Kaspyr2077's page

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

When you change the default assumptions of how a game is played...

The default assumption does not allow for designation of some campaigns as "normal" and others as "unusual".

They are all just as much whatever the GM decided to set up.

Most APs don't include a lot of guidelines on what you shouldn't play based on the contents of the adventure, because they're intended to be picked up and played by any group of players with any PCs. They don't generally have a theme of monsters with a common mechanic that disadvantages certain builds through encounter after encounter, let alone a whole AP.

This is the DEFAULT mode of play.

Creating a themed campaign with a unified mechanic to punish certain modes of play is uncommon. Unusual. Against the norm. And if you haven't talked to your players about what to expect before they sit down, you're not very nice.

Have you ever played any games hosted on a server, where the game's parameters could be configured at the server? There tends to be a default option, where everything works as expected and every available option is valid. Most people tend to play on those settings. If you make tweaks so that some things don't work as expected, then that is an uncommon configuration. Unusual.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Campaign optimization is different from class optimization.

Yeah, in that the former is a real and meaningful thing and the latter is at best a fool's errand because how well any given option available to a class performs depends upon campaign particulars - like how effective Slam Down will be depending on how high the AC and Reflex DC of your enemies are going to be.

The very fact that you wouldn't even play a martial in a particular campaign shows that you acknowledge the extreme case that results from this reality. That you can't see that there is a less extreme case in which a martial is still a high-performing option, perhaps even still the highest-performing option, but that favors a different feat over Slam Down is a Dunning-Kruger-esque blind spot.

If given the exact specifications of a specific encounter, I bet people could come up with an exquisitely tailored Fighter, even a perfect party, to defeat that encounter. Some percentage of the time, the Fighter will not be Deriven's Slam Down build.

Entering a campaign without specific knowledge of the encounters involved, though? If you wanted to play a Fighter, and you approach the game as a GAME you intend to win, you should probably do some generalized optimization, just to be the best Fighter you can be.

Maybe that's Deriven's Slam Down build. I don't know, but no one's tried to argue with Deriven on its performance, just on the concept of optimization.

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

You use the outrageous example of the all-ooze campaign, which is a highly specialized kind of game that the players should know about and build for, because it nullifies the Slam Down build.

It's not "outrageous" it's just one example of many that are equally likely. It's also not the only situation in which the Slam Down build is less useful than it might otherwise be.

There is also, again, no debate that players shouldn't know campaign style before building their character. So your continued implication that anyone is talking about blindsiding players is just proof that you're not participating in the discussion in good faith.

The point of making the example of the ooze-heavy campaign is the same reason I asked whether it was more normal to face an ogre or a ghost; that the campaign particulars are so integral in determining what is optimal that there is no way to call a character optimal without knowing them.

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

Then you're retreating to the "normal variation in campaigns" position, trying to pretend that you don't know that hyper-focus on one creature type is a specialized game.

Every campaign is equally "specialized" as a direct result of the nature of the game being that the GM picks enemies by their own choice of parameters and priorities.

"normal variation" covers every possible configuration.

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

A "usual campaign" is one where you can show up with a generically useful character sheet and expect not to hit a brick wall because the nature of the campaign invalidates your choices.

Then there is no such thing as a "usual campaign" because there is no such thing as a character that will not possibly get "hard countered" by having been created independent of knowing campaign styling in advance.

And again I ask where in the books you find any evidence that the GM is told what ratio of enemies vulnerable to which tactics is the baseline from which you are determining "generically useful", because you're...

When the player proposes a character concept to the GM, it is so the GM can evaluate the character to see if there are any issues with how they might fit into the game, from a roleplay AND a mechanical standpoint. Ideally, the GM has some idea how the game is meant to unfold before this stage, and if someone proposes a character that has mechanics that won't interact well with the theme of the campaign, the GM can advise them that the character will probably fit poorly.

If your game is full of oozes, then a player using the Trip mechanics as a core component of their build is a poor fit, and should be told so.

Barring that specific circumstance, a Fighter using Trip is widely accepted to be a fantastic choice that excels in doing the things Fighters do. It's only in very specialized circumstances that the Slam Down Fighter is not a terrific option. That is about as "optimized" as a character can hope to be.

See, I have this hammer. It's a beauty. It's heavy enough that I don't usually have to hit things a ton of times, but light enough and balanced enough that I can swing it all day. Oh, and it's sturdy, too. I've used it for years without a sign of wear, and when I pass away, I expect it to be someone else's favorite hammer. It's about as optimal a hammer as I could ask for.

It is, however, garbage as a wrench or screwdriver, and probably wouldn't belong in the toolbox of a jeweler or an archaeologist, either. If the project doesn't call for my hammer, I don't use it. But 90+% of the time that I find myself needing a hammer, it's the one for the job.

Optimization can be a bit white-room, and there's some variation to account for, but in PF2, being near the top of the game in most combat situations is the best you can hope for. What you're doing, on the other hand, seems to be defining optimization as impossible, because the most absurd edge-cases need to be considered.

When you change the default assumptions of how a game is played, a generally optimized character, group, strategy, etc might not be so optimal, and a more specialized one can be required. That doesn't take anything away from the generally optimized one.

Where you're messing up the argument is that no one is talking about the GM looking at what the player has built and countering that build on purpose or not being upfront and accurate about what sort of campaign they are running.

The rest of us are not arguing that a GM should counter player builds; we are arguing that builds are variable in their effectiveness depending on campaign particulars.

It's you and deriven that are, for some reason, equating "an undead-slaying character works better in an undead-focused campaign and worse in a campaign that has few undead show up" with undead-slaying options being less optimal than other options and trying to frame any GM running an undead-themed campaign as "unusual" or deliberately impairing a character.

My own personal experience, which isn't actually "none" by the way - I've personally participated in campaigns that have only used undead, demons, devils, wizards, and "beasts" (that one meaning vermin, animals, and magical beasts as were the designations at the time) as antagonists - is irrelevant to the discussion because we are not talking about what any particular GM has chosen to do, we are talking about what the game presents as equally valid options to all readers, past, present, and future.

No. This is blatantly false. You're using a Motte and Bailey. You use the outrageous example of the all-ooze campaign, which is a highly specialized kind of game that the players should know about and build for, because it nullifies the Slam Down build. Then you're retreating to the "normal variation in campaigns" position, trying to pretend that you don't know that hyper-focus on one creature type is a specialized game.

Running a game based on creatures immune to precision damage is something that players should know before they show up with their character sheets. Running a game based on creatures who resist a certain element is something that players should know before they show up with their character sheets. Running a game based on creatures who resist certain tactics is something that players should know before they show up with their character sheets.

The disingenuous thing going on here is the continual pretense that the claim of a "usual campaign" doesn't need any kind of evidence beyond the claim that everybody knows what it is.

It shouldn't be hard, if you're actually correct, to answer a question like the following; which is a more unusual encounter for a 4th level party, an ogre glutton or ghost commoner?

And then show where the game materials provided information that lead you to that conclusion.

