Snowball was, as many of you know, one of the best and most beloved spells in Pathfinder Second Edition. While I realize the reasons why are incredibly obvious to anyone who has been playing the game for a long time, it is probably not as apparent to anyone who is newer to the system. On first glance, many people would in fact draw the other conclusion. For that reason I have included a brief explanation of why Snowball has been such an integral pillar that you can of course skip if you already know all the reasons why.
Why Snowball is amazing:
First of all, the spell is terrible mechanically. The damage it deals is absolutely pitiful, to the point that it gets outmatched by cantrips. However, this is actually its greatest strength. Snowball is uniquely equipped, carrying the legacy of the "worst" damage spell in the game, to absolutely style on fools. A villain who gets bested by a Fireball at least goes down with dignity, but if your plans are foiled by a spell like Snowball? You have to hand in your villain card like there, your entire career is just over on the spot.
Furthermore, just like a real life snowball rolling down a hill, the legend of this spell has only grown stronger over time. This spell came out in the very first book, and it has been terrible ever since. Everyone knows how bad the spell is, and there is nobody left to be disappointed by that fact. Instead, people can fully appreciate its full potential like a finely aged wine.
In conclusion, something was always going to take the role of "worst damage spell". It's much better to have it be a spell with a beloved legacy like Snowball instead of some new disappointing junk.
With the remaster, the fate of Snowball remains uncertain. Will it be removed from Pathfinder Second Edition or worse yet, given a meagre buff in power level which pushes it into mediocrity? Not enough people are asking these questions.
I am currently running Blood Lords, and I am having a blast! However, I felt that it was a bit of a shame the reputation system doesn't really come into play until the later books. For that reason, I decided to add some "sponsorship rewards" the PCs can get if they reach a certain reputation threshold with a faction. I have currently not decided how much reputation the party should have before they get offered a sponsorship (probably around 15), and I don't think I am going to allow multiple sponsorships. If the PCs decline a sponsorship, they will lose some reputation with the faction they snubbed, but gain some reputation with its enemies.
Anyway, here is two of the sponsorship items the PCs can recieve in case a GM wants to steal them/the idea. Because they are a bit of a handful to port over to the Paizo site, I'll settle for posting one for now but I can post the rest if anyone is interested in using them. I also wouldn't mind hearing other people's thoughts on this idea/items before I use them in game.
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CELEBRANTS
Bloodclone - Ritual 6
Rare, Necromancy
Cast Time 10 Hours
Duration One Year
Cost a tub of prepared special blood worth 200 gp
Primary Check Arcana, Religion or Occultism (expert)
Secondary Check Crafting or Society
Secondary Casters 2
The Bloodclone ritual was created by the Celebrant faction as a way to be in multiple places at once, as limiting yourself to just one party at a time was too restrictive. The blood clone has no combat abilities, but can use the charisma-, wisdom and intelligence-based skills of the copied creature. The clone looks like the original, though it has telltale signs which reveal it is not the same upon close inspection, such as a red tint to its skin. The clone has the memories of the original from when it was cloned. When the duration ends, the blood clone melts into a puddle of normal blood. However, the copied creature can absorb the blood clone at any point during the duration to gain some or all of the memories from it.
Critical Success As success, except the blood clone uses a modifier 1 lower than the original for mental skill checks.
Success The ritual is successful. When the blood clone uses a mental skill check, it uses a modifier 2 lower than the original.
Failure The ritual fails, and the same creature can't attempt to create a blood clone of itself for 1 month. Half of the material components used in the ritual can be salvaged.
Critical Failure The ritual appears to succeed, but the resultant blood clone holds a grudge towards its creator and attempts to secretly undermine them.
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TAX COLLECTOR'S UNION
Taxman's Mark - Item 11
Artifact, Magical, Transmutation
Usage Worn Tattoo
A Taxman's Mark is a unique magical tatoo, usually etched onto the hands or arms. By Gebbite tax law, a bearer of a Taxman's Mark has the right to extract taxes from officiants of any major faction of Geb, other than the tax collector's union. A copy of the mark is then applied to the officiant, indicating they have paid their taxes to a bearer. Overuse may sour relations with certain factions.
Destruction Each Taxman's Mark is bound to the original copy of The Dead Laws, an artifact in its own right. If The Dead Laws is destroyed, so are all the Taxmen's Marks.
Hello! This is a homebrew archetype I've been working on for my Blood Lords game. It's mostly made for my own purposes but I figure I might as well share it here too in case anyone is interested. When creating homebrew I try to maximize spice and usability while limiting power to somewhere around the upper limit of what already exists within 2E at most. For this reason, any feedback would certainly be appreciated.
I have also created a Lich expansion for the same reasons. The expansion is just two feats, but one of them is fairly extensive. My reason for doing this is that I feel the base Lich archetype is a little lacking for anyone who is not already a Wizard (or Magus). Immortality is fun and all but I feel like it should be more of a "caster archetype" if that makes sense - not in terms of adding power but in terms of adding spice. The spells Liches can access through this archetype are not intended to be much stronger (if at all stronger) than a regular 7th level spell. Rather, the intent is to provide premium necromancy spells to Liches so they can access a broader repertoire of spells within that niche. Similarity to the Graveknight archetype, feedback is welcome.
