Jeven's page

No.

Ok. That's a simplistic answer.

I am not trying to justify slavery which I personally find repugnant.

However, when trying to understand historical cultures which practiced slavery and never questioned it, then individuals within that society should be judged based on how they treated their slaves.
E.g. George Washington and the founding fathers, the Old Testament kings, citizens of the ancient Greek democracies, the medieval European aristocracy, the heroic figures of Asian cultures, etc.

To simply label them all "evil" because of a standard, historical cultural trait seems extremely arrogant. We have the benefit of our modern C21st culture and educations, they did not. So the measure must be how they behaved within their own cultural context.

And yes, this is relevant to Golarion, which has many pseudo-historical cultures -- from the Land of the Linnorm Kings (Viking), to Osirion (ancient Egypt), Qadira (Arabia-Persia), Vudra (India), Tian Xia (incl. Japan, China, Burma and others), etc.
Purging all of them of cultural elements we find distasteful to make them PC would remove something from the game -- the ability to use the fantasy culture to see the world as an historical-real-world-culture, warts and all, once did.

The aim is not to justify historical wrongs, but to try to capture or experience a very different and alien cultural perspective.

Slavery is morally wrong but evil might be too strong a word. Whether it is neutral or evil depends on the details.

Before the 1800s slavery was standard across the world through all of recorded history. Even the Old Testament contains instructions on how to treat slaves!

Freedom is a relatively modern notion. Peasants and serfs in most cultures were virtual slaves be they Chinese peasants, European serfs, ancient Egyptian commoners or African tribesmen ruled by the likes of Shaka Zulu.

In other words, an RPG that wants to simulate any real-world historical culture needs to interpret slavery through that lens. Morality (good, evil, neutral) can be defined in the cultural context by how the slave-owner treats their slaves.

This really needs to be turned into a Paladin discussion!

If a Paladin student in Paladin school flips off his Paladin teacher will he get suspended or expelled?

If it is a non-evil, non-chaotic act, why would the school expel him?
So if they do, then flipping someone off must be the path of the anti-Paladin and a Chaotic Evil act.

As a partial counterargument, the phrase "the human race" exists.

"The human race" is a common phrase and the game had "Race: Human". So, from that point of reference it makes perfect sense.

Ancestry could be seen as worse than race as the term is most commonly used for humans of different ethnicities e.g. Swedish or Italian ancestry, or Tutsi or Tibetan ancestry.
In this day and age the term ancestry is closely associated with genealogy and ethnic origins of one's ancestors.

The use of the term race in RPGs is generally positive. Humanity is defined as a single race and all humans are intrinsically equal irrespective of ethnicity.

As to elves and humans, yes, they can interbreed, but so can lions and tigers or horses and zebras or humans and neanderthals. So "race" functions as the non-sciency, fantasy description of the playable species, some of which are so closely related they can produce offspring (half-elves, half-orcs, etc.).

Very short sword (dagger)
Short sword
Long sword
Very long sword (great sword)
Stupidly long sword (the ironing-board sized hunk of metal the iconic barbarian Amiri wields)

Gaze Reflection.

Shield of Perseus would be a cool name for it, since that was the Medusa-and-the-mirror guy.

It is fairly common in a realistic sort of way (as opposed to endorsing it).

* The Sargavan colonists are prejudiced against the Mwangi natives.

* The Kyonin elves are prejudiced against non-elves to the extent they don't even allow non-elves access to most of their realm.

* Chelaxians, as has already been mentioned, are prejudiced against tieflings and halflings as inferior/slave races.

* Korvosans are extremely prejudiced against Shoanti and also Varisian wanderers to a lesser degree.

* Taldans and Qadirans are mutually hostile.

* Ustalavs are prejudiced against Sarkorians and slaughtered Sarkorian refugees entering their realm when the Worldwound opened.

* Mwangi elves are murderously xenophobic.

* Hermeans regard most non-Hermeans as inferior beings.

* Tieflings are certainly not welcome in Mendev.

* Orcs and half-orcs are not welcome in Lastwall.

* Non-dwarves in the Five Kings Mts are usually restricted to foreign quarters.

