Kasoh's page

I'm not privy to the business numbers, but I wonder if releasing the APs less often as hardcovers would alleviate some of this. The GMs get a single book per adventure, with both low and high level content. No more high level books sitting on the shelf never getting sold, higher initial price point and hopefully more profit per book. Looking at it, this appears to be the tack of the Starfinder AP line, so I guess in a relatively short time we should have an answer as to if it works.

As I understood it, the consistent income of the AP line's monthly releases is what keeps most of Paizo's bills paid between their hardcover releases. If adventure content was also on a quarterly release schedule, something like a world wide shipping upset could, in fact, be catastrophic for the company.

There is also the notion that Hardcover adventurer releases are more stressful on the developers (Though is this is because the compilations are usually in addition to their regular duties or something else, not sure)

And, Selling a 4 book AP at 25 dollars is 100 dollars. You'd be hard pressed to find people willing to spend 100 dollars on a single hardcover book when the game's core rule book is only 60. Not to mention that hardcovers cost more money to print, so the margin in them is finer as well.

More work for less money and less consistent income leads one to think that this is probably unlikely. But, I'm not Paizo's target audience anymore, so I could be off base.

Whenever we get clarification on PF2 spellcaster balance, I realize that the game really did leave me behind and has no interest in me coming back.

Oh well. They certainly sell more books to the 'not me's of the world. Good for them.

That makes it pretty clear that there is not a lot of magic earth anymore. I doubt that any leader is going to have access to magic items.

Though, conversely, if anyone was going to have magic items, it would be leaders. I can imagine that the Crown of the King of England might have powers akin to say, the Primogen Crown of Taldor and other such relics of office in the old world.

Yeah, Baphomet was killed in my table's playthrough of this AP. He was killed by the party archer, with a sword and she became famous for that sword instead of being able to full attack twenty arrows a mile away from her target or whatever mythic nonsense she had.

Of course, I also had the PCs mythic power drain into the closing Worldwound so when it ended all that was left was merely level 20 adventurers.

I know that one of our PCs was an incredibly old arcanist who died three or four years after the campaign, but that was what the player wanted. Everyone else went on to pretty good things more or less.

As I understood it, a person just has to expose themselves to the Soul Anchor to gain its benefits, though it seems more like anyone who dies in its area of effect can benefit from it, but I had a few players who wanted to gain its benefits.

So, specifically, in Breaking the Bones of Hell, it says "soul anchors are an occult creation of Mahathallah—places where she has corrupted and damaged the River of Souls so that those who die in close proximity pass through judgment in the Boneyard with their memories intact."

So, it must allow a soul to get judged and retain memories because that what it says it does.

Keeping the memories allows one to keep experience, and I assume that means they are a more powerful outsider sooner. We see two examples of this Bloodriosette the Imp and Mangvhune, the serial killer. Influence from the Soul Anchor let them keep their mind and personalities more or less as they gained new forms. Occasionally, powerful individuals become specific outsiders on death anyway (Taldaris, Arazni) so, this is...a shortcut to that end.

So, at the small cost of blaspheming against Pharasma, you get to enter the afterlife with a level boost. the Soul Anchor is P2W the Afterlife, really.

Conversion between systems is pretty much the same regardless of which direction you go. How hard it is depends on how much you already use the framework provided by the game.

First thing you have to do is read the adventure and understand the encounter flow and experience spread. In PF2, PCs need 1000 xp to level up. In PF1 on the medium track they need 2000 xp.

PF2 has Five encounter difficulty building thresholds: Trivial, Low, Moderate, Severe, Extreme. PF1 has five CR guidelines: Easy, Average, Challenging, Hard, Epic. They map to one another pretty well despite the name differences.

But, an on level moderate encounter in PF2 is worth 80 xp. A challenging (APL+1) encounter for level 1 PCs in PF1 is worth 600 xp, or roughly 150 per PC.

So, 12 moderate encounters will level a party in PF2 and 14 APL+1 encounters will level a level 1 party facing CR 2 encounters. That extra xp will have to come from somewhere. Throw in an extra NPC or a trap or hazard, or extra encounters from the PF2 baseline.

Or use milestone leveling and just convert the encounters.

So, converting encounters. A lot of creatures are already in the bestiaries. Just do a double check to make sure the level hasn't changed overmuch between editions and you're probably good to go. NPCs can be found just about anywhere and one CR 1 Cleric/Rogue is the same as any other when it comes to NPC stats. NPC entries in PF2 list a type of job or description that sometimes translates to a player class, but they sometimes don't. Just pick what feels right.

As a practical example, Agents of Edgewatch #1's first encounter is with four adventurers being rowdy in a bar. Its listed as a moderate 1 encounter and contains 4 level -1 creatures. In PF1 a level 1 NPC with a PC class will be a CR 1/2. If you put 4 of those in an encounter, its a CR 3 encounter.

