Kane Edwards's page

You have been awoken quite suddenly while in the city of Absalom by a summons from Venture-Captain Ambrus Valsin, requesting your immediate presence in his private office at the Grand Lodge.

You have all received a letter from Venture-Vaptain Zongnoss, requesting your assistance.

Hey gang, hopefully you know how this works. Post here with the following:

Player Name:
Character Name:
Character Number:
Level:
Slotted Faction:
Downtime:

In addition, please include your AC, HP, and saving throw modifiers in your header, in whatever format most pleases you. I'll default to using your character's avatar for battle maps, but if you have a preferred image, link that in your post as well.

Hey gang, hopefully you know how this works. Post here with the following:

Player Name:
Character Name:
Character Number:
Level:
Slotted Faction:
Downtime:

In addition, please include your AC, HP, and saving throw modifiers in your header, in whatever format most pleases you. I'll default to using your character's avatar for battle maps, but if you have a preferred image, link that in your post as well.

Behold, volume 1 of my magnum opus. New volumes, each representing one level of spells (except vol. 9, which is levels 9 and 10) will be posted on Wednesdays and Sundays. MAGIC MARCH Y'ALL. I'll also collect them into a handy Table of Contents post once the full thing is done.

This month we tackle one of the most controversial classes, and also I think one of the strongest: the champion. Next month, I do spells. All the spells. Every single spell across every single hardcover. And I'm going to have to commit to that for the rest of PF2's publishing life. Just end me now.

Fresh off the presses, we dive into the world of animal companions, everyone's favorite murder-fluffs.

Presenting the sulgist, an isolationist woodland ancestry of intelligent physical powerhouses.

Behold, an archetype! Designed for use by rangers and non-rangers alike to grant or enhance Hunt Prey for specific uses as well as tracking down specific targets.

You are the hunter. They are the prey.

As always, feedback is welcome. Just like last month, I have next month's guide up and ready to go on Patreon, and if you want more than just guides you can follow the blog for weekly feats, homebrew rules, and more.

This week, I go full PF1, because everybody gets a chance an animal companion. Check it out here.

This week, we begin a series delving into a setting I've been working on with a friend for almost four years and its ancestries.

Ancestries of Aisen: The Tyrn

In my latest blog post, we experiment with some weapon specific feats, designed to take advantage of the fighter's enhanced weapon proficiency progression.

Hey gang, you may remember me from the vigilante guide. Well I'm back not only with a fighter guide, but a full on blog and a pledge to write guides for every Pathfinder Second Edition class! Take a look, feel free to follow, and if you really enjoyed it and want to get every guide a month early, I have a Patreon too.

There are 4 Focus Powers in the core rulebook that offer healing.

Lay on Hands is the most ubiquitous, offering 6 hp per spell level for only one action, albeit only at melee range. It also offers a small AC bnus if used in combat.

Wholeness of Body is not as good, being self-only and offering 8 hp per level -8 for 1 action but only applying to yourself.

Soothing Ballad comes on significantly later at 13th level, but offers a burst of 1d8 per spell level to yourself and 10 allies along with versatility for other options.

And finally, after the errata Goodberry clocks in as the best of them all, offering 1d6+4 per level for two actions that can be precast and requiring only 1 action to consume, and you can split it up however you like.

In addition to their relative action efficiency, all of these focus powers can be used out of combat for cost and time efficient healing, and on top of that because of how Refocus can be combined with other activities as they apply, it can be argued a champion of a deity of healing like Sarenrae can Refocus by treating wounds, making it even more time efficient.

Now let's look at the witch's Life Boost. At maximum use, we're getting 10 hp per level spread across 10 rounds for the cost of 11 actions (2 to initially cast and 9 rounds of sustain/cackle). In combat, this plays out for, as an example, a character with a witch in a level 10 party healing for 5 hp per round which, as anyone who's played a level 10 combat will tell you, is absolutely nothing. Out of combat, this comes out to slightly more than any other Focus Power, except that unlike those powers, you can't use them repeatedly on the same target.