* Gnomes in the Varisian forests refuse entry to non-gnomes.

etc, etc.

Paizo has their own store where their books are sold, while 5E links to sites like Amazon to buy theirs. I'm not saying Pathfinder is outselling 5E, obviously. But those Amazon statistics just aren't meaningful in this context.

The Pathfinder CRB is listed in Amazon's top 100 so, despite being such an old game, even now it's still attracting brand new customers.

As for the rest of Paizo's products, I think the sheer breadth of their catalogue dilutes sales per product.
So people might be buying lots and lots of Pathfinder, but because there is so much to choose from the sales are not concentrated enough in any one product to register in something like an Amazon top 100 list.

5E by comparison has relatively few products, so sales are more heavily concentrated on each of those.

LINGERING COMPOSITION FEAT 1

Bard
By adding a flourish, you can make your compositions last longer. You
learn the lingering composition composition power (see page 235), which you can
cast at a cost of 1 Spell Point. Increase your Spell Point pool by 2.

That's a very self-indulgent example of a rule. Basically Jargon Item 1 makes Jargon Item 2 longer. You learn Jargon Item 3 which you can use with Jargon Item 4 increasing Jargon Item 4 by 2.

For the lay person, trying to visualize this is hard. Who knows what the bard is doing or trying to accomplish in-game. Esoteric mathematical stuff in his head, I guess.

By comparison, although PF1 and various iterations of D&D had their jargon, they used natural language and you could get the gist of most things by just reading it without understanding all of the underlying rules.

The comparison is two options with the following poll ratings:

A: [6,6,6,6,6,6,6,6]
B: [0,0,9,9,0,9,9,0]

Quite right.

A gaming company plays by entertainment industry rules. It competes with every other entertainment for our attention.

idk but it makes sense that ranged attacks (regardless of what it is) require good aiming. Now what attribute/skill is best for aiming is a difficult question, in which pf1 decided its Dex (unless something changes it).

I do agree its kind of odd that a Wizard needs to max out dex to hit better. But isn't that why they also targeted TAC in PF1? So even with suboptimal Dex they could hit most targets baring a horrible roll?

Not necessarily.

Dexterity assumes the magic-user has to aim his spell by pointing his finger accurately at the target.

Using his/her mind to aim a spell is also valid. To do that Int-Wis-Char could represent the mental finesse required to hit a moving target.

In other words, having a higher mental attribute could indicate more precision. You aim with eye+mind instead of eye+hand.

That's not what Pathfinder is or should be. Pathfinder is supposed to be the indie small-brew to WotC's mass-market D&D.

I admit I haven't read the playtest but have read a few of Paizo's preview blogs.

My first impression was that it was all very dry and heavy with abstract jargon.

Although that's fine for a technical manual, mathematics textbook or behind-the-scenes coding for a computer game, that cold, clinical feel is something of a turn-off for an RPG which is essentially a game of the imagination.

Can someone who has read the playtest tell me if my impression is correct?

Of course, it's only a playtest, so aside from fixing rules issues perhaps they will fluff it up in a way that makes it more fun to read and inspiring.

In other words, 7 score, well-built rules but dull, 10 score, well-built rules and exciting. So, if you want people to buy it (beyond those enthusiastic enough to playtest it), reading it shouldn't be chore.

Gorbacz wrote:

In neither case did the WotC face a direct competitor staring at them with a mean, lean, well-designed game that has better brand recognition, sound marketing and a massive player base. Every time TSR/WotC did change edition, it was unopposed by any life-threatening direct competition.

When Paizo tweaked 3.5 into 3.66, it was facing a direct competition who just did shoot itself in their foot so hard that they almost fell out of the market.
But sadly for Paizo, while you can beat good brand recognition coupled with a crap product that's marketed in a shoddy way, you just can't do the same against good brand recognition, great product and marketing that's on the verge of making RPGs a socially acceptable pastime.

I'm late to the party, but 1000x this. Not to take anything away from Paizo's execution, but Pathfinder as we know it today simply would not exist without WotC driving D&D into a ditch.

PF1 was indeed a very successful niche created in the wake of 4E.