A "usual campaign" is one where you can show up with a generically useful character sheet and expect not to hit a brick wall because the nature of the campaign invalidates your choices.

Shield fighter will have a much better time in the melee without needing the attention of the sorc to keep in the thick of it.

That makes it a superior choice, for the party composition, rather than the slamdown build, because taking away 1 action from one of the several enemies won't won't do anything much for the party sustain.

Meanwhile, a dual wielding shield fighter with double slice does on average more damage than slamdown with the same two actions, meaning it also helps clear the encounters faster.

Interesting argument, though I would argue that the damage from Slam Down, plus the AoO damage as they get up, is more damage overall. It costs more of your actions, with AoO being a Reaction, but it also costs at least one of their actions, possibly more depending on what they're trying to do at this stage of the battle. It also helps ensure that your Reactions don't go unused in a given turn.

Off guard from trip is largely irrelevant for the party as well, since the only one that would routinely benefit, the swash, already uses tumble to inflict that and build panache either way.

Definitely true, unfortunately.

For the grapple it's strictly due to the actual experience of the battles the party had faced, where "keeping things in place" has been more important than simply taking away 1 action to stand up.

Keeping one enemy locked down is nice, but it also takes a party member effectively out of the battle. Definitely a small-numbers encounter kind of strategy.

In the end, it's not about optimizing the "fighter" as much as optimizing "the group", in which case the superior option would be to have someone that can more safety hold his ground and deal damage rather than trip people for just -1 action and a single, more reliable, Reactive strike (as opposed to relying more on positioning for the same Reactive strike).

I agree that the group is important, but this group is built for zero synergy, except for the Bard, bless them, having synergy with everybody. That being the case, I figure you bring the build that has the most powerful individual options. Slam Down is a strong contender. A Double Slice Shield Fighter doesn't have Reach, and therefore less AoO and control options, but if you prefer it, that's fine.

Raising a shield as an action increases in value significantly the more 1st attack actions a character is going to take in a round. Playing the 2 hander fighter slam down fighter before, I got myself in the most trouble when I ended up drawing attacks from 4 or 5 enemies after absolutely wrecking one the first round.

Yeah, absolutely, as someone who plays sword and board myself, I agree. The hard part in that scenario is being an imposing enough threat to draw and keep the attention of those 4 or 5 enemies off the other party members. As I outlined in the thread on healing, the sword-and-board Fighter is a whole lot of Not Losing, and significantly less Winning than the Slam Down Fighter, and it sounds like more Winning is needed. The healer can heal if the Fighter fights.

The problem with trying to define “typical campaign” in PF2 is that it is hard to even point to a single campaign/Adventure path and suggest it represents a normalized experience. Optimization that ignores the sources of variance in campaigns is rightfully questioned.

Oh, absolutely. I just don't agree with the premise of the specific criticism. The Slam Down build is good at what Fighters do, and to invalidate it, the argument presented is a "casters only, martials go home" campaign.

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

You're overselling the point.

In this case, that's functionally impossible.

Because this:

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

This is a highly specific and unusual choice by the GM

Is not at all true.

No theme, no matter what it is, nor how strongly it is adhered to or diluted by off-theme encounters the GM chooses to make it, is any more "unusual" than any other.

There literally is no such thing as "the usual campaign" in a more specific fashion than "the GM sets up the campaign."

And when you add stuff like:

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

In a normally designed, good faith campaign

to the discussion you become just as much a problem as Deriven has been being because you are claiming that either a campaign fits the parameters you've chosen to optimize under or else the GM is designing it not in good faith or in an abnormal fashion..

Tell me exactly, with book citations, where the game spells out which encounter designs and monster selections are "good faith" and which aren't, because I have never seen any such thing - it is as normal and good faith for a GM to choose any creature of a given level as it is to choose another, and without something that says otherwise there is no "this is normal design, and everything else isn't."

For decades, the advice has been that if a GM lets you sit down at a table with a character whose abilities are rendered useless or near-useless by their campaign design, it's their fault for not informing you. That is VERY true in an all-ooze campaign. This is "good faith."

How many campaigns have you actually sat in where most encounters consisted of a single creature, specifically one that invalidates certain tactical approaches? I bet it's none. This is "unusual."

I find the argument of "no book definitions of readily understood terms" to be disingenuous and hostile.

The thing with the slamdown build, or any trip build for that matter, is that it's only "monstrous" if the whole party builds for it.

DV takes it for granted that in a party there will be multiple reactive strikes available, because that's how his party is usually built.

But inserting as an example this type of character in my campaign, that we currently have a "swash, fire kineticist, bard, divine sorc" won't be the "objectively better option" that he presents.

Instead something like a shield using fighter, or a grappler, will, party wise, perform better.

Similarly, due to the theme of their campaign, most of the battles are against multiple lesser foes rather than single bosses. While bosses do exist here and there, someone capable of wide damage will fare better than someone specialising in simply knocking down one for. (Plus, it also makes the Swash actually quite powerful)

That's why it's impossible to say "this X build is superior to all other builds". The balance points of several feats and features are close enough that campaign differences easily skewer the balance from one to the other.

I'm not sure most of that is true. The Slam Down build works for both damage and control all on its own. Sure, it works BEST if the rest of the party optimizes around it, just like anything else does, but I have a hard time seeing a sword-and-board or grappler Fighter outdoing the Slam Down build in any particular metric. It would be different if there were party synergies with those builds that don't work with the Slam Down build, but I don't know of any that are especially enticing.

Certainly it's true that having more enemies on the field makes single-target damage specialization less appealing, but Fighters aren't great for AoE under any circumstances unless the enemy you're targeting can be popped with one blow of a one-handed weapon so you can move on to the next with your second attack. If that's not the case - and it seldom is - you're better off focusing one down before moving on to the next, and that's single-target damage. Back to higher single-target damage being the best option in most cases, and Slam Down even comes with some control while you're doing it.

Alright, I think we've gone a bit far afield for the sake of argument.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Optimizing builds off class strengths. It doesn't care about types of campaigns unless that information becomes relevant.

That information is inherently relevant.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I am still not sure why this is such a hard idea to comprehend or why it turns into these contentious discussions.

It is a hard idea to comprehend because it is incompatible with the reality of the game; you present "the optimal fighter" but the parameters you are treating as constant to arrive at that conclusion are actually variables - you simply dodge reality by saying there is a different sort of optimization (campaign optimization) and acting as though a character exists outside the context of the campaign such that "optimal fighter" and "optimal fighter for a specific campaign" being separate things isn't relevant.

And the conversations turn contentions because you refuse to acknowledge that you are saying that you've got the whole game solved so all the things you're saying are objectively correct and those of us seeing them as subjective or situational at best due to the inherent variability of the game are doing "something else."

Because you're so locked out of entertaining the very concept that you might have arrived at a flawed conclusion you're coming off as saying that you could show up at anyone's campaign and have your character crush the encounters - and if it doesn't it's because the GM "artificially" limited your build, not because there's no such thing as a "normal" campaign.

