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Wait wait wait! They can cut your head off but you don't die? I'm interested to see these mechanics.

Perhaps the perfect companion for the King who is just a little too free with the 'Off with their head' anger issues, but who'd prefer to stop losing the few friends around them so much... but insists on sticking to their decisions.

"Off with there head..." Umm... thinking a second. "Vorpy do you mind doing it? I'd like for them to finish their turn quickly so we can resume the game."

Splash as a drink gets spilled on them. "Off with your head! This was my second best tunic." casting a quick cantrip to clean it themselves causing no actual permanent damage to the garment. "Send them downstairs and have them put on display afterwards."

"Ohhh... Vorpy... please don't let this disrupt you, my friend here needs to finish their turn after you are done."

Going a bit back to the original question... in the very beginning, it was accurate that the smaller races frequently had STR flaw, and some of the larger/bulkier ancestries tended towards having STR Boosts, and in the beginning you could sort of say that the change in damage was just a factor in the STR. That sort of gave a feeling like it could be a somewhat workable explanation.

Of course then there were eventually complaints that sticking an ancestry with a flaw, meant that someone's concept for a character might be impossible due to this expectation and the push was to make people pick any arrangement they want irrespective of their ancestry.

Also, originally, all ancestries were either small or medium, and equipment didn't' have a different size for use between the two sizes. And when dealing anything monster related (which was the only place you had creatures which were not either Small or Medium) were all using different arbitrary rules already.

So the argument that people should have brought this up before during the playtest, the sizes where it starts being a factor. (they are treated differently, technically by the rules, despite in the manner of damage treated the same) So in effect this was a moot issue then... the differences didn't really exist as options then.

Although, I'll admit I remember having conversations with people about it seeming wrong at first when first trying second edition. The factors that no longer really exist (ancestry driving flaw and boost), and Small and Medium being the only two sizes for characters, and them being technically the same size for equipment. Are no longer the case in the expanded and remastered rules that come to be over time.

In my mind there is room for it being a factor that could be introduced, without making that factor as overwhelming as the first edition rules were, which were as mentioned kind of prone to double-dipping benefits/costs and gave people an extra die of damage after a step or two.

If a Pixie with a tiny long bow and 16 STR did 1d8 +1 str -1 size (1d8 damage)
vs. a Human with a medium long bow and 18 STR did 1d8 +2 str +0 size (1d8+2 damage)
vs. a minotaur with a large long bow and a 18 STR did 1d8 +2 str +1 size (1d8+3 damage)

I don't see a big issue with it. Especially if the Size modifier only got applied once, not per die of damage. The pixie being down a hit point of damage isn't a giant thing in my opinion, since they can duck through the big-bad's cat door and shoot them from the kitchen without having to make a squeeze check like the party's gnome that follow them to unlock the door.

Honestly, it while slightly bothersome... hasn't been worth fixing, because, as I mentioned it is rarer in the Medieval fantasy genre, and is only as blatantly wrong for short-bows doing less damage than longbows for being smaller, however, smaller longbows smaller than the shortbow do more damage than the shortbow. It becomes a more apparent issue in the Sci-fi setting where someone's holdout laser pistol can't do as much damage because it is smaller, but a full sized tiny pistol of smaller size, can do far more damage than the larger holdout pistol, because of its size.

But anyway, I don't think it is the largest of issues that Second edition had, as other have said. I also say it isn't an unfounded concern for people though, as it took me a while to not feel like it was not significantly problematic. It took me a while to realize that there wasn't going to be a differently sized weapon for small or medium creatures, its just regular, so no need for different damage on any of them. Then it stopped being much of a concern. Just getting over the categorization affecting creature size, but not actual equipment size. And other sized equipment, although could exist, generally was out of scope for PCs since you didn't naturally get any such size other than s/m without a spell which gave you any rules you needed to know.

I'll grant that first reading Second Edition rules, I found there not being a change in damage for size changes was a bit perplexing. However, it didn't take much to explain SOME of it away quickly. Simply put, putting a giant's sword in the hand of a medium person and expecting it to do more damage, when the weapon clearly wasn't made for an individual or that size, when you think about it, actually made sense it wouldn't cause more damage. (in fact, it maybe should do less damage if you want to cite 'realism') The leverage and such would simply not provide that much advantage, and might literally make it worse. So from that standpoint, it made perfect sense to not have it affect die size unlike how it had in first edition. A two handed sword in the hands of a gnome, may very well do more damage to someone than a longsword in the hand of a human. The gnome is using the leverage of multiple arms, vs. the human's one hand. And if using two hands, not optimized for two hands, just using it for a little extra.

Where I have to admit the 'view' seems to fail is when a Tiny Sprite's longbow, and its arrow does more damage than a human's short bow. The long bow is supposed to do more damage because it is bigger/better leverage right... but it doesn't in this case, it is smaller.

In the game, the game doesn't differentiate between small and medium... they are considered the same size, just with two different sized creatures using them. That seems a reasonable abstraction for me, though it took some getting used to. But it did bring up the idea that while considering them a S/M combined size, it seemed like there could be an acknowledgement of other sizes.

I don't think I'd considered the idea of boosting the floor or reducing the ceiling of damage, but I had considered size differences past the S/M baseline having a +1 damage (or +1 per die) bonus per the size. I imagine someone is going to complain that it hurts their sprite concept, but I honestly don't think a sprite doing 1 less point of damage a strike less being concept breaking (especially if rather than per die the adjustment only applied once). And honestly, if anything could actually make a sprite with an 18 Str and a polearm even more fantastic, since it would do so much damage, even overcoming a slight disadvantage.

Ohh... and for clarity... the bonus damage doesn't come from using a larger weapon... it only would come from a larger creature using a larger weapon. Giant Barbarian's have different rules which override this more mundane effect, which enables them to use larger weapons effectively. That is fine, but as a general rule, someone needn't get more damage from a weapon because they pick up a bigger one of it.

Ok... I might have forgotten a detail, but if we have established subscriptions, do we have to sign up for Paizo plus or are we pre-enrolled. If we aren't pre-enrolled when do we need to do this to have our first subscriptions from the new system count towards our Paizo plus?

I agree conflux cascade could be made a 1st level feat. Actually at first, I was concerned spending focus point for casting it was too much, but it occurred the feat would grant one, and it isn’t as difficult to renew them now. But I had actually contemplated if it could be made into a cantrip, so it would occupy a cantrip slot if they wanted to prepare it but would make entering cascade much easier to do.

The shield feat seems overly powerful from an initial impression but I haven’t been looking at 16 th level feats as much so it may be more reasonable than I feel.

I’ll admit that I like the staff one, but I feel that it should probably have the caveat the spell needs to be cast out of a person’s spell slot and not cast from an item be it the staff itself, a wand, or scroll for instance. (Even with that I have to admit that boosts the doubles potential charges from the standard staff charging bonus.). Might require further thought and balance consideration. But I like the flavor.

Honestly as to spellcasting defenses, I’m inclined to give magus a circumstance bonus vs attack reactions against their spellcasting, as a baseline. And I have contemplated an ability that would change a critical success on reaction attacks to a regular success unless the roll generating it was a natural 20. My philosophy is that magus should provoke and be risky, but less likely to have ‘the Worst’ results of it. ( I also advocate melee reactions that hit them when they are cascading, as well as genera melee attacks that crit miss them during cascade do the baseline damage that cascade normally boosts attacks as a free action. This is partially inspired by special materials used by armor and natural attacks by creatures with weakness to the material)

I’ll confess the flight spell, I’m tempted to have it require being in cascade, and potentially be like early flight and require landing between move actions. I suppose requiring arcane cascade would mean it couldn’t technically be used out of combat, which might be too strong a nerf. What if speed was 1/2 your normal speed unless in arcane cascade (I.e combat) in which case it is your normal movement. But then as I consider further, it is a rank higher than normal fly spell with a shorter duration, and shorter casting actions ( and by being focus spell more repeatable than slot). The more I think about it it seems remote reasonable… but makes me wonder about a lower level one with more limited flight and requiring being in cascade being an option.

It might be mitigated in part by having set number of your 10 investments which would allow you to boost the DC of effects by the difference between the item level and your level. So Investing the item with the 'premium' investment slot would allow a 10th level character investing a 4th level item to boost its DC by +4.

There are a variety of ways you could set the number. It could be based on a fraction of your level (min 1), or could be 1 + your CHA modifier. By setting the number low enough it forces you to make choices, you make it a viable limitation and encourage people to pay for leveled up items when such a version is available. By having it affect the DC, but not the damage, etc. it leaves value to investing your wealth in available upgrade. I'd also suggest incorporating official means or offering official upgrades for some items that might only have one version now, if implementing something like this.

As an example the Ring of the Ram, there are reasons to want to 'upgrade' your ring to the higher levels, but in the in-between levels, it might be enough to enable an option to boost the DC for the in-between levels.

You could potentially even allow the option to 'invest' consumables with these slots to provide a means to upgrade the consumable's DC like this. This would be potentially expensive to spend a premium investment slot to get the higher DC for a one-time use item, but might also be worth it in some cases.

This avoids the situation where an item might have a DC based on how effective the item is. (relatively High DC for an effect that isn't too impactful, but useful enough to use in certain circumstances) or might have relatively Low DC for a particular Level because the impact of the effect is rather 'strong'. If you have it always jump to some Class DC, that might be bigger jump than would be really balanced.

Use a weak law spell on yourself ahead of time to prevent your opponent known for using them, successfully using them on you.

I started using three tiered tokens… at the start I give them a gold and silver token. Gold is a hero point… reroll… the silver lets them bump their roll as if they rolled one better but doesn’t make a natural 20. But they can also use it to make their opponent roll one worse. ( but not making a natural 1). The coppers are like the silver but can only be used on your rolls. If spending a hero point doesn’t do better, you get change back in the form of one coin type lower.

