Loreguard's page

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.

So, to summon a Jann would require a 5th rank summoning spell.
Summoned Trait says that if the creature attempts to cast a spell of equal or greater rank than the spell that summoned it, it ends the summoning spell.

So the Jann, under spells lists Truespeach (5th) listed as a Constant spell.

Does that mean:
[1] You simply can't successfully summon a Jann until you cast it as a Rank 6 summoning spell? (it should be removed from the list of spells for that rank and moved to a higher one)
[2] You can summon a Jann, but it will be unable to access that ability which would be normally natural for them?
[3] Since it says it is constant, they didn't cast the spell, so it doesn't interact with the summoning trait and they can use the effects as per the spell ability since it is constant effect.
[4] Some other interpretation I haven't thought of.

I'm inclined to simply make it #2, as #3 seems to0 powerful a precedent, and #1 seems to0 limiting seeing the summon spells list it in Archives of Nethys, making me think the intent would be for them to be able to be summoned.

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.

So am I understanding correctly that the first story is for low level good characters.

The second story is however taking place for individuals presumably, other than the first set. And notably, this group of characters is motivated to battle for the Unholy side of things, as the protagonists in the story are what most of the world would consider Antagonists.

And then the story resets, and for the last chapter it is for high level holy characters trying to end the GraveKnights entirely.

So this would be an official adventure where some of the players are expected to play out presumably 'unholy' aligned characters. (we don't call it evil any longer, and the reason driving their motivations could be varied, but it sounds like they are at a minimum trying to destroy a 'Holy' stronghold. So on the Unholy side, even if not strictly sanctified unholy.

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.

May not be the level of detail you were wanting, but I kind of thought I'd seen something so I checked and sure enough, this is what I think I saw.

It is on Infinite, so isn't official product of Paizo, but is officially available. The note about some cards not having real art may be a turn-off, but at least the author is being honest. And maybe if they have made sales, they may have updated the deck to include art for those.

https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/380221/Starfinder-Infinite-Adven ture-Card-Game--Core-Set

Starfinder Infinite Adventure Card Game on Starfinder Infinite

I haven't seen these cards, nor the game. Haven't seen the PACG either though, although I think I have a few single cards that were included as extras in some of Paizo subscription shipments.

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.

Can anyone verify that all you need for Errata to get someone up from the original printing to the current would be to print off the following in the FAQ.
Guns & Gears Remaster Errata (Winter 2025, Remaster Compatibility)

Or would there be any things things found in the FAQ of Guns & Gears Errata (Spring 2024, 1st Printing) that you would also have to reference?

While Awakened animal could certainly see like a useable option, I was going to mention it is Rare, and may not have a Boon making it available.

Having a combination of Rare Ancestry and Uncommon Versatile Heritage would certainly make being able to play it in Pathfinder Society Play potentially a challenge. I'm not sure about what boons would be needed for either and how one would need to insure they got them.

Hmm... I am liking the idea of potentially allowing the Magus to enter Arcane Cascade as a reaction to their self, when casting any spell cast from a Spell Slot as a 2 or 3 action spell.

I think if also adding a couple other abilities to Arcane Cascaded, would help improve people's desire to enter Arcane Cascade, and offer some partial solutions for some issues people are concerned about with the Magus, such as AoO vulnerability.

While in Arcane Cascade, after casting a spell which causes damage of some sort. The caster can with a free action, change the type of damage energy done by the arcane cascade to match the damage done by the spell just cast. If the spell cast does more than one type of damage, the caster can choose which type. This free action can only be done once per round. The purpose of this is to allow a Magus to change the type of bonus damage if they learn the first type used wasn't as effective as hoped, or if they are changing targets and need a new damage type.

Also, while in Arcane Cascade, if anyone attacks the magus with a melee attack as a part of a reaction, while the magus is casting a spell or spellsriking, the attacker takes damage equal to twice the damage bonus generated by the Arcane Cascade. The damage is of the type dictated by the Arcane Cascade.

Additionally the Magus will be considered to have Resistance to all damage, equal to the damage bonus of the Arcane Cascade to any reactions triggering from a spellcasting/spellstriking action. And lastly, if the reaction being used to stop the spell casting has any effect which would allow it to Interrupt the completion of the spellcasting, the Magus can choose as a free action to drop the Arcane Cascade, and complete the spellcasting before resolving the reaction, eliminating that part of the reactions effect.

Honestly, I also don't have an issue with the idea of the action to recover Spellstrike being able to be be compressed and count as starting Arcane Cascade potentially.

This actually gives additional feeling of the energy actually surrounding the magus while casting, leaving someone who tries to interrupt them at a disadvantage and cost. The ab

(the damage caused by someone AoO against the Magus during caster I also considered setting = to the Rank of the Spell being cast/interrupted + the damage bonus of the Arcane Cascade.)

If you want you could restrict some of the arcane cascade protections to only protecting SpellStrikes, but allowing it to affect Spellstrikes as well as Spellcasting opens more options for strategies the Magus can use to inflict damage.