Since the NPCs are drunk in a bar, I'd probably apply the sickened condition to the entire party, and let the -2 to attacks, saves, and checks lower the difficulty sufficiently to consider the encounter good enough.

Otherwise, drop one of the party members from the fight and say they died, or went to bed, or pretend they never existed.

So, speaking of the first encounter of Agents of Edgewatch. It can be bypassed with 4 DC 15 diplomacy or intimidate checks, one against each member of the drunk adventuring party. (Why it doesn't allow deception is beyond me, write Mr. Sutter, I guess.) Failure doesn't harm the party, but a critical failure results in a fight.

So, set the DC. 15 is fine for a level 1 PF1 character, really. You could make it DC 20.

A face character in PF1 will probably have 1 Rank, Class skill (+3) a +3 CHA, and maybe a trait for an additional +1, putting their bonus in the range of +8.

in PF2, a trained character will have proficiency (+2), level (+1), and ability score mod (+2 to +4 depending on if CHA is their primary ability) for a bonus of say, +5 to +7. Again, roughly the same at level 1. As the PCs level, these DCs and the numbers will be different and it will be up to you as the GM to determine what is an appropriate number. But if you're familiar with PF1, this shouldn't prove difficult.

In PF2 a critical failure is when the player fails the check by 10 or more. A natural one reduces the degree of success by one step, so it normally would turn a failure into a critical failure. It is easy enough to replicate this mechanic with saying if a PC fails the DC by 10 or more, a fight breaks out, but you typically see this threshold in PF1 at a failure by five or more. Up to you really.

Then there's treasure. Frankly, the gearing specifications between the two editions are different enough. There's a table in PF1 to tell how much treasure they should have. Make sure they get it. Remember to sprinkle rings of protection, cloaks of resistance, and stat belts & headbands in there and its largely done.

Repeat this for every encounter in the adventure.

The differences between the two systems become more stark as you level up, but if you're an old hat at PF1, then you know what to do when PCs get teleport and stuff.

If Aroden was not dead, I'd imagine that he got interested by some arcane phenomenon in a parallel world or alternate timeline or whatever and he decided it would be interesting to investigate for a few centuries. As long as he comes back, its all fine, right?

So, he isekaied himself somewhere else and maybe he sealed away his godhood for the duration so he can get the full experience only maybe he went somewhere where there is no magic and now he's stuck.

Look, I'm not saying Eric Mona is Aroden but...

I find it best to remember that Zimmerwald has strong opinions on how the political future of the area should go. I always find their insights fascinating and educational, but their expectations are a bit more ambitious than most of us expect from Paizo.

I also find that Ravounel's national identity isn't quite solidified. I think you're more likely to hear someone say, "I'm a Kintargan" or "I'm Vyran" than anything else.

Sun Orchid Elixir is not that easy to get ahold of it is considered an artifact. 50,000 gp is the lowest it has ever sold for and from what I understand it usually sells for significantly more.

For informational purposes, Lost Omens: Legends listed a few purchase prices for the elixir

I was surprised it never topped 100k.

I want Cheliax to go to war so we can have an Abrogail Thrune version of the "Downfall" Meme.

The "war of the spider queen" six-part novel series goes into quite a bit of detail, including lolth's chance at redemption.

Apropo of nothing, I would totally be here for the gigantic mess that Lolth turning not evil would have on the entirety of D&D Drow culture.

If I thought Noticula's assassin cults were going to have a hard time adjusting...

I will continue to use them as I have, as its not like I was that deeply connected to the lore they have.

The underground cities where Drow live are bastions of culture and art, having created such works as Star Wars, Fast & Furious, Pulp Fiction, and Back to the Future. Surface art is so drab in comparison to the esoteric and high concept of Drow Art.

It also is the worst excesses of Rich People Nonsense including the infighting and murder and interhouse rivalries.

Actually, I guess the Darklands is just a fantasy take on Hollywood.

Anyway, the most famous Drow at our tables is the Right Hand of the Hurricane King, Captain Sincere Ticktock, Pirate Wizard.

Other well known to the surface Drow from various campaigns are Supercilious, Facetious, Loquacious, and Amiable. Well known and maybe not respected, but certainly feared.

There's a few theories on what happened to Dou-Bral that transformed him into Zon-Kuthon. One of those theories is that he traveled to far into the unknown and Zon-Kuthon, a survivor of the prior universe (Somehow) body snatched him.

Its as good a theory as any.

I can only speak for myself, but the Darklands definitely got more interesting for me without the drow--and the number of people who have said as much here in this place for talking about the drow change leads me to believe I'm not alone.

As a living example of 'Cannot please everyone' the only thing that made me interested in the Darklands was the Drow. If Drow had been habituated on the surface of Avistan somewhere, I would have been interested in that location, like the Xen'drik drow of Eberron or whatnot.

Now that they're not there, well...I'm sure other folks will find something to enjoy down there, but I have no need for any of it.

