Justnobodyfqwl's page

I think it's interesting trying to think of scifi archetypes that are common in media, but there aren't space for yet. Off the top of my head-

•Shapeshifting and Physical Transformation

•Nonmagical Intellectual Doctor/Scientist

•Portals and Wormholes

•llusionist with Special Effects, Holograms, etc

I think I would definitely suggest "non-class" free archetype. For characters like Iconics that are single-purpose and designed to teach you about the class, I think it muddles the mixture to start making the Ranger a Druid and vice versa. I think your options like Marshal and Herbalist are more fun and interesting than the class archetypes.

In any case, I personally don't quite understand the point of adding original races like the Shisk and Goloma.

I mean, my slight disagreement with their inclusion stems from a simple principle: they exist essentially separately and aren't integrated into the setting. For example, I don't recall these two races taking part in any other adventures. Furthermore, they were given very brief descriptions, without giving us a full introduction to them, their way of life, and much more, unlike many of the aforementioned cultures of the Mwangi Expanse. And they seem to have no connection to real mythology or imagery, allowing players to draw upon the missing information.

Ultimately, I get the feeling they exist in the setting solely to increase the overall number of playable races, and nothing more.

I don't mean to say I'm categorically against them; sometimes they do produce interesting concepts. But I'm trying to understand why they're added and then not used or developed? And are there even fans of adding new races like these?

I'm a fan of Paizo making new, original ancestries! I like mythological characters as much as the next person, but I think so many mythological creatures are built to be good monsters, more so than good player ancestries. I adore Medusa, and I'd love to play a Sthano, but you inherently have the push and pull of "the big core ancestry fantasy is doing something that's only balanced at level 17".

Meanwhile, a new Ancestry can be built for the exact tailor-made needs of a heroic fantasy rpg. Starfinder 2e pitches you a playable, fire-breathing crab- and at level 1, you're breathing fire on fools! They're able to make "the hook" of an ancestry something you can do at level 1, empower with ancestry feats, and feel like "my character's thing".

And as for them not feeling as well integrated into the setting...well... I feel as if "Paizo throws a new toy at us and then has to speed off to the next shiny new toy to keep selling toys" isn't a problem unique to Ancestries. I'm sure everyone has their own personal bugbear of a subsystem in 2e that they wish got more time or got more fleshed out.

Now, personally, I DO think there's a huge problem with the original PF2E ancestries, which is that Paizo is awful at pitching them. I feel as if every SF2E Galactic Ancestries option has 3 distinct keywords that make for an easy pitch and a fun through-line for ancestries. These guys are "Crabs + Fire-breathing + Religious". These guys are "Blood + Magic + Aloof". These guys are "Fey + Emotions + Hair". These guys "Slime + Survivalist + Multiple Brains". It works really well, and it's empowered by the fact that SF2E tends to budget more power to your Ancestry. But Shisk? Uh ..beetles + parasites + psychic? I think? Goloma are ..prey animal + eyes + ...more eyes? I can barely even remember.

I think a LOT of the original PF2E ancestries suffer from "weak signaling" and "conservative abilities". Having a memorable pitch gives you room to give them cool abilities, and giving them cool abilities nakes them more memorable.

I'm still hoping for a snail/slug based ancestry in the future. Starfinder osharus just don't do it for me at all.

I'm actually pretty curious about what you'd want from a Slug ancestry that you don't get from Osharus. I was pretty delighted to find out that "sticky snail secretion" is a core ancestry ability!

It's worth noting that in the official playtest reveal stream, we saw a Paizo employee take a Trophy nonlethally- iirc, they cut off a scrap of the cloak of spooky evil guy in a mansion? They didn't even comment on that as particularly unusual or something that you'd have to ask the DM for.

It's really funny to say that "can't be affected by the negative effects of external spells" and "can't benefit from this spell's effects because it's on a cooldown" are the same thing, because they both happen to use the word "immune". I can't imagine taking that very seriously, tho.

