Lanathar's page

As per the title.

I am reading through some old adventures and there are several instances where either enemy spellcasters or traps seek to shrink melee threat PCs

Is this even a viable tactic anymore ?

In PF1 it messed with reach and reduced damage in many cases due to reducing weapon dice size and strength

Most of these things aren’t in the rules anymore . So how would o replicate the intent ? I am thinking more for traps where that is their entire function . I guess best solution would be a bespoke effect that adds some kind of enfeebled condition (or perhaps only does that )

It's interesting to me that the Kingmaker PC game feature of real time combat is what the OP cites as their expectation, but that feature was what killed the game for me.

I couldn't even start playing that game until the Turn Based mod came out.

It definitely points in the direction of flexible, rules-light games for the OP. Trying to do real-time dodging and spell directing would end up a nightmare without a simple hand-wavy system.

There is a turn based mod? I guess I am being really dense but how big a change does that actually make? Are there other games that are turn based as a comparative point?

Yeah I have the feel you've got the wrong game here. You're specifically mentioning PF1 spells and elements, this is about PF2... Common mistake if you're new I suppose.

Unless you have previous experience. I mix up things too, sometimes :)

I am glad I was not the only one thinking this. Especially the feat section . That entire section is pretty much PF1 complaints

Honestly it is a mark of this community that so many people are indulging the OP

The way I can see it is the OP has come in and complained and denigrated about almost every underlying aspect of the d20 system that people on here love

On top of that has demonstrated an utter unwillingness to learn anything about the game (I have 1.5 job and family comment + the combat section demonstrating that they didn’t bother to learn the feats that their fighter could do). Almost no one plays this game full time. And very early on most GMs modify as written content

All whilst claiming the whole group have PHDs as if that means something? Is the suggestion “this game isn’t good enough for well educated people because it is too boring and limiting” or something like that. Maybe it is because I am messaging at a bad time but I find the whole thing quite insulting

And that is not mentioning the well trodden point from above about the OP wanting two different things from the same game without awareness that they clash and a compromise is needed . 100% Delivery of one of the aims would lead to non delivery of the other

And on top of all this the post doesn’t seem to have a reason on top of berating the game whilst trying to sound clever at the same time. It is quite frustrating and I am not sure why it is even necessary

My stance comes from GMing a game where I allowed (in theory) everything except 3PP and gunslingers .

My PCs are far too powerful for the AP and there have been numerous instance where racial or deity specific spells have been picked because d20pfsrd was the source and not AoN and I have then had to have a long winded discussion as to why the options aren’t allowed

Add on arguments over non core rules (not options) like underwater variant rules and retraining which have been thrown at me with “well it is a published PF rule...”

It is a road to madness and I am glad to see a system that seeks to get it under some degree of control

Rysky wrote:

HeHateMe wrote:

I couldn't agree more with the OP, I can't stand stuff like the UA options in 5e or the uncommon/rare options in 2e. Either something is a legit option or it isn't, get off the f@#king fence and make a decision. Don't leave it up to the player to work out some kind of deal with their GM to get that option.

Every campaign and story is different, so why not leave it up to the Players and GMs to work out a deal?

As the rules are, there is no "work out a deal". On a deal both sides participate and have some power on the final result, here all the decision power falls on one side, the DM. I find funny all the talk about having the confidence on the DM to use rarity system well, while players that want uncommon things are presented as whiners. Where is the confidence on the player?

And currently, some characters concepts are so full of uncommon as to barely be playable, like Divination Wizard.

Edit: I find specially problematic the alignment spells case. It seems arbitrary to make some alignment spells the main route to do damage on the Divine casters (looking at Divine lance) and then made so many others uncommon. Either all should be usual spells, or all should be uncommon and take other mechanics as the damage dealing side of Divine spells. The current state made little sense to me.

Coming from a forever GM there is no confidence in the player for a very good reason

Players are presented as whiners because, unfortunately, in the majority of cases they are . The complaints about restrictions are nearly always about “their” fun

An example is a player who dug out Blood Money the other day. I said no because it seems quite obscure. He was also already talking about “it’s great there is no downside because I don’t need strength and can easily heal it back anyway”

He, predictably, said “I found it online on the spell list”

I had to tell him it was a spell only known (in published material) by the BBEG of an entire AP before I could get any concession

An extreme example? Maybe. But picture that over and over again with region specific options, racial spells , deity specific spells etc.