This way there is a bit of cost, but instead complete was when you roll bad on a hero point. They have sometimes paid attention and realized all they needed was one more on the roll and so strategically used the lower valued tokens to get a crit, or keep from taking a crit.

I’ve been starting them with a gold and silver each.

But contributing to the story as you mention could certainly earn them a hero point to use for it, or earn them a hero point for trying it.

I think part of the concept between the Jousting trait, both mechanically and lore-wise, is that when mounted, you don't worry about moving yourself, as you just direct your mount to go the desired direction and it focuses on that. You instead focus on using your body to leverage the long lance in the appropriate direction to make the best use of the lance to turn the momentum of your mount into damage to an opponent.

As an example, this means you are almost assuredly investing in an action to command a minion you are riding. That helps eat up an action, keeping you from doing three strikes (not that the third would be effective normally).

For a centaur using a lance, they wouldn't have the benefit of being able to focus on simply pivoting the lance, they also have to focus on balancing their body, and charging forward, just like it were any other weapon. The are focused on factors all over their body.

Not sure it would matter a whole lot, but also human riders on a horse, are back closer to the center of mass, which is likely good for balance and leverage of a weapon like a lance. A centaur on the other hand, has their human-like torso at the front of their body, which might make certain aspects of their leverage harder for them.

I think that said, it isn't unreasonable that they by raw, would not benefit as if being mounted for purposes of the Jousting trait. However, to let centaur pc's lean into that sort of a concept, it seems quite easy to be something which could be enabled by a centaur ancestry feat. As someone mentioned, it would even further benefit them as they wouldn't be losing the reach trait by using it on a mount.

I think it makes a lot of sense to unlock things and to even offer them free (or as mentioned with committing downtime to it after unlocking it).

I will say that since we are talking about unlocking/granting specific Feats, it is relevant to note that while giving these things for free would generally probably be seen favorably by most. If the things being granted/offered for free never seem to coincide with something that would be in character for a particular character in the party, it could create a situation where that person feels left or pushed out from the center of play.

To solve this the GM might feel compelled to give them something more to their liking, and of course that could then affect others, who accepted the 'given' ability because it was the only choice, and after seeing someone get 'what they wanted instead' might feel a little robbed themselves.

I'd suggest that to avoid such a cascade of 'hey, how come they got that' I would say it could be brought up in session zero that some things may become unlocked and available for people to earn as free extra feats, but they aren't mandated, and presumably would not have other alternatives, other than any other feats that are earned and unlocked by the story.

If in session zero there is already known to be a character concept that doesn't fit into the typical mold expect of the characters, if there is going to be any alternatives for that character, that can be worked out ahead of time, and any other players whom would have a problem with such accommodations can voice it in the start, rather than at the end, assuming the given player requests such accommodations, and the GM agrees to be willing to make accommodations.

The important thing being to make it so people feel like they already expect any such change, so it doesn't catch them unexpectedly.

I certainly feel that by making them free, it makes it easier to make room for them in your character build. Otherwise, if you have started already planning for some other feat, giving up your planned feat to leverage a 'unlocked' feat to get more into the story line may end up feeling like it is robbing you of your plans, more than it is a reward for you work in the story. (or you bypass the opportunity, and feel like you aren't leaning into the story, because it conflicted with your character idea) Again, internal conflict that might not feel like it contributes to the fun of the story.

I'm wondering if one way to handle the Magic Warrior Archetype would be to have the dedication give the character the ability to make a special magic item (irrespective of crafting proficiency, etc) that would cost about half the cost of a spell heart, and would 'grant' certain abilities/activation. (cantrip and once per day spell perhaps) They have to invest the item, and they stick to the anathema/edicts about secrecy of identity, and it loses magic and would have to be re-crafted.

So the archetype might have room for a bit more power than an average archetype, because it has a GP and Investment cost to it that many archetypes wouldn't (in addition to the edict/anathema aspects)

I also wonder does the anathema of not taking off the mask count if you aren't in your Adventurer/Hero garb and around people you don't know so no-one would associate 'you' with the 'masked one'. Can you not wear your mask when you are wearing a disguise? (it seems really hard to 'successfully' disguise yourself as a random peasant wearing a big wooden animal mask in most cases, for instance) Or was it supposed to be more like the extremist interpretation of the Mandalorian never take your mask off in front of someone.

I don't dislike the concept of having Multi-class Archetype's having a prerequisites of certain Trained skills, in general. However, I at least might consider the fact that it might limit classes that are short on skill trainings, from potentially have the resource room to invest in an Archetype unless it overlaps with the class already from a skill perspective. That might not be ideal, it might be trading one partially arbitrary constraint for another.

(had to afford attributes prerequisite due to the attributes not being a priority for the original class, vs. not having enough skill trainings to be able to afford the skill prerequisites.

So you interpret the Dedication as granting two trained skills? Because I read it as granting only one. Which was also part of my weighting that made gaining Panache being empty being too bad to be true.

....

You become trained in Acrobatics or the skill associated with your style.
....

I'm proposing an addition to the Swashbuckler Archetype to make it more mechanically satisfying and better aligned with the design philosophy of Pathfinder 2E. Here's the new feature:

Stylish Combatant (Archetype)
While you already have panache and are in a combat encounter, you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to skill checks with the bravado trait. Additionally, while you have panache, you gain a +5-foot status bonus to your Speeds.

Design Justification
As written, the Swashbuckler Dedication grants:

Training in one of two skills based on your chosen style — a weaker benefit compared to most dedications, where a skill training is typically a bonus on top of a more defining feature.

The ability to Gain Panache — which, by RAW, is functionally empty unless the character spends additional feats to do anything with it.

This second point is my biggest concern. Granting the ability to gain panache without any accompanying effect is essentially like giving a character spellcasting but no cantrips, spell slots, or focus spells — just a label with no substance. This feels contrary to 2E’s design philosophy, which generally avoids "empty" abilities and feat taxes.

On the New Feature
Initially, I considered omitting the circumstance bonus to bravado checks. But after reflection, I decided to make it conditional on already having panache. This design:

Encourages the archetype user to engage in bravado-style actions to gain and maintain panache.

Preserves a distinction between archetype users and full Swashbucklers. The class Swashbuckler gains their circumstance bonus to Bravado skills even before they have panache, giving them an edge in gaining it in the first place.

Helps archetype characters maintain panache longer and gain modest combat utility from it, without overshadowing the full class.

It’s similar in spirit to how Archetype Barbarians get a weaker version of Rage — they get the flavor, but not the full power.

Potential Concerns – Looking for Feedback
Is the +1 circumstance bonus to Bravado skills while in panache too strong? I don’t think so, but I’m open to hearing why it might be.

Is the conditional +5-foot status bonus to speed too much? Again, I feel this is fair. The Swashbuckler class gets a higher bonus and can invest in feats to increase it further. The archetype's speed bonus is locked behind having panache, and future feats are still required for improvements or for gaining Precise Strike and Finishers.

Class Swashbucklers get:

Panache that grants Precise Strike, access to Finishers, a movement speed bonus, and passive bonuses to Bravado skills.

Higher-level upgrades to that speed bonus, including a passive portion even when not in panache.

By contrast, this archetype version:

Provides only the speed bonus while in panache and a minor bonus to Bravado skill checks, and only when panache is already active.

Requires feat investment to unlock even a weaker Precise Strike or any further increased speed benefits.

I believe this strikes the right balance: flavorful and functional, but clearly a watered-down version from the full class. It gives panache meaning for archetype users, without stepping on the toes of full Swashbucklers.

Background Context:
I’m running a Free Archetype game, and one of my players picked Swashbuckler. Up until now, I’d only let them benefit from the speed bonus while they had panache. Going forward, I’m planning to also allow the Bravado bonus whenever they already have panache, to give it a bit more utility and feel like the archetype choice is paying off.

Thoughts?
I'd love feedback from others. Do you feel this adjusted version is too generous? Too conservative? Does it align well with other archetypes in terms of power and feel?

My suggestion if you want to let them do it is create it as a Spellheart. And have a special ‘rider’ for the item that it can be activated by shadowdancers who have ShadowDancer focus spells.

It avoids the character from having to use trick item, and is believable such an item might have been made for such ShadowDancers.

It also seems you ‘Want’ to do it for them and you are asking us permission, and verify it doesn’t break things significantly in flaws you hadn’t anticipated. I don’t think it is an unworkable departure from standards, but as others suggested, I’d make it a ‘Fluttering Ribbon of Darkness’ spellheart you attach to your armor. Which was invented to help shadowdancers of old. Make it Rare, as it is not typical for Spellheart to have special allowances for specific archetypes. And have the player learn of someplace that may have one. The party can work together to help them get it.

I wonder if that is a major flavor of your setting, I'm wondering if Hells Rebels would be something you might be able to extract some content out of. If I remember correctly, the first chapter had some of the earliest items that pulled the adventurers together was the players working to get money by collecting bounties on a excess of Giant Rats in the city, so the players were hunting them down for the reward money. I don't recall, but the search may have led them to information that led them to the plot-line. But I didn't get to play it so I can't tell you for sure. Perhaps someone here has played through it, and might be able to give you an estimation of how much of its plots could be easily reskinned to a more modern fantasy setting.

Perhaps you could look at Zeigeist support materials such as maps and such. I don't know if there are some on DriveThru.

I personally like some of Seafoot Games's maps so you might look at their Sci-Fi or their Towns & Cities maps if you need some for settings of encounters.

Actually, I also like Heroic Maps: you could potentially do a city encounter using tiles from their Free set Wardenhale Public Spaces or the rest of their Cities & Towns ones.

