Issuls's page

Milani is pretty handily my favourite. I don't normally like CG that much as an alignment, but Milani has this brilliant synthesis of Lawful Good and Chaotic Good belief and behavior. It really feels like she hasn't written off what she learned from her time as a follower of Aroden.

I really want to play a LG Milanite in a home game, though I may make her part of the PC's personal pantheon with Olheon and Eritrice.

Since October 2019, I have been converting the 2017 PF1 Ironfang Invasion adventure path to PF2 rules. It is working so far: we are in the 6th module.

I was discussing Tarondor’s Guide to Pathfinder Adventure Paths in Discord with one of my players, mentioning that Ironfang Invasion rated 22nd out of 33 on both Tarondor's rating and in a poll Tarondor took. He read it and responded:

Quote:

Wow, my other campaign, Return of the Runelords, made #10 on Tarondar's ratings, but #29 on the poll list. And Tyrant's Grasp, that group's next campaign, is #13 on Tarondar's, but #24 on the poll. Quite the difference. Whereas Ironfang Invasion is #22 on both lists. The one I'm planning to GM, Outlaws of Alkenstar, is too new to be on the list, I guess.

That player in Oregon plays PF2 with me in upstate New York via Roll20 and plays PF1 with another GM in Seattle, Washington. He plans on GMing himself with a 3-module PF2 adventure path.

There's definitely a huge Your Mileage May Vary effect with quality of APs. Tyrant's Grasp is probably my favorite AP from 1E but its themes and game type are not going to be for everyone.

Either way, to answer OP, our group hasn't moved onto 2E and likely won't for a while, if for the simple reason that there's so many good 1E APs out there.

We had two deaths in two hours a session or two ago.

Name of PC: Demetrius Valdemar
Class/Level: Dhampir Cleric of Olheon 7/Mystery Cultist 2
Adventure: Last Watch (Redoubt of the Red Crusader)
Catalyst: A nasty combination of Smite Good and Flamestrike
Story (the Gory Details): Having spent time fiddling with the front door to the redoubt, the party triggered the alarm and the antipaladins inside, as well as Evark were all buffed and ready for the heroes' arrival. Our unlucky cleric ran ahead, trying to give the party space with a Holy Smite, but all but one antipaladin made their saves. He became a prime target for their Smite Good, and was promptly finished off with a Flame Strike when the rest of the party caught up with him and gave Evark an opportunity she couldn't resist.

Fortunately for him, he's a Mystery Cultist. Olheon was not satisfied when she tried to retrieve his soul and got the body, too. She resurrected him and sent him back, with a warning that he can't expect her to do this again.

Name of PC: Maria Florea
Class/Level: Human Spiritualist (Phantom Blade) 9
Adventure: Last Watch (Redoubt of the Red Crusader)
Catalyst: Overzealousness, and the exciting combination of Smite Good on a speed weapon.
Story (the Gory Details): Hoo boy. The party smashed the the Urannag with such speed that haste still had 7 rounds on it. Keenly aware that Vigil's time was short, Maria charged straight up to Yosiduin's throne with her hasted speed, and invited a full attack. To her credit, she couldn't have anticipated that the old elf put speed on his weapon while hearing the fight next door.

We just finished our Wrath of the Righteous campaign (after two, three years?) and it was amazing!

The militant nature of the LG deities and planes in contrast to the other Good aspects is interesting to explore. I gained a lot of respect for Iomedae and the crusades after the AP (and after reading about the shining crusade etc).

I'm looking forward to seeing how Owlcat pull this one off. Are there any scenes or parts of the adventure you really want to see carried over in the game?

I still really don't like how Half-Orcs and Half-Elves have turned out in 2E, so I will say I do prefer them as unique races. It makes it easier to expand them as their own thing, and shouldn't really get in the way of having Aasimars/Tieflings/ect of other races.

I am a fan of other races having planar scions but those characters are still outsiders, first and foremost.

and get everybody in to the best parties.

This part at least is an absolutely delightful perk of the Dandy Ranger.

I've played an Empiricist Investigator for low levels, and a Questioner a little farther. I don't really like what the Empiricist does but I can't deny that it's a strong archetype. The lamplighter's pretty cool too, though!

What works for melee alchemists also works pretty well with Investigators. I'm quite partial to a longspear-weilding Investigator that buffs reach to excessive levels.