Putting this behind a spoiler tag since it's going to be a wall of text... but here's some historical context to help folks understand Paizo's history with drow a bit better.

It sounds like a tough decision to make. Sorry you have to take that burden, Mr. Jacobs. Best of luck with the stuff in the future.

Oh, man.

Aroden's dead, and his greatest rival is a necromancer. Why haven't I worried about that before?

I wouldn't put it past Tar-Baphon to make something like a Charnel God of Aroden to enjoy the company of, but I also think Tar-Baphon is a Yandere for Aroden, so my take is suspect.

I haven't read too much into the laws of mortality recently, but their beef is not that the gods exist, or that souls go to aligned planes after death. Their beef if that powerful outsiders empower people to fight ideological wars on their lawn and they don't want it anymore.

Its my best understanding that Rahadoum isn't anti-afterlife or anti-river of souls. They are anti-cleric, anti-Champion, and anti-oracle. And I suppose all divine tradition casters.

Now, what I do not relish is the loss of Rahadoum's N alignment, because then we might get to hear about how the fascist nation who trains a cadre of soldiers called the "Pure Legion" and persecutes its own people for believing in something other than the state mandated quasi-religion doesn't make them bad because look at what they're doing for science.

In terms of other mysteries of Golarion

Seeing that list, I'm reminded that I actually used the Thorncrown of Iomedae in my Hell's Rebel's game.

The Pathfinders stole it (because I hate them) and House Thrune stole it back in a weird, quasi legal way because it is a cultural artifact of the Chelaxian people.

Knowing its value to Iomedaens and as an artifact, the Chelish Ship Impervious sails from Chelish port to Chelish port with a squad of Hellknights and Priests, as a continual moving vault.

The Impervious was due to dock in Kintargo when it fell under attack by the Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe the Flagship of Pirate Lord Sincere Ticktock (Our Skulls & Shackles game got weird, don't ask)

The Silver Ravens intervene and come into possession of the Thorncrown and use it to buy goodwill with the Glorious Reclaimation, ultimately using it to bring the White Majestrix to Kintargo to sit at a Peace Conference with the Imperial Majestrix.

It still should throw up a lot of red flags if you have a player who regularly makes full attacks, uses power attack, vital strike, or spends every round casting spells, who when they are affected by a mind-control effect suddenly are making one melee attack per round, fighting defensively and/or taking a penalty to deal non-lethal damage so that they are less likely to hit and deal as little damage as possible… its pretty obvious when players deliberately stop taking advantage of every tool in their arsenal. And this sort of behavior is infact metagaming and should be discouraged.

If you ever dominate a Barbarian and you hear the words “I stop raging”… then it is time to...

Eh. I'm not worried about it. At my tables, the players like turning their weapons on the other PCs while dominated. Its fun. Cathartic sometimes.

But the reality of this system is that a PC is five to ten times more capable at murder than the average NPC. At a certain point, A PC can deal enough damage to kill another PC and still have attacks left over. Dominating a PC who can do that and sicking them on the party is something that can end entire campaigns.

A GM has to be careful about using tools like that. And if the player avoids making full attacks so as to not utterly destroy the rest of the players, I consider that being kind to the other players. Sometimes the rest of the party resents being condescended to like that, but I've seen characters deal over 700 damage in a round--more than enough to kill the entire party twice over. I'd prefer moments like these be an exciting moment for drama rather than half the party dying.

I always chalk up a PC getting suboptimal during domination to the character resisting the command, so people can do the 'You're still in there!' stuff. Makes it more dramatic, no one dies, and we're just buying time for the cleric to cast Magic Circle Against Evil anyway. Sure, a character dealing with the consequences of having killed two party members while dominated can also be a good story beat, its a lot less fun if the other players at the table are mad at the GM and player for it.

I avoid Dominate Person as much as possible because of issues like this. Confusion, a much more difficult condition to remove, is still quite deadly and sees a lot of play.

Also, using a fictional setting that does not have an objective alignment to determine how people should act in a setting that does have one is going to lead to misunderstandings and uninteresting outcomes.

Lord of the Rings is a novel whose characters do and feel whatever the author wanted them to for the sake of a story.

TTPRG characters act in a setting according to the whims of their players for the sake of their amusement.

They are not the same and conflating them is rarely productive.

Its also not the GM's job to police how a player reacts to the changing circumstance. If you wanted a dramatic portrayal of twisted corruption and fall from grace, then give that story arc to the player who will play ball with you. You know which one is sitting at the table. If you don't have that player don't try to make square pegs fit into round holes.

When my GM puts up a plot hook I'm uninterested in doing(Assuming its not the main quest, because if you're not interested in the main quest you probably shouldn't be in that game), I just tell them I'm not interested in that. Like an adult.

The alternative is:
GM: You're evil now.
Player: Well, that sucks. Let's just assume my character has a tortured interiority while they struggle against their newfound outlook on life. Anyway, I rescue the kitten.