That is a sensible policy and they have built up a good reputation over the years for quality products (especially the AP line).

PF1 (w/ 10 yrs of splat books) vs 5E was obviously no longer a viable option. To draw back former PF players and attract new ones, they needed to fix the issues that made PF1 less attractive and lower the entry bar for new players.

Admittedly that is a tough combo for Paizo to pull off, as existing, lapsed and new players have very different needs/wants. The playtest itself also would have suffered from self-selection bias -- dominated by existing PF players rather than the expanded market of potential players they want to target.

The Starstone Cathedral is also described in Mythic Adventures although it is rather underwhelming.

After completing a personalized Test, you appear before a panel of all the gods for an interview. If you pass the interview, one of the gods sponsors you, granting you a mythic rank.

Then you go out, do stuff and level up (using the Mythic Adventures rulebook) and perhaps one day become a real god. E.g. Iomedae was just a mythic hero NPC for a long time after the test (immortal & able to grant some spells), until Aroden died and she received her promotion.

So to succeed at the Test: (1) practice your interview skills! and (2) suck up to someone on the panel!

What if; Disabling traps, locks, and mechanical devices went into Engineering (as it does in Starfinder) and shoplifting and pickpocketing was rolled into Stealth? (Since doing those last two involves not being seen doing them.)

You know, that would be a lot simpler.

Just call the old Disable Device skill, Disable Device in PF2 like before.

And roll the old Sleight of Hand skill into PF2 Stealth. It was a corner case type of skill anyway and it fits fine with Stealth -- surreptitiously picking pockets, hiding weapons on your person, and so on, all stealthy stuff.

Yes, thievery has obvious negative connotations that all of its uses don’t deserve but it gets across what it does pretty well.

The point is that Thievery is but one use for the skill set.

In practice, if you look at all of the APs and modules, the skill is almost never used for anything approximating theft.

Rather, it is a standard dungeoneering skill used to circumvent or manipulate the mechanisms of a site (locks, traps, machines, etc.) -- and the site itself is usually the lair of a villian or monster and/or a long abandoned ruin.

Sure, NPC thieves use this skill for their profession, but adventurers generally use it for something else entirely.
So a name that captures the Indiana Jones and Lara Croft and MacGyver type skill use would be better.

Creatures with energy drain creep you, the player, out in real life?

Many people have Ex's with that ability -- when you're around them they suck the life out of you.

I really don't have any problem with calling it Thievery, but of all the other names proposed I really like Subtlety.

The problem with many words like Subtlety and Manipulation is that they have a double-meaning, one manual, the other verbal (bluff, deception, etc.).

Words that are mostly associated with a physical action like Thievery, Tampering, Shenanigans or synonyms of those (Roguery, Tinkering, Fiddling, etc.) are probably better for the skills it covers.

Fiddling is probably a good one because you automatically think of busy fingers which covers the whole shebang of the old Disable Device and Sleight of Hands skills.

I really like Shenanigans as well.

A term like Tampering might be better than Thievery.

Tampering has a roguish feel but is not exclusively so, and it is broad enough to cover things like picking locks, disabling traps, sabotaging machines, and even fiddling with a knot to snatch someone's moneybag from his belt, or slyly switching papers.

Why not just run with the campaign theme instead of trying your hardest to find an opt out clause?

Problem: No magical light allowed.
Solution: I'll invent electricity! Take that DM!

We'll see. My money is on Paizo drastically altering their PF2 publishing model into a pace that's faster than 5E but far slower than PF1.

I suspect we'll get the Starfinder model, we get tons of Adventure Paths, but core books are slow, only a few per year between alien Archives and a major core release like the recent Armory release and the upcoming Character Operations release next year.

Are you (plural) saying Paizo needs to downsize? As in employees?

I'll admit, I prefer the bodyslot system ... I'm used to it from RPG video games.

Yeah, anyone who plays video games is familiar with body slots. So why confuse people by trying to reinvent the wheel.

Although innovation is good, you should be very selective and not just innovate for the sake of innovation.