I'm sure there are other good maps there, those were just a couple sources that came to mind quickly to me.

You might also find some potential content if you look for content based in Razmiran. The very benevolent (ahem) divine leader of that nation Razmir has lots of detractors trying to cause problems for his benevolent plan for all of those who live under the rule of his most excellent nation. So troublemaking PCs might find themselves inclined to cause problems for the rightious establishment within its borders.

Ahem.... if you get my drift.

One of the scenarios in this free Quest is set in Rasmiran I believe:

The Silverhex Chronicles (Quest)

Here are a few Scenarios:
Lodge of the Living God
Killer in the Golden Maks
The Glass River Rescue

And a module:
Masks of the Living God (module)

But I believe all of them would need to be updated for second edition/remaster.

If you are interested in content for corruption within an evil nation, you might look at the recent Blood Lords AP. It is primarily a undead nation, with based on my understanding lots of ripe corruption within it. You might be able to convert some of the undead flavor into just massive amounts of corruption within a nation at war with another (probably equally corrupt nation). Or you could even have it be an undead nation if you allow that in in your primarily human fantasy setting. (having intelligent undead that were presumably once human)

Another setting with a basically evil, or perhaps more accurately chaotic regime of sorts would be Galt where there is constant revolutions. It might work well to have a neighboring nation beset by a chaotic revolution. It would give you a location nearby where factions can sprout, can vie for support, etc. But it can also be used by the evil establishment to point over there to its own populace, and say, see! This is what you get when you back Revolution, everyone gets hurt by it. We are after all the best of all possible options.

Following are some Adventures that a quick search says are set there.
Abducted in Aether
A Case of Missing Persons
Flight of the Red Raven
Forged Facade
Fury of the Final Blade
Night of the Gray Death
Reaping What We Sow
Requiem for the Red Raven

Sorry I can't give you absolute recommendations, but it is at least some brainstorming thoughts for things you can investigate if you don't get better leads on other specifics. Hope some of it helps.

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I would say part of the reason is more text is used to describe monster abilities since far more monsters have unique abilities given the new action paradigm.

Mostly this is something I'm not very concerned with. I prefer more text on unique, interesting monster abilities to challenge the PCs.

I don't see why there has to be a push and pull between the two. PDFs don't have page count issues, and I'd gladly pay more for a larger book with 30% more monsters and 100% more descriptive text.

At least at the moment, Paizo is a Publishing company. While they produce PDFs, there primary product leading their model is the actual physical books they produce. Those do have page-count constraints, Page counts drive the prices directly for them, and if they produce too many pages they may drive the books out of the price range their customers can support. I think they try not to catch as much of their market as they can afford to.

While they might be able to try to make a 'super-tome' version that had the monsters and lots more lore. The issue would be that book would be competing with its other more affordable version, which might drive up the cheaper version due to less sold. And it would probably drive up the cost of the 'premium' version. Paizo has the 'sketch' versions, and the deluxe versions of the product which are both self-competing, so maybe they could consider it as an option. But I think there would be a significant cost increase in having to go through re-editing and layout for a completely redone book with lots more lore. I think that additional cost might be harder to make up on the new bigger optional book with the likely smaller customer base.

I wonder if they might let Beadle and Grimm make such a monster tome as a deluxe product?

I think part of the answer is that people who want the monster books in general want the current stats to use the monster in the current version. There is a segment of the population that has the old books, so republishing all the detail and taking up more space in the book or taking away more space for an image of it, or has more text covering the image.

This also reduces their options for having short or medium sized articles about select creatures lore in future books, be the Adventures, Adventure Paths, or one of many themed books. This give the buyers of the monster core books a good volume of monsters and a decent base lore to utilize them, while leaving enough room for people to reference old books if they have them for additional lore, and leaves paizo room to be able to publish longer lore articles about various creatures they decide to highlight.

I think there is also a strategic aspect as well. The 'stat block' portions of the game are considered part of the game mechanics, and so parts of the game that others can take and build from for their own. The lore however is left as Product Identity which is more protected. Some books are very heavy into the stat blocks and mechanics, while other heavy in lore. The Monster Core books are I believe intentionally kept pretty heavy into the mechanics. By keeping the lore more brief and summary like leaves room for the more Lore-centric books to explore the lore more completely. I think this might be in part an acknowledgement that some customers buy the books for the rules system, and so by keeping many of the core books more core focused those players will continue to pick up those books.

On the other hand, the customers who love Golarion, or even if they are homebrewing, love the ideas they get from the lore for Golarion will pick up the lore-filled books.

I'm guessing those are some of the factors that result in the monster entries length being what they are in the books these days. I'm sure there could be other factors too, like trying to avoid reusing the same, or even reworded descriptions of creatures from the old SRD.

Thinking about it, I thought I had read something about partial cover that was closer to you than your enemy might not have given them cover, but I must have misremembered it. Checking the rules, it only discusses some circumstances that the GM can consider, such as using an arrow slit for cover, or shooting around a corner.

Perhaps an optional set of rules to make ranged more interesting and more fleshed out would be a good idea.

I think it is reasonable to give flanking bonus to a ranged attack when there is a someone threatening them on the other side. As to ranged flanking, I don't know that I want everyone who 'could shoot' said person to apply for flanking for ranged by default. On the other hand, I could imagine successful strikes made by a ranged weapon creating a threat awareness situation that might enable flanking from range. You might be able to allow it for attacks even on a failure, but not critical failure.

Hmmm... what about a feat that gives a Ranged combatant a reaction that would allow them to make a ranged attack within the first range increment when an ally makes an attack which if the ranged attack were considered a melee attack, would make the target be off-guard. In doing so both the triggering attack from the Ally and the ranged attack in the reaction benefit from the defender being considered off-guard.

Actually, as you mentioned people taking the Take Cover action, being able to potentially ignore, or reduce the cover to their opponent, if the only cover blocking their line of effect to the opponent is adjacent to them. (something like either eliminating their own circumstance penalty, or reducing it down to lesser cover penalty) That is in line with the rules saying you normally need to spend an action somehow to leverage your cover to your advantage. So I think making that a generalized ruling would actually be able to fall within RAW.

What if we acknowledged that animal companions should require escalation of your investment to keep them 'current' but acknowledge that shouldn't have to mean you always have to use 'more' feats.

My suggestion would be to change the feats that moved your animal companion to its next stage would have a Takes the Place Of property. Instead of a normal prerequisite, you spend your higher level feat on the animal companion and it advances to the new stage in its development. However you earlier feat slot technically re-opens up. So having an animal companion requires you to spend a feat, but it doesn't normally require multiple feats to keep up, but it does require you to commit one of your higher level feats to it, to keep it fully up.

Some characters who's animal companion is more a support role, or flavor may not need move their feat spend up to higher levels. But the individuals using it as a martial companion will probably want to.

This might even open up a new type of lower level feat which has a prerequisite of a higher level feat, that could, if the players wanted to invest in which might give their animal companion a boost in some small manner, thus providing additional minor customization options for the companions.

It would open up a new form of feat economy. (feats that advance by taking higher level slots) rather than requiring increased number of feat expenditures to advance it. This presents a middle ground between the feats/class abilities that automatically advance over character advancement, and the ones that lag behind if you don't follow up with latter feat expenditures.

Waiting is certainly the safer thing to do. However, if you are really excited about getting to start playing, you can simply plan to have a time when there will be a wash of temporal trans-dimensional power come from the Guantlight and have it be an opportunity for all the characters to rebuild themselves. You can then flavor it as a campaign level WitchWarper-like effect that affects the whole party. (and even potentially some of the NPCs)

If the players know that it is going to happen, they don't have to worry about it, and might even feel encouraged enough to lean into it and try out things they might not have tried, knowing they can in-story change if they decide to. I'd not limit them to making changes if the class changes in such a manner they can argue it is broken for them. Simply make it a free opportunity for the universe to change, and their characters to change in it.

Well second edition took a much more controlled look at money than 1st edition did. It worked hard to eliminate the idea of someone simply using a wealth loop to get more wealth, to get tools and magic items that made them naturally work at a level higher than their actual level.

You can see this premise work out as now Crafting largely becomes a narrative choice, which is potentially less efficient than simply working and buying your item, presuming the item would be generally available where you are.

With that in mind, a 2e version of such rules would probably focus on any 'structure' the character owns as having some assigned level. That level would limit the effects its features might be able to provide to itself and/or one of the players. This would keep players from getting outside of their proper power scope.

Any such subordinate entities would probably normally be capped level-wise to the level of the PC owning the entity. If it is an entity that a PC might have more than one of, it wouldn't surprise me to see such entities limited to level below the PCs level, and limit the number of such entities that the PC could control or have it have actions, similar to limits on number of Minions.

These rooms would be bundled together to form the entities which would sort of be 'Downtime Minions'. (and generally minions are capped below the existing players level by one or even more levels)

You might want to look at the rules within Age of Ashes adventure path. It actually does have some rules for how you can repair and refurbish some rules in your 'castle' you get in the AP, how much it costs, and what benefit it provides as a party.

You might have some success looking at these rules creating downtime only party members, and have these party members primarily provide some various niche benefits to the PCs under certain circumstances, and otherwise work to maintain themselves, growing if the PC level has gone up and offers options for growth, and have these things ideally not generate a cost to the players. The more such investments the players have the more chance they get use out of the resource, but potentially might increase the chance there comes an unexpected 'cost' that would have to be paid to upkeep the resource.

Don't know that this helps, but again if you need existing rules, you may need to look at Ages of Ashes. If you want something more fleshed out, that may take some development. I do believe there were new kingdom rules in the second edition kingmaker edition, but I haven't had a chance to play them. My understanding was that a number of people suggested some significant rebalancing rules for those rules however.