I stopped playing Starfinder because the starship mechanics weren't fun and I didn't like the upgrade treadmill and I wasn't a big fan of the setting lore.

With PF2 having lost whatever shine it may have had for me, I'm back to PF1.

And if you read my earlier post… thats kinda my point. The alignment rules have so many rules and variances to them that personality and beliefs aren’t the only things that can make a person evil. Being evil through other means doesn’t necessarily mean your personality, behavior, and beliefs automatically change either…

To be honest, I don't remember if I did. I certainly didn't go back and re-read it.

But I also don't believe that personality and beliefs make characters evil. Only Actions taken can give a creature an alignment, and I, acting as the arbitrator of the universe in most of these cases, do not care why the character took the actions they took. Only that they took the action they did. That's how I determine alignment as a GM.

This and also societal access to knowledge and beliefs can heavily influence things. Just because we as players understand the implications of necromancy in Galorian, doesn’t mean everyone who practices or studies necromancy in Galorian has the same understanding of it. Think about real world medical practices from the past, trepanation was a common practice and seen as a perfectly normal medical practice. Even after most of the world discovered that trepanation was a deadly practice it was sill practiced in areas where information from the outside world is slow to reach or controlled. Today we’d see anyone who’d practice trepanation as evil and a murderer, but if they only had knowledge from back then, they wouldn’t necessarily understand the implications the same way we do.

In the setting though, that doesn't change the alignment of the actions. Creating undead with necromancy is Evil. Even if one doesn't know its evil. Even if one uses it to do good. Even if one bends over backwards to justify the complex psychology of this tortured hero who just wants to help with their preternatural skill at making the dead animate...still evil.

The universal rules that govern alignment in the setting care not one iota for one's ignorance.

there's just something that aggravates a nerve when you see your Nth tiefling paladin or similar. I'm not sure where that comes from (if not just Mr. Do'Urden), but it seems widespread enough that it's worth recognizing and planning for if you want to play this archetype.

In my circles of play, I've found that tieflings are the most common ancestry pick for people who would like to play a character who might be born to regular family, but they're undeniably different. And sometimes this causes strife and possibly alienation from their birth family, forcing them to lead a life of adventure where they construct a found family.

So, even if I want to roll my eyes every time I see a player bring a tiefling to the table or a good drow, or whatever else I do not. Because that choice means something to the player and its wrong of me to denigrate someone else's expression (sometimes unspoken expression). Also because as a GM, I'm not their psychologist. Its not on me to unpack that.

Even if I have seen it before a hundred times. Its my job as the GM to give that player a good experience at the table. To the players it doesn't matter if I've done that every other time. The only game that matters is the one you're playing now.

Its a spectrum. Its just as likely any random Neutral person could betray an ally if their goals don't align as an Evil person and counterfactual is also true, an Evil character could remain steadfast and loyal in the face of personal difficulty just as readily as a Good character.

A wide variety of behavior is allowed under each facet of alignment, because discrete actions, while the fundamental building block of a character's alignment, are not the totality of something's alignment. It is a summation of all their past actions (Unless you're an outsider, but that's different) and an indicator of their behavior for the future.

Its so table variant that discussing it over the internet is more often than not fruitless, except for the fun of debating morality with strangers.

As with all things in Pathfinder, I find that the game plays better when I play into its requirements rather than struggle against them. Paladin requires a Lawful Good character? I create a character who has no problems being lawful good.

Though, bards can be any alignment. Chaotic bards is a D&D thing, I think.

Its not like the offerings of any class can't be had by archetyping a different class.

And there's a strange rigidity to people's discussion of alignment wherein they assume only certain alignments get certain types of behavior. There's no reason why a CN barbarian chieftain can't be chaotic and fulfill the traditions of their people. Though I will straight up disagree with the notion of there being 'Good' assassins. When the requirement of the prestige class is 'Murder someone for express purpose to become an assassin' you do not get to be 'But murdering bad people for money is good, right?'

Side note: I played in a game where the DM made a Prestige Class called Political Assassin which removed the evil requirement and presumably the murder requirement so he could have a good aligned assassin NPC assist the party. We mocked this NPC incessantly.

Alignment contains multitudes because it is a very general system meant to represent a complicated thing in the most inoffensive way because these books retail for 40-60 dollars.

Kasoh wrote:

If you want to two hand a sword with Str and play a magus...then do that?

Pathfinder 1e is not a hard game. You can half ass almost any class and still do okay if the rest of team is equally invested.

I played up to level 17 with another player whose Card Caster Magus forgot to take iterative attacks half the time. He did fine.

The mechanics of the class steer one towards 1 handed weapons because Spell Combat is Two Weapon Fighting But Different. No one says that the Fighter is bad because he can't dual wield greatswords.

If you like the PF2 Magus great, you can join the PF2 circlejerk a few forums up.