Summoning a creature such as Vegetable Lamb, it will daily grow a 1d4 flowers that have the ability to heal creatures. Are they intended to be summoned with such flowers, or would you have to have the creature for a day, i.e. 1 minute won't cut it. and that ability is not intended to be relevant when in play via summoning.

I know that summoned creatures can't summon other creatures, and can't cast magic of any magic of equal level that created it, and are basically prevented from using any reactions. (which may drastically affect usability of certain creatures)

A second level spell a second level spell giving you 1d4 x (1d6+4) healing is not super extraordinary. A second level heal spell cast 3 actions could easily out do it, so it 'might not' be too good to be true. However, if the number of flowers rolled is high, the single target healing capability would see pretty good as a secondary effect. And perhaps rather than comparing it to a second level spell, we should compare it to first level spells when trying to decide if it is too good or not.

I would presume the vegetables picked off such a creature would vanish if they are not consumed prior to the Summon being dismissed, so you would have to pick them and use them in the span of up to a minute of sustaining a summon. A minute compared to a day is downright nothing, so I don't think you can use it to stock up on consumables to use through the day.

When first reading, I assumed they were intended to come with the summoned creature, but I began to wonder if it might be too good to be true.

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.

Also consider, what type of dragon would he really be. What if he were an Occult Dragon, and somehow what he truly wants is to re-instate Fate, Omens, and Prophecy, and his original rule in Brevoy was to access the Observatory and make proper calculations. Then he had to perhaps fetch something from the First World, and bring it to the proscribed place in the universe, at the right time.

If he succeeds perhaps it will bind everyone and squeeze out free will, brining order to even the forces seen as chaos, letting them be known and controlled in their diversity. [you know cosmic destruction of freedom for everyone ending]

Don't worry, if your players fail, there will be a giant reset, and everyone will forget everything for a span of time that will be called the GAP. ;)

There seems like some options to potentially make Nyrissa a primal dragon, which could definitely have ties to both Dragons (to tie in your Choral link) and fae/first world to help maintain story continuity.

I'm not a familiar with the later chapters, so I don't know how to tie Choral into them that well. I do however have to say that I'd have really big questions why hey left, and then why now was when he decided to come back, and why he came back hidden in the wilderness, and didn't just reappear at his capital and declare himself the leader again wresting the nation back from the 'servants' he left it with while he was gone.

While it seems very believable that he might have been a red (or such) dragon the whole time along with his family, that story also leaves one to question what they (the dragon family) wanted. Because if it was just wealth, and control of people, they would have stayed. Instead it seems very likely that they took over the lands for some ulterior motive, that once achieved, they left overnight to pursue that motive.

There was some evidence that he had some interest in the Observatory at Skywatch. Skywatch was one of the last places to fall to him, and he had an interest in re-furbishing the site, so it would seem very likely that his choice to appear, and his choice to vanish likely had origins in something he needed to learn from the observatory, and once he learned what he needed, there was no further need for bothering with the puny humans any longer.

All this said, I'm left wondering why he would care to bother to come back and try to retake what wasn't worth bothering with before. Is the key to his next step somehow in the wilderness outside of Brevoy, instead of Brevoy now. And if this is the case, why didn't they come here immediately while they ruled Brevoy. Or it if was tied to this time, why didn't they use their immense lifespan to simply rule for hundreds of years and rule until the appointed time.

You talk about him potentially having to go to the first world? That could potentially easily explain a long time, as I can imagine him finding himself at least temporarily trapped in the first world for long past a normal mortal lifespan. Perhaps his draconic retainers all had to leave to follow him to insure his ability to eventually return. Otherwise I'd have expected him to have had a plan to leave behind royal family to 'lead' his assets until he needed them again.

Is he fighting Nyrissa's plans, is he trying to help her, or is he assisting her with them, but rather than truly helping her he is doing it to further his own plans which will be revealed to betray her in the end. Does he care about Brevoy any longer, or was it a nation discarded earlier in life, because it didn't really mean anything? What is it that he really wants? Why are the PCs and their nation in the way of this?

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.

Some others have pointed out that some of the class, while having some interesting and definitely unique mechanical aspects, which tangentially touch on some view of some necromancer implementations, but others felt like some of it was only loosely tied back to the necromantic powers and source materials.

This made me step back and suddenly realize that while right now, it only has a few choices of themes for Thralls, the concept really seems to have less to do with Necromancy than it does have to do with Horde-management.

As I was thinking about it, and started to think of what other necromatic themes one could build up for the necromancer, it suddenly occured to me that if it were not named Necromancer but Hordemaster, Hordeweaver, Hordearch, Swarmcaller. You could have the given subclasses with specified types of thralls... but that it could be open to additional types of thralls with very similar mechanics but different structure. Specifically it occurred that thralls could easily represent swarms of insects or other vermin which the caller could pull together to surround their enemies. This actually could then very easily be used to fulfill other common fantasy tropes for characters.

I still need to go further through the class, but I thought it was an interesting concept that maybe could turn into a bonus for the class having less tying it entirely to only necromantic flavor, that perhaps its scope could be widened and then certain subclasses, with certain chosen thrall types could link the class to certain other subclass abilities/options which would tie them closer to a particular flavor.

