Lawrencelot's page

The difference between PF2 and systems that have more of a fail forward philosophy is not as large as you might think. In PBTA games for example, if you fail an action during combat, the enemy might make a move on you. Well, guess what happens in Pathfinder if you fail your strikes during combat?

What I think is the problem is that Pathfinder is too combat-oriented. The rules and guidelines for what should happen if you fail to pick a lock or if you fail to climb a wall are almost non-existent compared to what enemies can do during combat. Really, it would be better if there were some rules for exactly such a situation. Of course, you can put a lock or climbable wall in an encounter, or turn it into a victory point system or whatever, but these are not always suitable: maybe an environmental enemy is more suitable than a monster, or you want your players to actually use their cool feats while the victory point system only has some guidelines but no hard rules for that.

Treating combat so different from any other situation that could happen in a magical fantasy world feels really outdated and American to me. At the same time, I appreciate the detailed rules that I lack in other games: it really stresses me out if in other RPGs I need to come up with fail forward situations all the time because there are no clear rules there.

For a 3 book adventure, I think book 1 can remain largely the same. Book 2 you cut out either the Serpentfolk or Froglegs, and focus on one big bad while trimming half of the book. Then the second half could be some kind of exploration through the Mwangi jungle, possibly with the knights of Abendego still, ending with a dungeon and boss (prison of the Vacant Eye maybe).

Then for book 3 you could do a quick diplomatic mission at Mzali, followed by Dajermube, which somehow connects the adventure to the King of Biting Ants (maybe showing where Old Mage Jatembe is as thanks for birthing a new god). Then end the book with an expedition to the red planet to defeat the King of Biting Ants (skipping the Iobane and Cathedral) and bringing back Old Mage Jatembe.

I think this keeps the best parts of the AP but it will definitely feel rushed. Just staying endlessly on campus with all kinds of magical shenanigans happening there might be a better experience, depending on the group.

Lawrencelot wrote:

Lawrencelot wrote:

Any more lore on the Godsrain that we didn't know about? Effects of Gorum's death, other dieties who died?

Anyone? I saw someone replied to my comment about orc gods, but from another source. I also heard rumours elsewhere of Osirian and hag gods dying. What is in this specific book? I want to know which gods die besides Gorum.

This might be better as its own separate thread focused on the lore of war of the immortals. It seems like a lot of the folks flocking to this thread are looking for mechanics or at least stuff that can be pulled from the book quickly, without deep diving into the text for all of the lore writing. Someone who has read the book deep enough to have answers for you, might not be keeping up with a fast moving AMA thread on it?

Makes sense, but as always reddit delivers within 10 minutes of asking a question. Here are major spoilers for what happens to other gods according to one reddit user:

Any more lore on the Godsrain that we didn't know about? Effects of Gorum's death, other dieties who died?

Anyone? I saw someone replied to my comment about orc gods, but from another source. I also heard rumours elsewhere of Osirian and hag gods dying. What is in this specific book? I want to know which gods die besides Gorum.

Any more lore on the Godsrain that we didn't know about? Effects of Gorum's death, other dieties who died?

Maybe ask the creator of Dawnsbury Days?

Magic in the masks?

I would love to understand what the AP KM creator's intentions were with how powerful the masks were intended to be after creation at the Masking Ceremony in Tireless Hall Chapter 2 of SOT, KM. Was it the creative team's intention to allow adventurers to pick from the Magical masks in the Adventure toolbox on page 73, and if so what levels?

Was it the author's intention to have the masks remain unmagical unless students transferred stuff from other masks that were found, to leave it wide open to GMs to grow the masks in power as the students grow, or to use the relic system in the Gamemastery Guide?

As a new GM, I would be more comfortable with a little more guidance on intent.

I believe the intention is for masks to possibly become more powerful in the following ways:

So I don't think masks are supposed to do anything right after the masking ceremony. They just replace the beads in a more powerful way roleplay-wise, not mechanically.

That said, other people have indeed incorporated the Relic subsystem from the GMG for these masks, which I believe would also work fine if the players are okay with having more options.

For those who mentioned that PF2 should have been more flexible with for example using int with a Religion check to recall knowledge about undead, this is already in the rules: "If the GM deems it appropriate for a certain situation, however, they might have you use a different ability modifier for a skill check or when determining your skill DC." (Source)

For some reason it just never happens in practice, I haven't seen any PF2 GM make use of this rule and as a GM I never use it myself. Maybe I should, but then I think players will expect to always be able to swap their ability modifiers.

The ideal scenario to me would be where a better version of the current Alchemist is some kind of generalist subclass, while the other subclasses are better at their own niche but worse at doing other stuff. A bit similar to the wizard schools, with one universalist school. I wouldn't even mind if the general subclass would be the best one mechanically, as long as bombers are good at throwing bombs all the time and mutagens can fulfill the Hulk or Jekyll and Hide fantasy. Make them more noob-friendly, not punish bombers for throwing bombs and doing what the Fumbus image suggests you should be doing.

I use recall knowledge on NPCs all the time, though mostly out of combat. Have been doing this since PF1. I roughly know what an NPC knows about the main plot mostly, but that's about it. There are infinitely many unforeseen situations while roleplaying so that I could not imagine NOT rolling dice to determine what an NPC knows.

'I ask the bartender what he knows about the barbarian king' <GM rolls dice, crit fails> 'The bartender has heard rumours that the barbarian king can turn into a dragon'

'I tell the fruit merchant in a subtle way that I know the fish merchant is using false weights' <GM rolls dice, crit success, PC rolls diplomacy, crit success> 'It seems that she already knew that, but she is impressed by your gossip and trusts you a lot more'

Yes, at least two people have:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/17x55ni/arcane_school_for_st udents_of_the_magaambya_sot/

https://www.reddit.com/r/strengthofthousands/comments/17vclzg/arcane_school s_for_the_five_branches_of/

And here is some information on the new teachers (partly thanks to u/stoneofthewise):

Xhosiliawa. A kobold, and Xhokan's sister. She looks a bit down on Xhokan and has the opposite personality, valuing freedom and chaos, also in her teaching. She pretends to be of high social class (wearing flamboyant clothes) and is very ambitious, and hopes to become head of the Magaambya some day.