I would disagree with the game 'not being hard' as innately having so many options all the time and the crunch you have to do both at creation and each level is hard in the sense that missing things is easy to do. The rest of my party is doing fine and enjoying their respective classes currently, though that could change in a few levels.

I wouldn't even say I've half-assed anything: only things I haven't utilized are movement in combat I didn't know I had and confusing all touch spells as Melee Touch Spells. Outside of those two things I've been pumping my numbers as much as I can, and for my 3rd lvl I was going to grab Power Attack to push them even higher since the increase in BAB would keep me at a +5 unless I grabbed Arcane Accuracy to bumps attacks in a round to +9.

Based on guides that care about being optimal, seems like the card caster is kinda meh. Not that I care about optimal myself, but Pathfinder as a system does, hence the issues I'm having.

I mean...I'm pretty sure the Fighter can grab feats via his busload of bonus combat feats to be able to TWF with greatswords. That aside, there is a difference between trying to dual-wield two giant weapons and trying to cast magic in a free hand real quick and then regrip your 2HW properly.

I'm not here to praise PF2 as I've never had a chance to play it: players in my group do the opposite and act like PF1...

I had hoped I deleted that post in time, but apparently not. It was overly rude, and I apologize.

Anyway.

When I say Pathfinder isn't hard, I mean that the level of prowess a PC needs to succeed is not very high when compared to the stats of the enemies. I didn't mean to say you were half assing anything--I don't know you and haven't seen your build anyway--it was a general statement. Most builds I see on the internet are overkill for what the game requires. Now, a person's circumstance might require more effort They could have a killer GM or they need to carry the rest of the team, or their character is under a curse to achieve the highest DPR in Avistan or they explode...whatever. But using the base CR system, with average dice luck...Pathfinder is a fairly generous game.

All the classes have a thing that they do to help them defeat enemies, I'll call it a gimmick. Rogues Sneak Attack, Paladins Smite, Rangers Favor Enemies, and Fighters Weapon Training & Feats and etc.

The Magus gimmick is spells. You supplement your damage with spells instead of Strength or higher static numbers. You can look at how few utility spells the Magus gets. Most of their spell list is damage, mobility options, and a bit of defense.

I wouldn't take power attack as a Magus until much later, especially if you're concerned about the multiple points of failure with how many dice you roll in a turn as a magus. When I played one, I went heavy on True Strike and Combat Manuevers on a Bladed Scar Dancer, so my advice would be suspect at best.

In all honesty, for someone who wants to Two Hand a big weapon and cast spells, I'd probably suggest Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight, which has a radically different play style.

I will say, I don't actually mind Paizo deciding to leave the Cult of the Dawnflower behind. But if they're going to do it, a.) it should lead to something else, like a flowering (heh) of successors, some better for Sarenrae to foster and some just as bad for Sarenrae to disavow, and b.) it should be done narratively. Like the revolution in Eleder/Vidrian you could build a campaign around something like that, the momentous ecclesiastical shift of an entire religious sect being disbanded or brought to heel finally, and doing it offscreen just feels...unsatisfying. At the very least, a one-shot where Sarenite characters go after some relict Dawnflower cultists who've found a new patron sounds really cool, and something you could do a lot with to differentiate the 2e Golden Road from its 1e status quo.

This comes back to issues paizo has with correcting errors. The entire Cult is considered an error that should not have been published. In spite of that, they tried to work it a little bit and as we can see, nothing much ever really came of it.

Leading to another issue: It takes a long time to publish books and this is not the only story they serve. We can see the real time history of slavery in Absalom to see how this goes in practice: Slowly and to few people's satisfaction.

If the publishing schedule doesn't touch on places affected by the Cult, there's no place to make developments and the APs, where massive developments happen, do not tend to overly linger in places.

With the edition change, the creative team decided to clean up several of these things and be done with it. As more 2e books get published and fewer references get made to the Cult, it should wither away into obscurity and be forgotten. Which is how Paizo handles these things.

The Golarion word is "Roommates".

There's a rat familiar in War for the Crown whose master died and it became a wizard afterwards. A crazy wizard, mind you, but still.

In most APs, there's usually a convenient city nearby that you can sell to with a little effort. And even if you roll specific items, there's still the 75% rule.

The number and types of magic items available in a community depend upon its size. Each community has a base value associated with it (see Table: Available Magic Items or Table: Available Magic Items. There is a 75% chance that any item of that value or lower can be found for sale with little effort in that community.

What I have seen happen is that the prospective purchases the PCs want soon outstrip the availability in those cities.

In Wrath of the Righteous, the rebuilt fortress city of Drezen had a higher than normal purchase limit because the PCs encouraged the economic development, but also because merchants knew that powerful adventurers were gathering there. Even then after a certain point the PCs often had to send their agents to Absalom or Alushinyrra to make the purchases they wanted.