But yes, the conversation has gone on too long... unfortunately it will never end so long as you continue to post with an attitude like you are the big smart authority with all the correct answers and everyone else are struggling with the "extraordinarily easy to comprehend" concept; that concept being what is or is not optimal (which inherently depends upon campaign specifics for any practical examples).

You're overselling the point. This argument was based on the premise of "what if the campaign's combat encounters consisted of mostly oozes?" This is a highly specific and unusual choice by the GM, and I can't see a reason why it would be made except to hard-counter martial PCs in the game, especially ones like this. This is exactly like saying "Rogues are useless in combat, because all of the enemies in my GM's campaign are immune to precision damage" or "Spellcasters are useless, because my GM uses Silence all the time and boxes me into the AoE." Finding and arguing from an extreme, malicious edge case is disingenuous.

In a normally designed, good faith campaign, Deriven's Reach-Slam Down build is monstrous, specifically because it takes advantage of all aspects of the Fighter class synergistically, which many builds, even other great builds, fail to do. That's a sign of great optimization - use all of what you have to full effect. It will work in any circumstance not designed specifically to thwart it. You have to go to a campaign themed on one specific monster to do that. Alternately, you could have a campaign themed around extremely mobile enemies best fought at range, or something else that shifts the assumptions of combat, and that would also shut down Deriven's build. However, if you can assume a normal campaign with more or less standard expectations, the safe money is that this build will be incredibly useful in 99% of encounters. If you arrive at a table where they're playing a themed game that would alter that, the player should be informed of the game's theme so that they can build their PC accordingly.

If you have a mathematically-based argument that another build is more effective in more situations than Deriven's build, that's awesome. Show it to make your argument. Arguing that there exists an extremely specific scenario that shuts down the build is not at all valid, because just about everything in the game has a hard counter, and most of them are more common than an all-ooze campaign.

From my largely-outside perspective, this looks like a flimsy excuse to gang up on Deriven and condemn the mindset, rather than a legitimate attempt to argue against the points. I don't really know anyone here, but if you don't like Deriven or the analytical approach to the game, that's fine. To me, you all don't appear to be making reasoned arguments. Just shouting at somebody.

This is kind of a theoretical framework I've devised.

To me, healing, tankiness, and action denial are classified as "Not Losing." Not Losing is great. You definitely need enough Not Losing to get you through to the other side of a combat encounter. The thing about it is, Not Losing tends to be finite.

On the other side, offense is classified as "Winning." You want to be able to be burning off the enemy's numbers, reducing the number of actions they can take against you. Without enough Winning, you will run out of Not Losing.

You need to be able to handle all the Not Losing you need, but every PC should be able to contribute meaningfully to the Winning, too. If you ever find yourself at the tail end of the combat wondering what to do because the enemies are being routed and your combat role is therefore obsolete, you don't have a plan for Winning. You're entirely focused on Not Losing.

"Previously, I used this timer to remind me to give you all a Hero Point. I've changed this policy. I now use the timer to prompt me to evaluate if you've earned a Hero Point, no Hero Points, or a negative Hero Point. This can put you in debt. To get Hero Point privileges, stop faffing about and wasting everyone's time."

Alignment threads are as tenacious as always I see.

Kaspyr2077 wrote:

Next time a group of people attacks the party in the hills, the party should wipe them out, not knowing if they're cannibal bandits or a defense force that got anxious and assumed the party were raiders?

Absolutely none of that matters. If someone is actively trying to kill you, and you have no reasonable recourse for immediate escape, you must kill them. Anything else is a foolhardy deathwish.

Because if you don't, you're dead, and nothing else will matter anyways.

If you pull your punches, then you're either not in immediate mortal danger in the first place, value the life of your attacker(s) over your own, or are just going to get yourself killed.

It doesn't matter who they are or what their reasons for trying to kill you are. All that matters in the moment is that your life, and possibly the lives of others, is under immediate threat. Such threats needs to be dealt with swiftly and with brutal efficiency, or you're all gonna' die.

It's not good. It's not evil. It's survival.

Of course, that's all moot in the scenario the OP proposed, so I digress.

You're not wrong at all, but the same time, even in the real world, people surviving combat is more the rule than the exception. Sometimes people on one side are captured by another. It happens.

Most forces try to gauge how aggressive and committed the enemy force is, rather than go for the 100% kill clear. It's generally viewed as preferable to see if these are really intractable enemies or not before everyone is dead.

...

Yeah, it's cool. Sometimes we forget the Internet has all kinds of people on it.

Actually, if you reread the OP, they had patched up and interrogated the prisoners. That's why they knew the prisoners were bandits and cannibals.

In today's society, people tend to be conditioned to let police hold the monopoly on force, let them handle the apprehension of criminals and everything after. I have a different perspective, as if I am the victim of an attack, law enforcement might be here in as soon as half an hour. I have literally no one to rely on in an emergency except myself and my family. That's why people outside cities like to be armed.

Now, extrapolate that out to, say, parts of Alaska without roads. Say a work crew up there was attacked. They successfully fight off their attackers. Some attackers are injured, but captured. The crew learns that the attackers meant to kill the crew and burglarize the site.

By the standards of most of this thread, that crew is obligated to provide care, food, and transportation to the nearest law enforcement installation. They might well not have the supplies or equipment to manage that journey while keeping the prisoners secure. If they can, it might jeopardize their entire operation. Law enforcement certainly can't make it out to site. The crew DEFINITELY doesn't have the spare food for these guys. What can they do?

Keep in mind that, as an American, I do not view the government nor its institutions as sacred. That's more of a French thing. I do my very best to abide by the law, but the law is created by a group of people and enforced by a bunch of people. The people aren't superior to me, and the laws aren't spiritual. It functions where it can, but it breaks a lot. Especially when you're a long way away.

What are you even talking about?

Have you read the OP?

Kinger wrote:

The person who executed one of the bandits thinks that it was perfectly alright citing that they attacked us. Someone else disagrees since they were tied up and helpless.

What are your thoughts?

The actual player who killed them used this justification.

All this theoretical stuff of "what ifs" doesn't mean anything.

The player killed a restrained target because he was attacked first.
That's what the player actually said to justify his actions

That's undeniably kindergarten mentality, and if used by an adult, a pure evil reason to kill someone.

---

2 people can kill the same target. One because he doesn't like his face, the other because if left alive, the target will murder half a town.

Both killed the same target, one of them is evil, the other isn't.

Did YOU read the OP? Because that PC wasn't talking about the principle of all attacks everywhere justifying lethal response. The PC was talking about the specific attack that the prisoners had just finished making on the PCs. The one with the intent of murdering and eating them. Why would you generalize from that to "all attacks"? The PC wasn't stating a philosophical commitment to disproportionate response. He was talking about a specific attack with lethal intent. You're scrubbing it of context and overgeneralizing.

But none of those you say were the stated justifications.

The justification given from the player was "it's ok to kill them, they attacked us first".

As I said, there may be legitimate reasons to kill, but that ain't one.

That's a reason given from kindergarten kids of why they fight.