I'm not even joking when I say that this might be the first time I've seen someone say "yeah I think you're right" on the Paizo forums. It's a nice change of pace!

Driftbourne wrote:

kaid wrote:

In our groups for things that did not have a type that matched one of the normal recall knowledge we used computers. I figured in a setting like starfinder googling stuff you don't know should be a thing.

Using a computer or comm unit to use the infosphere for recall knowledge is especially fun with Dubious Knowledge. I hear Absalom Station is actually flat...

Golarian never existed! The MAN just wants you to think it did to sell you golarian world tickets!

I'm making this a common mainstream piece of Veskarium political propaganda. Part of an elaborate tonal shift in Veskarium state media of portraying the Pact Worlds as duplicitous and full of legal trickery, as opposed to honorable grudge-solving duels.

So, everyone KNOWS that it would make sense that Golarion never existed, and it's just another Pact World trick to sell stuff. Everyone knows how duplicitous they are!

This is a popular narrative praying on anxiety over Pulonis joining the Pact Worlds. Everyone KNOWS those Pact World people have all their schmancy agreements and bureaucratic trade deals, and they just used that to steal Pulonis from us instead of fighting over it honorably.

You've been saying things like people are White Knighting a class, or Gaslighting you over a roleplaying game. (Neither of which are using the term right, I think?)

You seem emotionally invested in this argument to a degree that makes it impossible for anyone to make any sense to you. I don't think anything that anyone will say on page 5 of arguing about this will change your mind any more than anything on page 1.

We know exactly what they are. They're suns. They're not beasts, abberations, oozes, constructs, etc. They're suns.

kaid wrote:

DemiurgeMCK wrote:

On page 70 of Galactic Ancestries, it says for the Tankmeat Goblin heritage "While you're wounded, you gain +5 status bonus to your Speeds and melee Strikes". Even with the wounded requirement, the +5 bonus to melee Strikes at level 1 seems unintentionally excessive?

On reddit the person who designed that heritage seemed to confirm that was an error and should be +1 to melee strike.

Thank you! I was wondering about that one in another thread.

deathandtaxesftw wrote:

I have confirmation from Paizo staff that the Tankmeat Goblin thing is an error and is slated for errata. I cannot say more at this time.

Reddit user Derryzumi said that they wrote the original Tankmeat Goblin, and intended for it to be a +1 Circumstance Bonus. They then deleted this message (and seemingly their entire Reddit account?), which lines up with Paizo's "dont try to communicate errata through random forum posts" policy.

Deathandtaxesftw makes those good Starfinder videos as Thraben_U, and has seemingly confirmed this in his quote.

Wow, Eldritch Bond as "wicked OP"? I'm kinda curious to why you think that, I didn't even think it was as good as the Primal Bond one you can get at the same level.

I feel as if the Entu choices are very broadly archetypical. When it says "Squox", it's a stand-in for all sorts of tiny skittering animals. Same with the "large + swim speed" one, etc.

I will always headcanon the skittermander's bizzare helpfullness yet refusal to acknoledge vesk authority as their own kind of civil disobiedence. Oooh i want to play an anticolonial skittermander operative.

My fiance has been playing exactly this. A Skittermander Operative who is part of a Skittermander helpfulness organization that harbors anticolonial sentiment and Vesk sabotage.

.... But because they're still Skittermanders, they're called "The Girl Scutes" and they DO still primarily sell cookies across the galaxy.

Combine this with blood types, their feudal governance, and their current queen's desire to expand their territory, and you get a pretty messy and flawed society, which is a nice break from all the other happy little artists and scholars in Galactic Ancestries (seriously, this book and SF2 as a whole needs more jerks).

My favorite SF2E drinking game is to read through the ancestries and take a shot every time they say "oh, and by the way, these guys LOVE making found families". Yep, one might even say that they're prone to forming ragtag "parties" of 2-5 other aliens that they form close emotional bonds and get into madcap adventures with. Maybe You, The Player should consider being friendly and familiar with your own "adventuring party"! Eh? Eh??