I think I want to mention that my suggestion would be that people should not feel like they should let themselves get hung up on the specifics of the Iconic characters.

I would go so far as to say that a big part of their existence is to give new players a starting point, and that for the ends of Enabling you to have the most fun you can, you shouldn't worry about playing the character 'as cannon', so you shouldn't feel like you make a mistake about playing it because you don't own its nature.

Instead, take the character sheet, and use it as your base. If you get inspired to change something, do it. If you want to play a goblin alchemist, and fear you don't know what choices to make. grab the Fumbus sheet. But guess what, you like the name Busfum better, scratch it out and change it. Make them female, if that makes you feel more comfortable playing them. Now give them blue eyes, because, well that's what you want. Make them a little taller, or a little shorter. (try to stick within norms for a species as given, but even in any particular ancestry, there can be exceptions, which PC's will tend to be those exceptions) As long as it doesn't have mechanical game implications, change things as much as you need to make the character yours. Swap out their birthplace, or family lineage.

Use it as a template to build your own ideas onto. And as your game familiarity grows, expand in the direction you want. When advancing levels, you can look at what the Iconics get to help make your choice, but choose something different if it sounds more interesting.

The only time the Iconics need to behave a certain way, is in the Adventure Path images, and in official cannon stories. When playing in a game, they are yours as much as you want them to.

All that said, people are people, and our brains naturally may feel a certain trepidation or fear of doing something wrong, with someone else's idea. I know when I GM, I often have to deal with that very fear when dealing with a published setting, such as Golarion, fearing I may portray something 'wrong'. I've had to learn the setting is there as a starting spot for me to set the adventures in, for my players. As long as they (and also myself) are having fun in it as I portray it, we are doing it right. So I'm going to give you the instructions not to feel bad, if you catch yourself feeling that way, but to try to recognize the fundamental purpose of the game is to have fun, and the purpose for the progenerated iconic character sheets is to give people a starting spot to begin building characters if they are new. So if your are using it to build your character (using how ever much of it you need), my statement is that you are doing exactly what they are for, and therefore doing it right.

my couple copper pieces...

Been running a game for the family and my son has been playing a Magus. As we have looked over the changes to Magus through the remaster and Errata, I started looking at all the various schools and was trying to ask myself if there was something missing that might make sense to exist.

In the end I came up with the idea of a martial summoner who focused on fighting with teamwork alongside ephemeral summons rather than an Eidolon.

The first issue was most summoning spells would be prohibited from leveraging Spell strike, so I figured the School should change that. Next how to balance what Spellstrike and Arcane Cascade gives you. Trying not to make it too powerful, but should remain worthwhile and hopefully flavorful.

Then trying to come up with a Conflux spell that adds to the style of play, but wouldn't been too strong.

At least so far, it seems like the following seems to do a reasonable job of being worthwhile, but not overpowered.

Synchronic Summoning
Homebrew Content
Source Homebrew
Your connection with the ephemeral summons you call into being is much more attuned than most. This timing allows you to coordinate your minions initial attack with surprising accuracy.

When you use Spellstrike, you have the additional option to make the spellstrike a three action spellstrike and cast a three action spell with the Summoning trait.

When casting a summoning spell in this manner you can designate a target. The creature you summon has to be placed in such a manner that it can use one of its actions to attack the target you designated the round it is summoned. As part of the Spellstrike you can make a Strike of your own, which can be either unarmed or weapon, and can be melee or ranged, as long as the target is within the first range increment of your ranged weapon or ranged unarmed attack. Your minion uses this roll to strike the designated target, which must be the first attack it makes.

When casting a three-action summoning spellstrike in this manner, this activates the Magus’ Arcane Cascade at the end of their turn.

Whenever in Arcane Cascade stance, if casting a summon spell, or when sustaining a summon spell, the magical energy from your Arcane Cascade applies its bonus damage to spell’s minion’s attacks until the start of your next turn.

Conflux Spell Synchronic Strike
Studious Spell (7th) Marvelous Mount
Studious Spell (11th) Cozy Cabin
Studious Spell (13th) Liminal Doorway

Synchronic Strike [one-action] Focus 1
Homebrew Content
Uncommon Concentrate Focus Magus
Source Homebrew
Cast [one-action] verbal; Requirements You have a summoned minion requiring a sustain action. You tune deeply into the energy tying yourself to your summon using the magical energy to charge for your next Spellstrike. Designate a target within range of a melee strike distance, or a ranged strike within the first range increment. You sustain your summon spell giving your minion actions as usual, but one of its actions must be used to attack your designated target. If the minion does, you get to strike the target. Multiple attack penalty applies to both of these attacks (your and your minion’s) as normal.

At a glance it seems pretty reasonable.

I think this sort of thing also would become even more relevant for StarFinder, where Alien species should be able to rely on alternate senses more often that we might otherwise see in the other more traditional low-tech fantasy stories.

So I'd go so far as saying it would be wonderful to see Starfinder rewrite the rules to something akin to this, and people could easily re-port Pathfinder to use the more up-to-date rules if they are helpful.

If I had to make three changes to the Magus, they'd be the following:

Have Spellstrike remove the manipulate trait from the spell you're using.

Remove Arcane Cascade's requirement entirely, allowing the Magus to enter it whenever they like.

Give the Magus heavy armor proficiency.

With this, most melee Magi would no longer be prone to triggering Reactive Strikes, would have far less difficulty slotting Arcane Cascade into their turn, and would be far less MAD. Although more could be done to accommodate melee Dex-based Magi, the above would be quick and simple enough to not radically disrupt most players' builds, and would improve most subclasses without affecting Starlit Span, by far the strongest hybrid study at the moment (in fact, it would let more subclasses share its strength of making Int easier to build). If this somehow makes the class too strong overall, that could be addressed by altering the Psychic to make amps a spellshape free action focus spell, and also by having the multiclass archetype no longer give out amps, both of which arguably need to happen on their own merits and would make the Magus less dependent on one particular synergy for their power.

Beyond this, there's perhaps more to be done with fancier changes: because basic saves are there for pure damage effects, much like many attack spells, it wouldn't change the Magus's niche to use their attack roll to determine the save result of basic save spells, even if the spell probably ought to whiff entirely on a miss (this is what Channel Smite does). If we want to let Dex-based melee Magi deal more on-hit damage without having to also build Strength, one way to go about it could be to have Arcane Cascade replace Strength with Int as your melee damage roll modifier, with an increase to the base amount. There's also likely more that could be done in the realm of feats, and another user, Kalaam, made a good proposal to include more feats that let you recharge Spellstrike with successful skill actions. The Magus certainly...

I think removing the requirement from Arcane Cascade completely would be wrong. However, I could see making it become a free action (or potentially reaction) if done immediately following casting a two or three action spell, as well as likely immediately after a spellstrike. Arcane Cascade by design should require casting a spell, and I see making it free after casting a reaction or one action spell might be too-cheap.

Having seen a magus in the party, and seen it happen that the spellstrike invoke an AoO, it still was not that big a deal for them. Rather than making them immune to those reactions, I think it might be better to allow the reactions but make them less dangerous.

Give them a +1 status bonus to AC vs any reaction triggering off of their spellcasting (potentially not just limited to manipulate reactions, but that could be the limitation). Then include a boost while in Arcane Cascade where the bonus increases by the number of points of damage done by the Arcane Cascade. Also, while in arcane cascade, have reactions occur, but happen after the action is completed, meaning that the spell cannot be stopped by the reaction, even if getting a critical hit.

It might be interesting to have a Magus study that got heavy armor, but it doesn't seem like heavy armor should be the 'standard' in my opinion.

I was looking through the Rival Academies book and surprised a bit that it had fewer Wizard Schools than I had thought, sporting some options for Witches and Magus, etc. above and beyond Wizard Schools.

However, looking over the Schools and Curriculum spells which they did have, it occurred to me that schools should often have uncommon spells, that are only 'common' to members of their school. Of course any spell common to any wizard, whom has to study the spell from his spellbook would of course become relatively easily taken, by someone getting a hold of some individual's spellbook. So it might make them notably less exclusive than one might otherwise think.

However, what if due to the nature of the core curriculum some spells are covered so much that a wizard does not need their spellbook to study any spells that they know spells from their schools major curriculum. This would help 'secret' spells to remain secret, as written copies might only exist in school libraries and in rare cases potentially on scrolls, made by a member who felt they needed extra castings.

It is a minor extra boost to what you get with your curriculum. (spells you could prepare, even if you lose your spellbook, for instance)

I also am contemplating potentially allowing any wizard to swap a prepared spell for another copy of the spell they have prepared in an appropriate School Slot as an option when Focusing. Basically notably weaker version of the ability that the Runelords have where they can swap any prepared spell for any appropriate curriculum or sin spell, not just their currently prepared one.

I believe if you want to cancel or modify part of your order, you need to email Customer.Service@paizo.com

I believe you can request they pause your subscription, if you just don't want the next item but are interested in future items. You might lose your subscription benefits until the next item order though, if I understand correctly.

They used to handle request on the website, but I think they had issues with two different intakes, with people waiting on the website, and then emailing later, leaving situations where they might have more than one person handling the same issue or an issue that already got handled.

When they had it on the website they had the issue of people who put in requests and were not patient, or if others responded to the thread it effectively pushed them back in the queue, causing some issues with that, so I think customer service is now just by email, if my memory is serving me right.

Someone on staff may go ahead and respond to you for the official answer. But I thought I'd point you to email in case it is urgent. The email address I gave, should be the email address they give you at the end of the email updates they send out about subscriptions.

A bit more complicated than some ancestries, but I think it would be a wonderful idea.

Rules to enable a player to play as a Pet, Companion, or Eidolon.