Why aren't they the stated justifications? Because they're true. We're talking about a scenario with a band of murderous bandit cannibals. Why are you stripping it down to a generic "attack"? We are talking about murder, and you're muddying the waters, introducing the idea of a harmless attack and then equating the two.

No one is talking about a mischievous kid. We're talking about murderers. Have been all along.

As I said in the other thread:

There may be reasons for killing them (esp due to cannibalism).
But the justification given "they attacked me first" is at minimum childish.

Would you kill a kid that threw a rock at you?

Both the captured bandits and a random kid are helpless after their capture.

The kid throwing a rock hasn't caused serious harm. Bandits murder, often along with a lot of other violent crimes. Self-defense is a question of proportionality.

In this case, because they are helpless, modern concepts of self-defense don't apply, but the lack of law enforcement within half an hour drive creates a situation foreign to just about anyone on this forum. The law isn't being effectively enforced. You are living in an anarchic state where the law doesn't apply, because it cannot be enforced. There probably isn't a clear answer to which authority should even be involved. If there is an authority, he probably got the job by killing bandits too.

Again all of these did not appear in the OP's game.

Which is a great thing to know after the fact, but "again," there was no way to know until after the decision what the consequences of the decision would be. I do not make decisions in-game on the assumption that I won't have to deal with implementing them, that the GM will handwave it all. I don't know why anyone would assume that.

Also confession is very very far from being a proof of guilt as those experts in legal matters you mentioned previously could tell you.

If someone is caught in the act of a crime, and then confesses to performing that crime regularly, then those legal experts are going to have a hard time formulating an argument for innocence. In fact, if you arrested them and turned them into authorities, on what basis are they going try, convict, and punish these people, if not eyewitness testimony and confession? What fact-finding options does a local fantasy authority have that PCs don't?

It's a really, really bad idea to confess to a crime, and then later try to argue that you didn't do it. If you admit to doing it, you're probably going down for it, because a confession is considered basically the gold standard of evidence by most every legal system in history.

Kinger wrote:

What are your thoughts?

Evil. It's killing for convenience as bringing them to the law would take too much time and energy. It's evil justice 101: You don't care about fairness or anything, you just kill whoever you want without justifications.

Is it unfair to kill someone who tried to kill and eat you? Are you worried you can't ascertain their innocence or guilt, what with witnessing it and hearing their confession? If you can't manage to transport them, what do you do? What if you're in a hurry to save the day somewhere entirely else? Are you going to slow your travel speed by 1/3 in order to humanely care for prisoners? What if the relevant legal authority is back the way you came, but lives will be lost if you don't get to your destination ASAP? Once you've captured them, is it an absolute moral duty to escort them safely and comfortably to the nearest authority to have THEM kill your prisoners on your word, or is there some specific number of people who would have to die before you considered another course of action? What if you didn't have enough food for the journey? What if you didn't have enough people to watch them and protect yourself? Are you willing to die in order to attempt to bring bandits to the judgment of a local guy with no qualifications except a political appointment to the job?

Wow, that is just... shockingly ahistorical. Most of the land you're talking about was empty desert the first time a European set eyes on it, mostly from the plague that was always going to happen the first time someone from anywhere else on the world landed on these shores. The Lewis and Clark expedition described most of it as a worthless, empty desert wasteland, not villages, orchards, and croplands. The villages that were eventually burned were largely a consequence of people like the Blackfoot putting on other people's markings and making just absolutely horrific attacks as false flags. I would know - I'm Blackfoot. But I'm not sure why you would bring any of that up. It's not exactly relevant.

How moral issues play out at the table is, in many ways, impossible to fully communicate in a Session 0. Most of people's morality is based on unexamined assumptions and life experiences that people are usually not conscious. A person could fill a book with their personal moral code, but first they'd have to spend a decade or so with a great therapist in order to sort out what even needs to be communicated.

An outdoorsman, a soldier, anyone who has studied logistics is going to have serious questions about if a multi-day, multi-prisoner transfer is going to be a practical undertaking with the available personnel and supplies. Someone who has studied law or philosophy will wonder at the nature and extent of an authority that allows bandits to thrive on the roads. These people are working on a whole different mindset than people who have never had to question the role of law enforcement and the judicial system in their life, who trust the police and courts with all their hearts. That's not something that's been covered in any Session 0 I've attended.

The OP's party delivered the 3 surviving bandits to the authorities with zero trouble.

I now wonder why the killer PC did not kill all of the bandits.

I'm assuming they accomplished it with zero trouble because no one at the table is familiar with prisoner transfer, or was interested in making a big deal of it. Which is fine, of course. I would expect that to be true of most tables. But here, we're getting into the decision-making process of why or why not one would execute a captured prisoner, so costs and challenges are relevant. "It happens with no problems" is hand-waving away something that is actually a serious challenge.

If the party had killed the bandits, no one would have even mentioned it again. But because they went to the effort of capturing and questioning them instead, the party is now apparently obligated to go to a lot of effort and expense to transport the prisoners to someone else, so THEY will kill them. Along the way, the party will provide food, water, latrine breaks, etc, along with extra security. If you do it wrong - like keeping them hogtied for multiple days - you've just tortured them to death, wasting your effort and everyone's time. Unless this party's objection was that the kill was too clean, and they wanted to torture the prisoners to death?

I don't have any info on the "killer PC," but I would not make any assumptions about the player or character. There are enough nuances to the situation that I laid out in my first post that it's entirely likely that this PC was operating under a different set of assumptions than the rest of the group, not a murderhobo.

I think any discussion about wild west style justice is moot since they were able to take 3/4 of the bandits in without any notable difficulties.

Wild west justice was often dictated by the harsh realities of the environment. It would be a very different prospect if you are a 200 mile walk to civilization and you barely have enough supplies for 4 people. And the captives seem dangerous enough to slip out and cut your throats in the night.

But that is not what we're dealing with. They even came with their own mule to carry them. You could hog tie them and wrap them up like mummies, and it would have little effect on your travels.

That's not something mortal beings can survive for multiple days, so if that's your plan, you could have gotten similar results by just crucifying them. You save a few days in the process, too.

Transferring prisoners safely costs time, effort, and resources. Trying to shortcut it like this just results in unpleasant death, or escapes. There is a very good chance you don't have the time, personnel, or resources to pull it off.

Also, you want to put three prisoners on the back of one mule? I hope these are Small creatures, because if not, you should probably just crucify the mule too. It would be more humane.

Okay, so, you've been attacked. You subdued and captured them, then got an explanation that they are "basically bandits and cannibals." I assume you mean that this means they've engaged in this behavior before.

You have a few choices here. You could execute them, take them to town, or leave them there to either escape or die of exposure. Or release them, I guess.

I figure the most evil is to leave them. If they escape, there's no justice, and other people are in danger. If they don't, you tortured them to death. This one I would definitely say is "evil."