A certain familiarity (as in, this is what most video game and tabletop RPGs do), eases entry for new players into the system. Something like body slots is pretty standard because, you know, everyone dresses themselves in the morning!

The point is not that Thievery is the only solution to freeing an abused slave.

I can picture this playing out: a runaway slave pursued by angry plantation owners with slavering dogs begs a Paladin for help.

The Paladin stands there confounded by the quandary--
(1) "I am Lawful. You are legal property so I can't help. Good bye." (Paladin falls for not upholding Good.)
(2) "I am Good. You are an abused innocent in need so I'll help. [Uses Thievery skill to pick shackles lock.]" (Paladin falls for not upholding Law.)

I would tend to go with the Paladin not upholding unjust laws! They are a divine class after all and the Laws of Heaven should outweigh the Laws of Man.

I don't intend to be rude but at this point I am unsure how you can keep not answering any of the questions anyone else puts forward, yet still keep saying that you are very open to see someone show why a limit is needed. It's beyond me honestly.

The OP's post contained a rhetorical question in which she provided the answer.

When it inevitably becomes clear PF2 isn't more popular than PF1 in like two months or whatever I'm sure there will be plenty of people that'll declare the thing a failure.

But surely Paizo's goal is to increase sales.

PF2 must be the mule that carries future product releases (APs, rulebooks, campaign books, etc.) on its back.

If it is no more up to the task than PF1 (presumably now) is, then it will be a failure from the company's perspective.

So could PF2 be a failure? Sure, but so could 1.5 or just sticking with 1e.

That's basically it in a nutshell.

Obviously 1e was no longer the answer, hence the change in direction.

It's impossible to say whether Paizo can revitalize Pathfinder with either PF2 or a hypothetical PF1.5.
One might be a great success and the other a failure; both options might offer success; or both could result in failure.

There is also the unspoken 4th option as a fallback.

I suppose it revolves around the nature of the competition and the question of how to capture and hold a decent-sized customer base.

What I'm saying is that lockpicking is a skill commonly used by characters of majorly moral ambiguities that Paladins generally don't approve of.

In practice most adventures feature a BBEG and their lair. The lair has locks and traps. So the heroic adventurer needs these skills. Breaking and entering into the evil lair is not a crime or wrong in any sense.

Even on crime-solving TV shows, the investigators usually resort to a bit of lockpicking.

I really dislike how you're being ganged up upon, but to be fair I'm really having a hard time following your logic that this kind of Character isn't possible.

This is a continuation of Neutral Lich's posts in the "What do Rituals add to the game?". So it helps to read his posts there to get the full picture.

I for one would be very happy if the game's default structure made this style of character (a character with goals and motivations at odds with an agreed upon party focus) impossible within the core rulebook, and then introduced antagonistic play rules in a separate later splatbook. This kind of play gets romanticized a little in things like the Glass Cannon Podcast, because it does add a lot more dramatic tension to the game, and can be a lot of fun in specific scenarios, where everyone is on the same page about keeping the page they are on secret, but it is directly oppositional to the idea of collaborative play, which is what needs to be in core focus for a good role playing game. It is not a good introductory playstyle for cultivating considerate player characters and shouldn't be something that someone picking up the game for the first time should be thinking about for a character concept to fit in with a party looking for a fun cooperative experience.

But should't the game also cater to those individuals who see the GM and other players as enemies?

;)

There's definitely been some derailing, but the signal to noise ratio is a lot better than I feared it would be. I've seen lots of interesting posts, and also feel like I'm getting some gradual insight into those posters who said they never felt awesome (which is sad).

"Feeling awesome" is setting a high bar! So replies like "never" followed by "this is why" does answer your original question, even if it's not the list of positive examples you were hoping for!

The thread does make for an interesting read though as "feel" is an essential part of a game and probably the hardest thing to define and get right.
A game (any game) is more than a collection of well-written rules. The nebulous what-makes-a-game-fun element is the tricky part.

People have played PF1 to death. They're bored with it, dislike the unnecessary complexity, and find it extremely unbalanced.