An Admixture Vial can combine Enlarge Person + Long Arm for example, and let you buff yourself with both as a single standard action. Of course, this competes with Monstrous Physique/etc.

Quick Study is an absolute must of a talent, as studied combat is one of the best combat buffs in the game and an ability the class sorely relies upon in combat. Between Mutagen, Heroism, Studied Combat and Inspiration, accuracy is no problem for this class.

Therefore having a lot of attacks would work great but the class gets few enough feats that it takes forever to get archery online. TWF fares better (and you can run Artful Dodge reasonably well) but I still wouldn't consider it worth it.

Alchemy is certainly the best spellcasting for combat, but the archetypes that change it out are still good - they will make better use of the class's investigative and support potential.

I have to give a shout-out to Silksworn Occultist.

I've not seen any other archetypes that push the casting aspect of a 6/9 caster, and this one gives the class a huge boost to flexibility and longevity. It bugs me that the spell DC increase comes so late, but I'm so happy it exists. Especially because I like the Occultist's spell progression in general.

Yeah, the separation of the codes in this manner in particular makes absolutely no sense to me.

The two less important and most misinterpreted rules being left to the iconic paladin as key features really rubs me the wrong way.

Compassion, redemption and fighting tyranny have always been iconic themes of the LG Paladin and I really don't like these are taken away from its identity.

I mean, she prevented a lawyer from ever having children for defending a necromancer in court.

She didn't damn his soul, but did curse him for doing his job. Kinda a dick move.

Hah, I love it. That's improved my opinion of her, if anything.

Really though, historically, deities and demons were always used to explain stuff that we now understand as genetic defects and the like. This is exactly the kind of juice I can get behind.

I like Iomedae's scene in WotR (Divine tests for champions are cool, and I really think people over-exaggerate what actually happens), I like that Erastil is a controversial traditionalist and while I used to think worship of Urgathoa was crazy her antipaladin code is actually brilliant.

Of the core deities, the only ones that impress me less are Cayden, Torag and Nethys. Cayden, I have more of a personal distaste of his themes, though I don't entirely hate him. Torag's just disappointing as I love dwarves and he's just there being dull. Droskar's way cooler. Nethys, I will agree with the stuff stated above. I don't pretend to understand him that well but he does not at all seem suitable as an object of worship!

I don't really mind the tight math in combat... I'd like to see hyperoptimized characters be a bit stronger than they are now...but not by much.

Where I do mind it is out of combat. I think characters hyperoptimized for a certain out of combat speciality should have a much higher rate of success. Or they should revamp out of combat to require a series of rolls (but NOT like lockpicking - more like Fate's Social Conflict system). It's too all or nothing for tight math.

This is my perspective, too. The new tighter math has a few problems with skills.

I noticed this when I realised my Barbarian was bad at handling fort saves because they only had 12 con at 4th level, and it's just as bad if not worse with skills.

One of them is that ability scores are now overwhelmingly important for skills (and saves). Having better training in a skill or save will not matter much at low levels compare to the ability score's differences, while in P1 you could easily compensate through traits, class features, training or items.

The scaling meant you could still be great at a check even if it was outside your 1-2 good ability scores. And I think that's really important. I realise it gets better with item bonuses but those still require significant financial investment.

Skills being so harshly tuned were especially bad for any mechanic that made sequential rolls. Swimming or climing against a vaguely CR-appropriate DC is going to be discouraging even for athletics expert strength-based characters due to ACP and requiring 3 checks in a round to get very far. I found that you either struggle and shouldn't even try, or you grab a feat (skill or class) that lets you bypass the checks entirely - typically stuff that grants swim or climb speeds.

The 'big 6' and the 'magic utility belt' are a large part of what makes PF mechanically fun, they aren't a 'problem' that needs fixing they are a core and interesting feature. That for me is the disconnect here, Paizo are introducing a system to 'fix' what makes high magic, high fantasy games fun.

This is something I vehemently disagree with.

Everyone has their own take on fantasy. For me, 'gearing up' as it were is a needless treadmill that takes power away from the character and forces you to put as many decision making on what order your character gets +1s as you would on new abilities. It's the dated progression system that I really wish wasn't stuck tacked onto this genre.

In 1e, there are so many magic items I may as well ignore because they are a belt, cloak or headband slot. Usually fun ones, items that would free up feat slots or enable strange styles. If I was very lucky there'd be time and crafting available to make that slot a hybrid item.