It's cute! And it's good advice, and it pushes players into actually getting along with each other, etc etc. It's just VERY funny seeing it pop up so much in the Player Core, then the Galaxy Guide, and now Galactic Ancestries....

The one that surprised me the most was the Ijtikri. It's one thing to say that an ancestry loves adopting and making found families, but it's another thing when they're the foot soldiers of the colonial empire. I feel like there's a lot of really messed up, complicated, and interesting ideas you could mine out of a planet of soldiers who habitually adopt war-orphans they created. What if a found family WASN'T perfect and wholesome?

This actually came up on 1e, too- the iconic Nanocyte was an Ijtikri who wanted to know more about the past of her people, but feared conflict with Vesk Society. I didn't like how easily it was breezed past with "The Vesk instructors were SUPER supportive and said this was just challenging ideas on the idea battlefield like a warrior". I love the drama and conflict that the Vesk create! It's wild to me to just completely neutralize fun and interesting conflict.

Actually, I want a new product that reprints the Shoony, but doubles down on everything people hate about it. Even fewer feats. Even more specifically emphasizing how miserable their lives are due to poor health, and even more emphasizing them as the Pug Ancestry instead of just The Dog Ancestry.

To be honest, it seems like the easiest way to do it might be the Starfinder 2e Soldier and a lot of flavoring.

I would love a product that's a deluxe collection of drag and drop encounters. Not just fights, or dungeon floors, but a custom built combination of enemies, hazards, and win conditions.

As an example, I would love something like:

Farmyard Blitz (Encounter, 2)

You get a two page spread - the left page is a full map of a barnyard battle map. The right page describes the scenario: a corporation has sent an agent to light a local farmer's barn on fire in the night, with the party sleeping inside.

It lists the statblocks used in the scenario, which are all contained in the back. (Creature: Amateur Arsonist. Hazards: Frantic Farm Fauna, Blazing Barn Bust).

It lists the multiple possible objectives in the scenario (Escape the barn, save the animals, put out the fire, catch the bad guy), with descriptions of how to achieve these goals, through either combat or victory points.

I find that I tend to have the most fun rolling initiative when I give players encounters with multiple goals that combine hazards and enemies. Providing a lot of examples of how to do so for common adventuring scenarios would be a huge boon!

I just find so much of this conversation amusing, because I've never seen Homestuck.

The Madrosarai are actually supposed to be kinda sci-fi Bloodborne inspired >_>

I'm shocked to hear that! If you're actually unfamiliar, it lines up more than you'd think at first. SF2E not only coincidentally used very specific overlapping choices in color words (Using variations of Blue/Green/etc but using straight Red), but the specific roles that the blood-color based caste system in Homestuck uses.

I can understand that the idea of "Red-Blooded=Warriors and Violence" and "Violet= Royal Purple and destined for greatness" being in both is a coincidence. Both sources are obviously doing gags on established associations with those colors. But in the Galaxy Guide, they all REALLY specifically overlap- Teals are "servants of the people" (as Teal bloods were public defenders and legal experts) and Lime bloods are "Innovators" (as Lime Bloods were an unknown factor that had to be killed because of what they were capable of).

And since they're from a part of the setting that was originally a casual home game, then they were included in SF2E and people pointed out "haha that sounds a lot like Homestuck", I always kind of figured it was just a little winking gag that was kept in. And then now that Galactic Ancestries wanted to make them more prominent and playable, it made sense that we see NEW blood colors that AREN'T the same as Homestuck, like Stone-Blooded.

But thank you for the behind the scenes input! I love getting to hear from the developers like this. I think the Bloodborne inspiration makes a lot of sense- their feats that use their magical blood to emphasize casting or make healing stronger really take on a new light knowing that.

That absolutely reads to me like it originally said something else, and then it got truncated strangely.

