Thanks for updating this, Mortagon! I'm just starting to run Carrion Crown and all that you've collected gives me some great info.
I decided to give out a rumor that Jorfa was a famous smith in the River Kingdoms, but refuses to talk about her past. So, it's odd that she ended up in Ravengro. I made her the sister-in-law of the Mosswater Marauder. After her sister's murderer was caught and brought here, she traveled to Ravengro to make sure the man was finally put to death for what he did. She ended up staying so long waiting for his death that she decided to start up a smithy. After the fire, she assumed the justice was served, but she'd come to like the town and its people, so she stayed. This way, she can also provide a bit of background and a personal connection to the criminals for when the PCs do their research.
This new FAQ and Errata page looks great, but doesn't seem to have any highlighting that lets us know which are the new entries. Plus, it doesn't show when it was last updated. Could those features be added somehow? It made the old format really easy to figure out what's new and when it was added.
So, there's this odd contradiction in the Vanguard class in the new Character Operations Manual.
The Entropic Pool ability says:
Quote:
Each time you take damage equal to or greater than twice your character level from a single attack or effect (after applying any ability to reduce that damage, such as DR, energy resistance, or the mitigate class feature), you gain 1 EP.
But the Mitigate ability says:
Quote:
As a reaction when you take damage, you can spend 1 Entropy Point to reduce the damage you take by an amount equal to your vanguard level (to a minimum of 0 damage). If you do, you can’t gain any Entropy Points from that attack.
I GM'd this today at 2D Con in Minneapolis. Knowing it could easily be a TPK, I warned all the players at the beginning of the scenario's reputation and that there was something in it they were not supposed to try to fight. I had 5 pregens and 2 actual PCs being played. Three of the players have Org Play numbers with 3 or 4 digits, so there were some very sharp folks at the table. (One of them texted Thursty when the golem got the first hit and his response was, "RUN CHILDREN! RUN!")
When the golem appeared almost right at the beginning, one of the PCs got a great Engineering check and another got a great Mysticism check. So, I gave them some hints about what it might be like while trying to maintain the sense that it was ancient and of a strange design. I pointed out that it seemed to be moving sluggishly compared to what they would expect from such a creature. They used this and some tests to figure out what its limitations seemed to be.
Once they attempted to attack it and missed against an EAC in the mid 20s, they realized that they were never going to hit it. At that point, it was focused on the solarion, who began leading it in a loop between the Lounge, Rear Entrance, and the Elevator Room while the rest of the party spread out to dig up important items and clues. They finally entered the last room, triggering the golem to appear there among them. When it started zeroing in on 1 of the PCs, that person just lead it from one end of the room to the other, while the rest of the party tried and tried and tried to get the door open. I fully believe this would have been a horrible train wreck if I hadn't warned them--and if the golem's tactics didn't say that it focused on 1 target until dead.
This type of scenario can be great. The players really enjoyed it. However, I want to point out:
- The key to such scenarios is to make the enemy unkillable, NOT to make it unkillable AND able to 1 or 2 shot PCs in tier. It should have a high AC and/or obvious regen/DR/resistances, but its damage should be a HECK of a lot lower.
- The checks on the final door were a bit too high for the tier.
- It would really help to make the layout of the place less linear. More options for the whole group to get away from the thing and circle around to finish up with items or clues that they noticed, but didn't have time to spend on would help.
- The auto-opening doors really work against the PCs in this. It prevents them from being stealthy to check on where the golem is and trying to avoid it or get past it. I would rather allow for clever players to come up with ways to deal with the situation than forcing them to resolve the challenge the way the author thought they would.
Really? I thought we had to fight a VL one-on-one in a no-holds-barred cage match to claim their title. I was even waiting until Jack had his leg in a big old cast/boot so I could quickly get all the way to VC!
Aw, man...
Just finished running this tonight. It was a ton of fun, but ran WAAAY too long. Ours took 5 1/2 hours and I just called the last event before it was done because the PCs were ahead 250pts to 110pts. And this was at high tier with only 4 PCs. (Channels with Keskodai in event C really racks up points! On the other hand, Keskodai literally swam through the lava in event A multiple times.) Either event B or C really should be Optional.
I generally liked this book. I was hoping for options like ways for your character to become a construct over time--piece by piece. Or something that lets you merge with a construct similar to the Synthesist Summoner. Of the archetypes included, there are a bunch of bad ones, a few moderately interesting ones, 1 that is horribly written as to be contradictory (at least, it seems that way) and a couple that are actually pretty good. The Construct Saboteur gives some good options for rogues.