Next, taking them to town for the authorities. How far is it to town? What are your supplies like? Can you afford to feed and water them on the way back to town? What's your security situation like? Do you have enough people to keep a watch on them while transporting them, while also watching for external threats, including more bandits trying to rescue these? What about using the latrine? What's your procedure for keeping them secure while giving them a chance to relieve themselves? Or are you not going to address that, and have them coated in filth by the time you get back? Where were you going when you were attacked? Do you have urgent business? Is making this trip going to prevent you from resolving more important matters? Will it cost lives somewhere else?
Are you prepared to invest the time and resources to take them back to town? If no, what do you do?

What about the authorities themselves? What are they going to do? Are they going to kill the prisoners for sure? If no, why? They're bandits and cannibals - pretty sure that's the only practical penalty. They won't be imprisoned - nobody can afford to do that. Will they let these guys go? Are they that corrupt, or is there another reason why they're ineffectual? If they ARE going to kill the prisoners while bound, why are you transporting them? What's the difference if you kill them or hand them over to be inevitably killed? Is the death somehow qualitatively different if performed by this authority? Where does the authority derive from? Is it divine, and that's why they have to be executed by the authority? Or is it secular authority, and you're enduring a potentially several-day-long, expensive, demanding prisoner transfer operation to hand over the prisoners to be executed by the state, as represented by people who are not much different than you?

Next, release them. Do you really want to release these cannibal bandits to attack the next people to come along? Is that the "good" thing to do?

Finally, killing prisoners. It's easy, cheap, quick. You don't have state authority stamping your action, and if that's important to you, then you could see it as evil. If you aim to solve the problem, though, it may be the literal only solution you can afford.

----------

End of the day, I recommend not accepting surrenders or taking prisoners, if it's going to cause this amount of conflict in your group.

If a government governs something larger than a small town, it is definitely corrupt. If it governs a small town or village, it's only extremely likely to be corrupt. This is true throughout all of human history. As Themetricsystem says, that's human nature. Authority in the hands of imperfect people makes corruption inevitable, and the more people and the more authority are involved, the more corruption will inevitably happen.

For a fun experiment, you could try explaining real governments to your friend as "fantasy" governments, and see if you get the same reaction.

Just incase you aren't actually intended to be a debate bro about this and are just having a brain freeze, the OP's intent was to convey:

- WotC took actions that caused Paizo to believe creating ORC was the safest and most sensible action to take.
- In doing so WotC forced a scenario in which Paizo had to purge OGL covered IP from their setting.
- The OP is unhappy that WotCs actions resulted in this, and blames them for the scenario and therefore the effect of Paizo deciding to make a choice.

Slow down there, Hoss. Before talking like that, you're going to want to go back and read what the post you're trying to explain actually says. You could even take a minute or two to read what I've said about it, before trying to dress me down.

1. He is angry because "D&D" (Hasbro/WotC) "won't let" "Pathfinder" (Paizo) use their IP.

Not even factually true. Hasbro has thoroughly surrendered on the point of the OGL. If Paizo wanted to, they could go back to using the OGL. I'm sure Hasbro would be delighted. Is that a good idea? No, for reasons I have repeatedly stated in this thread. Now you're lecturing me on them as if it's new information.

The details of the OGL debacle are certainly not anything that the OP has "attempted to convey." It is not clear that he knows anything about it. That's you making a lot of assumptions based on very little.

2. Golarion, as a consistent and cohesive setting, will suffer.

Yeah, maybe, a little. As I have repeatedly addressed, and you are now lecturing me about as if I've never heard of the idea, I understand better than most how passionate people are about canons and continuity.

In the case of an RPG setting, though, I've suffered through many instances of settings being revised to match rules changes or new marketing approaches. Personally, I find the removal of D&D elements make the setting more immersive as a setting. Fewer signposts that say "CLASSIC GAME ELEMENT HERE."

More than that, though, I would like OP to understand that this is the inevitable fate of license agreements, and posting angrily about it 6-8 months later is probably an indication of a lack of perspective.

The time to be angry at Hasbro was last summer, in the thick of it, when the battle was on. Now, Hasbro has been beaten, apologized, and all the parties have chosen a direction and started walking in it. Maybe relax and have fun gaming. Being angry about it now is almost as pointless as being angry on forums at the guy who was trying to offer information instead of screaming "burn the witch."

3. He doesn't want to give Paizo money.

And he's not obligated to. They burned a lot of bridges in their mad scramble for solvency. It's like Titanic, only Jack tries to get on the door, but Rose shoves him off with a slur about the Irish. Saving yourself is okay, but how you treat everyone around you in the process matters.

I just think there are a lot better reasons to avoid giving Hasbro money. Anger isn't good for the health.

It was I understood about OP. Unless it's complaining about the Paizo decision to not use Drows anymore or something like this.

Yeah, give it another quick read. He's angry that the Golarion setting is going to be disrupted when the WotC IP is stripped out. Which is absolutely understandable. There's a lot of fictional canons I am fiercely protective of, and would be outraged if they were altered due to a years-later change to an IP contract.

The problem is that there is literally no way out. Hasbro is bleeding and desperate, looking for new monetization strategies and making boneheaded mistakes in an effort to stay alive. As a result of one of those, they ruined their relationship with third party publishers via the OGL. Therefore, they have to divide the IP. It's shockingly common in licensing agreements, and getting moreso all the time.

No I'm just saying since the beginning that the fact that we probably won't get anymore things from Golarion's setting into D&D is a consequence of the Hasbro's decision during the early of last year when they tried to change license retroactively.

Either this is phrased awkwardly, or I'm missing something. Things from Golarion's setting into D&D? Either you said it backward, or you're primarily focused on Paizo's conversions of their own material to 5E.

Then I added my own commentary to the topic that for Paizo this was less impactful than it was for many other settings due the existence of PF2 and how this system is already a lot outside the D&D's IP and its changes was minimal in comparison to other settings need to do.

Yes, the mechanics of PF2 existing are very helpful for publishing future material, but it looks like the OP's outrage is specifically about the disruption to the setting, where WotC proprietary IP has to be removed going forward. Which is an issue. It's just an unavoidable one, at this point. Even if Hasbro proceeded with pure intent and goodwill from the moment Paizo announced they were ending their participation in the OGL, the two IPs have to separate. There is no alternative.

And my 3rd point is that the fact that's if the Hasbro is right or not legally when they try to change the contract to protect the IP don't really matters in face of the undesired consequences that they had to deal.

Yes, but if you're going to be angry at them, be angry for the right reasons. Their fault led to the need for the divorce, but they're accepting the division of assets exactly as they're required to. Don't focus your anger on the division of assets when it's the relationship that was the problem.

So don't need to be harsh. I'm not disagreeing from you. It was Paizo who decided to abandon the OGL in a free will due distrust not the Hasbro that prohibited new Golarion content for D&D. I also pointed this in my first paragraph in my first reply here. But this doesn't change the fact that the exit of Paizo from OGL was the consequences of Hasbro's acts.

Between you and me, you're the one being harsh. You're extrapolating the first post to mean something that it does not say. I'm trying to bridge the gap to the OP to understand the issue, and you (and others) are hassling me for not reading an understanding of the issue into it that is not demonstrated.