For instance, an insect swarm Hordemaster might be Primal instead of Occult? Someone mentioned Undead Master archetype as a means for a Necromancer to get more necromantic flavor. Maybe picking a zombie, skeleton, or ghost thrall type, unlocks the feats in Undead Master archetype as non-archetype feats as long as the companion is of a similar theme as the Thralls they can create. A insect swarm master might have a similar archetype it could consider part of its class that might grant a swarm companion, or an option for a 'giant' insect companion.

One thing that might help present the Necromancer or Hordemaster portray a greater range of related stories might be an option to let them 'manifest' or call a companion if they have invested in one, 'out of' a Thrall they have manifested. Thus they could leverage placement of thralls as a means of getting their companion placed where they may want. Helping to tie separate but thematically related investments together.

....

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.

A part of me wishes they didn't 'always get hit'. But if they had a low saves and 1 HP, and perhaps when targeting a Thrall you didn't ever apply MAP to hit, it might come close to the same but leave some room for some chances. Also could leave room for Thralls potentially having resistance which might prevent some higher level ones potentially having some immunity from particularly low level minions attacking them with specific types of attacks or certain weak splash weapons.

I wonder if they can 'inhabit' a Thrall's body to be more up front and personal about attacking, but end up sharing damage like a summoner, with the benefit that they may have a reaction where they can leave a thrall anytime it was damaged as a reaction causing them to only take half damage from the attack, leaving the thrall to automatically crumble under the attack.

I'm a little curious if we might be able to have more spells that might have a choice to cast them as either a Save spell or an Attack Spell. That would help the Magus, giving them more target spells, but also gives more choices for invoking individual potentially memorized spells.

There could probably be numerous spells that could have an attack option to the spell, switching the target to a single target and adding the attack trait and making it switch to going against AC.

There might also be legitimate options for spells being made which might have an Attack trait option which might allow for an attack roll, but might offer the option to target against the creatures Reflex/Fortitude/Will DC instead of against their AC. (or allow targeting whichever is lower) These would be great for Magus, but would have some use for other spellcasters as well. It might also be interesting to see some spells with Agile trait.

I agree, if you can farm ideas out of their backgrounds that helps integrate them into the story more. The Drow might head some prophecy and so something from one or more of the players paths might coincide with an element of prophecy, so they might send the heroes on a quest that might test if they pass a second stanza of said prophetic statement. That way the first element doesn't have to be entirely uncommon that the players feel like it was a prophecy that could only be them, and that they would have known about. Especially if the second part has them doing something they wouldn't imagine themselves being a part of (barring the circumstances now).

Importantly, the prophecy doesn't speak of giving the party party, but it being a sign that the Drow city might enter an golden age. Irony could of course even leave the golden age being something they wouldn't actually want. [Like a fissure cracks open above the city, revealing a radiant golden vein of magical metal which radiates around it causing them to grow a conscience they cant silence.] Sorry, I like little ironic twists to evil prophecies.

But definitely if you can find a way to draw in a story element from a couple of the players backgrounds. You don't have to grab a piece from all of them, but if you can at least grab a couple, it helps it feel a little more like a tailored story for them.

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.

I also interpreted that Goblins disliking dogs could also be representative of their dislike of the Domesticated forms of Canines. I adopted a sense that they 'could' still have the Tolkien-est associations with Wargs for instance. In that premise goblins may feel dogs are slavering cowards looking up to their human masters and not worthy of the meat they eat. Wolves on the other hand have instincts of good hunters and could probably take down a goblin or two without instruction from their master.

At least that was my spin on it. There are ties between Goblins and Barghest still in second edition. I'm not aware of them being retconned out of the remaster, but might have missed them. But I have an old goblin who rode a wolf that I'd love to remake some day in second edition. But they considered their wolf companion a fellow clan-mate, not just a beast of burden or combat tool. And they would have objected strongly against any assertion that Charr was a dog. They were clearly a Wolf and one should not insult them.

On the other hand, I also like the rodent-like goblin-dogs which are obviously not related to dogs at all. While I'd be perfectly willing to come up with another concept for a goblin riding one of those, my other character idea had a specific tie in to Wargs, so it made more sense to stick with a Wolf companion for the character.

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)

Thanks for the Skilled Hirelings link, I was trying to find it, and just couldn't seem to remember what to search for.

From Runestone -> Item [free]
Transferring one rune from one item to another (including runestone) [10% rune value]
Swapping between two items [10% of highest rune value]
Potentially depending on your interpretation, if you happen to be swapping runes between a runestone and an item, the cost may be only 10% of the rune coming from the item and being swapped onto the runestone, since the cost of transfer from the runestone is probably still defined as free.

Cost of labor for it could be assumed to be part of the above cost, but unless you have given the shopkeeper a lot of business it is reasonable to think the Free transfer of a rune would cost something, since it does take up their day in theory. The amount in the Earn an Income seems like a reasonable amount, but is never actually specified as being relevant for the amount you pay any NPC if you want to be technical.