It probably said something like "+5 Status Bonus to your speeds and +(pick a number for this later) to your melee Strike? Come back to this one" during development, and then they trimmed it down without catching what it now said.

But also, it depends on what the actual text and feat level is, right? +5 to damage is obviously not intended at level 1, but is strong-but-reasonable at level 17 or something. We're just reacting to secondhand early spoilers out of context.

I think the biggest thing I keep in mind is that I've been disappointed and annoyed at just about every Pathfinder 2e playtest I've ever read, and satisfied with just about every final class I've read.

I remember the original Advanced Player's Guide playtest, with my excitement over the Investigator tampered by a confusion over what half the dang classes were trying to do. I remember busted Kineticist strikes and trying to balance their 1 gate vs 4 gates subclasses, I remember complaining that Exemplars didn't have Unarmed options, and I remember the awful original Guardian.

And you know what? I ate crow every time! I was incredibly skeptical every time, and every time I eventually went "oh Paizo, you got me again!"

So at this point, I find it really really hard to believe that the game's thirtieth class is going to be a nuclear disaster in a way that classes 13-29 weren't.

And as for the idea that the thirtieth class is beginning to have diminishing returns compared to classes 13-29? I mean like, objectively, yes! We're at that point in the lifespan of a system. It shouldn't be shocking that a class based TTRPG that pumps out expansions has gotten to this point, it usually happens much sooner in a game's lifespan. Every other d20 class based game about pretending to beat up dragons has much stupider, much more redundant classes much sooner.

We're just at the part of Paizo's development cycle where they're clearly very good at making content for their current game, and start branching out and thinking about what they'd do differently. The Slayer is going to make way more sense when the Pathfinder 3e Ranger looks identical to it. The Daredevil is going to make way more sense when they hard bake Props and battlefield manipulation into combat for Pathfinder 2.5e Remastered Unchained Edition or whatever.

"Hey everyone, welcome to Pathfinder Society. Would you like to tell me a little more about your characters?"

"Hi, everyone! My name is Justnobodyfqwl, and i'll be playing Naked Tinkerbell this session-"

"G~+ d$+n it, not again-"

"You said not to play a naked Sprite Sorcerer again! I'm a naked Sprite BARD now. I specialize in miniature belly dancing!"

"The restraining order was CLEAR!"

This is wonderful to read! The Paizo forums really seem to amplify mild resentment and tiny complaints and drown out everything else, so I think it's actually genuinely kinda important to talk about what was good and why. I think you're worse at understanding what's bad if you can't understand what's good.

(I can't believe you people are making me relive this stupid lore I'm still mad about. Obligate brood parasites. A whole race of obligate brood parasites, one of the most interesting scifi concepts I've ever heard and it's wasted on a stupid joke so some schmuck can make fun of their own audience)

There is nothing more quintessentially Homestuck than the author dropping an insane and creative piece of lore and world building that is explicitly only there in order to drive their true passion: testing the patience of the audience.

And it's important to observe the splash damage impact that Homestuck has had on other pop culture, as well. The juggernaut franchise of Undertale and Deltarune is the most popular thing out right now made by a Former Homestuck Creator. But there's dark horse candidates, too- the Locked Tomb series was written by the author of a beloved Homestuck fanfiction I read as a child.

In more Starfinder related news....The "standardized ancestry feats" are a very slick way of streamlining a lot of options and saving on page space. This is clearly one of those things that they do by necessity as an experiment in SF2E, and we'll see it integrated into the Core of Pathfinder 3e.

I think it's good when Paizo designs features in a way that naturally incentivizes thinking about fights happening in complex 3D space. I think Paizo understands that a big appeal of the 2e system is that it's Tactical Wizard Chess.

I noticed this first with Starfinder 2e, which has a lot of abilities that made me have to think about combat areas differently. The increased importance of cover, the presence of strong low level flight, and the ranged meta in general really made me rethink how I had to design fights. And I think that was intentional from Paizo! They repeatedly mention these aspects in feats and abilities, and it naturally pushes DMs to consider it more.