All in all this makes Life Boost terrible in general, providing very little in combat value and not enough out of combat value to be worth spending the lesson on it, but especially when you put it next to the far more valuable other Focus Powers, it just makes a Lesson of Healing witch look pathetic by comparison.

Death is a part of life, and also the food upon which we GMs dine.

Please include:
Name of PC:
Class/Level:
Adventure:
Catalyst:
Story:

No automatically scaling proficiency bonus. No level-to-level increases by skill ranks. Nothing. If you don't touch a skill between level 1 and level 20 it should be the exact same. Now that I've got your attention, please put your pitchforks down and hear me out.

As it stands, the only differences between an untrained person and a specialist of the same level (which should be every party) are Proficiency, Ability Score, and Magic/Item bonuses. Level-to-skill, then, only applies when determining your likelihood of succeeding at a given check. A level 15 character is much more likely to succeed at scaling a wall than a level 5 character. My question is... why?

I've seen the reasoning behind proficiency scaling with level. I even agree with it. I like the power fantasy of a badass character wiping the floor with a swarm of lower level characters because they're so much more experienced. So having attacks, AC, spell DCs, and saving throws all just automatically scale with level makes sense to me. But having skill checks and skill DCs scaling with level doesn't, as much.

Taking out level based scaling altogether puts more emphasis on training and ability score. Right now, the highest innate difference in bonuses you can get from a skill is +17 (difference of 5 from training, 8 from ability scores (8 vs. 24), and 4 from an item). That difference of 17 is going to feel a lot more impactful when is a -3 vs. +14 bonus, rather than 17 vs. 34, especially when you're still running into the same DCs for comparable challenges that you were nineteen levels ago and they're still relevant to both of you. Furthermore, it makes all those little bonuses matter that much more. Every point you manage to acquire to improve your skill bonus isn't just another improvement against equal level things, where lower level things you now likely disregard anyway. It makes you better at everything related to the skill, from opening the tough little lockbox you found in that first level dungeon to cracking the king's secret vault open at level 15.

And honestly, I think the most prominent thing it will do is let Paizo keep their desire to keep bonus disparity tight, without forcing a sense of constant improvement on every single thing for every single character, whether they want to or not. It makes progression and specialization feel like progression and specialization, and not just like a checkbox. It makes improvement in skills a choice, rather than an assumption. And most importantly, most importantly of all, it puts an end to (or at least severely limits) the idea that beating up goblins in the wilderness for three weeks with no library access makes you better at anything unrelated to beating up goblins.

In first edition Pathfinder, it was occasionally pointed out that tying knowledge of certain cities was based on Knowledge (local), even if the city in question wasn't remotely local. Having a deep and intricate understanding of the inner workings of your home town somehow made you knowledgeable about every city in the world to the same degree, so long as you were physically in that city. This isn't a thing that often came up, mind, but it was one of those strange quirks of system that really only functioned because we had no good, specific way to represent it.

Well, we do now. It's called Lore. And I think that should be embraced.

Proposal: Every character should be given the Lore skill for their hometown or possibly home nation (multiples at GM discretion, for, say, the character that emigrated from Sargava to Sandpoint a few years ago). Checks made to know things about certain cities or towns are based on those Lores, with anyone who doesn't have that lore able to use Diplomacy to gather information in its place. Society then becomes used for nobility, government structures, and other knowledge checks based on things you would learn from reading a book about the place, as well as identifying humanoids.

There's been some discussion about spell lists in PF2, particularly a bit of contention between those who want classes to have unique spell lists, and those who want to see them codified based on casting type. Up until now I've been in the latter group, but then I had a thought: what if it was kinda both?

Begin with the Arcane list. Okay, easy, wizards and sorcerers draw from the arcane list. But bards? We'll set bards aside for the moment. Clerics and paladins are going to draw from the Divine list, Druids and rangers will draw from the Nature list. Our 4th list? Well, that's Music. Or Psychic. Or something that suits the bard better. Either way, there's our four spell lists.

Now, let's look forward to the Advanced Player's Guide 2. In addition to all its fun new content, it introduces four new caster classes: the witch, the inquisitor, the summoner, and the psychic. Psychic is, of course, joining bards in the psychic spell list, and inquisitor is going to use the divine spell list. And the witch and summoner will start walking towards the Arcane list... and then veer off through this new door, into the Pact list.