The shining star is the Voice of Brigh bard, though. It's 12th level ability lets you use bardic performance to heal and control any construct that has been deactivated/killed--healing it of HP equal to your level per round. While performing, you can give it orders and it must obey you. If you manage to heal it to full, it must follow your orders for 24 hours. After that, it returns to its original programming. What a fun option for a construct heavy campaign like Iron Gods! (and, yes, I'm playing in one of those at present, so I really want to find a way to switch characters) It's unfortunate that you don't get this amazing ability until 12th level, though. I think a better option would be gaining this at 5th or 6th level in such a way that you're limited to a round per level of control. Then, upon reaching 9th level having it switch to a minute per level maximum. And at 12th level increasing it to an hour per level. Possibly changing it to 24 hours or a day per level when you hit 15th. I think all of that would drive home the significance of Brigh as patron of constructs. Oh well, it's still bound to be fun for anyone that gets to play it at high enough level.
Most of the archetypes are just okay, but 2 stand out: Construct Saboteur and Voice of Brigh. The Construct Collector archetype is really confusing. It seems to contradict itself.
I REALLY want to play a Voice of Brigh in my Iron Gods campaign, but I'm presently the only front line fighter.
Man, it is a challenge to find all the little changes throughout the Guide. I'm literally looking at the old one and the new one side-by-side going one page at a time looking for what headings and paragraphs don't like up the same. It sure would be nice if changes would be highlighted in red like in Additional Resources.
I find when I look at the bloodlines that I really like some of the bloodline powers, but hate the spell list that I'm required to use in order to get those powers. Like, Abyssal looks kinda cool to me, but I don't want to use the divine spell list. And I would like to be able to be a non-druid and get all the polymorph spells in the primal list, but the Fey bloodline powers don't really fit well with that.
OK. This is confusing. There appears to be 2 conflicting rules listed about nat 20s in the Rulebook.
On page 8:
Quote:
Rolling 20 is better! Rolling a 20 on the die means you critically succeed, which often has a greater effect than normal. You also gain a critical success if your total meets or exceeds the Difficulty Class by 10 or more. More about critical successes is on page 292.
On page 292:
Quote:
Success and Critical Success
If your result is equal to or greater than the DC, you succeed and apply any success effect (or generally achieve what you set out to do). However, if you succeed and rolled a 20 on the die (often called a “natural 20”), or if your result is equal to or greater than the DC plus 10, you critically succeed. You apply the critical success effect instead of the success effect. If the critical success was an attack roll, it is sometimes called a critical hit.
• Tell us about your actual game play. Theory is all well and good, but everybody’s got theories, and we’ve probably heard most of them already. Tell us how things are actually working in play, not how you think things will work.
^THIS is really important. I can recall back in 3.0/3.5, on the personal blog for Bruce Cordell (I think--maybe it was one of the other designers of 3rd ed and I'm just poorly remembering) he talked about when the Mystic Theurge was first released. He said people kept coming up to him at conventions and events saying, "That Mystic Theurge is SOOO broken!" He would respond calmly with the same line, "Oh, really? What happened when you guys played it?" And, every time, their response was the same: "Oh, well, we didn't play with it, but it's so obviously broken."
From what I'm seeing the biggest problem is that the new rules level the playing field too much. There's no real oportunity for the specialist to shine.
This certainly sounds interesting. I didn't like the way the VMC stuff in PF1 worked, but I think that was mostly because you had no control over which class abilities from your secondary class you got. This approach might give ways to solve that problem. What I'm wondering is whether you'll be able to effectively simulate an effective character that is equally split between 2 classes. The wizard examples make it sound like the best you'll get is a caster level that's about 1/2 of your character level. Does that mean you'll always feel like you're a pathetic spellcaster?
I would agree wholeheartedly about the Medium being a disappointment. One of my favorite classes in 3.5 was the Binder. It had a bunch of different options and all of them had great flavor that made it feel like you were making some sort of pact with some mysterious entity.
When I looked through the playtest for the Medium, I was super interested, but it made my head hurt to try to make sense of how different spirits worked together once you could have more than 1 selected. I'm not surprised that they decided that 54 different spirits would end up being too complicated and too much work. But what we got in the end had so much of the flavor stripped out of it that I had no interest in it.
Getting something that both fits that flavor and is mechanically balanced and useful would be great--but I don't think we'll see it early on in the 2nd edition books. They're going to have to focus, understandably, on the core classes and roles of fantasy adventuring.
This sounds unnecessarily complicated. To make a single potion or scroll, it takes 4 days no matter what? That's a huge time sink.
