Hill Giant's page

My argument is that, if a swordsman or spearman was deprived of their weapon, and a staff was in their grasp, they can use it just like their preferred weapon. But not with a club.

If staff is a blunt spear, why isn't a club a blunt sword? Isn't a bokken exactly that?

I would however, like to note one thing: you indeed can use a staff as a club, but you can also use a staff like a sword or spear, whereas I'm not so certain a club could be used like a sword or spear.

I think it's fairer to say you can use a sword or spear like a staff. You can bash someone with a sword, or do a butt strike with a spear, but you can't slice or pierce with a staff, even if you're thrusting it like spear.

I will admit, some of this is personal bias: when I think of someone fighting with a club, I think a hulking brute smashing in skulls with their clubs using overhead swings. Meanwhile, I imagine someone deftly striking with their staff, taking advantage of the many ways, they can hit the opponent with their staff. Force vs Finesse, as it were.

This seems to be a not uncommon impression, but as someone who has used and taught staff in medieval reenactment for many years, I can tell you it's not true. Staves are big clubs. Yes, you have more options in how you strike, but it's still all about hitting hard with a blunt, heavy object.

I picked up the system from 1E, that's not so explicit in 2E, that if you pay the Cost of Living, that covers any cheap costs (roughly 1/10 of your monthly amount). So, meals/rations, lodging, everyday clothes, ammunition, etc. As GM I keep track of time in my notes, and tell the players when they need to pay upkeep.

My question is, which folklore will the Iron Hags be pulling from?

If iron hag is replacing D&D's annis hag, it may also be taking from the same inspiration, Black Annis.

This came up recently in a game I run. I treat zone of truth like a polygraph test, it gets used in investigations, but it's not admissible in most courts, on account of its subjective results, limited accuracy, and available countermeasures.

The Forae Logos

Unicore wrote:

Right. So Imperial is the "my ancestry" bloodline.

I'd appreciate a renaming of imperial, too. I'd like to have magic from my ancestors without implying nobility. Some cultures could have a line of sorcerers without any rank or rule.

In my current game, one of the PCs is a goblin sorcerer whose imperial bloodline comes from the (River) Kingdom of Zog.

Isn't the Harrow deck deeply tied to Alignment? How is it going to be affected by the PF2e remastered removing alignment?

In several of the harrow spreads (from earlier harrow products), law-neutral-chaos tracked with past-present-future, and good-neutral-evil tracked with weal-neutral-woe.

It is the remnant of an April Fool's joke from the early days of the forums.

On page 19, the sacrificial unicorn says (Pathnder Bestiary 6, 316). That should just be Pathfinder Bestiary. I verified it's the right book and page number.

It's not Bestiary 6, it's page 6 (of the first Bestiary), that's where the weak adjustment is listed. (Note the number isn't in italics like the book name.)

The psychic class also fits well with the elven philosophy of the Brightness.

The four houses in a tribe of 76 souls seems a little extreme

House members ... occupying the same communal sleeping tent.

That reads to me as a literal use of the word "house", as in the tribe has four yurts large enough for living in, and the rest is just a natural side effect of that sort of communal living.

Since we know some species of giants have their own gods, such as Minderhal (stone), does that mean every species of giant has a racial god, and most of them just haven't been detailed yet?

Probably not. Some giant species have specifically giant gods, but at least as many worship (or are associated with) not-exclusively-giant gods.

Two things I noticed:

1) Is the Aquarium Lamp 100 times larger than it should be?

2) The immolation clan pistol changes to a hand cannon over the page break.

In previous editions of d20, Small was 2'-4' tall/long, Medium 4'-8', Large 8'-16', Huge 16'-32', Gargantuan 32'-64', Colossal 64'+.

No edition exactly followed these rules, and the range of scale within each category gets ridiculous, which I suspect is why they dropped listing them.

I think a better reason than the druid anathema to not wear metal armor is your character is living in a tropical rainforest. (Oh, so much sweat and rust.)

When my players were facing spriggans (coincidentally working for an evil hag), they asked, "Is it OK to just kill them? Are they inherently evil?" To which I replied something like, "They're not inherently evil, they have free will. But they slide easily into evil, because they are incapable of feeling joy. So make of that what you will."

There's a version of this weapon in Melee Tactics Toolbox as the halfling rope-shot.

"Horacalcum" appears to be made from the Latin words for "time" and "stone".

I'm hoping we'll get the rules for a homunculus familiar. It was disappointing that the APG had rules elements that required a homunculus familiar but never told us how to get one or what it's abilities are.

Like this?

Personally, gremlins are a thing I'd like to keep in the realm of "always evil". Sabotage isn't a thing they choose to do, they are the incarnation of Murphy's Law or M. R. James's "malice of inanimate objects". At best they parody culture (a la the Gremlins movies).

The familiar illustrations in the CRB include a winged housecat, so unnatural familiars aren't a new thing.

1. The basic mission for which police exist is to prevent crime and disorder as an alternative to the repression of crime and disorder by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police existence, actions, behavior and the ability of the police to secure and maintain public respect.

3. The police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain public respect.

4. The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes, proportionately, to the necessity for the use of physical force and compulsion in achieving police objectives.

5. The police seek and preserve public favor, not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to the law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws; by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of society without regard to their race or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. The police should use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to achieve police objectives; and police should use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police are the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the intent of the community welfare.