Essentially, instead of your magic type dictating various minutia like what kind of scrolls you can use, whether you need a divine focus or not, or the different components of PF1's psychic casters, your casting type instead dictates what spell list you use. This keeps the spell lists relatively clean and organized, and prevents snafus like, say, continuing to call something the Cleric spell list even though no fewer than three different classes all use that spell list.

To establish, up front, the rules as written for Pathfinder Society:

This seems straightforward. Paladins (and inquisitors, but I care less about them and don't feel like typing out both so just assume they're included) must have a deity in Pathfinder Society. Except... that's not really in line with Golarion canon. Per James Jacobs:

Of all the classes in Golarion... only clerics MUST have a patron deity, since only clerics get their spells from a patron deity.

Other divine spellcasters CAN have patron deities, and in some cases (inquisitors and paladins) they USUALLY have patron deities, but that's not always the case.

I'm not sure where and when I said all paladins need deities, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't and that's a misquote.

And more recently:

The wording is a bit loosy-goosy, but nothing in there should be taken as "All paladins must worship deities." Just "MOST paladins should worship deities," if anything.

So, in accordance with Golarion lore, an atheist paladin, or a paladin who venerates a god like Cayden Cailean or Milani, is entirely possible. So why, exactly, are paladins still required to worship a deity? There isn't a mechanical benefit for being an atheist, and worshipping an alignment inappropriate deity for another mechanical boon like an obedience or trait is already forbidden by the paladin's mechanics. In universe, the Pathfinder Society has no reason to turn away an atheist paladin. The restriction makes no real sense and is, in fact, kind of arbitrary when you think about it.

Removing this restriction from Society would be pretty low impact, wouldn't affect any current builds negatively, and open up roleplaying opportunities for no real negative cost. So I come here with a question: what actual purpose does restricting paladins (and inquisitors) this way serve, and if there really isn't any strong practical purpose, why not get rid of it?

Let's say I have Slashing Grace and Quick Draw, and I'm using a quickdraw shield. Could I take a free action to put away the shield, make my attacks with Slashing Grace active (because my hand is now free), and then free action don the shield again? Perhaps less drastically, without the Quick Draw feat could I make my attacks then don my shield as a swift, then put it away at the start of next round before making my attacks again?

Similarly, it's very clear from the FAQ ruling that Slashing Grace and Spell Combat are incompatible... but what about Slashing Grace and Spellstrike? To cast a spell with somatic components, you must be using your off hand. But the attack you make from casting that spell is a different action, a free action you can take at any other point in the turn.

Or, for the simplest and yet most obvious of questions, what if I slide down a rope with my off hand, land on the ground, release the rope, and then Slashing Grace attack?

The crux of my question is, at what point does your other hand have to be "free and unoccupied:" for the entire round, or just when taking the actual actions involved in attacking?

Welcome to the Heroic Compendium Open Playtest! We at the newly minted Fedora Ferret Games (so, me) have been hard at work on this project for the last month or so, and while it still has a bit of a ways to go, the mechanics of the book are ready for playtesting! So, what exactly is the Heroic Compendium you ask? Well I'll tell you!

From a broader perspective the Heroic Compendium is a book of mechanics and NPCs wrapped up in a setting agnostic package, sort of like a more compact Villain Codex, designed exclusively for vigilantes. Each section contains a statblock and lore for a heroic vigilante NPC, meant to showcase a new set of talents designed for them.

From a more "I have a compulsion to fix things" perspective, I went into this after a conversation with a friend about how, ultimately, the vigilante's archetypes aren't really that great. I wanted to tackle that and improve on them, give them something more unique. So while I've created one new archetype and a smattering of general talents, somewhere in the range of 80% of the book is dedicated to expanding the unique talent list for the brute, cabalist, gunmaster, zealot and warlock.

So, I invite you to check it out, try it out, and give feedback. While I have turned commenting on I would greatly prefer it if that were used only to point out the inevitable typos and editing errors that come from having only one person on the job, and if actual feedback were to come in on this thread or messaged to me directly.