And I'm confused by the disparaging comments about the crafting in 1st ed. You make it sound like that system is broken, but I've never seen it break anything. If anything, the amount of time required to craft items in 1st ed is prohibitively large. When I went through Rise of the Runelords a couple of years ago, time was the biggest limiter on what I could craft. And it sounds like you want to make that longer in 2nd ed?
In addition, crafting of magic items in 1st edition only increases the power of your party noticeably if you are giving out tons of currency. If you give someone 1,000gp they can change that into 2,000gp worth of magic items. But if you give out magic items or equipment, then they can only sell that at 1/2 its value. And that's coincidentally the same cost to craft an item like that. So, generic +1 armor that costs 1,000gp can be sold then those funds crafted into...wait for it....1,000gp worth of magic items.
Now, it can be argued that being able to pick your equipment without losing value is an advantage by itself. And that's a totally valid arguement, but it's not equivalent to doubling your wealth. If you want to minimize the effect of being able to craft exactly what you want, then just change crafting to cost 75% of the full price of the item. Or switch it back to the way magic item crafting worked in 3.5 where it also cost you XP.
Personally, I don't like the fact that monsters will be built using a different approach/mechanics/rules than PCs. That's one of the things I liked about 3rd edition and Pathfinder: the monsters followed the same rules as the PCs. Starfinder adopted this approach that the enemies follow different rules and I hate that.
I prefer option 3. Anything that encourages folks to GM more in order to play more is a good thing. I'll also point out that I don't really like replaying scenarios. Once you've played it, all the suspense and experience of going through it is gone.
The Paths of the Righteous section in Additional Resources starts off with the following text:
Several options in this book are being withheld to appear on Chronicle sheets.
Doing a search through all of the scenarios from the last few years, only once has an option from this book been allowed via a chronicle sheet. I would like to see more options be added, since they obviously cannot be used in 2nd edition.
I just left a 5 star review on this scenario. My area of focus as a GM is content in the upper ranges, so this scenario was perfect for me. I took 2 weeks to prep this puppy and it was worth every minute.
Party (high tier):
Muerticia, Cleric of Urgathoa (SS)
Bucket, Reach Fighter(ish)
Feargas, Not-Shocking-Grasp Magus (SS)
Regulus, Phantom Thief Rogue
Krush, Thunder and Fang Ranger/Slayer (SS)
Illyana, Dimensional Agility Rogue/Brawler/Horizon Walker
Spoilers are just to shorten walls of text.
** spoiler omitted **
** spoiler omitted **...
I played Illyana at this table. This was an awesome scenario. We were a well built group with a lot of bases covered, so it didn't feel impossible. It had some tough challenges though. Our GM's use of that diagram on the wall and stressing which gems flared with each cast really helped drive home what was going on. He did a great job running this.
I will admit, though, that our GM had to give us that, "Are you SURE you want to do that?" line when I was about to full attack Tahari after we'd freed Tahonikepsu. I had speculated what would happen if we took her down while the sages were still in the mindscapes, but it still hadn't fully dawned on us that it was that important. (I think having any freed sages speculate or explain her link to the gems and the need to break that would be a good way to emphasize this.) Once we got that hint, though, we put all of our efforts into freeing them--even to the point of teleporting other PCs next to sages in order to work the action economy.
We played this as a special event for a bunch of us organizers in the area, so we could coordinate a lot ahead of time and our GM could prep a lot before we showed up. Running this at a store in a typical slot would be rather tough, though. There is just so much going on with PCs and their abilities at this level that a complicated combat like this means everything moves REALLY slowly.
That daemon is kinda tough if your party isn't prepared for it. My party ran screaming from it when I ran it for them. Their big issue was getting through its DR. The paladin even had a Smite Evil left for the day, but he forgot about it.
Holy crap this scenario sucks. I hope that what we got was the result of lots of editing or something 'cuz it's all over the place and there are some large leaps of logic from the cryptic phrases the players hear to the conclusions they have to draw at the end.
Great ideas! I wish I had done this same sort of conversion to my CotCT game back when I started it a few years ago. My biggest complaint is that the AP feels like it really doesn't tie the PCs to Korvosa itself. We're down to just 1 session left and I've moved all the stuff in the Sunken Queen to under/inside the pyramid. I used the big "plug" in the basement of the castle as the means for the PCs to get into it. I had them walk down a spiral staircase for hundreds of feet and then just switched to using the map of the Sunken Queen without the tilted floors. Having them climb the levels even though they're underground still seems to work just fine thus far.