Really, the 10% is generally the 'significant' part of the cost of a transfer when it exists, and I'm not certain the developers felt the rest of it was normally worth mentioning, and therefore generally absorbed by the above.

I recall a situation just recently where a low level party found a rune on a weapon they didn't want. As it worked out, the cost for the transfer, which I only used the 10%, forgot about any other option for the time, worked out to be within a few silvers of the value of the mundane equipment that they had brought back to sell. With the values being so close, I decided to have the individual do the swap for the swap of materials.

This might not be an entirely unlikely occurrence, so you might look for such potential options for trades.

Technically I believe the cost for an NPC to do it is normally the same cost for the PC to do it, if they had the capability. You could also add the time needed (minimum is normally 1 day). for the level of the NPC @ the particular Rank in Crafting needed to do the transfer.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to ask the GM if it would be possible for a PC with Trained in crafting to potentially move a rune from a runestone to a weapon, potential even if they don't have magical crafting. It would still be their call, but the Runestone is expended in the process if it becomes empty, so there is an expenditure. I could see a GM potentially requiring Magical Crafting, and the materials expenditure to do a rune swap, as that would enable the runestone to remain, I believe.

Typically, crafting in PF2 isn't cheaper, it is just something that lets you control who does it, and may make it available to be done in the wilds, rather than back in town.

Hmmm... I see you are trying to balance it via a Focus point expenditure, plus a feat tax, requiring resource (feat) expenditure. But in any case, bumping the result by one tier is still basically a +10 which is super major bonus.

It would be easier to imagine bumping the DC of the check by say +1 on your DC if your attack was a Success, and a +2, for a crit, (with that being boosted to +3 if you had Master in Arcana)

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.

While it would be fine to tag potential specific Rituals with Mythic tag would be acceptable (although would have to double-check what Mythic tag definition says), but I would be very much against Rituals in general being pushed as Mythic. If anything there should be more relatively common rituals available to characters as a baseline. Some religiously inspired, while others potentially more arcane or occult inspired simple/base magics.

Claxon, I believe that you are absolutely accurate that in the Lore that Void energy has a nature to it which is corrupting and destructive. It has odd behaviors that can sometimes seem constructing, but most would probably argue its 'constructs' are not actually constructions but generally a form of self-replicating items of destruction/corruption by general nature.

Now... having said all of that. There are things that bring up the question of is all that is touched and even fed by void, destined to be evil/destructive/corrupt? I don't think that it HAS to be. In pathfinder there are Dhampir and their life is tied to void energy, but they are in that weird state of almost neither Alive or Undead, or both. I think it is perfectly valid to have a sanctified champion of a good god whom is a Dhampir, such as Sarenrae who hates undeath. They might suffer from a certain degree of internal self-hate or feelings of inadequacy, but I can still imagine Sarenrae being perfectly willing to help them destroy other truly undead creatures with abandon.

Next you can step into Starfinder where specifically Undeath is being considered even less natively evil, which is none the less a Golarion alternate universe, so definitely within the realm of potential for Golarion. In Starfinder they have Borai which are half-dead/half-alive creatures whom are someone who died, and whom were prevented from 'fully' dying by being inhabited by a weak 'undead' spirit, which between the two, they have enough 'presence' to remain, but had they been separated both would perish. While I think some Borai have trouble adjusting, and one could attribute this to corruptive nature of the void energies now aiding it in life. It also ties into a more Science Fiction/Fantasy setting where this trouble may be sourced more in Society being poorly adapted to the expectations of the person having not simply 'died' as expected, and family and friends failing to adapt to the person's new stage of life since their transition.

You may really want to read up on Borai as I could imagine Zoken44's Deity being very for the creation of Borai for those who are worthy based on their life story.

https://www.aonsrd.com/Races.aspx?ItemName=Borai

I think it is perfectly reasonable considering Void a 'generally' corrupting influence in most lives it touches, but would be willing to consider it to be possible to a life to remain tied to it and still keep from eventually falling completely into an redeemable corruption. Likely always a 'tempted' state of life... but lets be honest with life, in normal life there is plenty of short cuts and various temptations available, this just adds another recurring flavor to the menu.

Personally, I think there is a really good story arc for a person who realizes their life-force appears to be connected in reverse, and they feed off of energies which others are normally harmed from. Are they evil... especially when they bear no ill will to others and would rather help them... what can they do with their differences to help the others as peers? How do they accept themselves, how do they fight their own nature if at all, and how do they deal with others who may be too prejudiced to accept that they are anything but evil?

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.

Ok, I haven't seen the specifics yet, but are you saying that the book explicitly prohibits Kineticists from participating in Mythic play, or are you saying that it merely doesn't specifically mention the class in the book. (i.e. it doesn't feature a class archetype like it does for ranger/vindicator)

Because my understanding is that it presents new mythic archetypes, a couple new classes good for Mythic but not necessarily requiring it, and some new class archetypes to give classes some Divine spark to them.

It wasn't my understanding that Kineticists should be prevented from being able to participate in mythic play, but it doesn't surprise me that they didn't get a featured class archetype in this divine book. I don't think it reflects at all saying that Paizo won't provide new content in the future for Kineticists that makes sense in the future.