8. The police should always direct their actions toward their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary by avenging individuals or the state, or authoritatively judging guilt or punishing the guilty.

9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

This is why Pharasma's realm is set up as a legal court. If you look at the write-ups for the various Psychopomp Ushers, you'll see they have differing opinions on how these cases should be treated.

“We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.” --Oscar Wilde

Chelaxian isn't so much a language of its own as a distinct dialect of Taldane.

I would think that a magically-savvy locale would treat speak with dead as they would any testimony (viz Rashomon). Though depending on the court and the caster, it might not be treated as testimony from the victim, so much as the input of an expert witness, or even hearsay.

I've been interpreting the Chaotic of Golarion elves as a kind of Libertarian "I do my thing, you do yours", "you don't mess with me, I don't mess with you". Even if an elf (in their Good-ness) wanted to help another nation, there's no structure to allow them to force any other elves to help, not even the so-called monarch has that power.

That advertisement had no effect on me whatsoever.

Achaekek has struck me as similar to the Mesopotamian Nergal. Nergal is god of war and natural disaster, but he's also the god the other gods send to deal with anyone who seriously violates their laws or threatens their position.

Is Rovagug what really killed the dinosaurs?

Hill Giant wrote:

The results are roughly equivalent to all the boosts/penalties you get in PF2 character creation, although you will get odd numbers which end up being slightly weaker than even numbers.

Thank you. Except Pathfinder 2 specifies ability boosts (and flaws) for Ancestry, Background and Class.

Any old D&D chargen system resulting in 3-18 scores doesn't work, unless you ditch these predetermined ABC boosts.

I probably should have made it clear I'd prefer to not do that :)

How about this: Take four each of 4, 6, and 8; randomly assign two to each ability score, and sum. This gives you a result from 8 to 16 with an average of 12, and only even numbers.

The above is roughly equivalent to what you would otherwise get from your six free boosts during character creation. So, to this result, you just add your set boosts/penalty from ABC (getting only ONE free boost if you're human).

Something I used for PF1: Take a deck of cards and pull out the numbers 4 to 9 in two suits. Shuffle those 12 cards, and lay them out in piles of two, one for each ability. The sum of the two cards is the ability score.

The results are roughly equivalent to all the boosts/penalties you get in PF2 character creation, although you will get odd numbers which end up being slightly weaker than even numbers.

Part of the "aesthetic" of PF2 is that each turn martials do lots of small things, while casters do one big thing. Too many one action spells would muddy that. Conversely, metamagic already covers improving a spell by spending an extra action.

Yqatuba wrote:

Also, I think the Monad is the second most powerful being as while Pharasma created the multiverse, the Monad basically IS the multiverse.

May be, on a global scale, but its power is so dispersed than in any local event there will be a number of smaller individuals that have more influence. Unless aeons are present, the power of monad might as well be nonexistent.

Are you sure?

He is named Olorin in the tongue of the Valar and Maiar; Mithrandir in Elvish; and Gandalf the Grey (later White) in the tongue of Men.

Consider it translation convention then. Writing "Whosywhatsit (who those other people call Whatsisname)" takes up words that could be better used elsewhere.

Not directly relevant to the scimitar thing, but the D&D druid owes quite a bit to the relatively modern fraternal order of Druids.

They changed the spelling of derro -- They are "dero" now.

Heh. Derro are WotC IP. But Dero, from the Shaver Mysteries, are public domain.

Since challenge ratings are now listed as expected difficulty for expected party level, they also act as milestones. So if one encounter is, say, "Severe 2" and the next is "Moderate 3" you know the PCs should level up around then.

I'm sad Tar-Baphon doesn't have a mustache because that'd be a perfect moment for twirling it.

Regenerating his nose is clearly just Step One in Tar-Baphon's plan to grow an evil mustache.

20, 26, 50, 51, 72, 85.

Is this going to be like the numbers from Lost?

And the petitioner is most certainly the creature according to the Bestiary and Pathfinder/Golarion canon. The creature == the creature's soul == the petitioner (after its death).

It is the soul/essence of the creature, but it is not the physical creature. My point is, regardless of appearances the petitioner is merely the "ghost" of the creature. And while the spirit is arguably the most important part of the creature, it is the physicality that makes a creature (especially a colossal creature) dangerous in combat (i.e. determines its CR). (The petitioner also lacks the substitute for physical ability, learned skills.)

It's not the creature, it is merely soul-stuff on which the creature has left an impression.

Also, "In some cases, at the GM’s discretion, particularly large or unusual petitioners with higher than normal ability scores may begin with a higher CR".

I love that he has a pronged bolt and an incendiary bolt.

(But I may be biased haven written that section of the Ranged Tactics Toolbox.)

I assumed the darkness around her eyes was something like kohl to reduce snow blindness.

The silver cord isn't originally a thing from D&D, it's taken from real world occultism.

Accuracy is overrated. If your weapon is large enough, it doesn't matter where you hit someone, as long as you hit hard enough.

As is, it's basically a machete/dogslicer.

Okay essentially put what is the closest culture to the Aztecs or even the Incans or Mayans in Golarion?

The Nahuatl (Aztec) equivalent in Golarion appears to be Razatlan. However, all that's been said about it is in Faiths of Golarion under the deity Kazutal.

Chainmail is a perfectly fine trinonym.