Varashod. An android who specializes in the body and soul of humanoids. As quite the emotionless teacher, it has no qualms disecting animals (or even humanoids if the school would allow it) and uses illusions of humanoid bodies to teach what is inside, physically and spiritually. It has an amazing grasp of humanoid life and experiences but does not experience all of it itself, leaving it in a constant state of wonder about everything that students do.

Yavased. An old ratfolk from the Golden Road. Still wears clothing as if he lives in the desert, but somehow the rainy weather of Nantambu does not seem to effect him. Though not quite a cleric, he is somewhat of an expert on all deities and religions of Golarion, which is why he left his home country of Rahadoum. He gets angry at anyone who speaks before they think.

Berendu. An old Bekyar who was a chime-ringer for over 25 years. She decided to study at the Magaambya at old age, where she met her imp familiar Haxtria. Her experience as a Chime Ringer made it an easy decision for the Magaambya to offer her a teaching position, and though she has returned her chimes, her voice keeps any student in line who was thinking of disobeying a Magaambya rule.

Elresja. One of Teacher Ot's cousins (and good friends) who is somewhat of a multi-talent. You can find him tinkering with clockwork materials almost any time he is not teaching or researching something. He is also a talented bass player, often requested to support other musicians around Nantambu, though unlike Ot he sees music as something from deep in the soul, rather than mathematics in air form. Sometimes the Magaambya asks him to craft high level magical items.

Hi everyone, I have updated the system into a 5 year course list, with the fifth year being an internship in Nantambu. This is because at the start of book 3, the PCs are expected to be lvl7 in their primary branch, so if they are also half that level in their secondary branch, that means 50 courses are required to be passed, which happens in 5 years in this system. After that, you can either follow the AP and let the PCs become teachers, or treat the trip to Bloodsalt as some kind of graduation or practical research project to finish their studies if you want to delay them becoming teachers.

Thanks to The Oddest Duckling for helping me with the final courses!

The link in the first post should still work, but if anyone wants to make adaptations to their campaign, here is the source code for scribe.pf2:

Yeah, all the things I've seen asked are either:
1. in the bestiaries, with monsters that have cool abilities
2. in pre-written adventures (APs or PFS)
3. in the GMG (how to customize creatures)

You will need all three, though. If you have a homebrew campaign and you only look at the bestiary, then it is a valid criticism that the same creature can't feel both like a boss and later like a minion, if the only thing that changes is the level of the party. If you then look at the GMG, you might feel a bit lost if you don't look at examples from existing adventures. If you do have a pre-written adventure, you will still want to customize the experience to your players, for which the bestiaries or GMG can help.

Luckily, all of this is available for free on AoN.

As a practical example, the way I do it is to take a monster from a certain level, think about what would make it cooler (let's say a petrifying gaze, for example because I saw it in a pre-written adventure), then look at higher-level monsters that have such an ability (basilisk/medusa), then add the ability to the boss using the rules in the GMG. It might actually need lower AC or hp to compensate for the ability, but as OP says this makes the boss more interesting. If I wanted the monster to have more actions, I would look at creatures with reactions for inspiration, or something that triggers on a crit or on death. Plenty of examples in the bestiaries.

One thing that I feel like is missing is clear rules for how to design troops, because they sort of have multiple stages. But you can look at the existing ones and figure it out quickly. Another thing is multi-stage boss fights in general, or bosses with multiple spots in the initiative order. Again, there are some examples, but clear rules of thumb would help.

I don't understand getting disappointed about something not changing from how it has always worked.

Like if going from 18 to 19 to 20 in two boosts was a huge failure of design, I'm confused why we never saw people complaining about it before the remaster? Like suggesting house rules or something?

What? There have been many complaints about ability scores in PF2.

It's one of those things that do not make sense unless you've been playing TTRPGs since the 1970s, just like Vancian casting and spell levels. Actually, spell levels and ability scores suffer from exactly the same issue: an arbitrary linear formula that you need to remember, instead of just using level and modifier for everything.

Spell level = [Character Level]/2 rounded up

Ability score = 10+2*[Ability Modifier]

The remaster would have been an excellent opportunity to tidy this all up. Actually, the switch from PF1 to PF2 would have been too, but roleplay veterans have a larger voice than new players unfortunately.

For the last mission at level 1, the Uzunjati mission, players are supposed to tell a story and also say something about the morale of the story. What did your players come up with?

My players had the following:

You are never too old to learn.

Sometimes you have to take a different perspective to see what is truly going on.

You can ignore what is happening outside, but it is possible that what is happening outside does not ignore you.

You can always rebuild that which was lost.

Never mix nitric acid and copper.

I have run two alchemists as a DM. I have not seen the Alchemist run out of bombs past the low levels. High level alchemists never run out of bombs. The goggles are useless for them.

There is always someone arguing some niche case which almost never comes up for an item that is badly designed. This is a badly designed item that needs a fix. I made it better so the alchemist player felt like having one. If a class's main reason for wanting this item is "I ran out of my strongest bomb, so I have to rely on my weaker bombs and these goggles keep the item bonus to hit up to par with my strongest bombs so my even weaker bombs from Perpetual Infusions are certainly going to do worse damage leads to the self-doubting question...why am I even here?"

If that is the line of thinking, that item is not great. Bombers should never run out of their strongest bombs during battle past the low levels.

I don't think it hurts to buff this item, but I would argue that ignoring lesser cover is its main advantage, not the item bonus. It essentially allows you to have +1 (on top of the bomb's item bonus) in the common situation that there is an ally or enemy between you and your target.

The mechanics are not the issue. You pay some gold and you use an item in one hand, and you spend an action to increase your AC: that's all fine. The issue is purely thematic: the typical monk fantasy fights with two hands free (except those who use certain weapons, which is a different problem with its own thread). Or at least not with a shield or buckler.