Every book in the future won't have a piece for every part of every past book. Otherwise future books would never have enough room for any kind of real theme, nor likely enough room to actually make any growth feel like it is really even significant.

As it is, as the game gets more mature, it will mean the newer classes may need to have larger starting page counts to compete with some of the options available to older classes. I think with Rage of the Elements being a pre-remaster, but remaster-compatible at publication it will definitely get future support, when and where appropriate.

Squiggit wrote:

Kind of wilding over the idea that two skills and a scaling lore is somehow bad.

My biggest problem with ancestry feats is that a lot of non-core ancestries simply don't have enough of them, and your options can feel really limited if you aren't adding in a versatile heritage or adopted to round out your list.

Yeah, this. I think Shoony are awesome and so do several of my players, but they have a very small number of ancestry feats and aren't getting additional support in future books.

Paizo tends to only add things in future books to "core" content (core ancestries/classes/etc), and anything from another source doesn't get the same treatment. In this case it's an ancestry from an AP so... good luck.

I'd honestly rather they spend some time adding content to existing ones vs creating new ones constantly.

I understand why Core components get 'more' attention than some of the say 'extras' but as mentioned, it wouldn't be hard to imagine dropping a Shoony NPC in some adventure or AP and drop in a new ancestry feat that the NPC has and make it available. Or maybe it might make sense to have a Lost Omens: Conclave of the Misfits book, whose theme would be material to help fill out some of the non-core material that was introduced in adventures or other less core sources.

Magus action economy is the choice of the player. I think their action economy is fairly fluid with lots of quality options for modifying it. Their conflux spells recharging spellstrike make for a very fluid and effective play style.

You don't have to spellstrike every round. There is no need to modify the magus if they want to do other things. Just build to do those things and do them.

The only problems I've seen with the magus is the Reactive Strike activating from a melee spellstrike. This can be very painful and movement. If they had a conflux spell that allowed movement that wasn't hybrid specific, that would be nice.

Arcane Cascade could use some work. It's not enough bang for the buck and doesn't offer enough to build around. I tend to not even use it or think much about it when playing a magus, especially a Starlit Span magus where Arcane Cascade is a waste of an action.

What if while a Magus was in an Arcane Cascade, spellstrikes would not prompt reactive strikes? Or limit it so it stops reactive strikes from any opponents of your level or lower. (limiting you to having to worry primarily about boss creatures only)

I also like the potential of during an Arcane Cascade stance, if you cast a spell that does damage, you can have the cascade adopt the type of damage from the spell cast for the remainder of the cascade (or until adopting a later type).

As of yet, I haven't seen Reactive Strikes be a problem for magus's but I can understand the concern players might have with them. I don't have a problem with the idea of remedying the majority of those concerns for a key class feature such as SpellStrike. You could have the Arcane Cascade provide a +2 or even +4 AC bonus vs any Reaction strike a creature that gets to make a reactive strike against the magus during Arcane Cascade. (you could even make said action cause the Arcane Cascaded cause the arcane cascade damage to the individual attempting any reactive melee attack.)

Others indicated they didn't think Arcane Cascade was important enough, this gives extra use to it. The ability to -retrain- the extra damage being done by it after first instantiating it via latter spells increases its versatility. It does so without having to spend another extra action, but will typically require two actions in general (most damage dealing spells are two action) but those actions will provide their normal benefit, in addition to the granted side effect.

Actually, I have an interesting option for potentially an ability that could be bought as a feat, allowing the Magus to permit reactive strikes against their spellstrikes, but getting Arcane Cascade damage against the striker, but the however, the reactive strike will not interrupt the spellstrike, and the spell will have the effect determined by the higher of the Magus's attack, or the reactive melee attacks attack. Meaning that if the spellstrike misses, but the reactive strike hits, the Magus takes damage from the reactive strike, as usual, but the target takes the damage according to the quality of the reactive strikes hit. So if the reactive strike hits with a critical, the target takes damage according to a critical hit by the spell. If the target of the spellstrike was someone other than the maker of the reactive strike, the magus can choose to affect the target of the spellstrike, according to their attack roll, or target the reactive striker based on their attack roll, unless the spell would when not cast as a spellstrike would be able to target multiple targets, at which point they each take effect according to their respective rolls. Basically allowing yourself to provoke reactive strikes gives you a greater chance to nail someone with a Critical Hit with the Spell portion of their Spellstrike.

Actually, a feature inside Spellstrike simply saying Reactive Strikes against spellcasting do not interrupt the outcome of a spellstrike, might be enough to blunt some of the risk that being susceptible to reactive strikes presents to a Magus. This would be reasonable, especially if Arcane Cascade also potentially damages attackers who attack you with reactive strikes. An additional option, you might get Resistance to any Reactive Strike damage, equal to your current Arcane Cascade damage value, which might mitigate a little bit of damage if you do get hit.