Current rules limit Familiars and Animal (or other) Companions' abilities significantly to insure they are 'less' than a significant threat to keep 'one' person from overshadowing another's.

This would enable two players to play and have a built in 'relationship' between their characters, and would effectively double the budget for them.

Conceptually the old master class would archetype in such a manner that much of the expended budget goes to the other player, leaving room for the character to receive potential buffs from their partner they might not normally get. (even if it is more often getting the support bonus gotten from their AC due to their companion having more actions to be able to spend one to grant it to you)

At least first draft, I'd imagine these would likely be largely fall in as a marshal, which would bump up their hit points and would have the feature to receive typical buffs from their partners, probably going both ways. The thing being said, it feels like these would be combination of Ancestry and Class together as a combination. Or Ancestry translates some aspects of the normal starting choice of the pet/companion/eidolon and class ends up being tied to if they are an Eidolon, Companion, or Familiar/Pet.

For instance, if I played the companion to my partner's druid. Instead of simply having the statistics for attributes and AC and HP for normal Animal Companions, you would have ones more comparable to a full character, with attacks, damage, and defenses more comparable to a Marshall. Would have their own spot in initiative and have their own actions. They would have the option to spend one of their actions to give their partner the listed 'support action' for their base companion type they are based on, as an example. The druid might likewise have some way to donate an action to provide some baseline bonus to their companion. (don't know exactly what this looks like, be it a circumstance/aid bonus to attacks, etc?) But this would play into their continued dependence on one another to help one another, but would allow two people to play the two halves and have them both represent full roles within the party.

It would seem to me there would/could need to be three potential balancing points created. Familiars/Pets, Animal (and otherwise) Companions, and Eidolons.

Eidolons for instance are already the closest to already being a full martial, but tied back to their partners HP. So the question would be would you unjoin the HP between them (but potentially have over-damage spill over) or leave things as is, or some other combination such as always have half damage from one spill over to the other unless they are already taking the damage from the same source. Again one of the big changes would be splitting their actions up. But maybe as a not to the old action economy there might be an Act Together reaction allowing one of the pair to sacrifice an action to enable their prater to spend a reaction for certain defined actions in the Act Together with Partner reaction.

Animal Companions seem easier to do, just making them a martial base with some interactions with whatever partner class they happen to be cooperating.

Familiars/Pets are probably the harder thing to balance. They aren't generally intended to be combat participants, so whatever abilities they are normally granted by their master might interact more oddly with them being granted to another PC. I still think it would normally be doable, but may require more thorough thought than the others.

Perhaps in non-combat circumstances, there could be a rider that allows the Necromancer to be able to roughly reproduce that which a Phantasmal Minion can preform, but such manipulations being limited to only occurring withing spaces where the necromancer has current Thralls as the concentrates on the desired result/work. (effectively giving them access to a single such minion, but its effects/actions limited to only contagious spaces occupied by thralls.)

It might be interesting to allow them to effectively behave as a Floating disk as well, basically call thralls into existence and the thralls just pass the object/objects over themselves to the next thrall. Meaning it can't move faster than the speed you create new thralls.

It could be argued that in combat the Thralls are too confused/instinct controlled to preform more discrete tasks such as this.

Your concept of a throne forming under someone is certainly very thematic and so would be cool if there were a way to make it viable. I guess in theory if thralls were on either side of the necromancer they could lean in and form a seat under them perhaps.

....

There's a big difference between "helping the GM come up with a list of stuff the PCs would like to find someday" and "asking for a specific ritual that mostly exists to short circuits narratives or as a vanity piece for the PC.

So Imprison and Freedom I suppose could be used to short-circuit narrative in that it opens up a way to 'eliminate' an enemy which you have already defeated (given the requirements are pretty explanatory that you have to have control of them) without killing them. Or opens up a narrative that would otherwise be unavailable to release someone from a narrative imprisoning which has already taken place.

But I think with keeping the context of the requirements that Imprison has of needing to have the target subdued the whole time does the opposite of 'short-circuiting the narrative' and simply enables a new narrative that doesn't have to include killing as your means of presumably eternally defeating an evil.

Freedom, again is something that lets you narratively bring someone whom was 'lost' back, I suppose someone might say having arbitrary narrative McGuffins would be better to collect and free them from an arbitrary narrative prison, could be a 'reasonable' proposal for narrative solution, but the old ritual required a certain relatively detailed level of knowing who they where, where they came from, and where they got imprisoned amd/or get access to where they are being held prison, so they seemed to be intending to insure the narrative was addressed in the original ritual. So I'm not entirely certain that the ritual was that much of a narrative short-circuit as it was.

Then, Creating demi-plane falls smack into the former category of being something primarily only relevant in the 'wish-list of things we'd like to bump into' to develop our character in the direction we would like to see. It simply doesn't provide access to really break anything that the player can't already break. For nearly all cases I can imagine, it absolutely requires access to Interplanar Teleport... which has an uncommon tag on it because 'it' might bypass certain narratives, or enable travel the GM doesn't want to enable. However, I don't really see how create Demiplane allows anyone to 'break' any games unless you are talking about things that aren't broken by the ritual, but are instead broken by Interplanar Teleport.

It makes perfect sense to block players from creating Demiplanes in a low magic universe where mortals can't access other planes. If that is the narrative being sold by the GM, I'd realize that I probably couldn't expect them to let me create my own plane, unless they were very inclined to make exceptions for us the heroes in the long game.

But why when a mage can cast a spell and summon an undead for a minute, and a few levels later, they can potentially take and learn to cast a ritual for a cost that allows them to make a permanent instance of such a creature and potentially control it.

So why when a wizard can manipulate the same magics to create a Demiplane and prepopulate it with a mansion for a day, and then why is the default that it is completely unreasonable for them to potentially be able to make a simpler empty Demiplane that is permanent or whose duration is beyond the life of the maker, if they apply some of the same elongation techniques via a ritual? It doesn't seem like it passes the narrative or regional tests from my perspective to fall into a can't be done without Mythic. It absolutely can't be done without powerful magic, but that isn't the same thing as Mythic.

It is absolutely true that higher level rarity items you might not even realize they are important to you and so they are the items that are most likely in my opinion to trip people up, because someone may ask the GM to later after they started getting set on the idea.

Someone claimed that create Demiplane actually created problems for their campaign, I'm really curious how, and want to ask, was it really the Create Demiplane that caused the problem, or was it creative or overuse of InterPlanar teleport, or treated the Demiplane as a mobile Tardis, which the ritual itself clearly does not allow by raw. Was it allowing them to have an armory always withing 'teleport' distance from their front line in the dungeon? Again, that isn't the fault of the Demiplane, but the teleport. Allowing you to teleport back to a nearby castle a weeks ride away every night would be the same situation, so it isn't the Demiplane.

Maybe it is that it allowed them to hide somewhere where they could go but others couldn't' readily follow. But again that seems more like an Interplanar Teleport issue again.

I just don't see how gating these items past the prior Rare tag really did anything to improve the sorts of stories you could tell with them. The only thing the did was made the critical successes a bit bigger for the mythic instances. Which could have easily be handled as a mythic Heightening note added to the original rituals, or making the modified version have a different name and larger sizes, and then just leaving the old ones be.

For example... I'd suggest the mythic versions of ritual, for create Demiplane, the primary caster should hence be considered themselves as a key for the Demiplane, and that the primary caster should be able to choose any of the other three secondary casters as becoming alternate keys for purpose of entering the Demiplane. That makes sense as part of being a mythic entity, that you yourself would gain a relationship with the plane you helped create. That has more mythic flavor to me, in that instance.

If they had simply named the ritual Create Mythic Demiplane and published it like it was, it would not have had the negative impact the current implementation has due to the convention of overwriting elements with the same rules in the remaster, since this would simply have become the only 'remastered' ritual 'published' for creating a Demiplane, but anyone open to legacy content would easily find the old non-mythic one available for use if they are open, and it would be RAW available to anyone as long as the GM approves.

Yes by RAW the GM can decide to homebrew, but the homebrew is not considered RAW, it is just something that can happen if the GM wants to change the rules to allow it. Just like the GM can decide players can have 1000 HP if they want, or get rid of the increased price to buy higher attribute bonuses. It can exist, but it doesn't officially exist.

Someone can let a player add their spellcasting modifier to Cantrip damages when they cast cantrips, but doing so, they aren't playing by Remastered rules. The developers tried to balance their changes to the cantrips to account for this change. But in this case something was specifically taken away from normal Epic adventurers such as any mages planning on having a actual Planar Library to retreat from and reserved for only Mythic heroes.

Honestly at this point, I'd hope they consider errata it by renaming it Create Mythic Demiplane even if they don't ever reprint Create Demiplane in any post-remaster book. It would acknowledge some people out there may have planned to have their non-mythic character have a planar domicile in the distant future, and make it a official legacy option.

Honestly, Freedom and Imprisonment are harder to know how to address, as I see wanting to block non-mythic characters from targeting Mythic one with the rituals perhaps, which means legacy copies of the ritual would need errata to make Mythic creatures not be valid targets for the ritual. In such a case they sort of have to be reprinted, which is extra space. It would be easier to simply update the ritual to by default not target Mythic creatures, and leverage Mythic Heightening which affects rolls, and enables targeting of mythic creatures or imprisonments. I have to admit I'm less concerned about those two rituals as they don't really impact character development like the Create Demiplane one. Given unlike quite a few character ideas I've had in my life whom planned to one day have a demiplane of their own, or friends with similar plans, I'm not coming up with specific character ideas whose life plans included a Imprison or Freedom ritual.

The queen might be under some form of magical Geas which may prevent her from directly opposing members of her former party. They might mutually be blocked from direct opposition overt action against her, but this magic may not be so ironclad that it prevents her from affecting one another indirectly by agents that are not truly theirs.