For their attack on the castle in book 6, I built a pyramid and a castle on top with part of the city below it out of cardstock. The whole thing was 4 1/2 feet by 9 feet. You can take a look at the pictures here if you want.
Warning: Potential spoilers for Curse of the Crimson Throne Pathfinder AP
So, my Curse of the Crimson Throne game is finally getting to the end. Yesterday was the 2nd to last session, I think.
Spoiler:
The group got ahold of the legendary Harrow Deck of Many Things and they all drew some cards. The last person to draw was the Archer, who is, by far, the largest damage dealer in the group. He drew 4 cards. The first one was pretty bad, so he negated it with the option in the AP. The last card was The Cricket, which allowed him to draw 3 more cards. For each one he drew, he got a permanent +10' bonus to his base movement speed, so he drew all 3. Here's a picture of what he drew in order.
The full rundown:
The Demon's Lantern (negated)
- The character’s body disintegrates. All that remains are her items and a glowing gem containing her soul. This gem is worth an amount equal to the character’s level * 2,500 gp. A miracle, resurrection, true resurrection, or wish is required to restore the character; doing so destroys the gem.
The Lost
- The PC cannot gain another level in whichever class he currently has the most levels. This effect can be circumvented if the character is killed and returned to life, but the next time he is restored to life he is affected as if by the spell reincarnate, regardless of what spell or effect was used.
The Sickness
- The PC becomes afflicted with incurable blood veil. The disease cannot be cured by any effect short of a miracle or wish spell.
The Waxworks
- Upon drawing this card, 1d6 exact duplicates of the character appear within a 20-mile radius. These duplicates have an alignment opposite to that of the original character and oppose his goals. At least one of them arrives at the [redacted] to join forces with [redacted] before the PCs arrive at that location.
The Cricket
- Upon drawing this card, the character can draw up to 3 additional cards. In addition to thosecards’ effects, the character’s base land speed permanently increases by 10 feet for each additional card he draws.
The Rabbit Prince
- All attacks the PC makes or that are made against the PC that threaten a critical hit are automatically confirmed.
The Twins
- A duplicate of the PC manifests at [redacted]'s side—this duplicate does not have any knowledge about the PCs that [redacted] doesn’t already know, but does have duplicates of that PC’s gear (with the exception of minor artifacts like [redacted]), as if created via a mirror of opposition. The duplicate is completely loyal to [redacted], and is encountered at their side as a bodyguard. The PC who drew this card understands what has happened immediately.
The Tangled Briar
- Once per day, the character can use speak with plants to ask a single question of a plant. Using this ability upsets the surrounding flora, however, causing 1d4+2 shambling mounds with the fiendish creature template to erupt from the ground and attack the character, regardless of the surrounding terrain.
And the party Summoner drew The Twins, as well. So, now I have the normal combatants with the final boss PLUS a duplicate of the Summoner including all gear (and she'll have either a duplicate Eidolon or some summoned creatures), a duplicate of the Archer including all gear, ANOTHER duplicate of the Archer--probably without the same gear, and ANOTHER FIVE duplicates of the Archer somewhere within 20 miles. Yes, I rolled a 6 for that Waxworks card. It could even be argued that the duplicates of them all have the same bonuses and penalties from these cards, depending upon which order they were drawn in. So, that could mean that one duplicate of the Archer confirms all crits and has all crits confirmed against him. In addition, the Archer keeps grabbing any plants he comes across 'cuz he wants to trigger the shambling mounds appearing all in that same final fight.
Lastly, one player wasn't able to make it for that session, but should be there for the next one. The group has all agreed to NOT tell him anything about The Twins and Waxworks cards that they already drew. And I intend to allow him to draw cards, if he wants, at the start of our next session, so lord knows how THAT is going to end.
Here's a tip: Make sure you give your players the bonuses in the last ship combat if they've gotten the clues for the first 4 parts. My GM at GenCon didn't give us any of that, so we lost that fight.
Yeah, thanks to everyone who put in work to make these 2 tables happen. And especially to James R. It still seems wrong that you helped organize this, but didn't get to actually play.
Question no one's asked: How do these differences work with the backwards compatibility with Pathfinder?
This isn't a direct answer, but at PaizoCon, I asked Amanda Harmon Kunz about using Starfinder characters in a Pathfinder AP and she seemed skeptical about that working well. She said that it would require a lot of conversion. Theoretically possible, but it didn't look like it would be easy.