The PCs in my Hell's Rebel's game had Kintargo and Vyre for a time, but eventually they needed an ally who teleported to Absalom for them to get them their +6 belts of physical perfection.

In Mummy's Mask, we eventually had access to Sothis, but in Mummy's Mask we pretty much only sold loot once at the end of a book.

But, once a PC has access to Greater Teleport or knows a friendly outsider who can they tend to do all their shopping in the largest city on the planet or the largest extraplanar city they can get access to.

I imagine few people actually track the purchase limit of settlements. Its one of those things that I wish I would do, but can't be bothered to actually enforce. In most cases, the selling of loot isn't the adventure and you want to get back to the neat bits. One day of downtime working the markets and you've offloaded those 14 suits of +1 Fullplate and 14 +1 Bastard Swords that you looted. Another day to buy 2 or 3 useful items for the party and you're done.

The Drow creature stat blocks says "1/day—dancing lights, darkness, faerie fire."

The Drow PC stats say "Spell-Like Abilities (Su): Drow can cast dancing lights, darkness, and faerie fire, once each per day, using their total character level as caster level."

So, if this holds true for all creatures then they can cast each of those spells the indicated number of times a day.

It's also heavily hinted that the Worldwound was tied to Aroden's death, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mysteries of the Pathfinder setting. It's not surprising that the Worldwound may not follow the usual rules for interplanar incursions.

It was only hinted at. In Wrath of the Righteous, it was explained that there was no connection to Aroden's death except in timing. Whether Deskari was waiting for Aroden to be occupied before making his move or he was taking advantage of the chaos I forget, but /shrug.

The most common reason you would want to prevent PCs from crafting is that it doubles their wealth. A wizard who dumps their feats into crafting, even just Magic Arms & Armor and Wondrous Items is still A) a wizard and B) providing half cost equipment to the party.

If a PC is crafting gear for themselves, that's sort of the expected use of the feat and probably won't cause too much problem. When the PC is crafting gear for the party, it changes itemizing a lot. They no longer want sweet magical loot, they want to turn stuff into gold so it can be turned into bespoke gear.

I find that APs can have...intense sounding premises. Chasing after this cult that's seeking pieces of an artifact? Can we actually stop for 30 days so the wizard can craft some stuff? Sometimes, that's not actually an issue. Depends on the tone of the game and how the GM presents it.

Why a GM might prevent a PC from engaging in mundane crafting? No idea other than its a waste of time and the table has better things to do.

As a GM you want your players to be able to play the character they want to play and not feel bad about it. Empowering people to play differently abled PCs is a good thing.

Where I was always stumbled was the sheer impracticality of some of these solutions. The adventuring wheelchair sounds neat, but its almost an ATV to be able to do all the things it has to do to keep pace with a more typical adventurer in rugged terrain or dungeon settings.

Once you add magic, anything is really possible of course, but I recall someone complaining about an aquatic wheelchair item a few weeks ago for how cheap it was for the all the benefits it provided to the point where it should be the default equipment choice.

On the other hand, players have been accommodating STR 7 wizards up sheer cliff faces for years, so its not like this is new territory for anyone.

Its one of those things where even if I think it strains my credulity its better to give the player the experience that makes them happier enjoying their character. If there are difficulties that arise out of the someone in the party playing a differently abled character, it will emerge in game play without the GM having to pick on someone specifically and the party will overcome it the same way they overcome other challenges.

With violence. Wait. With teamwork.

In a more...realistic setting, there would be plenty of splits along variances in worship based on location or culture or something else. But this is a setting for a game that has rules and those rules are printed on books of which you only have so many pages and can only pay so many people to write upon them.

From a brand management perspective, its easier to say that Sarenrae is Neutral Good, her followers always try to be good in the way Sarenrae likes.

Because the book that describes the Katapash Orthodox Church of Sarenrae and how its feuding with the Central Church of Sarenrae in Absalom, but all of them really don't like the Reformed Church of Sarenrae in Taldor, while fascinating, is a niche product and causes more problems than it solves given how much discomfort the Cult of the Dawnflower put some authors in.

GMs interested in interfaith politics are encouraged to tell the stories they want to tell, but I don't think there will be any official support from Paizo on the subject. The world will probably never have that kind of detail because its simply not necessary to the purpose of Pathfinder: A game about heroes who go out on adventurers.

Sanityfaerie wrote:

I gotta say, "I dislike PF2, and I hope to complain loud enough that Paizo stops making it and starts making something that's more like these other games that I like" is certainly an interesting take for the PF2 board.

It's less that and more me saying, "I dislike certain aspects of PF2 and would like to see them dialed back when you're all but forced to release a new edition to compete with One D&D."

Paizo doesn't really compete with D&D. Not really. No one competes with D&D.

D&D sits there, eating up the majority market share and everyone else competes over the leftovers.