Whatever the other three are doing, it likely indirectly negatively impacts her and therefore she doesn't want them to succeed. Maybe it will call down some great magic that would either be 'associated' with her, or would be quickly 'blamed' on her and cause the surrounding forces to cause her no end of trouble she isn't prepared for. But by leading an independent group of heroes towards a path that will intersect and eventually collide with their plan, and her providing enough information and resources that they have a reasonable chance to foil the plot, it isn't truly her stopping them, Just like their plot would truly be considered them causing her the trouble she foresees.

If you don't like the Magical Geas route, another option is a bit simpler. While she may personally have reasons she doesn't want them to succeed, and she is the leader of her nation, she may realize that too many of her subjects may be sympathetic to the instigators of the plan she opposes personally to publicly and officially oppose it. The act of officially opposing it might cost her too much politically/socially for her to commit to it. Her people can follow instructions to stay out of the way of a strange band of outsiders, and they may wonder why, but then they don't have to associate that band's actions as all being intended outcomes of their leader. It buys her enough plausible deniability to keep herself within her safe zone.

Sometimes a leader is forced to use one Voice in public, even if the whispers they make after may seem to counter what was just spoken moments before. It reminds me of I believe it was the King and I where one of the King's many concubine's had fallen in love with a local monk, and they had tried to run away together but were caught. When the king's family tutor comes barging in and berates him in front of his nobles for him doing something he can't do, because the tutor's cultural sensibilities couldn't stand it. The king rebuffs them sending them away, and has the two lovers tortured and killed I believe. In quite, afterwards he again rebuffed the tutor saying he had intended to make the pair simply 'disappear' to no-where and anyone who cared would have assumed they were silently killed, but would have in reality simply been sent far away where none would know who they ever were. But because of the fuss made in front of the Nobles, and attempting to define what he could and couldn't do as king, he had to demonstrate to the nobles that he was not deferring to the foreign tutor's culture and dishonoring his own culture and position.

A similar thing could happen with the White Queen. Her people may not feel comfortable opposing the outward purpose her normal allies' plan seems to mean. But the Queen can see something bad in its future, but perhaps not in a way that would be 'appropriate' for the consumption of her people and public image. (take for instance if her public thinks she is invulnerable and none can ever be like her again, then if both of those facts would be revealed false by the 'plan' in the end, she can't let the plan succeed, but also can't acknowledge that the plan would prove such things, or the very thing she is attempting to stop would become true.

Another option could even be if she cares for one or more of them, and thus doesn't want them 'Harmed' but she can't allow them to 'succeed' for some self-preservation reason. If she came out and outwardly opposed them, they might fail to understand her continued 'care' for them. Thus she needs to manipulate another factor to oppose them, which she can't be squarely proven as responsible for.

I agree with PossibleCabbage that wizards have spells that create temporary demiplanes with specialty contents already, with the understanding they may not be 'permanent' they are still creating it and in a sense being able to be daily creating temporary things, it isn't hard to imagine it not being past their ability to create a permanent one. It doesn't seem that these rituals should be gated behind a Mythic trait, unless all those spells like Planar Palace, and I suppose the old Rope Trick spell may no longer exist.

Maybe looking at the Rituals created for pre-remaster created larger spaces than in retrospective were intended, and it might have worked to try to debuff them a little, but it really seemed like the choice to rip them out of normal play didn't increase the stories you could easily tell, but really cut the stories you could easily tell. (unless you delete new rules) I don't think deleting the new content shouldn't normally reduce the common story-sets you can tell.

I think others mentioned what came to my mind too. Perhaps make Non-mythic demi-planes smaller, make them either not be able to grow (other than growing to critical size) or make them grow very slowly and only on critical successes.

It also seems perfectly reasonable to have certain types of desirable planar traits (such as Bountious) possibly be gated behind Mythic access. If someone wants to seem to recreate it they might have to import enough animals and plants into it. There could be other traits (I worry Elemental might be a base trait that might be expected by others, but you might gate it, or limit it to one, and/or don't allow it to be changed once set)

Otherwise limit non-mythic planes to where future rituals can only be used to create new/replacement keys for access, be limited to one portal etc.

If you are allowing the party access to the Plane Shift spell, so giving them access to be able to create a DemiPlane doesn't seem more story shattering/building that Plane Shift itself. (after all they can potentially simply planeshift somewhere and simply take over an existing space someplace, that could even be even larger) I'm presuming that Plane Shift isn't retroactively being made a Mythic only Spell.

Heightening the ritual would increase its size and potentially unlock certain planar traits. Heightening it with Mythic would unlock larger sizes at specified levels, allow larger growth and unlock more planar traits than the non-mythic versions.

The concept of rituals that while base are not Mythic, but can have a Mythic Heighten option seems like a wonderful mechanic to be explored, I really wish this was the route taken/considered.

I appreciate James taking the time with interjection, and while I may disagree personally that it should be the case, I am none the less happy to have a better understanding of how he perceived it as being narratively better for normal non-mythic mages to not have access to such planar creation within the realms of Golarion, barring of course some narrative exceptions. And he has pointed out that his view isn't reflective of specific conversations with the Rules staff's intent. It none the less likely has some weight to any changes they might consider based on feedback they get, if their intention wasn't exactly what got written down.

Yes, those of us negatively impacted by the change, can always homebrew. Paizo isn't going to repeal the ORC if I homebrew a non-mythic create demi-plane back into the remaster. But taking rituals that don't really seem to have any more functional regional impact than saying the PCs are allowed to buy a house or tower somewhere, and putting it behind a Must-Be-Godlike wall does actually negatively impact the game for anyone in Organized Play, or playing with GMs whom are not comfortable venturing into homebrew rules. Being able to provide feedback and express concern behind such decisions on the part of the community should be welcomed. Guess what, that means I need to accept and understand that someone said they as a GM had run into issues with the Create Demiplane having caused them problems. Honestly, I'd love to know more about that, but that is likely too detailed for this discussion.

I suppose also at a root to this is that when I saw the opportunity for Rituals in Second Edition, I was exited, as it made sense for their existence, and I thought it was something that could really shine and be another thing to make Second Edition a draw. But they were really so very minimally explored, they didn't really meet this expectation for me. Then turning around and pushing what were actually already existing rituals, and making them even less accessible really was going in the completely opposite direction. In summary, I think that is part of what is driving my reaction in this case too. The new rules are making Rituals 'less' a part of the game than the used to, when they seemed to originally have had even more potential than they eventually emerged with.

The fact that Goblin Dogs spread a disease (ok technically allergic reaction, but functions as a disease) to non-goblins is also very appropriate for an Apocalypse Rider Fumbus to choose to ride.

Correct, she may not have approved of what happened, but was potentially responsible for those who did it. With command structures, one can still feel responsible for what happened, even if it wasn't your command that made it happen. In fact what happened could have even been contrary to explicit instructions, and one could still fault oneself for what happened.

Maybe she didn't make it clear enough that it would not be acceptable, and they took it as tacit approval, or maybe she did make abundantly clear, but others were losing trust in her leadership and leaned towards the suggestions of another. Even in such a case, she could hold herself responsible for having lost the faith of those in her command, that they chose the wrong path to proceed.

I agree that Arazni seems like she would have NO use for pleasantries with Iomedae if she felt it was Iomedae's true responsibility. The potential of her being the patron of the Knights by way of powering the Crimson Reclaimers seems to confirm this. It kind of leads to a belief that she might not believe it is the fault of the actual order, but perhaps the actions of some of its individual members. She perhaps doesn't personally feel betrayed by the order (although she might hide this for whatever personal reason) but rather considers it personal betrayal by those directly involved in the binding, which may not have been everyone.

An alternate scenario might be that the binding was done by order of Aroden... at which point Arazni might not have considered the Knights at fault, rather finding Aroden at fault. It would be strange, why wouldn't Aroden just tell his Herald to appear. Maybe the Whispering Tyrant tricked Aroden into making a prophecy that if his herald was bound, she would be victorious, but that very binding would be the source of her loss of faith causing her to be able to fail. And it would be the beginning of Aroden's prophesies that would come to fail, until is final death himself. That would be yet another potential option.

Either way, it may not have been Iomedae's choice, but it may not relieve her from feeling responsible, and it being responsible for forming some of her core beliefs. Not only that, but both of the above might actually be true. Aroden may have overridden Iomedae's choice, and for that Arazni may fold Aroden responsible. In public she may even hold the Knights responsible for her death, but personally, she may recognize Iomedae as having been the leader of the Knights and may know her choice, had it been followed would have respected her, and so in secret she may feel kinship for those who still hold to the original intent of the Knights, even if she doesn't wish to publicly assert this, as it might be difficult to explain to so many mortals, whom would see it as forgiveness, rather than respect for a leader for whom was overridden.

All these are possible scenarios that might make sense.

There is a certain interesting aspect to the idea of a God making a decision that was wrong, and overriding a mortal, who eventually takes the mantle of that god later on after he dies due to his error that may have been in part tied to this decision. But implications are that Aroden had plenty of 'non-good' mistakes attributed to him, which seems like it would make his association with 'good' to have been a mortal mistake in the past, potentially due to so many of the worshipers being human, and only chose to view him from their own ethnic perspective when they labeled him good. (which is no longer a universal element in remaster)

Finally got to look at this part of the book and compare the old ritual from Archives of Nethys with the new one/ones. So now I have a better understanding of the question and concern.

And by the way there is a sidebar that describes what a Mythic Ritual should be.

WHAT MAKES A RITUAL MYTHIC?

Rituals are magic that anyone with the right skills and resources can perform, and they often have large and significant effects or ramifications. So what makes a mythic ritual mythic? Most notably, the scale and impact they have on the game world. While most rituals might have a significant effect for a single character or a small region, mythic rituals can represent huge changes in the story and structure of the narrative, dynamically changing things that are true about the world in a way that creates consequences felt at a national or planetary level, and might even end or begin significant stories.