A quick read of the boards and reddit and anywhere (plus my own personal experience) is that the vast majority of players have a supreme sense of entitlement and the person running the game and the story often has to allow this especially if the other players join in

The GM is considered to be trusted with this decision because they have been trusted with running the game . As has already been mentioned if you don’t trust your GM in this way then that is a different conversation - but not one directly related to this particular issue

How have you come up with the numbers for the NPCs? Have you used the new guide? Because their stats are all amazing especially Ameiko

They put the PCs to shame quite significantly

I think key ally NPCs should use player rules but the enemy combatant ones should use the recent guide / align with bestiary to match the challenge requirement

I don’t think Ven should be built to a CR2 threat since he never really was in the original. His AC, saves and attack was all very poor for a CR2 in 1E. I can only assume his original CR2 was assuming a one on one fight , potentially with an unarmored PC (although unlikely) with enough HP that he might have got a lucky crit in and dropped a low level PC

Your build would be a fairly tricky challenge for a level 1 party altogether which I don’t think is the point of the encounter

That damage output seems out of proportion for a shop keeper even under the new standards . But that is just me

Oh wow thank you

It is something that immediately jumped to mind when I was reading the document. And was something I knew was possible in excel but beyond my abilities

Weirdly I might have tried to teach myself how to do it this weekend if something hadn't materialised! But it has and I am delighted

Huzzah! I was hoping someone would do this

Only viewed from my phone but it looks to be exactly what I would want from such a tool

It looks very good from what I have seen so far. Super useful

I hope someone can make an excel monster creation sheet whee you can add the the level and then pick from drop down boxes for all the other areas to give the guidance (and then boxes to allow for tailoring final output)

I don’t think my excel skills are up to it !

I do like Sins of the Father as a stop gap title especially if I also utilise the popular Tsuto based change as well

I did think it was rather close to “Sins of the Saviours” but my intention would be the reveal the real title either once the skinsaw man reference comes up or once the cult appears

The concerns of high level characters being much stronger than lower level enemies seems like it will be addressed by the variant system of removing level to proficiency that will be in the GMG

So my understanding is that a level 20 character will not get +20 AC making standard soldier able to hit them.

As to “E10” - wasn’t the conceit of Epic 6 that you stopped progressing in everything

This system seems rather complex in allowing abilities to carry on increasing even past 10 and somewhat missing the point of what the “E” system was always trying to achieve

A true E10 (or 6 or 8) system would just be like it used to be where you can carry on gaining feats but nothing else . This seems like it would work well in 2E as feats are the cornerstone of the system and within about a year there will be loads of them

And you already have people saying they don’t get enough and wanting to pick all the options (most notably if you wish to recreate all the abilities of something like a 1E Druid)

This system is treading a middle ground that doesn’t seem necessary to tread down (in my view)

Perpdepog wrote:

The Rot Grub wrote:

You can damage swarms with weapons.

You can also grapple, shove, and trip them.

And crit them. Which is hilarious to describe as a GM when they are crit and killed with a bite attack.

The 1E troop rules had a similar problem where a crit on a single enchanted sword could sometimes deal more than half of the HP of the troop . So you can be in a position of saying 2 or 3 sword swings had scattered 20+ guys

There seems to be a deliberate reason for this
If there was a way of doing this then you would quickly get lots of people simply not considering shields an option - regardless of shield block

So nimble dodge and shield cantrip is the best you have . I am not sure if they stack but I think they do

I would want that really early picture (page 32) from the treetops
Does anyone know where that is supposed to be?
(Shame it is portrait)

Sorry for the derail

No they haven’t not formally

The high level advise is find a similar monster of a similar level and use their defensive and offensive bonuses and the reskin - adding unique abilities as required - perhaps by using other stat blocks as ideas

For example a yeth hound would be a hell hound with the fire breath weapon replaced by bay (using the owlear ability as a base point). You can remove some HP and add some resistances and also give it fly in exchange for probably reducing something else

It is also worth checking what sort of abilities playtest versions that didn’t make it had and then bumping them up to align with similar level monsters

The same idea applies to NPCs it seems. If you look at say a third level “unique” humanoid enemy they will have very similar attack, HP, ac and saves to the average of the level (I am going off the first named unique villain of Fall of Plaguestone)

So your actual question seems to be “why are the Signifer requirements so steep for wizards/sorcerers”

Why ask it in an indirect way? And is the premise of your question even correct ? Was there ever any indication of how many were in the ranks in the first place lore wise ?