For me, consumables (potions/scrolls), toys (wands/metamagic rods) and other items that give on-use boosts or other ways to spend my actions are the only magic items I really care about.

I like resonance for investure (and killing off the problem of bringing 5 quick runners' shirts on an adventure without tacking on the day-long attunement). I like resonance for activating wands, and staves, and boots of speed, and cloaks of elvenkind. I don't think it's fun while it applies to consumables, and as others are showing, it simply isn't working when tacked onto healing.

I like the Silver Standard (have used it myself, for years, Planescape campaign, there just is not that much gold flowing around the multiverse, gold really is rare and has remarkable properties, I embrace that), but chancing prices as well makes it unfriendly to conversions from PF1.

Convertability is a fair point. And I should probably state, regardless of whether I think the current scaling really works, it's still better than PF1. It doesn't cost you several months' earnings to afford the weakest healing potion in this system, and that's a huge step up.

To be honest I prefer most of the new concepts and wouldn't want to revert to the older ones so much as have the execution of the newer ones improved. Most of what I have seen are good ideas executed in ways I simply don't enjoy. The only thing I feel is in the right place and working as intended is martial combat.

For one, I don't want to go back to the old monster system. The idea of monsters being built on the same system always seemed laughable to me when they had a whole load of natural armor, number tweaking feats and other odds and ends thrown in specifically just to get around the levelling methods.

Still, there are a few. And that's what this thread is about, so I'll drop what I wish to see return.

1. Races. Ancestries just feel awful. It has been said numerous times that all the feats achieve are buying back your old racial features - which is completely true unless you are a human. The races are also completely imbalanced - I love that halflings are wisdom based but there is absolutely nothing going for them. It's even sadder for half-breed races - their relegation is much an emotional problem as it is the actual issue of them investing in a feat tax before they get any choice with their race.

2. Caster level. There are a few casts where I think spell heightening works. Predominantly healing spells, dispels, and spells that gain extra features or area of effect. But the embarrassing duration on most spells and painful scaling of blasting is evident. The latter is strongly tied to enemy saves though, and could quickly get out of hand if multiple facets of spellcasting are changed.

3. First level general feats. I don't think there is anything unreasonable about wanting to use exotic or uncommon weapons at 1st level, but nope. You have the choice of race-specific weapons or playing a human. If you're a half-orc or half-elf, you're strictly out of luck. No ancestral weapon for you - enjoy playing with longspears until 3rd level. The biggest thing for me about pathfinder was how much you can customize even 1st level characters. This does not at all feel true for 2e - not the playtest at least.

4. Better-defined skills. I don't like the idea of players being able to completely break down exactly how some skills works and challenge the GM on them. But on the other hand, 2e's skills are far too nebulous. Monster identification is a notorious example of this, I can bet there has been a whole bunch of argument over whether certain outsiders come under Arcana, Occult or Religion. Let alone figuring out the DCs, sheesh. My other issue with skill checks is how everything has a crit fail built into it now, regardless of whether it was needed. I thought the tighter number scaling was introduced to encourage people to roll on things they aren't specialized in?! When some of these crit fails are so extreme and easy to hit, I just don't want to roll on anything unless I have to. I like the current skill scaling but the tuning and execution are not something I am remotely comfortable with right now.

5. Paladins. I like a couple of the new features. The +1 holy damage on attacks is clever and great. Retributive strike on the other hand, while powerful, is not a design that I feel represents the class well or encourages intelligent or in-character play. I've griped about how restrictive the lack of feats leave paladins in P1 but they're so much more restricted in 2E.

I can't disagree with this post, even if I think a lot of the magic did need nerfs. Originally, some of the crowd control spell nerfs seemed like a good idea, but that was when I was under the impression that they were going to make it easier to land spells.

That was always my grievance with save-or-suck. Either it won the battle instantly, or did nothing. I thought by having the +/- 10 system would allow to have slightly weaker effects on a regular fail, but making failing saves more likely. Instead, enemies failing saves is both less likely and less effective. It's depressing.

What frustrates me the most about this system is how pitiful the spell durations are. Why does everything have just a minute duration? It kills the utility of so many spells.

A prepared caster will not want to dedicate spell slots on a one-minute utility spell unless they know exactly what they intend to use it on. At least with longer or extendable durations, you can get any mileage out of it or cast it in advance if you anticipate it being useful.

A spontaneous caster will not want to dedicate precious spells known on these spells when they're nerfed into even smaller niches than before. A spell that lasts just a minute has so many tactical applications removed.