You can even see this in Pathfinder more recently. The Runesmith and ESPECIALLY The Necromancers are much more "3-Dimensional" classes and ask you to think about battlefield positioning. (That high level Runesmith feat that lets you physically draw lines between your runes and hurt anyone the line touches is ADORABLE).

This is why I think Props are really cool. They naturally push for a player to seek out physical objects in the world around them, and for the DM to plant them there. I think it pretty objectively makes fights more interesting, and it does so in a naturalistic way through your class features. I think it should be a pretty aggressively pushed ability; because the more essential it is, the more rewarding it is to lean into, and thus the more it justifies its own existence.

YuriP, that's a very well thought out and logically consistent argument. I really appreciate that it emphasizes the importance of language and nomenclature in communicating ideas (and the impact it has on advertising for a company), rather than just trying to be "technically correct" or argue over definition in order to make one game look better than another.

In short, it has absolutely no place in an online ttrpg forum that's both talking about System Edition Wars AND Paizo vs WOTC. I'm going to have to chase you with a pitchfork and torch now, I hope you understand.

I think that ".5" is a really unhelpful designation, because it's something that Wizards tends to do the most- the big, re-release overhaul of a System. They did 3.5, 5.5, etc.

But PAIZO'S equivalent of that is different. Paizo has a specific pattern of releasing the game, gathering the complaints, then doing a "softer" kind of relaunch that's presented as "optional rules"- and then those core changes usually end up being baked into the next new system. You see this all the time- the 3-Action economy started off as a prototype variant rule for PF1E, the same way that the PF2E healing system is clearly an evolution of SF1E's Stamina system.

That's right everyone....this is PATHFINDER 2e: UNCHAINED! :D

I like the concept and base structure. But it is probably overpowered right now (for example, boost with a D12 weapon, being undetectable, D10 hit points with Con as your key attribute)

This is, unfortunately, the kind of thing that would take a LOT of playtesting to get balanced. The kind of playtesting that unfortunately only Paizo can really do.

But it's a good first step

I hope we get a chance to playtest the class and see if it's as busted as it seems! :D

I wanted to make the Greater Transformation of the most damage-focused Form be flashy and exciting, so the temporary Boost and Kickback traits are big sources of flat damage. I'm hoping they're balanced out by either the action cost of a Greater Transformation + Boost, or by the feat cost needed to bypass it.

But even then, without Strength as a KAS, a Shifter should be doing less melee damage than a Photon-Mode Solarian or a Melee Soldier- as intended!

Similarly, I originally had them at 8hp + Con, and I would do so if they were a Pathfinder class. But being at a disadvantage in a Ranged Meta means that I wanted them to be a little tougher in the face of a lot of gunfire trying to close the gap.

I see what you mean about reflavoring Kineticists, too- they were a big influence on the class, and you can really tell that my Shifter is a Kineticist/Monk/Exemplar hybrid. I was inspired by how Kineticists trade raw damage in exchange for a customizable attack that always works, and cool, reliable abilities.

Thank you for your feedback!

Only just started reading it so I can't give any useful critical feedback yet, but I really love how much inspiration you took from both the PF1 shifter and SF1 evolutionist. The biomechanical perk of being able to install tools into yourself is so cool!

Thank you so much for giving it a shot! Even just little thoughts about the flavor and feel of the class help just as much big critical feedback.

I always really love when a PC has a Hammer and everything around them looks like a Nail. I love being able to always have a weird and fun little ability that lets you interact with the world differently. (My first PC had Mage Hand & Minor Illusion, so it felt almost like Portal- just infinite use of a weird puzzle-solving trick)

And most of all, I thought it was VITALLY important to be able to do that quintessential Cyborg trope- the "Inspector Gadget Special"! Their finger pops open to reveal a lockpick! Their arm pops open to reveal a hacking toolkit they plug into the computer! Their eyes zoom in and scan for fingerprints while they pull out a Fire Extinguisher from their chest!