Lastly, I want to give a big shoutout of thanks to anyone who participates. Y'all are the only reason this has any possibility of working.

... Trinia is one of my favorite NPCs and holy crap is her face ugly here. This makes me cry.

So Nargrym's Steel Hand mandates that its owner make a Will save or go on a murderous rampage. The wording implies that they have to do this vs. every giant they see. So naturally, there was some cause for concern when, at the beginning of Part 3, the party saw what the book literally describes as "countless" giants. Personally, my party was set, because I'd implied when our dwarf received it and put it on that while it wasn't a truly sentient item it had some limited awareness, and wasn't going to compel its wielder to certain death. But I wonder, how did you other parties handle it?

(on a related note, Ferin. I have plans for her. I would like the dwarf to not murder her on sight, which will be a difficult proposition already given that he was KOS for all giants before the damn thing. Suggestions?)

Hey all. I've created a handful of archetypes I can't see myself trying to get published, so I figured I'd post them here for public consumption and criticism. To summarize, it's a set of seven wizard archetypes, each of which trades more opposition schools for stronger versions of their chosen specialty school (except for divination, which is less stronger and more bizarre).

Enjoy. And please, if you have any critiques I'm happy to hear them.

Lemme set the scene for you: during the Bakarra breakout, the cleric of Pharasma was on rowing duty, everyone else was above deck. Bakarra busted through the door, causing everyone to run in fear. The cleric, I should mention, has the Flowing subdomain. Se walked up to Bakarra, in full attacking range, knowing perfectly well that she would get mauled to death as a result, and touched him with Go with the Flow (Flowing subdomain power that imparts calm emotions). Bakarra, being a neutral creature with no particular reason to dislike this one specific human, calmed down and started huffing. Now as a note, Go with the Flow, at that point, has a 2 round duration, so I made the player talk fast. She had no handle animal, but did have really good diplomacy, so I allowed her to roll it (since magical beast) at a major penalty for not sharing a language.

Nat 20. Total 30. Take away 10 and that's still 20, which with an unfriendly attitude towards her at that point and a terrible charisma score, was enough to take it to indifferent. Rolled again. Another super high roll, enough to make it helpful, and now they're best friends.

The party has since negotiated with Bloodtusk to let them take Bakarra with them, so I'm just going to adjust the difficulty of encounters in the future to account for him, and when they hit 11 let the cleric take Leadership with a monster cohort. No followers though.

Just thought I'd share an interesting anecdote.

I've just come back from A Bid for Alabastrine, spoilers are tagged below but here's a warning ahead of time anyway.

I enjoy Pathfinder Society. I honestly do, it gives me a chance to play a variety of characters and builds and meet/hang out with people I wouldn't otherwise. But a lot of times, it can feel very much like a combat simulator with the occasional puzzle. The fact that every scenario seems to revolve heavily around combat encounters and most leave little room for resolving a situation through roleplaying can get very annoying at times. However, every so often we'll get scenarios like Library of the Lion, which can be completed without a single combat if played right, or Faithless and Forgotten Parts 2 and 3 which do involve some opportunities to roleplay and respond creatively to a situation. And then came A Bid for Alabastrine, which demonstrated my main issue here in a way that I've never been able to pin down in words before.

And this is a common and recurring trend in Pathfinder Society scenarios that I've noticed time and time again: mechanically, PFS scenarios are written for a roll-playing game, not a roleplaying game. To succeed at them, the goal is to make sure you have the highest numbers. No incentive or reward is given for being a roleplayer, but every incentive is given to be a munchkin. Even when a scenario does allow for creative thinking and roleplaying, even if you hit every single point on why an NPC should do something and make the most convincing argument ever, if you fall short of the DC 20 Diplomacy check then whatever you said is completely disregarded. Decisions are rewarded based entirely on what benefits the scenario; I was chewed out several months ago for, as a paladin, executing an undead at the end of a scenario who offered knowledge to the society in exchange for life and costing us a prestige point, despite the fact that no paladin should have let him live.