Don't even get me started on polymorph spells. I haven't reached the point where I can playtest them yet but when I first heard about the action economy and multiclassing system I was excited to try out a polymorph specialist. But at a glance, it looks like there is no way to specialize in this anymore as stats are preset and unimpressive.

I'll certainly give it a try when I can, though.

So far, my group did our character build session and the question came up essentially "Why can't I be a Paladin of Pharasma?"

What reason does Pharasma have to invest her power in a champion of righteousness, when the battle of good vs evil is not of interest to her?

There might not be any direct anathema conflict but that does not mean interests align, or that a Paladin would do much to aid her cause. Yes, Paladins are excellent at fighting undead, and oaths against undead doubtless exist, but Pharasma already has Clerics, Druids, Assassins and White Necromancers (users of the school that do not raise undead) as loyal servants who can better uphold the task of maintaining the cycle of life and death.

If you want to be a particularly righteous slayer of the undead, well, Sarenrae's got that niche covered.

Actually, I'll admit that I should wait to consider it in the context of the other ancestries... with the present "buy your PF1 ancestry back one feat at a time for your first ten levels" system, I guess the other ancestries might not be any better off.

This is a fair point - ancestries in general are quite barebones at level 1.

As others have echoed, I do think this penalizes the halfbreeds. Yes, you may *want* some of these abilities, but the other racial abilities feel stronger. I'd agree with what others have said, perhaps 2 race feats at first level, one of which must be a heritage feat.

Going by the heritage feats we've seen, I'd say the half-blood ones are definitely stronger than the average.

The problem from my perspective is the bottleneck, not the merit of the feat itself, which honestly is a legit couple of features to represent the racial difference.

The Dandy Lion wrote:

The feat itself seems balanced and on par with other ancestry feats at first level, but... it's a funnel, a chokepoint, a barrier.

This could work much better if we had two ancestry feats at level 1, but as it is, it's awkward. I like that there are Orc and Half-Elf specific feats but it doesn't sit right with me overall.

Oh you're right, it's powerful. If anything, it's a feat that does three to four feats' worth of lifting (movement speed, extra trained skills, and two extra lists of ancestry feats to take are all things that you could get with various types of feats), so it's a powerful trade to take, but a more restrictive one. In a world with two ancestry feats like people in this thread have been suggesting, I would imagine the half-ancestry feats would not need to give so many more benefits than other choices, either, since you would not be having to consider them against your favorite ancestry feat from the two parent ancestries (if you don't take a feat from the half-ancestry itself).

Yup, I noticed the feat itself is definitely more flexible and higher tuned. I can tell that thought was put into how to make it work as a tax.

I think I'd prefer the feat being weaker and getting two at generation, but I'm willing to try it as it is during the playtest. I hope the orc one gets weapon proficiency as an option at least!

I have to agree with Arachnofiend here - this feels like a demotion of half-breeds from actual races to a variant human, and that makes me sad.

Half-breeds make up a good half or more of the PCs played in our group. ...that would translate to half our 2E PCs not actually getting any choice in their first level ancestry feat.

The feat itself seems balanced and on par with other ancestry feats at first level, but... it's a funnel, a chokepoint, a barrier.

This could work much better if we had two ancestry feats at level 1, but as it is, it's awkward. I like that there are Orc and Half-Elf specific feats but it doesn't sit right with me overall.

Obscure citations wrote:

Here it is

Oh well.... the last PF1 cleric archetype ends as predicted.... terrible/pointless

Gains some spont casting of a few spells that clerics can 95% prepare anyway.....

Trades out channelling....which granted I dont like anyway, but does at least provide good out of combat healing..... for basically a minor boost on intimidate.

The ultimate PF riddle...... what is it with Paizo and cleric archetypes eh?!

All those years ago, I should have offered my services for free in order to get some half decent ones out there!

I suggest reading the rules on planar traits before dismissing the archetype.

Let's take a look at a Cleric of Iomedae as a really simple example. Heaven has the Strongly Aligned trait for Law and Good, AND Enhanced Magic for Law and Good.

What this means is, when you channel your realm, all good-aligned spells get +2 to CL. ...but that's not all! Any chaotic or evil aligned creatures suffer a -2 penalty to their will saves from the strong alignment.

Additionally, well, your realm is heaven. Enjoy ready access to Holy Word.