Several of us have found that the DoubleTree charged us incorrectly for our rooms during the Con. They charged the correct rate of $116 for the first night, but then $169 for the rest of the nights. I happened to stumble across this when I found that I was being charged for the wifi. The person at the front desk told me that their computer system had been messing this up for some rooms. So far, 3 of us have had this happen and had to ask for it to be corrected.
So, make sure you all check your hotel bills to ensure that you didn't get overcharged.
Was wiped out from taking the train all the way from St. Paul, so I dropped out of the pre-con game I was going to play in. Having trouble sleeping on the train prompted me to catch up on a little of that, instead.
I DID get to shake my fist at Thursty for including [redacted] as an encounter for 1st level PCs in Ire of the Storm, which my group was playing on the train ride. But, that's about it.
I don't know why it's not allowed in PFS, but I was really disheartened when Additional Resources was released on Saturday and it wasn't allowed. It gives mechanical reasons to not play the stereotypical heavy-armor paladin. And I like that. I can totally see playing a glass-is-half-full sort of hero that foolishly charges into battle to rescue the innocents and foil the works of evildoers. And it combines well with a paladin's ability to Lay on Hands to make up for the lower AC that you'll probably have. It doesn't really do more damage than just a normal paladin with a high strength, a two handed weapon, and Power Attack. But it's really flavorful, I think.
Ever since Additional Resources was released on Saturday, I've been trying to find a way to make a Silksworn Occultist into a decent melee combatant for the modules my group is going to play on our train ride to PaizoCon later this month. I figure I may as well try something that isn't allowed in PFS for this home game. And I'm struggling to come up with a decent build because it's just so MAD. I just keep asking myself why I'm not just making a regular Occultist.
I don't think this archetype is any more powerful than a regular Occultist, but I will say that I wondered whether the following benefit would be an issue when I was speculating whether it would be allowed in PFS:
Quote:
At 8th, 12th, and 16th levels, the silksworn increases the number of spells of each level he can cast each day by one.
Now, I've had GMs claim that the 6-level casters are actually more powerful than a wizard or witch 'cuz at higher levels they get 1 more 2nd or 3rd level spell than a wizard or witch gets. I think that's an incorrect viewpoint, but it's still out there. And this sort of bonus would just send those GMs into a tizzy. And you have to admit that it is a really nice bonus.
Not everyone at Paizo has the same design goals and philosophies when it comes to Prestige Classes. For me, I see them as options that should appeal to multiple characters, allowing for multiple entry points. For example, the Hellknight prestige class is a good option for fighters and paladins and cavaliers, but isn't an impossible option for other classes. An archetype, on the other hand, ONLY works with one class. Prestige classes are more versatile.
The prestige classes in Paths of Prestige were also initially intended to follow that maxim as well, and they do relatively well there I think. Some, like the Winter Witch, are specifically for a specific class, but most are more versatile. The tattooed mystic, for example, works for any spellcaster.
I wasn't involved with the Lion Blade and the Enchanting Courtesan, so I can't really say much about their goals, other than that I think one of the Lion Blade goals was that someone here wanted to update/fix that prestige class to address concerns from PFS. I could be wrong there.
If I have my way, the "should work well for multiple classes" theory will be adopted for all future prestige classes, but as Paizo has grown my direct influence over our products has started to diminish.
And of course, my design philosophy for prestige classes is somewhat different from the design team's preference that prestige classes help to enable specific multiclass combinations (as seen in classes like the arcane trickster or the eldritch knight). I'm not as big a fan of that philosophy, and instead prefer prestige classes to be tied to the world's flavor and serve to...
James, I...I think I love you, man.
I have the same philosophy about prestige classes. They should give opportunities for several different ways to combine with core/base classes--even if it's not always obvious or optimal. Part of the fun of them is to try odd paths for entry and see if the end result is a viable character. Plus, it's a great way to show off the flavor of the campaign world and the organizations therein.
I hope you get to continue to work on lots of stuff concerning prestige classes in the future!
It's got the most comprehensive review of APs that I've seen yet. You have to scroll down a little bit to find that summary. The guy covered them all from the original pre-Pathfinder APs up through Iron Gods. I haven't read all that many of them to avoid spoiling things for myself, but for the few I've played/run, I think he does a good assessment. Of course, those are just his opinions.
After having played True Dragons of Absalom GM'd by Thursty, himself, this weekend, I would like to call for a mini to be made of the best dang NPC in a module: Hats!
I'm not a big fan of some of those changes, but thank you so much for putting up this post so quickly, John. It really helps eliminate confusion around how to handle these changes in PFS. It's appreciated!
Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 234 posts (236 including aliases). 9 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 20 Organized Play characters. 