I think these kind of resonant shapeshifting tropes and powers are a HUGE part to fulfilling the class fantasy. On my first draft like this, I'm a lot more concerned about "do you feel like you can do the fun things a Shapeshifter should be able to do" than pure numbers stuff like the saving throw progression.

I've been tinkering with it long enough- this thread has really helped me articulate what I do and don't think a Shifter would look like in the 2e System. I wanted to sketch out a non-caster Utility Martial that has a strong mechanic and thematic identity.

I hope you guys enjoy this rough first draft, and would love to hear your notes!

Hi, everyone! I see a lot of people asking why Paizo hasn't done a PF2E Shifter class yet. These designs are usually focused on the Druid, Battle Form spells, etc. Well, I have a sneaking suspicion that they would do a Shapeshifting-Focused Martial as an SF2E Class instead- probably using a lot of similar mechanics to existing PF2E Classes.

I wanted to sketch out what I thought it would look like, and I ended up making an entire Homebrew Class built around being a Shapeshifting, Transhumanist Utility Martial!

I call it "The Shifter" like the PF1E Class because it's a catchy name, but it's a whole new class that takes inspiration from The Shifter, the SF1E Evolutionist, and all sorts of Shapeshifting Pop Culture. (I'm not married to the name at all- should it be named after an existing class, or have a brand new name?) It's a class built around the mechanical space of Unarmed Strikes, both passive partial transformations & big flashy temporary transformations, and customizable Reactions. 

It's my first custom class for 2e, with 3 Subclasses, 10 "Forms" (with passive abilities, bespoke unarmed strikes, and "Greater Transformations"), and 50+ Feats from 1-20. 

I hope you guys enjoy this rough first draft, and would love to hear your notes!

You guys are a bad influence. I had been tinkering on a proper writeup of what I think a standalone class 2e Shifter would look like. But after this thread, it's been kicked into overdrive. Now I have a full martial with dozens of feats that I can't play!

I think it's genuinely kind of an accomplishment to manage to turn even a thread arguing about the benefits of adventuring with your coochie out into a back and forth rules minutia debate.

In Pathfinder, I feel like it's legitimate to not wear clothing in a universe that once semi-canonically crossed over with Red Sonja and Tarzan. Those are the Ur-Texts of Semi-To-Mostly-Nude adventuring heroes. Maybe we need an archetype that gives you an AC boost when rocking the Chainmail Bikini?

In Starfinder, polite society frowns upon it more, but I think there's actually more chances for it. It would be really easy to just only use holographic projector based "clothing". I figure most Astrazoans would WANT to avoid the same distinct pieces of clothing that they can be recognized by. Maybe the Nudist archetype would give you a boost to using the SF2E-Exclusive "Livestream" exploration activity as well?

Side note...it's REALLY stupid that "Advanced Weapon" is both a proficiency group AND an unrelated weapon improvement level...Enhance Weapon making a weapon "advanced" caused so much confusion until a player noticed.

Now that part REALLY gets to me. Such a simple but obnoxious problem I keep running into.

Oh, to be honest I thought that was intentional too. Like of course they wanted the Slayer to have a kill ability to push players towards killing. But they also have an ability that gives the "hunt a specific target" class an ability that makes them less "feelsbad" against a bunch of little guys. I think that was a clever little bit of design! You get the satisfaction of both weedwhacking all of the little imps in a fight and also sniffing your quarry down by the scent of their blood.

This is something I've felt too. It seems .. shockingly hard to actually deal prop damage at low levels, at least on paper. There's a lot of repositions and prone, but the shoves feel limited. And while I think props work really well as something you position yourself around, they feel a lot harder to get you AND an enemy lined up perfectly with a prop.