For the record I like all the titles especially 1, 4, 5 and 6

I just wouldn’t mind the option of changing 2 for the reason I mentioned

Lanathar; A bigger road block than expected.

It also helped that they came here after Mangvhune baited them with the candle murder, so they were only half-buffed.

Alternatives ways to significantly increase the challenge without downgrading the lantern of revealing are;
1) Give Mangvhune true-seeing through some means.
2) Give him a wizard/sorcerer ally than can dimension door him and a mook into flanking (or a bard using jester's jaunt).
3) Give the mooks the persistent spell metamagic feat so they can cast a persistent blindness spell.
4) Give Mangvhune skill focus stealth.

Ah I missed the “than expected” part. Now you mention it I have been caught out by that a few times thinking that things aren’t going to be much of a block. And then a couple of bad rolls and they are still hanging around! Advanced host devils in the temple raid were the most recent example of that !

I was wondering if anyone had any alternate volume titles for this AP?
Notably book 2

The reason is that my group are playing through a different AP right now where they have had several dust ups with the skinsaw cult

There was even a brilliant exchange where one said “I think we are finally done with these guys” and another said “I don’t think so, we will probably be playing a different campaign in 4 years time and they will show up again”

I had to control my face as it is already pretty decided that we are playing Runelords next

I have the anniversary edition so the titles aren’t on the front cover . What could I call volume 2 instead by way of hiding the reveal ?

And as a general thought exercise are there any other alternate titles for the other volumes? Book 1 could be “The Mark of Lamashtu” or something?

Lanathar,

A suggestion about your goblin problem, is to run with "While there are more than a couple reasons why playing a Goblin to start is a bad idea, one of the prominent locals, has a fine collection of Goblin Ears at his establishment, the GOBLIN SQUASH STABLES, and I'd hate to have you go through the effort of making a character, and have a semi-random NPC kill you for your collection, when a rational decision is to just hold off playing a Goblin for a couple levels."

Good luck to you and to the OP superhorse!

Haha thanks for that. I did mention the goblin squash stables in my frustration - both the name and the ear thing!

Still some way off yet - haven’t started book 5 of current AP

Book 5, Session 3: Mangvhune's Heart

They were able to clear out and this dungeon in a single session. Since they came here first, they were level 13 for all of this.

The previous session ended with the Investigator unbarring the door of the first room and opening, casting light into the hall and alerting their enemies. At the start of this session I realized that was unfair to his +35ish perception, so I retconned that he heard the Disciples of Shax milling around while he was unbarring the door. With this new information he mixed up a communal darkvision extract for the group that made the rest of this dungeon much easier.

The Disciples were a bigger roadblock than expected, with the 28 AC and a sack of HP. They were able to nickel and dime the group while once getting off a lucky blindness spell.

The alchemist was the big threat of the night; pre-buffed with haste he was making 4 attacks per round and my group had not focused on touch ac. My 6 player adjustment was the addition of 2 more Disciples to act as meat shields. He was able to knock out one character each round (2 characters) until he failed a save against fear and fled into the circle of recall in a panic.

Mangvhune was not able to effectively cat and mouse because; 1) the lantern of revealing stripped the greater invisibility leaving him exposed after breaking stealth, 2) Communal darkvision removed the protection of darkness, and 3) the investigator's perception allowed him to beat Mangvhune's stealth enough to prevent the studied death attack. So he didn't get to use his cool tricks, but the group got to feel super confident in controlling the battle.

Now... the group appears to be in position to move on to book 6 so I'll be doing some extra prep this weekend to account for most the directions they can go from here.