Some times you have to Risk It for the Biscuit. I have to admit I've kind of enjoyed the fact that Reactive Strikes are as rare as they are, because that meant I as GM managed to get a strike in recently because the party's magus stepped forward towards a giant scorpion giving its stinger a strike. People are often careful even in situations where they don't need to, and in other circumstances they forget, or they risk it anyway and give a chance to actually use the reaction. In the old rules, people were just always locked down without movement unless they invested in specific abilities to allow them to move in combat.

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.

I want to point out that according to the rules you indicate, fundamental runes don't exist, therefore prerequisites for that, cease to exist, meaning that property runes can be added to weapons without specific fundamental runes.

Point of common sense would indicates that probably at certain levels of items/play you are probably supposed to be bound to a certain limit to the number of property runes that can be placed on any individual item.

The naked thing isn't really that much an issue with ABP as it is the fact that the rules really want to have everyone have a DEX bonus max of +5. And technically, I'm not certain that ABP would add up to you getting the bonus necessarily unless you are wearing something that lets you get a bonus, so I don't think it would end up being the problem. But maybe I'm going based on what seems like obvious intent to me, rather than reading as a rules lawyer. (which admittedly can be fun sometimes)

I'll admit, what I don't like about ABP rules is that it eliminates the basic ability to grant 'one' of these things a bit early to a group, allowing the GROUP to work together to place it to be most effective as a GROUP.

I think people acknowledging differences is a good thing. Some people have gifts in varying ways, and sometimes a magic item is most effective in a particular person's hands. So giving a striking rune to fighter to deal out the most in person damage seems like a great choice for the group to make.

So my preference is to have something ABP like, especially with respect to damage dice for martials, but NOT get rid of striking runes. Instead Striking runes 'INSURE' you get a minimum dice of damage. Once you do extra damage yourself they might do less (or nothing) but could keep them around to eventually boost up a tier to boost your damage.

In past I'd even mentioned one could make a Slashing property rune that would do an extra die of slashing damage to a slashing weapon, for instance, to round out extra damage types that could exist in property runes.

I will admit that the rules for ABP indicates that you remove the fundamental runes from treasure, but it specifically doesn't indicate you should move the spell completion items. However, it is notable that this means much of the expected expenditures for martials is cut, but caster, presumably would still need items. This means martial characters if everyone splits all treasure equally may have extra treasure, while casters/consumable users may end up getting less money, but expecting close to the same expenses.

This however can be easily dealt with by assigning certain items as party owned, and assigned, not individually owned. And the group assigns it to the best person to use it for party use. Really this is an issue in any case with ABP or not, the fair usage of things like consumables for the parties best outcomes could have people getting consumables only one person can use, that they get forced to use for group benefit, but wouldn't have themselves chosen to buy. If those count as their share of treasure, it is potentially unfair to them. That isn't an ABP problem, it is a, you have to be willing to think about what is best for the group, and what is fair, and right may not always be strictly splitting things equally once you consider all the factors. Fair isn't always equal/same, the same isn't always fair.

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.

Driftbourne wrote:

A 17th level barathu with the right ancestry feats could have up to 12 limbs. If you wanted to draw 12 weapons and then make 1 attack it would take 6 rounds to make the first attack. There's got to be some advantage to taking 5 ancestry feats to gain that many limbs. I would think that having 12 limbs would make you really good at grappling. How many computers could you access with 12 limbs at one time?

In my head I keep coming back to Grappling being the one main combat-relevant evolutionary advantage for multiple arms. I think it would be fair to give a bonus to grappling of some kind, like being able to maintain a grab with an inactive pair of hands.

As for other examples of multiple hands being useful as-is:

Picking up an item is one action, and stowing it is one action. Being able to pick up 5 items and run while keeping your gun out without having to stow anything is pretty clutch when it's necessary. Like when your ally passes out, drops their gear, and you only have a round or two to disengage.

Climbing and spacewalking are also good places where having a set of free hands is a massive advantage. I think these would benefit from some rules clarity.

Piloting a vehicle with one set of hands and using the other to carry a shotgun would be sick, but again may need rules clarity.

Shield + potion in your spare hands is just such a good idea I would imagine it's a default for any many limb adventurer. Switch + Raise shield + take potion is SO effective.

Someone mentioned the question of if you grabbed and changed active hands away, if you lost the grab. So I had been contemplating this question. One I understand the idea that having active hands, and limiting them more has some game balance value, so I'll try to assume we stick with that as a general design intention, to give Active hands more usefulness and to limit the number of them.

One of my thoughts would be let non-active hands be used for Passive things, which could include Holding onto someone whom is already grabbed. Thus allow a Passive hand to preform a GRAB action on a creature that it has already succeeded in Grappling or Restraining a creature to extend that condition until the next turn.

It also makes absolute sense that they should also be able to hold non-contested object in their non-active hands (I'm not sure ANYONE contests that).

Something else to consider would be that it would make sense that any items held fully in passive hands should/could probably be considered Worn. Meaning that having extra hands would contribute towards having toolkits available. I think this might actually be a very valuable contribution to multi-armed species. (might need to be bulk limitations on what can be considered 'worn' from being held in a passive hand)

I see how making viable listing of what any passive hands can contribute to your actions with would help people see the value extra hands might be able to grant without breaking 2-handed weapons being a 'cost' intended to be paid for high die damage weapons.