If your deity is Shelyn or Sarenrae, you lose the bonus against chaotic foes, but you now have Holy Smite and Protection from Evil ready to spontaneously cast - and frankly, Protection from Evil is a really welcome spell to have spontaneous.

This archetype actually lets you go evocation with alignment spells, and I like that. Combo it with the Blissful Spell metamagic (even better, get a rod), and this means you can pump a spell's CL when you need to by making it good aligned - AND add on rider effects.

Plus, invoke realm works with Quick Channel so you can set it up as a move. It takes a few levels to be worth it but it's really good if you're creative.

EDIT:

Now I'm wondering how much idea sharing was involved with the alignment metamagic. Those are deceptively good, and have a lot of subtle interactions.

Healer's Hands is crazy - hardly a waste of a feat.

With the Heal skill unlock, at 5th level onwards, one becomes able to heal 3*level HP AND 2 points of ability damage as a full round action for nearly no cost. This can be repeated 5+ times per day.

At 10th level, with this feat and the skill unlock, we are looking at 5* level + 4 points of ability damage as a full round action. that is better than anything but the Heal Spell or extended Greater Path of Glory.

If I ever play a rogue, I will 100% be grabbing this feat. Even if I'm not playing one, it'll be on the radar.

This is true, the feature is actually much better than a slam.

The Azatariel is a swashbuckler that emphasises the charisma aspect. It trades a lot of the standard deeds for the ability to weave in and out of battle, provoke a bunch of AoOs and then redirect those attacks. Best archetype in the book.

You lose precise strike, but get monk-tier mobility and eventually, pounce. It's an amazing 3-level dip and such a juicy archetype that I wouldn't mind playing one standalone.

The Dreamthief is a rogue that trades out sneak attack for a phantom's emotional focus. You even get a slam attack (!!), and get to poke around in peoples' heads.

Almost all the archetypes in the book are a hit on flavour.

Azatariel, Dreamthief, Gloomblade are all amazing.

I really like the feel of the Soul Warden, though it still feels like a downgrade in more ways than I'd like - a familiar's charisma is not enough for the aura to be relevant.

That said, the Soul Warden's innate "You can switch to this archetype by helping your phantom move on" is the coolest thing. I loved the archetypes for 'fallen' classes, and this is even cooler!

I haven't given the feats a full readthrough yet but the First World conduit feat caught my eye. Full of flavour, heinous shenanigans and a legit method to deal with enemy mages!

Okay having slept on it somewhat, I have two prevailing thoughts:

1 - This is a much, much better system for prestige classes. It is dangerously close to the old style feats, however, which I found to be the single biggest disappointment in 1E.

The current system doesn't allow for anything as brilliant as the Heritor Knight but it much better fits nearly every other prestige class's chassis.

2 - I am really concerned about the scarcity of feats. As I understand it, we're going to get then at a slightly better pace than class talents but they also take the place of many existing class features.

We also have very few general feats, and class feats are also taking the role of those general level-up feats. The quality of skill feats sound better than the ones in 1e at least, but it sounds like we'll be burning quite a few of them just keeping the skills ranked up for the proficiency treadmill.

I like that this can produce better rounded characters. The thinner but wider spread of feats should work when designed around it (no must-have feats like power attack, rapid shot and precise shot - we are already seeing a few, like monk weapon proficiency). These 'archetypes' here are bulky feat chains, which are really dangerous when you have a lot of different, restricted feat categories.

I still don't understand why Halberds don't have reach in 1e.

Oh wow, there are... a lot of implications to this system. I think I like it though, but yeah there is a lot to take from this.

My first gut reaction was that I didn't like it. I hated how fighter archetypes used all your first bonus feats. And I remember how as much as I liked the psychometrist vigilante, the fact that it replaced the 6th level vig talent meant I would never actually play one.

So I thought, "Replacing feats? That's awful - it cripples customization, not enhances it. It even competes with my ability to thread together my character's style!"

But the more I think about it, the more I like it - with the new system, hopefully we'll see less of the long feat chains (outside of these archetypes) and while I know this is going to compete heavily with the 'must-have' feats, being able to delay archetype features is a wonder.

I love how this works for prestige classes, by the way. Loss of scaling for base class features turned me off most of them, so this route rocks.

Ooh, a kindness rager. That one's been on the bucket list - hilarious defiance of type and surprisingly good synergy with the rager!

Actually, reading over this now, I kinda want to see a Kindness Rager 5/Heritor Knight. Opening Strike would put an interesting spin on the Mighty Strike class feature. Plus it has flavour in spades.