PF2 has sold incredibly well for Paizo. They have no incentive to make the game more like PF1 or more like D&D or more like whatever thing that isn't PF2. The game has a tone and a style and people like it or they don't.

As much as I love a good Batman example, we have to acknowledge that Batman and joker exist for different purposes: The reason Batman never kills the Joker is because the Joker makes money and the world warps around the narrative to enable his continued existence.

In the context of Pathfinder, a game where we pretend to be elves who worship a butterfly from outer space, I am comfortable saying that killing an evil and unrepentant creature is not Evil and could be Good in the right circumstances. This is a setting and system that is designed to enable Adventure as the solution to most problems. There is never going to be an AP about constitutional reform and establishing an ethical judiciary and if there is, it will involve planar travel to Hell to steal something and you have to fight a Pit Fiend for it.

Whole swathes of behavior in this game are unethical and immoral from a modern perspective and while modern morality isn't an inappropriate lens by which to view the game, actually condemning the behavior it seems to encourage as evil seems counter to the tone it sells. (In PF1, there are actually a few instances of Outsiders bound/trapped in magic engines, helpless against whatever the PCs might do to them and its never suggested that executing a Pit Fiend with -19 negative levels is somehow the wrong choice.)

But its really just going to be something each group deals with at the table level.

I had the temptation ever since you pitched the new city of Sarkoris idea to envision an AP about doing exactly this but as a refuge for Demons and their ilk.

Evil AP for sure but one where you try to survive both demon-hunters and rival powers to create a sanctuary for your hunted kind.

I had a similar idea, but its a bunch of demons who can't get back to the Abyss and just decide to make it work and stop being such jerks about everything.

Kasoh wrote:

Accept a surrender, determine if they can be redeemed, and execute them if they cannot. That's a perfectly reasonable course of action, and not evil.

I agree that it’s a perfectly reasonable course of action, but it’s also Evil, and if it was a common event, I believe it would cause a Champion to fall. Recall that the Champion class description explicitly states that “Torag’s champions can’t show mercy to enemies of their people, making it almost impossible for them to follow the redeemer cause[.]” To the extent that Saranrae requires her worshippers to slaughter captives, I am seeing the same incompatibility with the Champion class.

Obviously if one doesn’t consider murdering the helpless to be Evil, one is going to not consider it an issue for Champions.

People seem to have some aversion to being judge of another person's life, but that's just people dodging responsibility. Its not evil to execute a criminal for a crime that warrants death. And its not evil to make the determination that someone is deserving of death for being evil.

It might be illegal depending on jurisdiction, but its not evil.

I do see some interesting choice of language. I say "Execute prisoner" and you say "murder the helpless" "slaughter captives".

But those are all different things.

shroudb wrote:

We are talking about surrender without repentance. Basically evil creatures that simply surrender to save their bacon but do not plan to change their ways.

I’m not worrying about repentance, though. I’m worrying about surrender and the immediate threat, not what they might do at some hypothetical point in the future. If they stop fighting, are either genuinely not a current threat or make you believe they’re genuinely not a current threat, I believe it’s an Evil act to kill them.

Well, the context for this whole conversation (originally) was about Sarenrae's anathema "create undead, lie, deny a repentant creature an opportunity for redemption, and fail to strike down evil." (Specifically about the line where failing to strike down evil is drawn.)

Her edicts though include "destroy the Spawn of Rovagug, protect allies, provide aid to the sick and wounded, seek and allow redemption"

By religious doctrine, a worshiper of Sarenrae is expected to sus out genuine repentance from evildoers and offer them a chance of redemption. And the sword to those who don't.

Accept a surrender, determine if they can be redeemed, and execute them if they cannot. That's a perfectly reasonable course of action, and not evil.

Iomedae hasn't fallen - indeed, she dropped LN followers in the move to 2e, leaving the gnarliest of her flock behind in pursuit of proper Good.

Casandalee rose to godhood in 1e's Iron Gods. I believe Nocticula's redemption happened in one of the Runelords APs. There's a third in a 2e AP, which I'll hide behind a spoiler: ** spoiler omitted **

I believe Arazni left Demigoddess status and become full fledged deity after the edition change. To the common person, I doubt this is a meaningful distinction, she had clerics before, has clerics now.

I tend to chalk this up to player's desire to be edgy and cool and thus think LG is perceived as an inferior alignment. Paizo shills Chaotic Good like there's no tomorrow, so its not unexpected.

You'll hear some the same thing about Iomedae falling from time to time, and its just as much fanwank/circlejerk nonsense then as it is now.

Kintargo would be my go to if asked to run something today. Given a few weeks notice, I might go with Absalom just to get some use out of the tome that is the Guide to Absalom.

Claxon wrote:

executing prisoners for wrong doings you know they committed may not follow a greater judicial policy of the area but I wouldn't consider it evil (although definitely not good). I would consider it neutral.

Only in theory.