So, if there was some kind of class feature given for free, with exactly the same mechanics as a shield but different fluff, that would solve it. It would be a small buff due to no gold needed to spend on a shield, but that's all. Maybe compensate it by not giving shield block as an option. So the parry option given above would work. But you don't want to rely on reflavouring when it's such a classical power fantasy.

Hey Grifta, thanks a lot for your feedback! Appreciate your kind words and the effort you put into this.

Oh, I didn't do the math exactly, but this is absolutely intended. I was wondering what kind of characters would be disciplined enough to turn a group activity not too much into a social activity / party (which is what a charismatic character might do), while also not turning it into a solo study (which is what an intelligent character might do). A wise character would be able to balance this. Totally subjective, I know, but that's what you get with abilities anyway. I can completely imagine the clerics and druids, and also the monks and rangers, to better be able to seriously lead such a group effort, as opposed to the more charisma-based or int-based characters.

It is not as unbalanced as you portray here though. A high wis character might have less charisma, which they might need to succeed with the Hangout (many influence checks will be charisma-based). And a high int character might be better at the Study checks, as many int-based skills are used for Study checks, and they would be trained in more of such skills. Not too sure about this last point as it depends a lot on the chosen branch and on the class, but I have more points:
- having a 90% chance to get a free Hangout, even with a -2 penalty, is still a very good trade-off for those who find their NPC relationships important. Even more so if a low nr. of points is required for an NPC influence benefit (this completely depends on the Influence subsystem, which is left open).
- You can completely ignore this activity if you want and just Study and Hang Out in the same period anyway. You won't get as much benefit as a high wis character going for this option, but it is still a good option.
- A low wis PC can Study Together with a high wis PC. I made sure that the highest Will save counts in this case, because the high wis character would take the lead in the teamwork. In this case, you don't get the influence bonus with the NPC, but you could still get the possibility to turn a Study success into a crit success.

It is good that people using this system are aware of the unbalance though, and I like your recommended changes, they indeed make it all more balanced (except that maybe high charisma characters would have a slight advantage, which would be fine for a teamwork-based activity too!).

The reason to tie it to a save instead of a skill, is that in my opinion you need discipline to not let a group activity degenerate into a social activity, or to avoid the trap of getting distracted, but to keep yourself and others focused on the task. I found Will to be the most fitting save. But your skill suggestions make sense too.

I don't think there are many fiends in this AP. At least the Charau-Ka and Usaro don't play any significant role, for whatever reason. I've prepared some adjustments for my campaign where they do play a more important role, you can find it here.

Adding this to my SoT campaign right away

Wait, Stone ghost doesn't know undercommon? That seems like quite an oversight. My players know so many languages, but not undercommon, so they had some trouble with the gremlins so far. I will have to add it to stone ghost to make him a believable commander of gremlins.

Both of them can get to dying 3 before being healed back or doing a heroic recovery. So the hp is mainly important to determine the first time they go down.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I'd put money on the clerics over the summoners.

I take your bet everyday. But I don't think we'll ever be able to get to the end of it.

One could build one party and the other the other party, and then you pick four encounters from different APs at different levels and let the same objective GM run the four encounters for the two different parties. The GM can also determine conditions like everyone at half hp and out of focus points but 10 minutes time before combat, or everyone knew a particular skill challenge was coming up the next day so they have time to pick the right spells. Running 8 encounters is still an investment but might be doable.

I really love this resource! I notice that the courses only go up to Year 3. This should coincide roughly with the party starting book 3 (where they graduate). What do you plan to do/suggest for leveling up past then? Just going back to the original system?

Thanks! I haven't given it much thought yet, but I was under the impression that at some point the original system wants characters to switch to the practical research activity. Alternatively, I have seen many ideas of not immediately making the PCs teachers, but first let them supervise other students or do some graduation project (or both at the same time). I think this would be a good option for book 3 rather than more courses.

So rather than traditional courses, switch to other things like internship / practical research / graduation project / custom courses / inventing new spells / supervising newer students / learning to teach.

I think I've seen literally every class mentioned in this thread now for Samurai, besides full casters and alchemist. So maybe the word Samurai is actually as versatile as something like the words Mage or Hero, and we won't come to any conclusion because basically everything is possible.

I did like the Swashbuckler solution though, for keeping a weapon sheathed to gain panache. You could disallow tumbling through to gain panache with this option, and instead give it any of the thousand Samurai mechanics discussed in this thread to compensate.

Since the Tian Xia announcement, I've heard an awful lot of general desire for a Samurai Class... and almost no specifics. "Guy with a sword, who is maybe in armor or not" isn't much of a pitch, y'know?

Agreed. Isn't unarmored swordmaster just a swashbuckler or a monk with monk weapon? Isn't armored swordmaster on a horse just a fighter or champion, possibly with cavalier?

I guess letting monks use Japanese-style swords would fulfil one part of the fantasy. Homebrewing that is easy: give a weapon the monk tag and possibly remove another tag if it's too good.

I really enjoyed this! The course list is excellent!

Just curious - Have you come up with any info about the new teachers you added?

Not yet, I'll probably improvise something in my campaign. But someone on reddit started work on this:

I really like this and have started fleshing out the new teachers. Since their names were similar, I have made Xhosiliawa a kobold and a sister to Xhokan from the Powderpile. Varashod is an android. Working on the others.

While the vanilla 'Life in the Magaambya' study system is too bare-bones for my taste, the expanded Magaambya with weekly checks is too overwhelming for me. So in my system, I picked some parts from these systems, as well as from the Monthly study system (which includes exams, and roles for branches), to make a new bi-weekly study system. I don't have a calendar or exams but I do have a course list, as my players indicated they would like to choose the courses their characters are following, and I've seen some nice examples of courses online already.

So with that, I present:
BI-WEEKLY STUDY SYSTEM

for the Magaambya. This document is written from a player's perspective. The branch benefits remain the same, though you could also change the benefits based on what courses the players took. I also encourage to combine it with an NPC Influence system, for which many options can be found online: I personally like this one best. How many Influence Points (or Friendship or Relation Points) you need for an NPC to give a certain advantage is left open. I also had to introduce some new teachers, else the teaching load of the staff mentioned in the AP would become ridiculous. For example, there is only one Emerald Boughs teacher mentioned (Zuma) and it is mentioned that he only teaches electives, so I made up some alchemy and other related courses for him.