Like would it be fine to have them be used to open doors that are designed to be simple to open. (a lever or normal doornob door, but not a childproof door, for instance) Someone mentioned the potential of allowing a passive hand be used to be the extra hand for reloading. I think that sounds fine, but we could limit it to only weapons they are at least trained with.

Then you can also make clear that weapons and items are only wielded if being used in active hands. So to be wielding a staff you must have at least on active hand on it to get the benefits of say a magical staff. You only gain the benefits of a Shield, and Shield block when the shield is held in an Active hand.

Honestly, one of the things I don't care for in the new switch hands rule is that we already have had fefatures and feats that have granted extra limbs, thought they weren't generally hands. Those abilities never talked about the complexity of manipulating another limb, instead they simply had always active actions those limbs were capable of preforming. Why can a monkey with prehensile tail wield two weapons and open a door with its tail no problem, but a Kasatha would be too uncoordinated to open the door with one of its 'extra' hands.

I think that people would accept these active hands limitations if it was clear the hands were useful for something even outside of the option to 'switch' hands. (I also have to say I'm all for at the start of the players turn, having a free designate hands which can reset which hands are free at the start of their turn at the same time they get their actions) Any future switches would have the typical cost. This is not unlike the reset that naturally occurs in someone's activity as they go turn to turn which is for instance why you have to raise you shield with an action each round. There naturally occurs a sort of reset at the start of their turn.

And if people still have concerns about Rocket Launchers, I'd think Unwieldy would be tied to them and could include the caveat you can't strike with another unwieldy weapon if you have already struck with one. It makes sense that if you shoot a Rocket Launcher, which is unwieldy, that you may not then be able to turn around and slash at someone with some unwieldy claymore next, because of it having taken your momentum to control the rocket launch. So Skittermanders should feel free to hold three two handed rocket launchers, you would still only get to fire one per round that way, as it shouldn't break their balance.

And honestly, I'd love to see some of the multi-armed species have some weapons that require 2 active hands + an extra non-active hand to properly wield, to give them some extra flavor and provide some more alien flavor.

I'd also love to see some or all 3+ armed species have an option to spend an action to use a third arm. The extra concentration eating focus/concertation which could for instance (at the cost of an action) such a species being able to use a two handed weapon plus a shield. This would be useful, would cost them effectively two actions to make use of the shield every round instead of one. (something easier accomplished with a shield cantrip, if they have spell cantrips and have it in their list, and room to take that cantrip) At the start of their next turn (just like with shield raised drops) when you choose your active hands for the turn, you are back down to 2. So in the end, it seems like it is something that would definitely have value, but also has a cost, and doesn't actually outshine an existing option that is already out there.

I think there is even room for flavoring multi-arm species to where some ancestries might have 'small arms' like Skittermanders. And so you could rule that to hold/wield anything in 1 hand, it must be 1 bulk or less, otherwise it requires using an extra passive hand to hold to count as wielding the object in the given active hand. So larger weapons would chew up more hands (passive ones) to get a full hold on the weapon, keeping them from being able to hold too many 'big' weapons as a time. This could help resolve some concerns, and give the Skittermanders many arms additional flavor by encouraging them to use lots of small items, if they want that flexibility, vs. multiple large items. I think having differences between a variety of 4 and 6 armed ancestries would be wonderful beyond just. a number 4 next to the word Arms in the ancestry block.

Lots of people have complained they felt the remaster hurt spell schools for wizards. Others point out that there is an implied flexibility that GMs can allow other spells not on the list to be considered part of the school list. Others point out that GMs always have such flexibility and that it not being in the rules, means people can assume they won't get such flexibility.

I think one easy step to insure that they get some usability out of their school curriculum would be to allow any wizard to when they advance to being able to cast a spell of a new rank, to be able to pick one wizard spell they already know of their old highest spell rank(or maybe option for lower) and add it to what will be referred to their personal curriculum (or could be called minor curriculum) and gets to be treated as a curriculum spell.

Next, have 'alternate' casting versions of at least one of the cantrips and 1st rank spells in each of the schools curriculums that are in line with the Spell Trickster Archetype. I'd even suggest having some higher level spells as well, but allow the wizards to cast the spell the normal or variant way when prepared. The wizards would automatically learn a new curriculum from their school at specific levels.

The other fun part, is that variants would also be content that the Spell Tricksters could poach from, but would be paying feats for them for the liberty to grab ones more independently.

Other thoughts that come to mind would some variant spells be 'uncommon' spells that could be picked up by other casters, but in such cases they would have to learn them as an independent/separate spell.

This makes me also wonder, is Glass Shield actually a variant of Shield that expanded out to the Primal tradition as a separate spell for instance.

With that in mind, you could potentially even create 'related-spell' combos, that a particular curriculum, that the wizards can select the combo, and would be able to at time of casting select either of them.

For instance, if there were a Necromantic school, a school meta-spell might be Circle of Life, which is defined as a choice of Heal or Harm chosen at the time of casting.