So, Paizo decides that, with PF2, they try to do new things, cut down on complexity, and rebalance everything so nothing is broken.
And everyone is now saying they don't like it, it's too much like 4E, or some other such nonsense, even though before, they disliked PF1 over the course of its runtime for the same reasons that Paizo is trying to fix.
Either we run it rebalanced, or we run it broken as before. There's a middle ground, but 5E already copywrote it, so Paizo can't do that. And people would complain about that too. Paizo just can't win (everyone over).

Those are valid points but the gist of the complaints seems to be (I haven't read the playtest but glanced at feedback *) that PF2 is an over-correction of the faults of PF1.

* Of course, I'll decide to buy or not buy PF2 based on reviews after it's released. However playtest feedback is a good way for a company to identify issues and avoid bad reviews when that time comes!

Followed immediately by, "I cut an opening, but do I have to exit or can I stay in here til it's dead. Nope, rules say if you do that much damage, you exit the critter. I've escaped from inside it now, so I'm not awesome anymore."

lol. The game where you want to be eaten by the big monster!

Geb. If you're not undead or a necromancer then you're chattel (=slave first, food later, and recycled as a zombie). It's like a triple indignity!

Before you type anything, beware!, NPCs are looking over your shoulder!

Whatever you can do, they can too!

My group has a rule that all of the APs we run are canon to any future APs we run.

As a result, my version of Golarion is one where both Serpent's Skull and Shattered Star were failed, which has resulting in some... dynamic... changes to the setting. :P

The failure endings really do create some fascinating possibilities! Both those APs (non-spoilery) would really inject some interesting new power dynamics into Varisia and the Mwangi.

Since Paizo probably haven't written the new campaign setting, perhaps they might consider incorporating a few AP-failures, to create some really unexpected changes.

Personally, I think the canon setting has become a bit stale because of the PF1 philosophy of not advancing or making any major changes to it at all which has made it largely static for 10 years. Even Shattered Star which assumed the success of the previous 3 Varisian APs didn't effect any major changes (new Korvosan government & lost city discovered was about it).

Of course, most of the APs don't change all that much in the setting, because the goal is usually to avert something from happening.
Like the one where Kyonin wasn't squished by a meteor.

It would be fun to have a setting in which the PCs were assumed to have failed every AP, because then the Inner Sea would be chaos!

Disenchanters!

They don't hurt you physically, it's much worse, they target your finances! Boom! Bye-bye most expensive magic-items!

Perhaps the player was just having a bad day and your screaming tape was grating on his nerves.

I assume that scene was from the Rise of the Runelords AP which means the campaign is quite far along and you know whether this was a one-off thing where the player took his PC out of character.

His character probably shouldn't be shifted automatically to evil but there should be repercussions. You could talk with him about how to roleplay what happens next --
why did his character do it (the player could create an after the fact in-game explanation)?
does he feel any guilt? were there any witnesses?
will the PCs be attending the funeral of all those killed by giants (or thought to have been!)?
does the PC run into the wife and six kids of the dead guard who ask him what happened?
etc.
From a roleplaying perspective having a terrible secret and being wracked by guilt about it could be interesting. Maybe it motivates the character to be more heroic in the future ... not by becoming good but rather to make amends for the terrible thing he did, which fits with the CN alignment.

On the other hand, if everyone prefers to brush it under the rug, "let's pretend that never happened!", that's fine. It's just a game, so whatever works best for you.

Concept of free will being incompatible with determinism sounds really dumb to me even if I know its by definition like that :P

Like, if people made choices randomly, then they wouldn't really be real people right? I mean, you make choices you want to make, so obviously you would have made same choice in same situation with same knowledge you had every time. So hence idea of "You already chose to do that choice so you don't have free will" sounds dumb because they had to choose that thing they are going to do later on anyway

Yes, you have free will. Here is a simple test: tomorrow, instead of driving/walking your usual route, choose a slightly different one; or, if you are visiting the grocery store, pick up an item you have never bought before.

I do agree that the generic Lust, Rage, whatever demon is not very appealing. They wanted to make this more Golarion-infused, so why not come up with Golarion specific names? They did it (albeit poorly) with some other Monsters, e.g. the Ankhrav formerly known as Ankheg. It's even more limiting because if you want to have Lust demons on other Tiers, those will have to have some strange names, while also being lust demons.