And all it requires is to channel the raw energy of the Abyss, you say?

-Draws tiefling horns and a tail on his Angelkin Id Rager, whistling innocently-

AoN for information on a source, feat, spell etc. Also for making any PFS character

d20pfsrd for game rules and quicker GMing (since creature abilities are usually linked to their rules.)

To be very honest, if it wasn't for both of these sites, I and likely many in my local PF community would have quit PF a long time ago.

NO ONE wants to have to dig through 3 dozen+ books to make a character.

AoN and d20pfsrd, keep it up!

For sure, what matters most is that the sites exist. I couldn't handle working without them.

I find AoN easier to navigate and better at presenting information - and I find its information more reliable and easier to trust of the two.

It is slower for sure, but given I can get information I need during other players' turns if in game or I'm just using it for planning, then that's no issue.

I'll go to the PRD when able for game rules, but otherwise d20SRD is quite helpful on that matter, as it's far more up-to-date.

It's finally coming out!

This book is easily the most anticipated book for our group over the last year.

I think I would want to see some baseline proficiency for attacks (and HP) to assist scaling things up or switching their gear, but overall I like the presentation. The Redcap block is quite promising.

I find the alignemnt in the traits harder to read. The classic alignment abbreviation alongside types/subtypes was a lot easier to see and identify.

Showing just ability bonuses is good. It's cool seeing some of the huge numbers of outsiders and dragons but also just made stat blocks annoying to look at and they can still be reverse engineered.

Sorry Mark, as soon as you mentioned that Tigers could wrestle foes all I could picture was tiger-themed Luchador wrestlers.

Liking what I see about multi-weapon enemies and especially vulnerabilities. Pathfinder has always encouraged preparation and it's good to see that theme continue.

I hated starting with 20 in PF1.

The higher the average starting stats, the more the numbers feel like a treadmill to keep up with. I already find it hard enough to start with an 18 for many of my characters, as I value shoring up saves and int bonuses, and don't like dropping stats below 8.

It does sound like stat dumping is going away, but if you can reach 20 at level 1, it makes starting with even a 16 in your primary stat sound really bad. Heaven forbid you want your cleric/bard to be able to contribute weapon damage as filler and start with a 14.

There are some "against-type" classes that are thematically exceptional with the races, too.

Dwarves fit Wizards and Alchemists exceptionally. There may be some disagreement with these career choices in traditional Dwarven societies, but both classes play well with their expert craftsmanship, discipline and disinterest in social skills. Also every time I see art of Dwarven mages it blows me away. I need to play a Dwarf summoner some time.

Sidenote: Tortured Crusader is an amazing Paladin archetype for Dwarves. Perfect for the tough as nails immovable force of grouch.

Half-Orcs: Pet classes are brilliant thematically for Half-Orcs. the race is shunned by society, and it keeps them in tune with their bestial side. Just run away if an Orc hunter starts complimenting your face.

Halfling: Paladins are right at home with those halflings - the race has an indomitable courage and spirit - and while they lend themselves to roguish classes, they're not really forces of chaos.

We had someone play a Grey Paladin/Pain Taster in our Broken Chains run, actually. Hilariously, there were a whole slew of moments where it got away with stuff a regular Paladin would not have, and the archetype was likely a net gain for that specific module.

It's still a hamstrung archetype, though. They really should have had more atypical features to offset the reduced divinity - way more skills points, for one.

I don't actually accept that a Paladin would be walking around with an Infernal Healing Wand.

"What does this do?"
"It heals people of their wounds."
"Oh, good."
"No, evil. It channels evil energy into the person and--"
*snap* "Whew, thanks for the warning."

I mean, really, this is how many of my neutral characters would react, too. Maybe some would keep it begrudgingly, but the concept of the evil mojo in the spell is very important.

Whether one sees it as 3.5's Lesser Vigor + ignorable "Evil" tag or as Infernal Healing depends heavily on how much the planar cosmology matters in the game. And as stated earlier, it's not easy to relate to that stuff with experience in the real world.

HWalsh wrote:

Paizo already thought of this.

The hierarchy puts not doing evil above helping. Thus the Paladin thing is not to help if the only way to do so is to do an evil act.

That is why Paladins are LG and not NG.

An NG character would say, "Screw the Code, I'm going to help." Then fall.