Now we have 4 possible study system options (3-monthly, monthly, bi-weekly and weekly), so I hope this will be useful to someone. Please let me know if you have any critique!

A historical ninja was essentially a spy whose job was mostly to gather intel and report them to their Lords. They rarely assassinated people, as blood splatters would be too glaring and obvious. The idea of this stealthy and powerful warrior came from medias.

Speaking of generic names, I think 'Spy' would be an excellent class name that could cover some things that the current rogue does not cover. Stealthy poisoner with smoke bomb and some ki magic (ninja) could be covered by it, as could the Vigilante (though this is already an archetype), but also more diplomatic characters that don't necessarily want to use music, the gods, or the blood of their ancestors to influence people.

The map and the Tanuki art look super dope!

I think you are drawing very different conclusions to me about the difference between a tool, and AI given your use of comparisons like drawing/painting and cameras.

What's your conclusion? Both photography and painting are art forms, wouldn't both human-GMs and AI-GMs be valid TTRPG forms?

I would not agree that generating “art” and text “supports” storytelling.

Why not? And what do you think of virtual dice rollers and fantasy name generators that have been around for much longer?

In my opinion, it's only a matter of years before most of the media we consume (books, memes, films, etc.) will be mostly AI-generated. TTRPGs will follow suit, with AI taking a prominent role, just like VTTs have taken an important role since the pandemic.

That is not to say there will not be a place for human GMs. Just like people have continued to draw and paint even though we have cameras, and people still calculate things by hand even though we have calculators, people will keep GMing. But AI will be a huge support, and in many cases I think a human GM might not be needed at all in the future, except for those who want to have that old-school feeling, just like some people right now do not want to use digital dice-rolling tools because they like rolling physical dice.

Already people are generating art and text with AI to support their storytelling. As long as we view AI as a tool this is the way to go in my opinion.

It doesn't really make sense that a crime boss could amass wealth and power in a society where wealth is meaningless.

Maybe she wants to go back to the old ways, or just keep wealth for herself instead of sharing it with society. However...

What I would recommend instead is still playing up the ways in which Nantambu approaches this ideal while having it fall short for practical reasons (the rest of the world is not like this, after all) and then having some of those shortcomings resolve throughout the AP.

This sounds like a very good idea to me. The events with Salathiss and Froglegs like you mention, and later with Dimari-Diji visiting Nantambu, could all result into big changes in Nantambu society.

And thanks for answering my questions! This helps.

I feel like the positive influences from both the Magaambya and the city's connection to the plane of Axis can definitely be highlighted without turning the city into a post-scarcity utopia. Personally, I would advise against committing to the idea as hard as you propose; first, it would involve a lot of rewrites, but more than that it undercuts Osibu's role both in the Mwangi Expanse and in this AP as... well, a utopian Mwangi city full of magic that's worth protecting.

Plane of Axis? I missed that, is it in the Mwangi expanse book? And yes I would have to make sure Osibu still plays an important role, I didn't yet have a solution for that. Taking your and hauk's ideas together, maybe Nantambu is on the edge of becoming a paradise, but some troubles need to be solved (stone ghost, frogless, salathis, etc.) and once Osibu is protected and Dimari-Diji visits Nantambu, the heroes can help shape Nantambu into a paradise city like Osibu.

Another thought on this (apologies for the double post): if Nantambu is so utopian, then it makes Walkena's argument significantly weaker - why put up with his tyranny when a perfect life is so relatively close at hand? The hardscrabble lives folk make in Bloodcove or while (re)building Vidrian are somewhat cheapened if they could just move to a nearby slice of paradise.

This, however, doesn't seem an issue to me. Because it is already the case (Nantambu being a haven of peace and culture), just to a lesser degree. And Nantambu is much too open of a society for Walkena.

In my opinion, the high levels are not so much of a problem. Characters have so many options there already, and would likely use their reaction for something else. What you can do is make the DC the same as the primary check DC (or 2 less as proposed in this thread), but only for DCs up to 20. After that, keep it at DC20 like in the core rules.

...Charau-Ka and Usaro ideas...

I love your ideas about involving the Charau-Ka and Usaro! I was wondering why they didn't show up in this AP. Having a student from this region since the start would be a good idea, luckily I can still implement this in my campaign.

In preparing for this AP, I've decided that I really wanted to lean into the utopian aspects of Nantambu. It is already described as a haven of peace, learning and culture, but I want to take it one step further. The Magaambya being focused on both arcane and primal magic also gives me solarpunk vibes, with nature and magic (instead of nature and technology) as core aspects of the city. With so much magic going around, and so many people dedicated to improve society, and such long periods of peace due to the tempest-sun mages, in my campaign I imagine Nantambu has recently developed a post-scarcity society where everyone has their basic needs met. Unseen servants keep the streets clean, primal magic causes an abundance of food, and healing magic keeps everyone healthy (though resurrections would still be rare and costly). Money is no longer necessary: everyone can ask for basic things like food and minor healing, and if anyone needs something more special like a big house, or transportation to another city, it is freely given if it is 1) abundantly available and 2) deemed necessary. The chime-ringers help in making sure no one gathers wealth for themselves (cough Froglegs cough) and also that slackers (cough Chizire cough) get a bad reputation and might be refused luxury goods and services.