Lantern of invisibility is such an awesomely powerful item that was included as treasure. And I am sure other writers forgot or didn’t know they have this - notably at this stage

I would say I would bend the rules to make greater invisibility beat it but that seems harsh. Perhaps in my game it would downgrade it to normal when I do it

*

I am jealous that a sack of HP and 28AC is a road block to your group. I have a Kineticist that will laugh at that. I need ACs of that or higher now in Book 4

But aside from the lore skills you can achieve “multiple backgrounds” by simply explaining all your boosts in a similar way

So you only have one official background (say scholar) but if you have a boost in con or strength from either the floating ancestry boost or the free boost phase you can say that you got that from being a farmer or labourer as a child making you unusually resilient compared to the base line...

It doesn’t all need to be codified into strict choices

So you average character gets two sets of two boosts right at the end that can easily be reflective of two backgrounds in addition to the one you already have

Then you can houserule 2 extra lore skills if you want as those aren’t gamebreaking

I run adventures written for one system in a completely different system all the time. It's FAR easier than many GMs expect.

Just run it straight out of the book, converting what you need on the fly.

Swap out the monster and hazard stats for their PF2e equivalents. If there are monsters that aren't in the book, keep the description the same but use the stats of something vaguely similar (i.e. "re-skin"). Your players can't tell.

Set DCs for skill checks per the table on p. 234 of the Core Rulebook:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=171

Treasure and magic items scale a little differently. For treasure, convert GP prices to silver. For items, just keep the loot level-appropriate and sub in something thematically appropriate.

Either use PF2e XP equivalents, or just ditch XP entirely for milestone advancement.

That's it. You're done.

Good luck!

This is all good advise

As an early adventure most of the monsters are likely to be in the Bestiary or the second one

You can then find similar reskins as suggested e.g an Otyugh for the Tentamort

There is an AP conversion guide that is being written on the 2E boards and treasure looks most fiddly

Depending on when you might start waiting for GMG and the new Auto Bonus Progression might help this as it will remove a chunk of magic items (I assume)

I might make a separate post about this another time but it is very much the plan for my group to play this AP in 2E after our current AP is finished because they want to play it, I want to run it and I want to switch to 2E

I have already floated that despite being "Core" in 2E that Goblins would not be playable from the start

This was met with a mix of dismay/grumpiness/hostility from the one player I floated this to. This annoyed me to no end

I tried to explain without spoilers why it didn't make sense and was met with "people will be annoyed if you ban something that is a major core option" and "if one of the core options from 2E is allowed then perhaps we shouldn't play using the 2E rules"

This also ignores that Goblins would not be allowed as a playable race if we played in 1E either

I don't want to have to resort to refusing to run it (only I realistically can run it as I have played up the end of Book 4)

I'm just going to say that I value early and strong Errata more than getting APG print product on schedule.

Mark mentioned how long-delayed Errata impacts player understanding, but it seems like it also impacted DEV understanding,
since after all if they are writing auxiliary rules, their understanding of core functionality will impact how they construct them.
And it seems like a hot mess to try to manage editing new rules content against vague undertanding of actual rules intent,
when concretely formulating actual rules errata would give solid basis upon which to build and judge new rules content.
All the more so considering the constraints of errata on already printed product, where ideal wording won't always be achieved,
which will necessitate "bandaid" wording in other places, so knowing that bandaid boilerplate is really really important.

With exit of Stephen, I honestly can't imagine how original schedules can be met while pursuing strong Errata process,
so I'm very hopefuly management can see and accept that, and allow devs to do what they need to do for best game system,
recognizing that staying on top of Errata early on for Core Rules is not comparable to "normal" book scheduling needs,
but in fact is about establishing a strong base which can help prevent rules problems in the future.

If you change “APG” in your post to “GMG” then that may be reasonable

But they are not missing the Gencon release of the APG regardless of the errata situation . They are far more likely to compromise on errata quality (despite Mark’s comments) than the APG timetable

The APG is the flagship product for GenCon 2020.