I think either prop damage could be more consistent (maybe it's a smaller amount but is dealt whenever you do a manuever?), or... They lean into it being risky and difficult, and pump up the damage it does and make it a lot more risk-reward.

I think the Slayer is not "a class about monster hunting that has trophies stapled on", it's "a class for people who go into TTRPGS asking how they can take leftover monster guts and make better equipment".

I talked about this a bit in another thread, but I'm someone who has never ever consumed any amount of Bloodbourne, Monster Hunter, or Witcher. So I notice that a LOT of players online come into TTRPGS asking to play exactly those three things. But it's also important to ask why THOSE franchises do what they do.

This is a core part of the gameplay loop of the Monster Hunter franchise. In there, it taps into the old idea of hunters taking mementos from the killing of a particularly dangerous creature, in order to remember it and show off their skill. It highlights how dangerous these beasts are: even their remains are effective weapons at killing other monsters. And it reinforces a core gameplay loop about killing monsters, getting better equipment, fighting tougher monsters- the same gameplay loop that Pathfinder 2e has.

It's a core part of the Witcher franchise. In there, it's my understanding that the superhuman abilities and strange poultices they use serve to narratively reinforce an idea- they're very good at what they do, but they're also kinda weird and monstery themselves. This is playing into the old idea of a hunter being someone on the outskirts of society, who has to think so much like an animal that they become animalistic themselves. And now, a Slayer using the trophies of a monster is taking on the attributes of their studied quarry.

I think you gotta look at trophies in the context of the class's influences, and greater archetypical portrayals of hunters.

Maybe they could do something with a shorter version as the base, and get bonuses if you can dedicate more time to studying the target?

I like this idea because it's two pronged:

1) You establish a baseline level of competency where your ability always at least functions

2) You incentive specific behavior and mechanically reward players for performing actions that make them "feel like a Slayer".

I think a lot of the best Signature Class Actions have both of these traits. You want something that always Does The Thing, but also pushes players to get into their party role.

Huh, that's funny to see. *quietly updates my false villain kitsune necromancer and false hero tanuki disaster scam couple to have the tanuki be a Slayer instead of a Swashbuckler*

Now hold on, forget the rest of this thread, I wanna talk about a Kitsune Necromancer and Tanuki Slayer power couple immediately.

I recall Trevor throwing a bunch of daggers in the Castlevania Netflix show so I think they probably took it from there? That also explains why its sanctified.

Those are just the daggers from the Castlevania games themselves.

The image of a vampire hunter with a coat full of stakes, silver daggers, and esoterica is a pretty old one in fiction.

20 years ago, we had Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing and Wesley Snipes as Blade sporting very similar looks. Long before that, various film adaptation of Dracula had some variant of this look- Peter Crushing as Van Helsing is a minor example.

But these are all lifting from the same shared pop culture idea of a shadowy, long-cloaked, chaser of evil and undeath: Robert E. Howard's character Solomon Kane. This doesn't really surprise me from the same game that once had a semi-canonical crossover with Tarzan & John Carter Of Mars.

I think this is wonderful feedback! I do agree that a lot of the time, Paizo is very cautious when it comes to the "big cool signature ability" of your class. And the Slayer really wants to be the "monster hunter who becomes monster-like" as part of the core class fantasy. The ability to use trophies to copy signature bespoke Monster Abilities would be delightful.

I also think these threads get a bit silly but OP feels kind of bad faith idk if we really need to try to dunk on people who don't like certain class names.

I feel like "every time, people insist that Paizo needs to change the names during the playtest, which is something they've never done and never matters" is the most gentle and good-faith ribbing I could possibly do. I think it's silly and is tilting against windmills, but I don't hold it against anyone. I've seen people on these forums say nastier things about people's intelligence and moral character over disagreements about how to interpret rules interactions.

Oh, I only suggested Starfinder because SF2E is fully compatible with PF2E- you mentioned being out of the loop for a few years, so you might have missed that. I think the Mechanic does a better job of capturing the "feel" of Ratchet than an Inventor, but that might just be personal taste.