Now, the question is, if I make such a choice, besides the effects on the story it will also have mechanical effects.
1. No money means less bookkeeping, which is good, because I can focus more on bookkeeping for NPC relations and an elaborate academic subsystem. Even more so if I add milestone leveling and automatic bonus progression.
2. Item levels. These are a good way to limit what characters can get (no you can't get this scroll of teleport, that's for this teacher who is doing an important mission in Absalom). But what about, let's say, 4-th level items for 1st level PCs? These items should still be abundantly available, what would be a good reason to deny them to the PCs at first?
3. Importance of diplomacy. If items are not traded for money but on the basis of need and availability, a PC who has invested in diplomacy or deception might be able to convince someone to give them a high level item. This makes social skills very powerful, maybe too powerful?
4. Trade with other cities. If Nantambu is the only post-scarcity society, they still need to trade with neighbouring cities and countries. So money still exists, unless they are so utopian that they are self-sufficient and just give away what they have for free, but that seems unlikely on such a dangerous world as Golarion. Maybe PCs will need to keep track of their money after all, just not in Nantambu?
5. Treasure: what do PCs do with treasure they don't need if they can't trade it for money? They can give it away to gain reputation with a certain NPC or group maybe, or go to other cities to trade it for money. How would you react to such a rule as a player?

These changes are great! I am still preparing but I've also read similar qualms about Koride, and I also thought the Vesicant Egg could use an update on the role it plays in the AP. Your rewrite solves a lot of problems I've read from others.

I will also add here the idea I've read somewhere else about the animal trader in book 1, to make it more like an animal hospital. In general, the vibe of this AP could be much more positive, and I was thinking of making Nantambu much more of a utopian place, but a utopian place overrun by insects seems even more fun!

If you really want to give a discount by using Diplomacy, you could make it up to 25% of the full price of the item. That way, if they are cheeky and try the same trick again later to sell the item for a higher price with absurd Diplomacy rolls, and you make them sell the item for 25% of the full price more, then they haven't earned any income, meaning the Earn an Income activity and the Bargain Hunter feat are not useless.

Example: they want to buy an item worth 100gp, they get critical success on Diplomacy (I would require multiple rolls, to make the NPC helpful and make a request, etc.), the NPC hesitates but sees the hero really needs the item, and it offers up to a 25% discount, meaning the PC buys the item for 75gp. The NPC would then still have made a 25gp profit to cover their costs, as someone has sold them the item for 50gp at some point in history. Later, when the PC comes across a better item, they want to sell the same item again. This would normally yield them 50gp (half the normal price), but they convince the new buyer to pay 75gp with several high rolls. Then in the end they earned nothing, and if they actually want to earn something with diplomacy they would need the Bargain Hunter feat.

Skinsaw man is no match for the PCs on his own, I know from experience and also from other GMs. Like always, I think the best choice is to add minions in his room, indeed something like one or several goblin ghast assistants. I don't know how he is supposed to get sneak attack damage as written, maybe by feinting or something?

I've also finished now! After 3.5 years. Oyoryel's box is now with me, also in the Netherlands, if you want to come pick it up please let me know!

Did anyone do some PF2 monster conversions for Runelords?

Yes, all of them. Check A Series of Dice-based Events and its corresponding discord server.

Try this mirror: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hSvaNxF7Ihs5naizo8G6UpCgZnOZWYLk?us p=sharing

Wait really? I live in the centre of the Netherlands and my party just entered Xin-Shalast. I'll send you a private message!

Also, congratulations on finishing the campaign! What was the most exciting part of the campaign?

PC: Galathorn the Unbroken
Class: Champion 16
Adventure: Spires of Xin-Shalast (Pathfinder2e) -> Whispers in the wind
Catalyst: Wendigo
Story: After defeating the ghost of Karivek Vekker and finding his remains, the PCs hid in a tunnel burrowed by the Frost Worm to find shelter from the growing blizzard. Galathorn, the brave Paladin of Iomedae, stood watch outside, as they heard a second howl from a magical beast. The Wendigo appeared behind him, thinking the lonely champion would be an easy prey, but Galathorn reacted fast, and called his allies to battle. Together they managed to severely damage the creature, at which point it began to flee into the storm. The party wizard transformed into a dragon and followed it, while Galathorn jumped on the dragon's back. After searching and trying to maneuver through the blizzard, they got close enough to the creature that Galathorn could damage it even more with his runeforged blade, but the Wendigo fled again. This time it took more effort but they found it, though the dragon wizard had trouble getting close to it. Galathorn managed to make a 90 feet jump to get to the Wendigo, grabbed it and held on to it, but the Wendigo caused Galathorn to ride the wind and took him along by transforming them both into snowclouds. The wizard's dragon form would soon end, and he didn't manage to stay close to the Wendigo in the blizzard so finally turned back, while Galathorn decided to stay in the wind walk form with the Wendigo. The Wendigo took him to a distant mountain top while getting healed back to full health, where it had a duel with Galathorn who was almost out of abilities. Galathorn alone was no match for the Wendigo, and got clawed to death and then eaten.
Aftermath: At this high level, the player probably doesn't want to make a new character anymore, and maybe also doesn't want to get resurrected, so sadly the other players might have to try to defeat Karzoug without him.

Officially there is no impact for virtuous players in Runeforge. Which I think is kind of boring, so you can search the forums for alternative boons and penalties as there were plenty of suggested options. Or even better, come up with your own!

I would only give a boon to a player that has no sin points though, and even then you might consider keeping the original ruling because Runeforge is all about sins, not virtues.

Exactly how much downtime is expected to occur in any given chunk? The reason I ask is that I just crunched the numbers and unless I'm mistaken, it would take a level 3 Wizard who critically succeded their craft check something like 44 days to complete a level three item worth 75gp. Am I doing this math wrong or am I just assuming 'downtime' is much shorter than it actually is...?

I don't think there are expectations. I run a converted PF1 AP and I just give a few weeks of downtime between books.

Note that for what your player is doing he is better off just buying the item, then spend the rest of the time adventuring (if possible) or if everyone wants downtime, use the Earn Income action. Unless there is no 3rd level settlement anywhere near, which I doubt. Or he has a cool uncommon formula of an item not sold anywhere nearby.

Crafting is almost never the best option, check the homebrew forum for ideas on how to change that.

I've run one homebrew campaign and one AP is currently near the end. As someone fresh to roleplaying in general, for the homebrew campaign I was very grateful for the pathfinderwiki to read up on the lore. Then I thought of an overarching story, and made encounters 1-3 sessions in advance.