The big issue of this way of doing is that it works fine... as long as you don't make a mistake. The second you make a mistake and kill an innocent you perform an evil act. You can't say it's a mistake because you were fully aware you were not following a proper judicial process and still made the choice to go on with it. So the full responsibility of their death is on you. And because you can't have perfect knowledge, you will perform evil acts because of it.
Second, because this way of making justice only works if you don't make a mistake, you also commit to the underlying belief that your judgment is perfect and never altered. Even if it's not an evil act by itself, it is definitely a state of mind I'd link to evil (pride is a sin on Golarion). It's made even worse in the described situation as you are both judge and party, and as such you know your judgment is altered.

So even if on paper you can say it's neutral, practically speaking it's a very quick path to evil.

The judicial process is not going to preserve innocence. In Pathfinder, we see time and again sham trials and corrupt judges that adventurers have to come in and do some last minute heroics to save the innocent or prove the guilty party.

The faith in these institutions is misplaced when we're discussing alignment. They are mortal creations designed to serve the needs of a society living in this world, not to uphold the cosmic standards of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos.

Its already dubious territory when you base your actions on a deity's edicts and anathema. Sarenrae would never ask you to do something evil, nor condone evil actions--because as neutral good Sarenrae is Good without the zeal of law or randomness of chaos.

We've seen people corrupt the teachings of Sarenrae though, and that speaks to your slippery slope of evil, but arguing that executing a known evil doer puts you at higher risk to execute a non evil doer is silly. Each instance and action is like a roll of a die: independent of its previous instance.

So long as you keep on being right, you are Good. A Good character should be taking the necessary steps to make sure they sure of their judgements or live with the consequences of being wrong.

And if a character finds themselves constantly in situations where they cannot discern the truth of the matter, it means there was probably failure of communication about the game's tone and they need to talk to their GM.

I know there were some hobgoblins with hair on occasion in PF1, and that was attributed to art direction errors and no time to correct them. The new hobgoblin design...was a choice, but I'm not sure it reflects anything other than Paizo planting a flag on 2e hobs.

But I don't see why not. I can imagine some dark secret origin of Hobgoblins being a wizard crossbreeding goblins and humans to make some kind of Uruk-Hai style super soldier.

(This reminds me that I don't know the origins of Hobgoblins on Golarion, but that's a question for a different thread, I suppose.)

Yeah, but some players want to play good characters, too. Lawful Evil is not everyone's cup of tea.

Sure. Just because PCs are above the law doesn't mean they're bad people, it just means that no one can stop them from doing whatever they want. If what they want is to follow the laws and not cause trouble, then they appear no different from any other person in town. Some PCs may not even realize it. That's cool too.

Since Paizo is likely never going to publish a comprehensive rule of law for any given location, it relies on the GM to determine what is and is not court procedure. Some people will rely on what they know and make it an episode of Law & Order. Others will attempt to go with historical methods. And a third will handwave it away because they don't care.

And all of this only applies in a place where there are laws.

Three weeks into wilderness, having been attacked by orcs or ogres, the PCs have no legal system on which to avail themselves on, and likely cannot feed and care for a handful of prisoners in addition to safely navigate to their destination because those prisoners probably will try to get free and kill them. Now you're in a real 'Come to Sarenrae' moment.

*sighs*

Okay, in 2014 James Jacobs said that Elves and Orcs cannot crossbreed as they are incompatible biologically speaking.

Later he also said

If you want an in game reason: Because dwarf DNA is not compatible by and large with anything but dwarves.

The out of game reason is that there are probably more than enough zero HD races in the game already, and when we DO create more, we prefer to create new ones rather than hybrid races.

If we make half dwarves, why not half gnomes or elf/halflings or every other possible combination between the core races? The answer should be obvious: because that clutters the rules and clutters the niches of the races in the first place. Half elves and half orcs ALREADY kind of suffer for not really having a good in-game role to play; their roles are already dominated by elves or orcs (or humans). Every additional hybrid race makes the game a little more confused and murky.

This was codified in 2014's Bastards of Golarion Pathfinder Companion which answered the question "Why no half-dwarves?" in a sidebar

Although humans can have children with many other races, there are limits to this gift. Half-dwarves, half-gnomes, half-halflings, and numerous other combinations are all but unheard of on Golarion. Biological incompatibility is the first and foremost reason that such half-races cannot exist. Simply put, dwarves, gnomes, and others just aren't compatible with other races, even humans.

In a realm shrouded in magic, it would be foolish to assume no spell in the known multiverse could produce a viable child between a dwarf and a humanoid of another race. Indeed, dwarven aasimars and gnome tieflings are known to exist, arising through the influence of outsiders or because of magical anomalies understood by few. A miracle or wish spell could likewise result in the birth of a half-dwarf, though the individuals able or willing to practice such spellcraft are few and far between.

It is now...nine years later. If anyone has published new guidance on the matter, I'm not aware of it.