I guess what I'm saying is, Pathfinder Society scenarios don't have much support for the roleplaying solution as opposed to just rolling a die and getting a result. I realize that this post is largely me being petty over losing 2 prestige because of some bad rolls, but to met it's more an illumination of how hard it is to treat Pathfinder Society as a roleplaying game sometimes when there's no incentive whatsoever to actually roleplay.

As you make your way through the streets, a lean-faced man hiding behind a long cowl slips alongside. “A moment of your time,” he says and pulls you aside, into the shadows of a nearby alley. “It seems we have two things in common, an eagerness to participate in good celebration, and this…” He punctuates his sentence by holding out an elaborately carved wayfinder, the type only granted to Pathfinders of great importance. “I assure you, its mine,” he adds quickly, closing the device and tucking it back into the folds of his cloak with a quick, easy motion. Then he continues, “I know a good number of you are already planning to attend the festivities this evening. I need but a casual favor. An old associate of mine, Charvion Eater-of–Bones is set to make an elaborate display of some artifact he claims to have recovered. I’ve not had contact with him in a year or so, and I’ve a curious feeling about the event. More I cannot say; however, I’d appreciate you keeping an eye on whatever stunt he’s considering. He’s a natural charlatan that one. Just keep an eye out is all—nothing serious. Don’t let him know that you’re watching, and do not approach the artifact during the showing. Most importantly, tell no one of this conversation.”

First order of business over here: https://app.roll20.net/join/1447848/MLIwHw

This table will be using Roll20 as our virtual tabletop. If you'd like a particular image to serve as your token PM me a link to it, otherwise I'll be using your character's forum avatar.

Yo.
Tyranius

Lithrac

Bluedove

EvilMinion

Curaigh

CariMac

Please check in and confirm the character you're using with the following template.

Player:
Character:
PFS #:
Faction:
Day Job Check:

I am a watchful guardian over my city...

As the request at the end of the guide says, I want any and all feedback you can give me. Ideas for things to include, criticism of my analysis, salt because of something in the vig you don't like (I don't expect to incorporate it into the guide but I'm running low and making pasta tomorrow night). Throw as much at me as you like.

So I've seen enough casual references to Cunning Caster for psychic casters to know that the general consensus of the Pathfinder community is that, because psychic magic doesn't have any verbal or somatic components, you automatically avoid two of the four negative penalties for the Cunning Caster feat. However, the GM for a game I'm in is insisting that no, you still suffer those penalties for thought and emotion components (reasoned as, you're concentration on those makes it more difficult for you to focus on the bluff). What I'm wondering is if there's some form of official ruling that would indicate that those components aren't substituted, whether specifically about Cunning Caster or about some related thing I can use to show precedent.

Thanks.

So, while working out the math on the benefits of casting Mind Thrust II versus Undercasting for Mind Thrust I and Intensifying (for the record, starting at level 7 undercasting and intensifying is statistically better), I realized there's three potential possibilities with how magical lineage interacts with undercasting.

1: All of the spells in the line are theoretically considered the same spell, just able to be cast in different slots. This would mean Magical Lineage (Mind Thrust) applies to all of them, which is overpowered as hell, especially with the two-trait combo.
2: When undercasting a spell, it's considered the original spell even though it uses the damage and spell slot of the lower level (based on the wording of the Undercasting entry). For instance, when I undercast Mind Thrust V as Mind Thrust III, it's still considered Mind Thrust V. This would mean that Magical Lineage would be useless on the lower levels of the spell as soon as you replaced them, but would have the same implication as option 1 as soon as you hit the higher level.
3: This is all ridiculous, each spell level is considered a different spell and I can only apply Magical Lineage to one, but it applies whether I'm casting the original or undercasting a higher level.

I'm like 90% sure it's number three because either of the other two cases is kind of ridiculous, but I just want to make sure.

Currently in a Council of Thieves game with some friends, and while discussing the Linguistics skill it came up that Azlanti is considered the deadest of dead languages. Our GM looked at us funny, double checked her book, and then informed us that the director, stage manager, and diva in the play we're doing all know Azlanti. So, uh... yeah. Why? For that matter, how? I did some extra research and from what I can tell, Azlanti's so completely dead that no one's even 100% sure anyone speaks it anymore.