Based on this sidebar it seems like a mistake to have made Create Demiplane into a Ritual that required Mythic. I could see why it and Imprison, and Freedom Rituals, for instance could have had Mythic Heightening's that would potentially leverage Mythic points/Mythic skill proficiencies, etc. But crating a small demi-plane is not changing something at a national or even regional level, and is a part of many a Fantasy story that weren't planning on treading on the 'godlike' power structures. For instance most magic users can create smaller temporary places relatively easily, so why would creating a private space less than half an Acre in size considered mythic now?

I understand perfectly how it could have seemed like a perfect opportunity to include the Create Demiplane ritual back in after remaster as working with Mythic and Divinities puts you in a position to talk about planar powers and such. However, I also agree it is (in my personal opinion) a poor choice to consider this ritual only appropriate to Mythic stories, when it was more widely available before. Playing a 20th level wizard isn't supposed to 'presuppose' you are playing a Mythic game, that would need the Mythic rules, and the original ritual fit perfectly well in those fantasies. How does this 'change' limiting to Mythic characters, enable you to easily tell the same stories you could, that you want to.

If they wanted to make Mythic only version of the ritual, why didn't they name it Create Mythic Demiplane ritual? Give it some better options or size growth making a a preferred route for rather extreme. Honestly, it isn't hard for me to imagine someone having added the ritual in the book because it 'seemed appropriate', and then later editing passes someone 'presumed' that because it was in the book, it needed to be tagged mythic as a baseline. I'd be all for a errata to remove the Mythic trait from the ritual, and add a Mythic Heighten that would add the Mythic point cost, enable Mythic skill proficiency to be leveraged, and have it adjust the outcomes in some appropriate manners.

Again, saying Rare means you need to talk to the DM, and so Mythic Rare means the same, so there is no difference, does not work. Otherwise you could say, take everything RARE in other books and add Mythic. And we should all know that doesn't make sense.

I'm hoping that the original intent was for Create Demiplane was to show how some rituals might interact with Mythic but might not Require Mythic, and editing got carried away with simplifying/unifying things and took it too far. Again, that's my hope, and I'm hoping something will come out to clarify something like that.

What if for the Multiclass Archetype dedication: it granted an amended
Shift Eminence that loses the ability automatic trigger as a free action at initiative.

As well as the following changes to Multiclass Ikons:
Immanence and Transcendence abilities remain at the starting baseline of their ability. Any plus per weapon die remains a static bonus on one weapon die, any abilities that improve at specific levels remain the baseline state. (I'm thinking the resistance ability which simply is based on half level is probably fine being kept as is per base so one might wordshop the wording to insure the based on level doesn't trigger that being a resistance 1 ability costing an action. Any other concerns people have?)

Additionally Multiclass Exemplars find it fatiguing to Holding Immanence in their objects for more than 5 minutes or for extended times such as in exploration or downtime.

There might be a multiclass archetype to regain the ability to trigger Shift Immanence at initiative as a free action or reaction (at start of first turn after initiative), but it would likely leave the limitation on how long one can maintain an Immanence effects over time. Not sure what level it should be.

There would be a MultiClass Archetype feat:
Unlock Full Potential of Ikon [Feat 6]
Prerequisites: Exemplar Dedication, Basic Glory
Your First Ikon unlocks any boosts based on (per weapon die, or based on Exemplar level)

If people feel that having at least 3 feats invested in an archetype isn't enough to get the full unlocked ikon ability, the feat might unlock up to a certain number of weapon dice/or unlock up to a certain level ikon ability unlocks, with a subsequent unlock feat unlocking the remainder.

Another potential feat to exist would be an alternative to the 12th level one:

Second Full Potential Ikon [Feat 14]
Prerequisites: Exemplar Dedication, Unlock Full Potential of Ikon
You gain an additional ikon, selected from those listed on
page 43. When you Spark Transcendence, your spark moves
automatically from the ikon you just used to the other ikon, both Ikons are unrestricted by the restrictions of only base ability per weapon die or level unlocks. (note: implication would be this 14th level feat would not require the 12th level feat, but would subsume its benefits if someone wanted a 'full' power second ikon.)

This would mean that without further investment, any Multiclass Exemplars would need to spend an action to get their Immanence ability, instead of typically getting triggered in initiative. Restoring their Immanence ability after forcing Transcendence will also require an action until they get a second Ikon, which is yet another investment.

Choices and Ikons are still readily available, potentially powerful, but come at a cost of an action to get into them. Could make multiclass Exemplar Multiclass Archetype less attractive to classes that are short on extra actions in early rounds, but I'm not entirely certain that isn't an ok situation to make people question if it is the direction they want to go or not. It makes a multiclass Exemplar have the divinity be less easily accessed, but gives them the ability to step into it with proper investment of actions an feats and get a real flavor of the class imparted to the character.

Railroading can be fine, especially when the basic premise of it has already been presented in the story pitch, for example. In fact not railroading when the expectation is that there is only one possible path can be really frustrating. When players work to come up with a plan, and then have it unravel to only a different route, it creates tension that isn't needed. Simply starting with a brief understanding of where people are and jumping to 'flashback' allowing people to introduce yourself, and work towards getting to the 'start' of the game lets them play a reasonable goal of getting to the start of the game together. (presuming all the players are playing 'together' for everyone's benefit)

Otherwise, you ask for ideas for our home games, but so often the best ideas are 'our' ideas, but finding ways to integrate the ideas of our players into the plot and story.

I always try to come up with back stories that have plenty of examples of partially fleshed out NPCs in my story. They may be Allies, or enemies, or sometimes not specifically either. There is frequently a variety of conflicts, which normally at least a few may have been won by me, but may leave some enemies, but may also present opportunities for some allies.

I've done this, intentionally for some time, even if it wasn't a formal thing I did, but I've seen GMs actually ask for aspects of this, and have seen how it makes it easier for them to potentially fold your character tighter into the story.

So what I present, is less specific ideas for specific things that can happen, but a list of things you can encourage your players to write up and give you, leaving you with some options to look over for ways to weave them into the story in question.

Describe the following from your path; (or as many as makes sense, often including a name, something describing them, and why they are to you what they are)
3 Allies:
3 Enemies:
3 others who would know of you: (but not necessarily one of above)

Some events;
A Regret:
An Accomplishment:
A Dream or Goal:
A Fear or Nightmare:

Something Lost:
Something Found:

Something which was misunderstood about you:
Something you have misunderstood about your life: (this could be something like you believe you were wronged by someone, but you were lied to and though what you believe, it isn't actually what happened)

Even if someone doesn't fill out all of the items, it gives you a chance to help link the players stories together, either by directing two with similar stories that could be connected, to work together. Or potentially secretly working to reveal that their stories cross though an NPC that played a part in their past. Which you can give them updated details adding to their sheet, with details you want to provide to them, so when they recognize a past NPC they can react authentically based on the additional information, and might be surprised when another has a tie in to them as well.

I'll say I am looking forward to seeing how the new Class Archetypes work out. I've been looking forward to the successor of the Inquisitor ever since second edition came out and the successor of the Paladin focused on being the Heavy Armor Paragon. Given, out of a half dozen Paladin characters I've played in the past, only one would have willingly donned heavier than light armor given their own choices, the new take on the class obviously wasn't the most well fitting for those concepts. As it became quite clear the developers took a very different meaning for Holy Warrior than I wanted, I realized that what I probably wanted in Second edition for these concepts would be viewed more as a Holy Striker instead of Holy Defender, which was what Champion was.

So for some time after that I have looked forward then to a Successor to the Inquisitor, who despite the secret agent feel they had, was otherwise seen as something of a strong case for a Divine Striker. When the Thaumaturge was coming, i definitely got the Monster Hunter vibe from it, so had some hope maybe it might fit that concept but it really it just not really tied to divine, which is perfectly fine for the concept it is meant to be, but again left me wanting for these concepts.

I think some of these class Archetypes could very easily give me what was missing. (not that I couldn't have potentially squeaked something out with a Cleric or Oracle multiclass archetype to get the flavor I want, especially on a free-archetype game, but this hopefully will be better suited)

I will admit that I was surprised that the inquisitor(vindicator) wasn't coming out of Investigator, but I see the reasons and they make sense, and it sounds like future books may have a divine Investigator, so I'll look forward to seeing that one too.

Just noticing now, the mention of the Vindicator sharing their Divine Sanctification with their allies, and honestly, that sounds like a neat ability, as well as being a sort of _Nod_ to the old Inquisitor, without shoving too many abilities into one package.

Wait... just a thought. I think it would be completely within the rules to allow additional characters to preform Aid actions to help the Primary and Secondary Casters. So a ritual requiring a single primary caster and a single secondary caster could have a third person doing an Aid to help the Primary caster's roll, and a fourth person whom spend their time to Aid the secondary caster on their roll. This could give them a 'relatively easy to get' +2 to their check.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2552

In retrospect, it would seem like the rules on stacking, and the fact that secondary casters create a Circumstance Bonus to the Primary caster check, it makes sense that rule could be interpreted that you may only be able to aid the primary caster by being a Secondary caster. However, I think it would not be hard to imagine being able to say, preforming and Aid action to help Secondary casters achieve their result. The rules mentioned above indicate the person would need to be present at all times the secondary caster is preforming their actions for the ritual, but does indicate that aid actions don't have to be constrained to rounds.

It isn't hard to imagine a primary ritualist flanked by secondary participants and assistants/acolytes, etc. surrounding them passing them the things they need next.