Yeah, I would say that you're probably better off doing something Lombax-inspired rather than trying to ape it directly. I think you could pick any ancestry that screams "i'm smaller and pluckier than the rest of the galaxy" and capture the feel well. I might suggest a Ysoki/"ratfolk"- they're small, fuzzy, and known for tinkering with stuff without trying to be a 1:1 Lombax.

Yeah, if we had to take every slapdash naming and design decision that PF1E made like religious gospel, then we'd be carrying a huge burden for the rest of time. You gotta remember that we're at a point where there's a massive chunk of PF2E players that have never even played Pre-Remaster PF2E, much less PF1E.

I've been replaying the first game for the first time since I was a kid. I absolutely think you're best off using the Starfinder 2e Mechanic class, currently in playtest. It has everything you need: Big, colorful guns with weird effects and high firepower; a customizable Robot Companion that can be made to talk, fly, and scout on its own; and a core class feature that lets you whack something with a comically oversized wrench until it does something different.

My first impression of the Slayer is that it's interesting seeing how much it leans into a very common kind of Class Fantasy that I've seen a lot more these days.

I've noticed a really big uptick in players wanting a very specific kind of "Monster Hunter Class"- someone who has every trick up their sleeve, a badass signature cool weapon, and an encyclopedic knowledge of monsters and the supernatural.

Obviously, the big pop culture touchstone that I think a lot of people are drawn to is The Witcher. While I'm sure there's people who are trying to recreate Buffy The Vampire Slayer too, 9 times out of 10 it's some variation of "how can I play The Witcher". But you're also likely to see a lot of similar Pop Culture fantasy stories thrown in too- I've noticed that these requests usually have a lot of elements from the Monster Hunter & Bloodbourne games, as well.

Before The Slayer, people often pointed players at The Thaumaturge for the go-to way to play this in PF2E. Unfortunately, I think this is kind of a total mistake! The Thaumaturge class description and fantasy SOUNDS like it's supposed to be that kind of Monster Hunting Class, and a lot of players go into it expecting that. But I've realized that the Thaumaturge is trying something different- it's trying to be the Sympathetic Magic Of Everyday Objects class, with monster weaknesses being just one part of that.

So I want to congratulate The Slayer for just outright screaming from the rooftops: this IS the Witcher, Monster Hunter, Bloodbourne style class. This IS for players who want to be a cool badass who's a little monstery themselves. You have a big bundle of Just The Right Thing you can use to apply onto your weapons to target a weakness. You kill things, take their best parts, and use them to make yourself more badass. You even literally get a feat just for saying "I wanna specialize in Bloodbourne combination weapons"!

I think this class feels like a laser guided wrapped present to an extremely common character fantasy, and the pop culture that inspired it. It's a much stronger thematic hook than I expected, and helps feel like this class justifies its own existence. Hats off to the Paizo team!

Well done! Henceforth the classes shall be renamed (checks a thesaurus) Exhibitionist and Murderess (gendered).

I don't know about YOU guys, but if I see an RPG with a class named "The Exhibitionist", I'm picking that every time. I suppose that's one way to Create A Distraction!

Hi everyone, every time there's a playtest thread, for some reason, someone gets really specifically annoyed at the names of the classes. They insist that there's something horribly wrong with the name, and insist on an interchangable synonym that sounds slightly worse.

I thought I'd get ahead of that by making this thread. It was going to happen eventually, so I thought I'd save everyone the trouble and do it now. Truth be told, I like the names! But I figure since this happens every playtest, it's good to get it out of the way.

*Monkey's paw curls and 4e is remade.* I would be down for this though, lol

Paizo DID remake D&D 4e already, it's called Pathfinder 2e. The first time I opened the rules for 2e and read focus points, I laughed so hard that it alerted people. There's something so funny about the company that existed to compete with 4e just looping around to reinventing "at will, encounter, and daily powers".