As always with these projects, feedback is welcome. If people tell me to change things and I agree with it, I'll probably make at least one update. Some things are going to slip past me when I make these after all.
I'm going to be running a Kaer Maga adventure soon so I made I wanted playable Trolls. But full playable trolls didn't really make sense to me since their regeneration would need to be so much lower, so I made Half-Trolls instead. Now it's a versatile heritage.
Greetings, gelatinous people! Here's a new homebrew project I've been working on a while, focusing on "strange" and "tricky" spells. Feedback is welcome.
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Bag of Tricks
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So, one of my first-ever homebrew projects was creating a 10th level metamagic feat for each of the 8 schools of magic. I felt as though there wasn't enough differences between schooled wizards, a sentiment which still seems relevant with the various wizard threads popping up all over.
However, while I still agree with this notion, I have learned a lot about 2E by playing, running and creating homebrew for it. I think my original creation left a lot to be desired, so here I present to you a reboot. All of the original feats have been either altered, or remade entirely. I'm hoping the end result is some fun, useful character options that help add flavor to your chosen field of magic. Feedback of any kind is always welcome. Enjoy.
Something I've been curious about; at what stage in the game does the cap of 10 invested items start to matter?
So far in my games, it's been completely inconsequential. This is still early play though (the highest level I've played a longer form game at is currently 5), so that seems reasonable. Has anyone else gotten to a point where investment really starts to constrict what items you can use?
Well met, fierce warrior! This is the second in a series of homebrew spell project for pathfinder second edition. This time we're focusing on the destructive power of the elements - mostly the classical elements of fire, water, air and earth. Each of these elements got two associated spells (earth got a bludgeoning earth spell and an acid spell, for example).
The goal of this project was to create interesting elemental spells that were more than an area/damage type combo. 2E has a ton of unexplored design space so early in it's life that is just begging to be explored.
Did your favorite elements get the treatment it deserved? What kind of "themes" would people enjoy seeing in the future? As usual, any feedback on balance or other feedback on the spells is greatly appreciated. My goal with these projects is always to create spells that are usable and to the extent of my abilities, not overpowered. As I am just one person, any feedback helps out a lot with this goal.
Pathfinder 1E was an extremely long-running role playing game. At times, it felt like Paizo were going to print everything that could conceivably see print. Naturally, this has lead to some truly awe-inspiring spells over the years. While many of the biggest icons have already been brought over, I still feel there are many gems hidden within 1E, waiting to be ported. I also feel there are many spells that could work even better within the framework of 2E.
Because of this, I started a homebrew project to bring some of my favorites over. Mind maze, parchment swarm and alter musical instrument are but a few examples. In some cases the spells remain similar to their 1E counterparts and in others they have been altered to better fit the new game. I tried to preserve the "spirit" of the spells if not the mechanics. A recurring theme is giving the spells new functionality they couldn't have in 1E, such as heightening or playing around with the action system in various ways.
Did any of your favorites make the list? If you have any amazing spells from 1E that didn't make it in - feel free to tell me about them, and what you think they would look like in 2E. If there's enough material for me to work with, maybe I'll expand the document or make a sequel some day. Feedback on balance and other things is very welcome, I tried my best to make the spells work well within the 2E framework but I'm ultimately just a single person. If you want to use these spells within your home games you are totally free to do so, in addition.
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So something I've been thinking about lately is the balance of ability scores, both in RPGs in general and 2E specifically.
How "balanced" should the various ability scores ideally be, and what does balance mean in this context? 2E has taken steps to balance ability scores, but I wouldn't say it achieved perfect balance. Having WIS as your casting stat is an advantage compared to CHA and INT due to WIS being an overall superior stat in 2E, for example. Would the game have benefited if CHA and INT had been made a little stronger?
The deafened condition states "If you perform an action with the auditory trait, you must succeed at a DC 5 flat check or the action is lost; attempt the check after spending the action but before any effects are applied.". Until recently, I assumed this applied to spells with verbal components, but I was made aware that such components do not actually add auditory. With that in mind, I have questions.
1) Am I still missing something in the rules? It's possible there's something I've still overlooked, and the deafened condition actually does affect spells with verbal components.
2) Does this mean the deafened condition is nigh useless in combat? Out of all the actions that could reasonably come up in a fight with some frequency the flat check seems to affect Demoralize and... that's about it? It doesn't affect spells with the traits (such as command) since while the effect of Command has the auditory trait, the Cast a Spell activity to cast it does not. It's also possible I'm missing something here, maybe there are common monster abilities with the trait. But to my current understanding, the condition is at best negligible and at worst it helps a combatant more than it hurts them (since it grants immunity to auditory effects).