When I switched to running an AP, the thing is that it is easier, but takes the same amount of time. Where I would actively look for monsters and lore in a homebrew campaign, for the AP I could just read the book. It requires less creativity, but still gives the option for creativity by making changes to the AP and tying in player's backstory, etc.

So APs have my preference unless I have a very long creative spark.

Congratulations! Also for keeping it up for 9 years, that's a long time.

PC: Mok

Can't edit my post anymore so here's the aftermath.

There they saw Mok's soul going towards Pharasma's judgment, fought some Astradaemons, and also figured out that some of the souls from Varisia were missing the greedy part of their personality, causing a wrong judgment from Pharasma and disturbing the whole process. Outsiders asked them to figure out what was going on with this, as the PCs suspected Karzoug had something to do with it.

In the boneyard they found a high level cleric NPC and paid him to cast the Resurrect ritual on Mok, but unfortunately the NPC failed because he had never tried to resurrect such a powerful person before. It cost them most of their coin. Then they realized the NPC could also use the Raise Dead spell, which is more expensive but at least wouldn't fail. They sold everything they didn't need and Raised Mok's body, then returned to the Material Plane with the help of Iomedae's herald.

This is a pretty cool collection of original unpainted miniatures.

The game itself is also awesome, but this is the miniatures forum; if you're interested in the game, the thread for that is here.

Just like HeroQuest did a few years ago via a crowdfunding campaign, Heroscape is coming back!

There are all kinds of details and teasers in this thread, but the actual campaign itself is here. The campaign page is surprisingly light on gameplay examples, but that should come in the next week or two (you can expect it to be similar to previously existing Heroscape sets, which you can find gameplay videos of on youtube).

I am not a beneficiary of the campaign in any way (aside from wanting to be able to buy new Heroscape) but I love this game. Let me tell you why:

The gameplay is elegant and approachable but also exciting with lots of strategic depth and replayability.

It is a game that parents can play with their kids (or siblings with each other) as well as adults can enjoy together.

You can teach the whole game in ~10 minutes, give or take, and then have a fun game.

It's approachable enough that non-gamers get interested in it and enjoy playing it. It has great table appeal which makes it really fun to interact with and look at.

The hex tiles can really bring out your inner architect/LEGO fanatic. They stack on top of each other, making the maps 3-dimensional. They are one of the major factors that set the game apart. Other games might have neat or simple gameplay, but the maps make for so much variety and novelty. You can put together a really cool map in the time that a traditional wargamer is still gluing pieces of their battlefield together (nevermind priming etc.)

The simple interplay of the basic game rules + the terrain effects (height advantage, line of sight, special terrain rules) + unique special powers of each figure give the game strategic depth. It is one of those "easy to learn, hard to master" games that rewards you the more you play and study up on strategy.

The cost of the set is pretty high, but I think it is appropriate to the value. I did some analysis of the contents compared to previous sets...

I am nearly finished running Menace Under Otari for my two kids. I'm about to start running it again for one of those same kids plus some other friends of ours. I would like to mix up the encounters a bit and I am curious if anyone has suggestions.

The idea is to not change anything fundamental to the adventure while still making it feel fresh the second time around.

Order #36273627 was shipped in two separate shipments. At the time I complained about the additional shipping charge and received no response.

However, I recently realized that the Troubles In Otari shipment never even arrived! I did pay for it, so please send it to me with my next subscription.

The other shipment containing Alien Archive 4 and the Pathfinder Beginner Box arrived with no issues.

I have the "cheapest shipping option" box checked, but for some reason my Trouble in Otari book is shipping separately from my Starfinder subscription and my sidecart.

Please refund me the shipping on one of these two orders, as I did not want to pay shipping twice.

On order #22847617 I did not get my Paizo Advantage discount. Should it stack with the Black Friday discount? If so, could I get a partial refund for the difference?

Thank you

Cool! Thanks for getting this to us so quickly!

Planning to run this for my kids. Presumably I can use the other pregens in the box to make a legal table as long as there are at least two players?

Aaron Shanks says here that the Pathfinder Beginner Box PDF should be eligible for the Advantage discount. I did not receive the discount on my PDF in order Order 32175759. Can I please have the discount applied as a discount or gift card? Or some other means of applying it retroactively? Thank you.

The Additional Resources page says regarding Alien Archive 3 that

Equipment: All equipment in this book with a listed item level and price is legal for play except for the EMP weapon fusion and flux fig.

and Diatha doesn't have its *own* item level or its *own* price. Instead it modifies the item level and price of other items. aonsrd.com seems to think it is not legal, but it seems ambiguous to me.

My search of the forums found the only reference to "Diatha" to be in SFS play-by-post games here on the boards, so obviously some players interpret it to be legal.

Diatha ammunition on aonsrd

I am really sad to see Eager Protege and Exemplary Recruiter retired. They are the reasons I made my first PC an Envoys' Alliance member. He already bought the Eager Protege boon a long time ago, so he should still be able to make use of that. But I was planning to buy the Exemplary Recruiter boon to go along with it.

Will these boons be making a return at a later date, or should I switch my Envoys' Alliance PC to a different faction for future scenarios?

I'm getting ready to run Rise of the Runelords for some friends in play by post. But it is rare for play by post campaigns to finish; it seems to me that Paizo's APs are designed for groups that play 4+ hours once a week. PbP groups, or groups that meet f2f less than weekly, should consider cutting out some of the content to have a shot at getting through it all.

So I'm looking to figure out which content I should cut, from single encounters, to entire areas, to whole chapters, or even books.

My question to you is, which of the above from Rise of the Runelords did you find added the least, dragged on the most, or felt the most like filler?

I'm fairly familiar with the first book, having run it before.

My goal is to get from level 1-20, using 2e, in 1-2 years of play by post on discord.

I added PDFs of books 3-6 of Age of Ashes to my cart, went through check out (but did not hit the red button to complete the check out). I decided that even with the great discount I was not ready to spend that much. I went back to my cart and removed books 5 and 6. Now I cannot get the discount to apply again.