In D&D 1e most of the demons were named Type I, Type II ... Type VI.

Of course, Succubus, is a creature of real world legends, so renaming it in Pathfinder seems pointless - like changing the name Pegasus to Horse, Winged or Hydra to Snake, Multi-Headed.
Yes, it's accurate, but it removes much of the flavor connecting them to old real world tales.

I will never understand why in settings where the Gods are real, verifiable, active beings in the world, some people or societies become fanatically anti-religious or anti-theistic. I can understand certain individuals not being involved with religion, disliking a specific deity, or even a country with a history of religious conflict banning organized religion, but telling the Gods "shove off and take your blessings with you" screams bad idea. Why antagonize the beings who literally keep the multiverse running? Rahadoum seems like a perfect example of why that is a terrible idea.

The gist seems to be the people of Rahadoum recognize that these powerful beings exist, but they view them as "false gods" unworthy of worship.

To understand this, imagine if the people of Rahadoum were (ancient Roman) Christians. They would view the Golarion pantheon as false, pagan gods -- deceptive spirits posing as deities.

In other words, Rahadoumi could claim that Golarion's gods are a mix of deceptive, deluded and hubristic beings who believe humans should worship them because they can grant spells and claim souls.

Just extrapolating from how, like the memories, which somehow cling or leave an echo behind for speak with dead to contact, stuff like your skills, feats, racial traits, class abilities, even languages known, don't transfer to the petitioner you become (or, perhaps more accurately, since the petitioner shares so little of 'you', the petitioner that replaces you?).

A larvae is a larvae, doesn't matter if it was a blue dragon with mythic tiers and a few levels in infernal sorcerer, or a Chelaxian commoner 1 with a sadistic streak.
All that power had to go *somewhere.*
It just seems wasteful, otherwise, and I'm really 'getting' Urgathoa for the first time. "What, become a 1 HD worm, with a human head, with no memories, no mythic levels of wizardry, nothing to show for my amazing life? Hard pass. I'll show myself out."

Another possibility is that the petitioner still has the memories but can no longer access them -- like the medical condition of amnesia.

Didn't a daemon create the first demons in Golarion lore?
And, anyway, the only difference between a daemon and a demon is the letter a.

Similarly, my mouth is designed to bite (which I will do if desperate enough to attack with my face) but is not designed to wield a knife or sword.

Teeth are also only strong in the bite. A severe frontal impact, like a punch in the face, can break or dislodge them.

So, trying to wield something in them in combat would make a mess of your face. Like the guy who glued a dagger to his nose and pretended he was a rhino.

How wold you apply an oil to your teeth other than drinking it?

With a tooth brush.

@{The posts about being in favor of most souls losing their memories}: Never could relate to people being okay with losing memories, even if such loss would relieve suffering. Some kinds of bliss are worse torture than any amount of suffering.

Philosophically it's almost atheist.

In a sense the Golarion afterlife resembles this. Unlike atheism, is does have the concept of a soul, but if that thing is stripped of its memories and thus identity, is it really any more of an equivalent of the dead individual (i.e. one's sense of self) than the corpse now rotting in the ground?

Jeven wrote:

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

I don’t really like that rule of thumb, because how silly something seems is entirely how it is presented.

Fair enough ... so if a Rogue is led to the gallows with his hands shackled behind his back, should he be able to pick up a dagger in his mouth and sneak-attack his executioner?

If the intelligent, four-legged ball of fluff can wield a dagger in its cute little mouth, shouldn't a human be able to as well?

Not sure if he could sneak attack since the executioner is aware of his presence, and it would require special training to fight like that, but if he has the special training and finds a way to flank or deny the executioner’s dex bonus to armor, then yes.

How about a Rogue with the Catch Off Guard feat and a sharp piece of metal in his mouth?

I don’t really like that rule of thumb, because how silly something seems is entirely how it is presented.

Fair enough ... so if a Rogue is led to the gallows with his hands shackled behind his back, should he be able to pick up a dagger in his mouth and sneak-attack his executioner?