They were on the road to Almas where there is only a short trip to Absalom

From there run the Absalom initiation into the pathfinder society

Then send them on missions perhaps using the other 2E ones written. That can place them in other countries where if they have good modules connected then you can play them

On PFS scenarios you would need to watch for lore changes

If you wanted an AP you should make sure your group is all in

Ruins of Azlant starts with a boat leaving Azlant . And the “successful completion” of the AP doesn’t have completely obvious impacts on the rest of the inner sea that I know of that cannot be easily removed

As noted arriving at a port city opens up options but most are probably going to Absalom first

Which abilities did you give him to try and get close to the original?

As both monk and rogue are rather front loaded originally (in 3.5/1E) so you cannot get everything

This is why I figure one of the first class archetypes we see will be a cleric one which trades away divine font, for all those Dwarf Warpriests out there.

Is it pretty much confirmed that there will be class archetypes that only trade out class abilities (or also trade them out)?

That would be an intriguing way of adding multiple layers to a character. Especially if they do skill feat only archetypes as well...

For what little it may be worth John’s comment resonated with me.

Since I have started using the boards far more to aid GMing especially when my players are using a few complex / unclear choices or in some cases clearly looking for loopholes I have noticed the “second” phenomenon quite a lot

It is also always players posting with a very extreme interpretation that is almost alway not reasonable or correct that they are hoping to have validated to force down a GMs throat. Now clearly I have noticed this through the eyes of a “forever GM” and have some bias

But there you go

Of course this further adds to the derail in some people’s view so they can ignore it as mentioned :-)

I want no errata.

Because I want a perfect product with no errors.

But, given the choice between a product with unfixed errors and a product with errata, I'll take the latter everyday of the week.

Paizo does not have a good reputation for their handling of errata in the past, and with PF2, it seems to be getting worse.

At least with Pathfinder, developer's rulings ended up split between the faq and the errata documents.

Now, we need to refer to random comments that they're making on whatever podcast or promotional video that they have appeared on.

Where do you get the “seems to be getting worse” from?

Was it within 2 months of release?

I have tried to find online and the best I can see is end of May 2010 - so almost 10 months after the release . If (and that is a big if) that is true then we have 8 months before we know if it is getting worse

Of course I wasn’t following errata back then and maybe they did come out earlier

It seems the problem is some errata have already been acknowledged which has given people arguably unrealistic expectations

Of the points that were mentioned I believe most were things that seem like they could have been design choices until confirmed as errata (wizard feat, sorcerer saves and unarmed proficiency). There were questions and doubt but no certainty

They are primarily working on the GMG and then getting classes ready for the APG playtest right now

Matthew Downie wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

PFRPGrognard wrote:

Yeah. Everyone is the same in PF2 so you always succeed. No need to worry.

So in amongst all the people complaining about how the game is brutally hard you somehow come out with the reading that you always succeed?

Maybe this meant, "In PF2, you always succeed at making viable characters. A real RPG is one where if you make single mistake in your build you can get stuck with a useless PC holding the group back. PF2 has taken all the fear, tension and excitement out of character generation by turning it into something anyone can do."

There are still totally trap options, extremely situational feats, and ways to build am ineffective character. PF2e requires significantly less system knowledge to create an effective character, but it still has a floor.

The higher floor and lower roof (good things, in my opinion) mean there's less of a disparity between party members. Building a unoptimized fighter in 1e isn't actually a problem until you a druid or summoner completely overshadowing them. Unless you're playing an AP, encounters aren't fixed and a good GM adjusts the game to their party anyway.

It's just that can be a nightmare in 1e when you have 2 absolute optimizers and 2 narrative first players. True story.

Yes balancing for widely divergent power level within a party can be an absolute nightmare in 1E.

Lanathar wrote:

It may be an initial kneejerk but anything that elicits that kind of response , especially as a single weapon, points to some kind of design issue

Or that people are just really overvaluing the item. It wouldn't be the first or last time people had weird first impressions about something in a game.

There were a lot of really odd takes in the early days of 3.5 and PF1 too.

Out of interest what were some of the odd PF1 and 3.5 takes ?

*

In my game the player most likely to pick this is also least likely to have a detailed backstory. So even if it is arrived at in the route I would prefer least (picking mechanics and then justifying with story) we would get something.