3) Assuming my understanding of the condition is correct, is this an oversight? It seems a bit strange to me that the condition seemingly does so little when it's so intuitive that a deaf caster would have a hard time with their incantations. It's also a departure from how the condition worked in 1E, which doesn't mean it wasn't their intention to change how the condition worked but I figured I might as well bring it up.
Greetings, exceptional people! One thing I feel is missing from the current state of Pathfinder 2E is greater differentiation between Wizard Schools. Wizard schools are one of my favorite parts of DnD and Pathfinder, and I really want an illusionist to feel different from a diviner, who feels different from an evoker, and so on. I'm certain options to sate this desire will eventually become part of 2E as more books release.
However! In the interim I have created some metamagic feats for wizards with schools, one for each school as a matter of fact. I believe these to be (mostly, hopefully) balanced for actual play so if you want to use these in your home games, feel free!
Since most of the feats have a fair bit of complexity to them, some imbalances/unintentional consequences are bound to slip through and I would be very grateful for any balance feedback or other ways to improve these feats.
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School Metamagic
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This online repository of tools uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo Inc., which are used under Paizo's Community Use Policy. We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content. The content of this online repository is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Paizo Inc.
For more information about Paizo's Community Use Policy, please visit paizo.com/communityuse. For more information about Paizo Inc. and Paizo products, please visit paizo.com.
While I'm a massive fan of 2E so far, the one thing I haven't really been able to enjoy is Hero Points.
When I first read the CRB, I didn't like the idea of it very much (having a resource tied to something out-of-game didn't appeal to me). However I still resolved to use the mechanic since it was a pretty minor hangup and I didn't mind it as long as the players were having fun. The reception of the mechanic was lukewarm at best, with my players not being particularly into it either. We all forgot it even existed pretty quickly as we got into the game and everyone was learning how the game worked.
I'll be starting a new campaign soon since we just ended Plaguestone a few weeks back and I'm not sure if I should try to reintroduce the mechanic or not. I feels a bit silly to use the mechanic if nobody at the table likes it, but then again it's possible it'll be more popular now that everyone has a feel for the game.
I'm wondering if there are any alternatives to hero points people have tried at their tables? Essentially, I'm looking for a similar advantage of a defensive nature to give my players instead - preferably something that could be "baked into the game world" a little more elegantly. It's possible I'll bring in some sort of an artifact that has some kind of inspiration mechanic with a once-per-day limitation. None of my players watch Critical Role so they would think it's a totally neat and original idea ;P
So we have a few threads discussing whether Witches should have access to the divine tradition. I’ve been alluding to wanting the class to go in the opposite direction, and so I figured I’d make a thread about some of the reasons I think so.
I think letting the sorcerer choose any list is quite interesting and lends a cool draw to that class. Sorcerers, however, are kind of built around this. They get a lot of feats that care about which care about their tradition, which makes it the mechanical throughline of the class. Witch doesn’t get anything like this, which makes the choice seem a little shallow and unnecessary to me.
Witches in fiction are known for casting specific spells and curses than for casting magic in general. Some witches turn you into frogs, or create wards around areas, or extend their lifespans by boiling babies. They rely much more on individual spells to realize their character concepts than Wizards. I think the current way the witch gets her spells goes counter to this aspect of the class.
To explain what I mean, occult witches don’t get access to Baleful Polymorph, and one of the occult lessons is the lesson of curses. The last witch I would ever expect to not be able to turn people into frogs is the one who’s all about curses. If you choose the lesson of protection, you never get access to the spell, protection. I think even if you swapped the lesson names around, you would still run into problems like these.
My suggestion would be to give witches one single list (I would argue occult is a good idea but I would be happy with any single one, really) and have them get 2-4 bonus spells from each lesson. That way you don’t lock yourself out of casting witchy spells and the class becomes even more customizable. It even mirrors the 1E witch a tiny bit (which had a spell list that cherry picked all the witchy-flavor spells) so that’s cool for legacy I guess?
So what do people think? Am I crazy for thinking witches should have one spell list? Is my solution missing something super important?
So I've recently been trying to untangle the family tree of house Thrune, and I'm looking for information on Abrogail II (the current queen)'s parents.
After Abrogail the first's death, rule fell to her son, Antonius. After that, Terthule, Antonius's cousin, became the ruler. This is somewhat interesting as this means rule has left Abrogail I's side of the family, falling to the progeny of one of her (as far as I know, unknown) siblings. The rule of Cheliax stayed on this side of the family with Carella (niece of Terthule) and Infrexus (cousin of Carella and possibly the son of Terthule).
I believe Abrogail II to be the granddaughter of Abrogail I (either the daughter of Antonius, or the daughter of one of his siblings), but does anyone have information that contradicts or confirms this?
I wasn't really sure what subforum this belonged in.
Would it be possible to add the [one-action], [reaction], etc symbols to these forums for people to add to their posts? It would be a neat little bone to throw any homebrewers, at the very least.
I created a custom druid order for one of my players, and would greatly appreciate feedback on balance, flavor as well as rules language. Getting the low-level options exciting but not overpowered is my #1 priority at the moment, but any feedback helps.