I want to purchase a PDF of Tomorrow Must Burn ( https://paizo.com/products/btq01zrs?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-147-Tomorrow- Must-Burn ) and a PDF of Fires of the Haunted City ( https://paizo.com/products/btq0204d?Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-148-Fires-of- the-Haunted-City ) using the gencon2020 code.

I also have Paizo Advantage, and the cart was letting the two things stack, which was part of my decision to make the purchase.

I have had an idea in my head (perhaps left over from PF1) that once you beat a poison or disease effect you don't need to make a further checks against it on repeated exposure.

Concretely, this means I interpreted that if a PC succeeds on the fortitude save against Jungle Drake Venom, they do not need to make fortitude saves against it again, even if they are exposed to it by being hit by the stinger or venomous spit.

But looking at the RAW I find only

Multiple exposures to the same curse or disease currently affecting you have no effect. For a poison, however, failing the initial saving throw against a new exposure increases the stage by 1 (or by 2 if you critically fail) without affecting the maximum duration. This is true even if you’re within the poison’s onset period, though it doesn’t change the onset length.

And nothing in the Jungle Drake Venom text stating immunity is conferred by success.

Am I missing some text somewhere else or did I rule this incorrectly?

If a creature, object, or hazard is immune to critical hits, does that mean it is also immune to critically failing a saving throw?

My intention and reading of the RAW says no. But I am curious if there is any RAW I have missed that clarifies either way.

If not, I would like to hit the FAQ button here.

Wow, these new feats look awesome for TWF characters

The game mastery guide has a 4 page section on hexploration. For the most part it makes sense, but I'm struggling a bit with some if it.

Mainly I feel like there are some missing pieces. For instance, Map the Area says that a success means that "the DC of any check to navigate that hex is reduced by 2." But neither the GMG nor the CRB give any examples of navigating a hex. It almost feels like they were going to have rules for making each individual hex more interesting (including a need to make survival checks to navigate) but forgot to put them in. As-is since you can't make a map without first investing time in reconnoitering, I am struggling to see the point.

What am I missing?

Does the Society Recruiter boon still give a total of +2 reputation with the Envoys' Alliance faction when the player slotting it is playing the scenario on the Slow Advancement track?

You gain half of the XP, gp, Downtime, Fame, and Reputation rewards earned in the adventure.

slotless

Prerequisites Envoys’ Alliance Tier 1

Cost 0 Fame

The Envoys’ Alliance celebrates your efforts to recruit new talent. If you bring a new player to a table—a player without a Pathfinder Society character or someone playing their first Pathfinder Society session—you earn 2 additional Fame and Reputation with the Envoys’ Alliance faction.

Special You can benefit from this boon only a number of times equal to your current Reputation Tier with the Envoys’ Alliance faction. Each time you fulfill the requirements of this boon, mark it on your Chronicle sheet along with the associated Reputation Tier. Have the GM sign beside this notation. The player you introduce to Pathfinder Society does not have to play at the same table as you (though being at the same table often improves their experience).

Italics mine. The part I emphasized is what leads me to think that it is *fair* for the boon to still give the +2 rep, because there is already a limit on how much it can be used, so someone could not abuse it by using it over and over on the slow track.

But that does not answer the question of RAW or of RAI in this case.

I'm interested in playing a blind Vlaka Solarian for a Dead Suns campaign, but I'm concerned about zero-vacuum encounters at low levels. I'm not interested in doing away with the blinded condition; that would go against the spirit of the character. But I want to know if there is an item or spell or something that could help him pinpoint enemy locations in the absence of sound and smell. Particularly at low levels. I just don't want him to be total dead weight in such an encounter. Any tips?

If someone gets their first-ever chronicle as a result of playing Fall of Plaguestone at a home table, are they still eligible for the Envoys' Alliance "Society Recruiter" boon? My reading says yes. Here is the text

... The Envoys’ Alliance celebrates your efforts to recruit new talent. If you bring a new player to a table—a player without a Pathfinder Society character or someone playing their first Pathfinder Society session—you earn 2 additional Fame and Reputation with the Envoys’ Alliance faction...

Because the player is playing their first Pathfinder Society session

Cross-posting from the GM Reference thread because I didn't want to sidetrack things there.

I am modifying the first book pretty heavily. I needed to fast-track it since my players made their way here from Etran's Folly after completing Fall of Plaguestone and I have them at level 5. I'm trying to get them synced up with expected levels for Age of Ashes by the end of book 2.

I decided I wanted to modify with a few goals in mind:
- emphasize the Stepford Wives aspect of Breachill (relatively minor point so far)
- add some "regulars" to the town. Basically the local heroes that take the jobs too tough for any new adventurers and fill in whenever there are no out-of-towners to do the job (my PCs never meet them; see below). They were working on clearing out the Citadel and were also getting suspicious of Voz. I got this idea from someone else in this thread (and I also saw it on Reddit; probably the same person), although I modified and simplified it.
- cut the huge delay. At the call for heroes, Warbal has run all the way from the citadel to ask for immediate and urgent help (no 4 weeks of waiting here). On the way she encountered Voz slaughtering "the regulars" and manages to tell the council that much, and *THEN*...
- ... Voz hits Warbal with an acid arrow and calls her a filthy rat. One of my PCs managed to hit her, but then summoned a couple of living wildfires and a couple of fire mephits* and got out of there. I'm trying to play her up a little more as a Vader/Strahd villain that they frequently interact with and can't quite take on just yet, so I have her as a much more powerful necromancer, which means...
- ... Breachill has an undead problem, although they are only just now realizing it. The party encountered some zombies on the road from Etran's Folly, and everyone in town thought they were a little crazy "there's no undead around here, haha"

So I'm planning to have a lot more undead in the citadel; Alak will probably be cornered by some of them instead of some fiends. He may or may not have encountered "the regulars" since he only recently arrived. However, I'm not sure how to tie in the cultists and the Anadi woman; I'm leaning towards cutting the whole Guardian's Way/Goblinblood Caves portion out altogether. It looks pretty cool (maybe better than the Citadel material) but it doesn't fit my time constraints and I don't think as powerful a Necromancer as I am making Voz needs any mercenaries. I'm thinking it is probably Voz's undead, rather than collapsed stairwells, that are keeping the cultists trapped in the basement.