It just feels like you're arguing against a point that no-one is making; OP isn't saying that Hasbro is mean for enforcing their IP against Paizo now that they are no longer using the ORC to access WotC's IP, they're saying that they wish that WotC had never tried to pull the rug out from under everyone's feet with their revoking of the old OGL. This isn't a legal argument, this is a statement of frustration that the bad behaviour of WotC has led much of the tRPG community to feel unsafe in continuing to use the OGL, because this means that many parts of Paizo's setting that they enjoy will have to be removed. The specifics of the legality of it is seemingly irrelevant to what they're trying to communicate with their statement - at least that's how I read it.

It's a statement of frustration, yes. A statement of frustration in need of some fact. Of course Hasbro can't let Paizo use their stuff any more. The licensing agreement ended. We all have a well-established opinion on the situation leading up to the end of the agreement, but the agreement is now over, and there's no way forward where Hasbro can let Paizo use their IP.

Come back to beating the drum of the OGL shenanigans being vile? Yes, absolutely, 100% on board. Skip over that and go straight to "I don't care about a licensing agreement, Hasbro should let Paizo use their stuff"? No.

Unreliable and treacherous... but you don't assign any malice?

Even if the relationship ended badly, they're handling the divorce as well as anyone could ask of them, so yes, no malice involved in the division of assets. That's all happening exactly as anyone would expect.

So, if I understand your belief system and world view correctly,

Oh, this should be good. A single post about a highly specific topic is always a great way to understand an entire person and their philosophy.

people/corporations cannot be 'forced' to do anything.

They are always simply making a decision.

... Dear Lord... it's everything I hoped it could be. Disingenuous and uncharitable reading, wild generalization... marvelous. I'm printing this and hanging it on my fridge.

People, corporations, any entity with agency can indeed be forced or compelled to do something. That's just not what happened HERE. Paizo wasn't compelled to flip Hasbro the bird, ride off on a motorcycle, and make their own licensing agreement, with blackjack, etc. That was one of many options. One I believe most didn't expect. And because it was their own decision, made by their own will and according to their own vision, it was AWESOME.

They had the option of waiting out the public backlash, banding together with other creators, and hoping they could pressure Hasbro to abandon the new OGL and go back to the old one, like they eventually did. They probably had the option of selling out, too. They didn't have to say "f 'em, I don't need 'em," and a less bold decision probably could have kept everything intact. But that's not the choice they made, and that's the biggest reason I am a Paizo fan. Cutting OGL material and replacing it with original stuff will probably result in an overall superior, if less familiar, product.

Yes, these are the legal consequences and we are not saying anything against them, not that what Hasbro did is outside their rights, or that Paizo was wrong to exit a license that proved unreliable after trying to maneuver the license retroactively.

We were commenting on the consequences of this!
That commercially and for the company's image and reliability within the TTRPGs market was considerable damage. Which won't end Hasbro/WotC or D&D, but in the end it caused more setbacks than benefits.

Actually, the OP framed this whole discussion as if Hasbro not letting Paizo use their IP was a mean-spirited decision, or even an intended consequence of what Hasbro did. I pointed out that this was not the case. Then you responded to me with "I understand, but" and then ignored my post and said a bunch of stuff that wasn't related to what I said.

The fact that you have a right does not mean that exercising that right is not necessarily the best choice, not to mention that the form also matters.

Actually, most rights come with obligations. When it comes to property, many of those obligations come in the form of maintenance. If you own something, and you don't care for it, in some instances, it can be considered neglect or abandonment. That's how IP works. You have to maintain it, or it's not yours any more.

In this case, it's not even relevant, because Paizo saw the situation with the OGL and left of their own free will, taking the proactive approach of excising OGL material themselves, even after Hasbro surrendered. The form of Hasbro enforcing their own IP, in this case, is nothing. They're not trying to run Paizo off. At this point, I'm sure they would prefer if Paizo stayed, for the same reason that the OGL originally existed for. Hasbro isn't doing this. Paizo is. Yes, for important reasons, but it is still their action.

And the topic itself is about this,

I know what the topic is about. I just quoted that entire post. It's about Hasbro not letting Paizo use their IP in Golarion. That isn't a full or useful picture of the situation. You're putting an awful lot of your own special sauce on the OP, telling me what it is and isn't about, using concepts that weren't even alluded to in the OP.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. Is there someone who is actually arguing that the OGL material is all public domain?

I am mad as Hell about what D&D won't let pathfinder use any more. This is going to throw off the continuity of the world of Golarion one of the richest and most detailed fantasy settings of all time. I have been buying D&D products for about 40 years now, but they won't be getting a single penny from me ever again!

This. The OP. Thomas is angry that "D&D" (Hasbro/WotC) won't "let" "Pathfinder" (Paizo) use its IP any more. I'm trying to clarify that Paizo no longer has the legal right to publish that material, and Hasbro must protect its right to that material. The proximate cause for that is Paizo's decision to leave the OGL, though I think we all agree that their reasons for doing so were justified, to say the least.

There are plenty of reasons to be upset at Hasbro in this whole debacle, but Hasbro can't just decide one day to not be meanie-poopie-heads and pinkie-promise that they'll let Paizo play with their toys forever. It's a bit more complex than that.

...

...

Mostly true, and yet, 100% irrelevant.

The OGL is a licensing agreement. Paizo was, for many years, comfortable publishing material under that agreement. Quite recently, Hasbro made an ill-advised move to try to retroactively alter the agreement. Even after failure, Paizo was now aware that Hasbro was an unreliable partner and potentially treacherous partner to be in such an agreement with, and so they ended their participation in the agreement.

As a result, they have to stop using licensed IP in future products. If Paizo continued to use licensed IP in future products, they would be open to lawsuits that Hasbro MUST pursue, or lose the right to their IP. This is not a thing that Hasbro can legally opt to do, because of obligations to their owners.

Any history and individuals involved is irrelevant. Feel however you want to about any of it, what I've described is the cold, hard legal fact.

YuriP, the motives and virtues of WotC, the follies of edition transitions, etc., yes, might all be true, or at least a valid way of looking at events, but none of that impacts the legality of the matter.

Dancing Wind, I, too, think that it's a fun bit of trivia that the lawyer that initially drafted the OGL is now working with another company to draft the ORC, but that doesn't actually affect the legal situation between Hasbro and Paizo. Paizo had been publishing material drawing from IP licensed via the OGL. They decided to discontinue with the OGL as a result of last year's events. That's a technical description. If you want to reframe it into a saga, feel free to do that. I think it's a great story. Arguing rhetoric against the technicalities is kind of an odd way to approach it, though.

Which no one would have minded. But the actual license included that pesky word "perpetual", which Hasbro decided didn't mean "perpetual" after all.

Yes, absolutely, and Hasbro/WotC deserves heaps of scorn for what they tried to pull with the "updated OGL" debacle, as I said. This isn't the same issue, though. Even after Hasbro walked all that back, Paizo (wisely) maintained the posture that Hasbro/WotC could not be trusted to honor the OGL going forward, and decided to walk away from the OGL. That is a decision Paizo made.