I think such a meta-spell could be defined for each school potentially. But I think those would probably be more powerful than variant spells so wouldn't be available choices for Spell Tricksters to poach.

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.

In the Swashbucker class it list the following sections towards the start of the class definition: Initial Proficiencies, Panache, Precise Strike, Stylish Combatant, Swashbukler's Style.

Choose a swashbuckler’s style (page 160). You gain the panache

class feature (page 160), and you apply the bravado trait to
Tumble Through and any actions indicated in your swashbuckler
style, allowing you to gain panache. You become trained in
Acrobatics or the skill associated with your style. If you were
already trained in both skills, you instead become trained in a
skill of your choice. You also become trained in swashbuckler
class DC. You don’t gain any other effects of your chosen style.

Clearly you get panache/ability to get panache ability. Precise strike could be mistaken for being a part of Panache as it ties to Finishers which can only be used when one has panache, but it also includes precision damage outside of Panache. However, it is clear that the Archetype doesn't grant it with the dedication, because you have to purchase a weaker version with a dedication feat if you want it.

The fact that Stylish Combatant comes after Precise Strike feature is peculiar and would lead some credence that maybe they don't get it. However, this feature is what grants the bonus relevant to Bravado trait (which the dedication clearly is saying the Bravado trait gets attached to the actions). It also grants a speed bonus while in Panache.

If it isn't granted, then the Dedication grants you a limited choice skill. (normally baseline requirement for any archetype)
It then grants you a Feature that the only effect is to grants you the ability to access a Feature. [Bravado] granting you access to get into the State of [Panache] But note, that feature Panache you work towards has no absolutely zero effect to you.

I.e. This would to me be very much akin to a dedication granting spellcasting feature, without giving you any slots, cantrips or ability to trigger spell completion items. That doesn't seem like that would be intended. And it might therefore be that Stylish Combatant is a part of the Rules for Panache as it defines the base state change when in Panache

Again, another piece of evidence that makes me think it is part of panache, is that if it were not, why would it not be a feature that is available as is, or weaker, as a 4th level dedication feat? Instead there is a higher level dedication feat that seems to improve upon this baseline? Brining the baseline part of the speed of Stylish Combatant up to the speed provided by the Vivacious Speed feature at 3rd level.

@PossibleCabbage
Would it be possible to imagine a character taking a Multiclass into a class whose 'supposed' primary feature is possibly never going to be utilized. Sure, but that might be an expensive or inefficient choice. Are we saying this is the 'intention' with a multi-classed swashbuckler?

Before the scroll Trickster, I could have imagined someone taking a spellcasting archetype simply to leverage a source of Scrolls, rather than specifically wanting the limited cantrips or spell slots they got from it But is the Swashbuckler 2nd level dedication literally not supposed to net you anything but a skill boost, and entrance into the dedication?

[edit: so reading I see that I failed to acknowledge that you do get trained in Swashbuckler class DC, which has no abilities tied to it, but I suppose it is a third benefit you are explicitly being granted that you get with no effect from]

So, looking at the new Remastered Swashbuckler.

It is clear that the Archetype doesn't grant the precise strike class feature, right away, and if they use a feat to buy it later, it isn't the 'same' as the main class version. It is also true that they gain a Style, but don't get any specific benefits from that style other than access to choose that skill to advance, and have its action gain the Bravado trait, to be used to gain Panache.

What seems unclear is, do Multi-class Swashbuckler archetypes gain the Stylish Combatant feature. As a sibling ability to Precise Strike (which we know they don't get) it seems believable they might not get it if not mentioned.

It says the only thing you get from your style is 'access' to choose advancing your style skill, and you gain the Bravado to Tumble Through, and actions listed in your style. But Styles is after the definition for Stylish Combatant, so not part of things you don't get because of Style.

The Dedication makes it clear that you gain the ability to gain Panache. However, as far as I can tell Panache does absolutely nothing without Stylish Combatant, and it also is tied to what Bravado does. So I'm feeling like by the rule indicating that the Multiclass Swashbuckler is supposed to have access to Panache and Bravado, the basics of Panache and Bravdo rules are supposed to be applied. And that Stylish Combatant is a part of that base rules.

I then went through the feats for the MultiClass Swashbuckler Archetype and saw the swashbucklers speed feat. This grants a +5 speed (which first thought made me think opse, maybe they don't get it) until I note that is when you don't have panache. Then it says your bonus becomes +10ft speed bonus when you have panache. That would be very consistent with the concept that without the feat, they could easily be expecting them to have the +5 to their speed normally when they have panache, and this ability boosted the speed, both while having panache, as well as the when they don't. While not absolutely cut and dry, this does make me lean towards the belief that the intent is for multiclass swashbucklers to have Stylish Combatant.

Otherwise, it would seem like paying a feat to gain the ability to gain Panache, which does nothing for you would seem to break expectations. It would mean the dedication granted nothing more than a very restricted skill feat advancement, and open a potential for you to gain abilities later. I think it would be very akin to saying you gain the ability to do the Cast a Spell action but not granting them any slots for spells or even cantrips. That seems inconsistent.