I had also been playing with Voz and Malarunk working together a little. I think I've talked myself out of that.

My players have dealt with the fire in city hall and made their way to the citadel, but we stopped there. I have ~6 weeks until our next session. Any suggestions? Would this be a better discussion for another thread?

*The PCs are level 5. A single mephit wasn't going to cut it. I handwaved the mechanics "story over mechanics blah blah blah." Not actually sure how I feel about the sentiment but I'm trying it. If Calmont could bungle his way through a special NPC-only parchment to summon a single fire mephit, Voz could find a more powerful single-use item.

I've brought this up a couple of times now but never on its own so I'm dedicating a thread to it now.

Paizo Order # 7896137 was supposed to contain a "Starfinder Rules Reference Deck" but I never received it. Everything else in the order was correct. There was an unordered Pathfinder 2e Condition Card Deck in there, however.

Could I get the Rules Reference added to my next shipment? I already paid for it.

Hello!

So it has been a while now but I still don't have any of the PFS scenarios in my account. I have the following subscriptions, which I believe qualify me for a complimentary PFS or SFS scenario subscription:

• Pathfinder Lost Omens
  
• Pathfinder Adventure
  
• Pathfinder Rulebook
  
• Starfinder Roleplaying Game

I can create a separate thread for this as well, but my order #7896137 was supposed to contain a Starfinder Rules Reference Deck and I received a Pathfinder Condition Card Deck instead. I would love to have the Rules Reference Deck put in my next subscription order.

Thank you all!

Do not post here yet.

Normally I would put a bunch of information here but I just want y'all to be able to start chatting with each other. I'll post the stuff I need from y'all later. For now you just need a Paizo profile. When you're ready, go to the Pathfinder Society panel and create a character. That character profile is where you will post in gameplay and put all your stats for us to reference.

But if you're not ready to do that yet, that's fine. Just post here to introduce yourself and let us know what kind of character you're looking to make.

Don't post in here yet.

Normally I would put a bunch of information here but I just want y'all to be able to start chatting with each other. I'll post the stuff I need from y'all later. For now you just need a Paizo profile. When you're ready, go to the Pathfinder Society panel and create a character. That character profile is where you will post in gameplay and put all your stats for us to reference.

But if you're not ready to do that yet, that's fine. Just post here to introduce yourself and let us know what kind of character you're looking to make.

Please

1. ninja-dot into the Gameplay thread.

2. post with your

• Player Name
  
• Character Name
  
• PFS #
  
• Faction
  
• Day Job roll or Faction sheet
  
• Fast or slow progression
  
• Anything else that you want *me* to notate on your Chronicle Sheet

3. put a copy of your preferred token, on the first slide of the maps here. While you are there, add your perception and initiative modifiers and preferred marching order.

4. make sure the Paizo profile page for your character includes some botting instructions. They can be as simple as "skip my turn" if you like: that's what I'll do when I need to boot you if you don't post any. You may want to address whether or not I should consume any resources (wand charges, potions, limited use class abilities, etc.) or change any statuses (beginning or ending rage, inspiration, etc.) when botting your character. My default policy on botting is that each character has roughly 24 hours to post from when they are first up in combat. If anyone has a problem with that, please let me know.

5. discuss marching order and standard operating procedure (SOP) for dungeon crawling here in the discussion thread and let me know what you prefer as a group.

Some example questions an SOP might answer:

• Who checks for traps?
  
• Who searches the room?
  
• Is anyone providing light?
  
• Given multiple doors to go through, which door will the party choose by default? (e.g. the left one first) This can really speed things up as I can move the party into the next room when they have resolved the current one

Please ninja-dot into the Gameplay thread. A ninja-dot is where you delete your dotting post after making it

Please post with your

• Player Name
  
• Character Name
  
• PFS #
  
• Faction
  
• Day Job roll or Faction sheet (please re-use your roll from the other thread; just post a link so I can verify it)
  
• Fast or slow progression
  
• Anything else that you want *me* to notate on your Chronicle Sheet

EDIT: Additionally, please put a copy of your preferred token, on the first slide of the maps here. While you are there, add your perception and initiative modifiers and preferred marching order.

On the note of marching order, if you would like to implement a Standard Operating Procedure for this adventure since it is a dungeon crawl, please discuss it amongst yourselves and let me know. Some example questions an SOP might answer:

• Who checks for traps?
  
• Who searches the room?
  
• Is anyone providing light?
  
• Given multiple doors to go through, which door will the party choose by default? (e.g. the left one first) This can really speed things up as I can move the party into the next room when they have resolved the current one

Ninja dot here please.

A ninja dot is where you delete your dotting post after making it.

I have an Aasimar Oracle 1 / Paladin 2 with 2 negative levels.?

Am I misreading the Negative Levels text when I assume that the negative levels affect each of your classes separately? So in addition to my Paladin being considered level 0 for purposes of his class abilities, my Oracle would be considered level -1?

If I am understanding correctly, that means his Lay on Hands is effectively at 0d6.

As far as I can tell from reading the rules, I should be able to do TWF with a weapon as my primary attack, armor spikes as my secondary attack, and a shield in my other hand. I will still get the Shield's AC bonus when using a Full-Round action for TWFing.

I tried to find a discussion of this topic in the boards already, but the only one that I found addressing this specific idea was 4 years old and devolved into a "can you use Armor Spikes for TWF with a 2H weapon" which was off-topic and not something I'm interested in discussing here.

Specifically I have a PFS Fighter with the TWF feat that uses a Longsword and Armor Spikes, but also has a Quickdraw Throwing Spiked Light Shield for +1 AC. However, I also have a PFS CORE Barbarian that will be using a Longsword with a Heavy Shield. I was going to go the Shield Bash route, but I might prefer to use Armor Spikes instead of a Spiked Heavy Shield until I am able to get Shield Mastery at lvl 11 or so.

I'm looking for a ruling that would be relevant to PFS.