Another option, after x days and the secondary casters have any failures, the primary caster can delay their roll a day, allowing any Failed casters to re-roll their individual roll. Casters that succeed need not re-roll unless they want to, but as the re-roll for the failed caster the caster must consider the new roll their roll after the reroll.

I question if that would/should apply to allow re-rolls of critical failures on secondary caster's rolls, as it seems like there should be some risk of accumulating a critical failure.

Perhaps if understanding the ritual is not proceeding as it should could become a roll that the primary has to make before making the final ritual roll, if they want to delay/extend the ritual.

Make the Delay/Extend the ritual roll be an Easy roll for 2x the Rituals rank. As long as they succeed they have the option to delay a day.

If people feel it make it too easy to get rid of Crit Failures from secondary rolls, you could make rerolling a crit failure requiring rolling a crit success on the easy roll. And extending could require at least one secondary caster does a re-roll, so if all have succeeded, but one had got a crit failure, extending the ritual fishing for a crit success on extension roll might be risky as the secondary caster could end up adding another crit failure.

Could it be they are 'expecting' these rituals to be key points and thus expecting the players to burn hero points on the roll if need be to insure they succeed?

Not saying that is intended, as the rules say that you can't use fortune effects on it, and hero points are treated as fortune effects, but it might be when they designed the rules and did probability checks on chances, hero point expenditure might not have actually been intended to be prohibited.

I could also imagine as some mentioned, paying more in specifically relevant material components for the ritual, or specific timing, would be very easily merit a reduction in the Target DC for the checks, potentially both the primary and secondary checks.

Another option you might allow spellcasters whom are acting as secondary casters expend a spell slot of the level of ritual they are preforming (during each up to day) for the ritual in order to have the option to re-roll their roll (but having to take the re-roll if made, and not otherwise compatible with other fortune effects).

By boosting the likelihood of the secondary casters being able to succeed you indirectly make it more likely the primary caster will be able to succeed, without making the primary check have an easy button. (which allowing the primary caster to just spend a slot to get a re-roll might end up spoiling the risk/reward, and handicap non-casters from rituals too much)

Another option to improve the results of secondary casters on the primary caster roll would be sticking to what the rules say that each secondary caster has to make a different check, but you would skip the mention of after each check has been made, other secondary casters make no rolls. Perhaps you could allow secondary casters to pick their check they take, but allow them each roll in sequence. As long as none have critically failed for a particular check, allow others to attempt for the same check to do better, such as to avoid the -4 circumstance penalty. This would allow additional casters to boost your chance of success, but would also increase the potential of a crit failure which would certainly be bad. I might be tempted to up the DC of secondary caster checks if they use more than double the specified secondary casters however as larger groups can become cumbersome to manage, to help more not always be a way to make it easier at any scale.

Another different option, you could switch the bonus for a successful secondary check to be a +1 untyped bonus, or +1 stacking circumstance bonus that would stack but only with other secondary check bonuses earned. Potentially having critical successes, instead of granting +2 have them grant the same stacking +1, but allow the primary caster to roll an additional primary check and drop the lower. Critical Failures might do as they currently say, or might make you roll an additional check, but forces you to discard your highest of your rolls for the primary check.

That is a lot of ideas, just a brainstorming... something might sound like something that would do what you want in your game, and help your players enjoy the process, and help you feel like you've accomplished making a fun playing experience.

The specialization allows them to use melee weapons for their abilities, and strength for their key ability.

The text says they may like to use their fists, etc. it says you may be a martial artist. However, the text seems to not enable unarmed attacks unless they get treated as melee weapons in Starfinder.

Are strikers prohibited from using their abilities with unarmed attacks. Is that what was intended? Or were they intended to allow agile melee unarmed attacks?

My daughter thought she could convince her brother to try a vesk striker operative with natural weapons, but if they can’t use their natural attacks with their abilities, he probably would not want to play that.

So, it looks like in the the multiclass archetype for Swashbuckler they definitely did run a pass through to update it to reference the new Bravado trait. However, when you compare the rules between the pre-remaster and remastered, the boost to speed and bonus to attempts to achieve Panache during were a part of the Panache feature and granted in pre-remaster.

I don't understand why the developers would turn a working archetype feat that gave you a benefit, into one which effectively gave you nothing unless they they felt the original was way too overpowered. Even then, it seems they intentionally work to break things into bite sized pieces and divide them up into sequential feats when needed. All that said, I also don't think this would be a case of them fixing something they thought was overpowered.

I think that someone cleaned up the Panache rules in an editing pass, placing the 'effects you get from panache' in a different paragraph and it eventually got a new class feature name. Then whomever was particularly aware of that change, I'm guessing was not the primary individual involved in the retouch of the Multiclass archetype, or simply the edit to Panache class feature was done after the last touchup of the Archetype.

While you can't use... the rules from premaster are this as saying that is what they are now, I think it does help expose the likely intent.

I will confess while I sometimes just want to get a chance to play a certain role, I'll admit, I've had so many concepts it isn't hard for myself to end up offering to be Player D, and fill a role that will help the party the most. Not because I will simply mathematically figure out what will give us the best, but by doing a little spreading out of our resource among different quadrants you diversify and strengthen the party. I also love to, if possible come up with reasons for me to have tie in's to other party members, if they are willing. I don't expect it of others, but enjoy coming up with links with a player or two if I get volunteers. This sometimes opens possibilities to have starting synergies with them as well. I am most likely to volunteer to be a player like D in games that I know less of the people, thus feel like a guest, and am willing to 'work' for the opportunity of being involved to play.

Really all the discussion seems to be mostly talking about player expectations, but as an example, the question about using a potion. If you want to 'give' a little bit on this, but put guard-rails on it. You can create a special necklace that can hold one potion, that you can fit one potion into. And that potion is already near your face, may have an easy or magic way to open and thus allow that one potion to be worn (available without requiring an action to pull out) so that it can be drank with only one action.

This means you aren't just 'changing the rules' to make all potion use easier, but you basically allow one prepped potion to be more easily used, to allow the characters to rely on them a little easier.

Probably as mentioned it would be good to make sure people's expectations are understood. And maybe if they were, maybe people would understand the reasons people choose what they have and have suggested what they have, and perhaps might come to understand it might not be as bad a core reason as someone might be assuming it is.

Moon Marches Magistrates

A coalition of those in the given churches focusing on keeping the 'eternal peace' in borderlands, by insuring that justice is carried out by insuring there are costs to those who attack the foundations of the civilization and people. Even if there isn't an otherwise strong foundational governance in said region. Basically even the twilights of civilization should have the benefits of the hopes for stability and justice.

I have to mention.... small children have been proven to being very able to be very proficient at Taunting. Be it used against, other children, adults, other small cute animals, or dangerous beasts.

So don't discount taunting, by way of minions. ;)

Wow, already?! It is the first Starfinder lore book that will be Fully-compatible with the Second Edition ruleset that they have thus far only teased us with!

The ability gives a debuff against the target. It uses the Circumstance penalty as the means to affect the target, and it benefits the whole party.

If some party members get specialized off-guard, against the target, the fact that they personally get a better bonus than the other party member granted does not invalidate the fact that the party member helped the other party members. It might not be ideal that the individual might be one of the bigger damage dealer, and an additional boost might have been welcome, but it doesn't invalidate the action.

The cases where the target is already off-guard, is a case where the first part would immediately be redundant (unless the target moves into a position making it lose off-guard during its turn). That has more validity as a concern, but of note, it might have value in the case of the target moving out of off-guard, as well as the fact that the follow me bonus will still stack on top of it.

Potentially, what if each member of the envoy's team was allowed to take the bonus as a circumstance penalty to the target's AC, or as a circumstance bonus to the attacker's attacks? Or even limit the 'alternative bonus' option to their first attack to help minimize how often the option is triggered. But it could help such an action to still provide a viable contribution, even in situations where someone may already be off-guard.

Again, another thought, if concerns this solution is too powerful, you could limit it to a follow me bonus/option that triggers if the person is already off-guard to the Envoy when they attack them. This would limit this additional option to the situations where the target is likely off-guard to others (because they are off-guard to the Envoy) so it limits its usage to more of the circumstances where the normal benefit would have been lost already. Or to avoid the switching of penalty to bonus, you could instead offer that when the Envoy strikes an Off-Guard target, the follow-me benefit gives +1 damage per die to any attacks that strike the same target while considered off-guard to the attacker. (basically move the to-hit bonus that would have been lost to a better damage bonus)

I'm pretty sure they want to avoid having the directives from constantly having to have a roll made to do something. I think one of the feedbacks given to Starfinder play was that rolling to get a bonus to your own action or someone else's action being a standard thing you have to do each round was less fun than activating an ability and knowing it has some effect, even if small. Then ideally having the ability to do something active with your action to. (hence the Directives, buff but automatic) and (follow me, active action that boosts your baseline buff, but does something too) I think that feedback was talked about in past, especially affecting the old implementations of Envoy and Operative classes.

So I don't think they will want a directive as baseline as Get'em to involve rolling to have an impact.

I have thoughts about adding more science and civilization to Skitter Crash.

...
What is a good small amphibious predator among the Starfinder creatures that can be crawling out of the swampy water to invade the transported forest?

Hey, I have to say I like a lot of your suggestions. I agree with a lot of your thought processes regarding it. I didn't get al the way through the adventure with my own family, and they didn't themselves run into the missing the expectations of the players yours did, but I agree that the scale between science fiction and science fantasy can certainly be something that could/would affect peoples enjoyment of various adventures.

Some potential aquatic/amphibious options:
Jakkerant CR 5
Atlapak, Juvenile CR3
Holofang CR 4 (not really small)
Murzzilat CR 4
Murzzilat, Bantling CR 1

While not specifically aquatic/amphibious they are noted to be found in both marshes and forests
Tashtari CR 3