And I can’t resume my teasing about being the largest man in the gnome village - he one picked a “small” 2 handed spear to give him one handed reach at a -2. No idea if that was the correct rules Interpretation but every pc and NPC did some light teasing

Honestly, on a mob, you're probably better off with 50 silver because it will break between lots of people easier. I might be inclined to just scatter the money among the crowd with a throw and try to get away while they scramble for the coins.

I think the OP meant “the” mob not “a” mob

So mafia / gangsters etc

I am interested to hear how the fight goes as it seems to me like it could either be really lacklustre (notably if he has no allies) or really brutal (if he gets chance for death attacks and the saves are failed as breath of life from the song will not bring people back)

I am already thinking ahead to a hypothetical scenario of killing the PC with teleport (not deliberately but if it happens). Then the group don’t seem like they can easily get out (but I might be misremembering) and might be picked off...

Eh, if I saw it as a problem I'd just houserule it down to a d6 and call it a day. I'm kind of expecting that change as errata honestly.

I do hope there is some kind of errata so that I don’t have to implement house rules

I have already seen more posts than I would like that mention they have a flickmace user in the party of a game they are playing. And said character is never a gnome ...

I want one handed spears with reach!

Not unreasonable given historical use. But I would imagine they have to be braced to use with both reach and one handed otherwise getting force behind them might be quite hard

Good morning all.

It's been a while since I've been waiting for the Catfolk Ancestry. But nothing until now. The next book gives only three additional ancestry (hobgoblin, the plant-like leshy, and lizardfolk).

Lizardfolk ok, but Leshy and Hobgoblin? Does anyone want it? Maybe, but I'd rather see out the Catfolk (especially that is already present in the bestiary 1. And when we see the output speed on Starfinder, I think that there is let go.

Anyway, I'll be much more adept to see a race book come out. For the moment Pathfinder 2nd is not selling dreams.

It’s been a while? The game hasn’t even been out for 2 months!?

What does “Pathfinder 2nd is not selling dreams” even mean?

Considering the whip exist, and has disarm, fitness, reach, nonleathal, and trip... I don't see it as disruptive.

Maybe reduce it to a d6 and add forceful. That will reduce the damage on reactions, but keep multi-attack about the same.

Then you have missed all the early “optimisation” guides that basically say you should bend over backwards to get this weapon. Any means necessary.

It may be an initial kneejerk but anything that elicits that kind of response , especially as a single weapon, points to some kind of design issue

Rightly or wrongly I would strongly consider making it gnome only in my home games. Basically disallowing unconventional weaponry for race specific weaponry and disallowing adopted ancestry to be taken on race specific weapons. I understand that paizo seem to be trying to open up as many options as possible and I applaud things like the stat system meaning dwarf boards and sorcerers aren’t useless / a waste of time

But some things probably should be walled off

Doesn’t really help the OP premise on balancing
Perhaps dropping it a damage dice ? Or linking it to some other cry specialisation effect such as the club one - treating it like a mace rather than a flail ?

CCG and redactors seem a little light on the attacking side. But as they are groups this might not be a big issue

The scrivenite is shade weak especially for a solo encounter

Interestingly parts of the new AP are set in Ravounel so there are now 2E rules for Bone Devils and Shadow Giants. A long way off for this of course

To be precise, I've been looking at book 5.

** spoiler omitted **

Tangent from the main thread but one of the creatures you mention here is now on AON

It might be that I was reading it on my phone in a work break
I will look again when I have a bit more time and let you know

It might have been where you filled out the remaining treasure based on the original with no reference to the original (I think that is what happened anyway)

I have made an excel sheet of all the original treasure for my attempt at converting (currently paused as it was like for like and prior to the paizo conversion guide so really going nowhere!)