A LG character, who really believes in the Code, would follow the Code above their desire to help.

We essentially said the same thing, I believe.

My only point here, is that perhaps helping innocents should be placed above the precedent not to do evil, if most people think it's the correct course of action.

Although, I did make the mistake of not more explicitly saying that before.

Personally, I'm fine with the code the way it is.

You can't always win.

It's an interesting premise I feel like the LG Paladins would want to fall if they did take that choice, just to reiterate that evil methods should not be tolerated.

Even if it were the 'right' method, it should be an act that should be punished and mandates atonement - that is part of that hyper-honorbound LG thinking, and it's a sort you can see in the Hexenhammer Inquisitor archetype.

Aratrok wrote:

Quote:

You must never willingly commit an evil act, such as murder, torture, or casting an evil spell.

Please don't do this again.

Is there a problem with things being marked evil... Being evil?

When Infernal Healing was printed, it had the evil tag and rules that stated it didn't actually make the target evil.

I believe the intent was that it was still a corrupt method and not mainstream, but what happened is that it was treated by many players as 3.5's lesser vigor, especially in PFS, despite the flavour implications.

Later on the was Horror Adventure's less than perfectly written rule on the corrupting effect of evil-tagged spells, and well, there was a fair bit of controversy.

It doesn't help when there's various pain-inflicting spells that may or may not have the evil tag, and stuff like Murderous Command (which really does sound evil, but isn't!).

Me? I'm all for there being evil-tagged spells. Greater power at a price is a really fun theme, and some profane magic being anathema to Paladins and Clerics of Good deities sounds right to me.

I don't see why wearing 20 belts is a problem. JRPG protagonists seem to have no trouble fitting multiple belts and buckles to every item of clothing they own, why can't we?

Oh my goodness, as a big fan of divine classes, this blog is everything I wanted out of deities.

I'm really happy that approved alignments are dependant on the deity's preferences or aspects - this can add some real nuance to their design.

As someone who likes playing weird humans over actual monsters and magical races, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs appeal to me much more than actual Elves and Orcs.

I'm of the mind that raising undead should be an inherently evil action, and just properly explained and justified in the core books this time.

An action that may have good intentions and possibly even overall-positive results/minimal drawbacks, yet also still an action the very cosmos and laws of nature object to has amazing story potential.

The idea of good-natured people in a rural area raising their ancestors and keeping a happy cult of doing this is great and realistic. The majority of the gods finding it abhorrent also makes perfect sense with the cosmology we have, and their alignment being tainted despite innocent intent makes sense to me. People can carry evil alignments and wish well, after all.

Undeath inherently being evil also keeps necromancy (the act of raising, not the school of magic) from being a common staple of wizardry, and I think that's a very important thing for many tables, especially PFS.

I do like the general concept of 'neutral' undeath, but it can carry very strong setting-warping implications if the setting is high-magic (which Golarion arguably is).

Oh no, Vrocks are scary enough, Jason!

Now this is a meaty blog.

I'm really liking the look of this. This makes it a lot easier to build upon spell lists or even add new ones without the chaotic mess and risk of splatbooks forgetting classes exist.

Spell scaling looks more promising with the format given, too.

I can't imagine Paizo throwing away Lay on Hands.

One thing I expect to see go (hope, even) is Divine Grace.

+Charisma to all saves is way, way too good in the new system. What we'll likely see is something else to represent the Paladin's irrepressible nature, which I'd be happy with.

Yeah, as much as I think this kind of stuff adds to quite a few of the stories in the setting, I really don't see it as necessary or belonging in everything. Heck, if it was in every story it would damn well get old fast.

But those same topics also added a lot to the experience in campaigns - it felt really satisfying when my Half-Orc (funnily enough!) Bloodrager got to smash nearly everything up in Broken Chains, for example.

Admittedly most of my half-orcs were from loving relationships and descendants of other half orcs/other half-humans, so thinking about it, the nicer options should at least be presented in core, rather than the extra stuff it started showing up in.

Our group loves half-breeds far too much. I'm all for Orcs without crippling mental penalties and plot restrictions, but I'd not want to see the half-orc go for them.

Really, I'm confused as to what removing half-orcs would achieve in the grand scale of things.

That kind of unafraid look at dark themes, in a serious, 'these things are not okay' is a core part of the Pathfinder campaign setting. So many of the villains and enemies in Golarion content do unabashedly disturbing and grotesque things. It really motivates me to get in character and give a damn.