There is no version of this course of events where Paizo becomes unbound by past, present, or future iterations of the OGL while retaining the ability to use WotC proprietary IP. Regardless of how in the wrong Hasbro definitely was, Paizo has no grounds to keep that IP, even if it was originally released in their own D&D publications. Hasbro owns all of that, to the extent that it's material that could be copyrighted or trademarked at all. In order to leave their (suddenly abusive) relationship with WotC, Paizo had to leave behind the things that belong to WotC.

I stopped giving WotC money because I found their products lazy, uninspired, and un-fun.

That said, as much as I sneer at what happened with the OGL, I hold WotC and Hasbro entirely blameless in the matter of protecting their IP from parties who are no longer part of an agreement to use it. They have to do that, or they don't have any IP at all. It's not (inherently) acrimonious or mean-spirited - it's the legal process of two companies ending a licensing agreement.

Arcaian wrote:

The existence of vaguely-similar creatures in real-world mythology doesn't save something from the OGL crisis, I'm afraid. It would be possible to make a new golem creature that is inspired by the original mythology, but the existence of golems as anti-magic creatures made of specific materials with associated abilities is all very much part of the WotC IP that was made available by the OGL. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up with a construct inspired by the original mythology, and the golems that paizo has made themselves might be able to be tweaked to fit past, but an Iron Golem that is vulnerable to rust and acid, immune to non-acid magic, and has a breath weapon isn't something that can come back in a post-OGL world.

...and, honestly, good riddance.

I'm not going to cry for the rust monster, either.

Same. A lot of D&D-isms are things that I found pretty tiresome.

There exists a category of monster that is beloved not because they're evocative or narratively brilliant, but because they're D&D classics. Deploy them for a table full of grognards, and they shout with joy. Use them with new players, and they'll be confused and a little taken aback.

It's sometimes fun to indulge in gamer culture for its own sake, but these things tend to seem weird and out-of-place in most adventure narratives, so mostly I avoid them when possible.

<etymology stuff directly contradicting the content of an etymology resource>

Fascinating. It's like you can acknowledge that I'm talking, but not what I'm saying.

Of course, while interesting, this etymological history is nevertheless not pertinent to the question. To date, Golarion elves have never been fey creatures. They do not, to my knowledge, live in fairy mounds, and they are not sidhe. Certainly not anymore than they are goblins, or incubi. Whatever old folkloric inspirations make their way into Pathfinder's depiction of elves, they're still aliens from another planet.

From a practical standpoint, I have found it odd that a non-fae humanoid has an exclusive form of incredibly dangerous undead, as if elf souls are in some way unique compared to all other souls. In D&D this at least made sense where elves are descended from fae, even though it's still a bit weird. I'd rather an actual fae banshee rather than a pretend-fae banshee, whether it's undead or not.

If making a setting from scratch that included both the fae and non-fae elves, I would probably opt to have the banshee be fae rather than elf. However, since we're dealing with an existing setting, wherein elves are alien and banshees are elf-ghosts, I don't see anything wrong with the concept of ancestry-specific forms of undeath. It might have something to do with unique qualities of their souls, ancestral magic, or whatever, but how established is it that death and souls are universally identical across all ancestries? That seems like a fascinating thing to explore, actually, and if there was a possibility of exploring it in the future, that might actually be more fun than fae banshees.

In any case, Dancing Wind is right, Paizo will do with their banshee what they think best, based on advice from their lawyers and not whether any one of us thinks it would be easy to argue one way or another in court. These discussions about what the OGL does and doesn't mean have filled the boards since the announcement of the remaster, but still sometimes people feel the need to dictate what Paizo does or doesn't need to do, rather than keeping their tone speculative.

That's a good point, and we should definitely keep an eye out for that when we see it. Not sure why it's come up now, though, because that's clearly not what I'm doing. I'm not talking to Paizo or their lawyers. I'm talking to you. I have something of a legal background myself, and while I haven't read many of the specific documents about this issue, I have listened to a few analyses from those who have. I have found myself surprised to find out that the term "lich" originated in D&D, for example, and that the word "phylactery" was actually extremely poorly chosen and, in context, very offensive, and thus undead super-mages should definitely get a solid revamp to get away from anything created in D&D. The banshee, though... it isn't hard to find non-gaming-related sources linking banshees and elves, so I believe it would be a real stretch to call the idea unique and proprietary to WotC.

Is the Two-Handed Weapon Fighter really lacking in some way? Because from my reading of these boards, Fighter is recognized as probably the best class, and Two-Handed is arguably one of the better ways to build it. I haven't heard anyone particularly bemoan its survivability.

There does seem to be relatively little reason to use a weapon and shield. You give up the damage option of a weapon in both or each hand, and the control option of each hand. Those builds tend to have options to emulate the defensive nature of the shield. Shield Block is the only thing really uniquely good about using a shield. Sacrificing damage and control for survivability is possibly a valid trade, but what if the other options are sturdy enough?

Personally, I think shields should be buffed substantially before we talk about taking away what benefits they currently get.

I suspect that Paizo is going to follow their lawyers' advice about what needs to change for legal reasons and to follow their creative directors' advice about what needs to change for Golarion lore reasons, and to follow their game designers' advice about what changes are 'important' or 'substantial'.

Not random business advice from their community discussion boards.

Why are you addressing this to me, and not to the OP of this thread and others like it devoted to talking about what's in, what's out, why or why not?

First of all, no, obviously OGL doesn't mean WotC reserves folklore, that's not what anyone is saying. The OGL represents a certain expression of the folklore that is WotCs idea/mechanics, the way they did the Banshee is theirs.

And for the record, you don't translate sidhe to elf, they're comparable entities involved but sidhe is the word for the mounds and hills the Aos Si (the actual similar folks) live under. End of the day it is a conflation, and a DnD/WotC original one.

I love how I provide a non-gaming-related citation, keep referring back to it, and people without citations keep ignoring what it says. Let's try again. See if it does any better.

Sidhe

pl n the sidhe
1. the inhabitants of fairyland; fairies

I don't really like this one. It lacks context, so I'm going back to Etymonline.

Banshee (n)
in Irish folklore, a type of female fairy believed to foretell deaths by singing in a mournful, unearthly voice, 1771, from phonetic spelling of Irish bean sidhe "female of the Elves," from bean "woman" (from PIE root *gwen- "woman") + Irish sidhe (Gaelic sith) "fairy" or sid "fairy mound" (from PIE root *sed- (1) "to sit"). Sidhe sometimes is confused with sithe, genitive of sith "peace."

It is ambiguous whether the word refers to the people or the mound, has been used for both, and in common use, as illustrated by the Dictionary.com entry, it tends to the former.

Once again, this is a non-gaming citation, conflating elves and the sidhe. Two very similar concepts from two very proximate cultures.

It would be very difficult to argue in court that the relationship between elves and banshees in their setting is more unique IP than Tolkien's elves are in the first place. If both WotC and Paizo can use elves, then elf => banshee remains valid for both.

