules be used? And is there even any intention of making an adventure that requires mythic rules?

As was stated on stream and reiterated effectively by posts in the very thread you're in: no, and yes, respectively.

Saw some archetype pictures in the twitch stream. The Rivethun emissary is Shardra, so combining the archetype with the new animist class...

:)

And the Battle Herald is Oluch the war priest!

Now I REALLY wanna run this - and by Sen H. H. S?! Pinch me.

Spellshot definitely seems like it was intended to be something way different in development and ended up scuttled at some point; I recall early talk of "a way to blend magic and guns" when G&G was first announced. Most other class archetypes are at least interesting or good; Spellshot is neither.

Zimmerwald, it's truly beautiful that you've kept at like a decade straight of posting about a real-world historical equivalency to Golarion that only exists within your head and the "novelization" of Hell's Rebels you said you wrote.

The most important thing is that you like the thing you're making.

Diverse Lore isn't overpowered, the other similar feats are just way undertuned.

I'm struggling to think of why characters and players having information is a bad thing.Can someone please explain?

Plenty of non-dwarves worship Torag.

But also, you definitely want to check out:
Trudd, Arqueros, Vineshvakhi, and maybe Folgrit.

And remember: This is a majority polytheist society! It's easy to take inspiration from all these dieties in life.

Mark Moreland wrote:

Paizo is still committed to open gaming, which is why we championed and funded the creation of the ORC. It's why we release our non-OGL game books under the ORC. It's why we go above and beyond the OGL and ORC to offer the Pathfinder and Starfinder Compatibility Licenses to allow people supporting our games and open gaming to use even more of our IP in their releases. And it's why we created Pathfinder Infinite to allow access to even more of our IP, but in exchange for a stricter set of distribution conditions. Publishers are free to use whichever of the various free licenses they feel meets their needs the best.

This goes beyond Infinite, this is a community issue and a Paizo issue. Is Paizo not confident that the ORC protects their content? Because thats what it looks like. This decision doesn't just affect Infinite, it affects the community and the 3rd party ecosystem.

The ORC is about trusting that we are all operating under the same rules and that we are all equally protected by them. This sets up scenarios where non-Infinite users are unprotected from Infinite users and perhaps vice versa. If Infinite users use ORC content from a 3pp, now its up to that person to have to sue the Infinite creator because you must protect your copyright or risk losing it, whereas if the Infinite creator were using ORC, then thats all fine.
Or a 3pp publishes something similar to an Infinite product, even by accident, which is not even remotely unusual since theres like ten Inquisitor classes across Infinite and DTRPG. Now the Infinite creator has rights to bring lawsuit against the 3pp publisher, but if Infinite used ORC, the 3pp would be properly protected, just like Paizo basically promised with the ORC.
Thats part of the problem, a breach of trust. The ORC is supposed to protect all of us and you want to split the community and remove that protection now.

Then, lets go a step further. Paizo survives as a company today because of open mechanical content. The OGL allowed Paizo to...

You seem to not understand. The Infinite license is a license that allows you to publish using Paizo-owned things on Infinite, including their rule expressions and settings. The ORC is a license that permits you to reproduce rules material that is also in the ORC. They do two different things in different spaces.

Also, I'm not sure what you're talking about with lawsuits. Someone who's dumb enough and bad enough at IP law to sue someone over a vaguely-similar phrasing released under a different license is someone who's going to walk facefirst in to getting blacklisted by the broader RPG community and never get anyone to buy their stuff again. You are spending a lot of time doomsaying about a situation with like a .00000001% chance of happening. Were you planning on doing this or something? Yo ushould probably reconsider.

John R. wrote:

Also, unless I missed something significant, talismans still look completely underwhelming.

That's too bad - I've run a couple of the APs through and not even once have my players used talismans.

What changes did they make?

Most notably, talismans no longer have the weird skill requirements to use.

Tantalized by getting an early look at barathu, and picked boroi because they sound cool.

sf2e is dangerously cool. There's a very real chance I end up liking it more than Pathfinder...
The Solarian is almost everything I would want.

This is basically everything I wanted to hear. Definitely excited for Exemplar's weird issues to be ironed out, and hopeful to see an animist that remains both satisfying and less cracked to hell and back.