If I look at yours side by side with that I might be able to see where I got confused

In revision to what I said - when your examples deviate from the theoretical guidelines per level they all seem to be on the weaker end

This is a better position to be in as you can more easily increase power

I tend to find when something does big damage and you try to adjust downwards mid fight then it is potentially easier to spot (not that players are necessarily looking)

This system seems to be a bit easier to adjust things on the fly with a few pluses or minuses to key numbers. And if you have left AC too low then you add more HP as that seems to be the guideline (zombie is an example )

I understand the idea of building NPCs the same way as PCs . But as yet we don’t know how that translates

What seems to be the case from that table is that a level 3 fighter would not be a “level 3 creature” for a party when compared to other level 3 creatures

So build them that way but cross reference and see where you are and then add levels accordingly. The problem may be that adding levels to get them the “right” attack might end up giving them “too much” HP or AC

But enemies being deficient with attack and AC will make a huge deal in this edition due to insufficient damage likelihood and being crit too regularly (respectively)

I will add that many NPCs are built like PCs can be built in the published version of Hells Rebels and are absolutely terrible for their CR. And I have posted about that before. I am looking at Wex, Lucian Thrune, Tiarise amongst others

Cross referring to the numbers is a way of trying to avoid that

Thanks for this. It is useful as I am also going to be looking at a Runelords conversion

I need to reread as I was utterly bamboozled by your treasure section despite you suggesting it was one of the easiest parts. I am hoping it was because I was reading on my phone with no Runelords book nearby !

Quick question on that though - are you saying that a weapon with two runes is supposed to count as two items ?

The thing the link means is that you don’t need to build them like normal characters

Give them the right bonuses and then give them a unique ability be that something inquisitor like or some ability or abilities themed around “redaction” - i can’t immediately think what that would be

Indeed my cursory glances of pre written humanoid enemies in PF2 has revealed that you definitely should not try and build them using PC rules and then set the level as the character level. They will be underpowered in attack rolls and probably most other things as well

And for solo enemies look for unique abilities that target multiple people. So perhaps give the scrivenite a multiple lash ability

HBS is quite good at avoiding solo encounters if I remember correctly

I think it is the scrivenite , the alligator and the Corby and that is it

Be careful with tooth fairies . They were too strong in the original game for their CR and have scope to be appealing in this. Start with sprites and reflavour abilities. Probably remove the sleep spell

From an initial read I really like the special abilities chosen. They fit well

I think you could have another look at some of the stats compared to similar levelled creatures. Some are on the low side, notably attack for citizen group and redactors. Look to the Orc Thug as a baseline for the CCG with a swap out of ferocity. Perhaps downgrade strength and attack by one to offset for the gang up ability?

How come the reactors have become "inquisitors" rather than monks? Or are you like me in not really understanding why they were monks in the first place?

The Scrivenite needs higher AC and Saves especially as a solo creature. AC 16 at level 3 will probably see it Crit into the group quite ruthlessly

Basing my comments on the rough "benchmarks" from this:

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42nui?How-do-I-make-monsters-please#33

The idea seems to be to make minor tweaks to these numbers and use equipment, spells and unique abilities to add variety

How much information do we get on Barzillai's sister if any? I haven't read Book 6 in full

I feel like it is just that she exists and is alive? But where more of the flashback / vice things connected to his relationship with her?

I have gone the HP route for "tanky". And you should still be able to get 18 strength which is highest possible

There is also the AC route which would be shield based Champion or Fighter.

But the guidelines are not clear...

Late October seems more likely as I imagine work on the GMG is taking priority

No idea on what the printer deadline for that is likely to be or if the teams are even the same however so this could be wrong...

Forced your game?
By lack of choice do you mean in character options or not being able to choose to stay with 1E.

Because if it is the latter then you kind of have to go with what the GM wants to run unless someone else steps up

As to "take on anything and walk out of it" - that is not how the game work in either edition. You are supposed to work as a party to get through challenges

What level are you playing at?

If you want survival ability then a Dwarf Barbarian at level 9 with the dwarf ancestry feat for bonus HP with Toughness and Die Hard will probably have the most HP, die only at dying 5 and have an easier time stabilizing

I think they will have 136 HP before CON per level is factored in and any bonus temp HP from Rage. So minimum will be 145 + 10 temp and that is with just 12 Con

They will also have damage resistance whilst raging

Living Monolith could make this crazier but will mean not taking Barbarian class feats an might not be allowed (uncommon and rare options)