It's not the only way to go, perhaps not even the preferable way to go, but there is no need for Paizo to change the banshee. There are many more important and substantial adjustments that could be made.

Boy, do I hate getting this free thing I do not want. Class ruined. F tier. Gimme back my money pls

Nah, I get it. It does make sense. Ordinarily, you would expect the class chassis to work 100% with every build you might want to play, while the build-specific features should come in a subclass, feats, etc. Seeing a feat included in the chassis that seems intended for a build you don't intend to play can feel a bit awkward.

The thing with Fighters in PF2, though, is how much the game emphasizes their versatility. Flex feats built in, etc. Say OP's character is for some reason in a situation where they can't use their main weapon, or just needs extra defense in the encounter. Swap your flex feats to fit, and you can be a sword-and-board Fighter for the day. Lucky for you, you don't even have to burn a feat on Shield Block, because you're at least that good with a shield by default.

I can see Banshees being unmarried from Elves anyhow, since that connection is pretty much just an OGL thing right? The Rakshasa has experienced greater changes over it, lost their backwards hands and are now primordial evil spirits, not even fiends anymore. So I'd be surprised if Banshees were entirely unchanged.

The OGL can't reserve folklore for WotC's use.

And that’s the thing with pulling real-world folklore into established Campaign Settings. My understanding was that Golarion’s elves are aliens from Castrovel, and not tied to the fey/fae or the First World.

And that is certainly one of the established things about the setting, which complicates things, because the banshee comes from a body of traditional lore where elves and sidhe are basically synonymous. It means you can't have the banshee be both in this setting. Seems odd, but workable. Not having the banshee be EITHER just makes me wonder what about it is supposed to be a banshee.

You want to homogenize two similar mythical beings from two different cultures and I'm the one who hates folklore. Funny thing is, among the things these cultures have in common is how little we know about the state of the folklore before Christianization. We simply do not have the information to track the no doubt rich folklorical similarities and connections.

Do not act as if the commonalities between Norse and Celtic culture originates with me. There are countless books on the subject. If you're more of a casual enjoyer of mythology, folklore, and history, the mutual influence of Norse and Celtic cultures is a subject that frequently comes up on several YouTube channels. My favorite folklore channel is The Fortress of Lugh, and while the Norse influence doesn't come up in every video, it has been mentioned several times in the ones I've watched. Yes, a lot of it has been lost to time and Christianization. No, not enough has been lost that we can't study cultural influences.

I searched "etymology banshee" and cited the first good link. I didn't go shopping for it. That was the Etymonline quote, translating "sidhe" as "elf." I do not understand how you could in good faith insist that elves and Irish folklore have no connection, and that's something I'm making up.

You claim that the dead elf is accurate to the folklore

I did nothing of the sort. I objected to you wanting to remove the elf bit - the IMPORTANT bit - from the creature. It's not an elf ghost, originally. It's an elf. I'm okay with elf ghost, in an adaptation. You want to make it just a ghost, and that's a bit too far for it to be the same thing. It's not even related to the original, at that point.

but you seem unbothered that you have blurred several different cultures together on the assumption that they probably knew each other once, so their folklore is thereby indistinguishable.

... Seriously? The... assumption... that they had met...

There is endless documented history and reams of paper devoted to analyzing the commonalities and divergeces of mythology and folklore between the Celts and the Norse.

In this case, the reason why the site I cited translated sidhe to "elf" was because those stories are closely enough related to be more or less the same thing.

I support the idea that a remastered version of the banshee might take a turn closer to their mythological roots and be classed as a type of fae spirit. It is strange to me that the baobhan sidhe is fey, while the banshee is undead. Meanwhile, given that the elves of Golarion are not fae, nor in any particular way associated with the First World, it's even stranger that these random humanoids from another planet have some unique form of (very...

Make it an elf thing, and that's fine. Make it a fae thing, and that's fine. You want it to just be a ghost thing, and that's just not a banshee any more.

Perhaps you missed my point. I don't object to banshee being fae. Elves originate from Norse mythology, and despite much conflation in modern takes between them and fae folklore, if we're going to insist on staying true to the folklore in our depictions, perhaps exclusively tying the banshee to an alien humanoid (as Golarion's elves are) that originates from a totally different culture may be seen as a strange way to do that.

Elves "originate" in Norse folklore, if folklore ever really "originates," but the Norse and various Celtic cultures had hundreds of years of interaction, so I'm not sure what point you think you're making with that.

The banshee as it currently stands is an undead elf woman, which is close enough to certain readings of the folklore. Why would you change it to reflect folklore LESS? Do you hate folklore in general, or just unique and interesting monsters?

There’s always going to be “filing off” of serial numbers when transmigrating real-world folklore/myths/legends to a campaign setting that isn’t set on Earth. It’s kind of an auto-assumption. And endless hand-wringing on how “authentic” those transmigrations are are in essence, a waste of time, with no “correct” answer.

Personally, nothing about having “clay golems” as a statblock means I can’t inject more nuance derived from anywhere in my imagination or real world cultures. Or I can ignore all of human culture for *my* presentation of clay (or any) golems in my game at my discretion.

Similarly, while I prefer the ban-shee as a mangled transliteration of “dark-elf” and thus dark-fae spirit, typically but not exclusively tied to the woods, I lean more on the elfin/fae-spirit than vengeful ghost.

Not sure why anyone should call any of that “tasteless”. Have your own imagination.

Of course there is some change inherent in adaptation. The issue I have is that the Banshee is an example of something that was adapted suitably well - not perfectly, but it fits into the setting and is useful for its purpose - and then someone wants to come along and wants to wipe away its defining characteristic for not being generic enough.

It's folklore that the Irish wailing woman of the fairy mounds is just the ghost of an alfr from Norse myth? This does not quite track with my understanding of how folklore works.

banshee (n.)

in Irish folklore, a type of female fairy believed to foretell deaths by singing in a mournful, unearthly voice, 1771, from phonetic spelling of Irish bean sidhe "female of the Elves," from bean "woman" (from PIE root *gwen- "woman") + Irish sidhe (Gaelic sith) "fairy" or sid "fairy mound" (from PIE root *sed- (1) "to sit"). Sidhe sometimes is confused with sithe, genitive of sith "peace."

The root is not a ghost of vengeance, but fae (or elvish) women. The concept has migrated a bit, to the point you're here trying to make them a generic vengeance ghost. Making them vengeance ghosts is a fine take on them, but why are you trying to file the serial numbers off to the point of removing any of the fae/elvish roots? Seems a bit tasteless.

Of course, on the other hand the hosts of the dead were also thought to belong to the fey, so that line isn't precisely a hard one, but I think it would be quite an appropriate change. Perhaps maybe we'll get lucky and banshee won't be randomly an elf-specific entity? Never really liked that apparently only elves can feel betrayal strongly enough to become a mega-undead.

It's not random. It's folklore. It wouldn't be the greatest thing to go around reducing folklore to game constructs by cutting it to fit.