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Glad to see I'm not the only one who came up with this concept (skitter monk with Wrestler, as suggested). Naturally I had to frame it as a skittermander luchador for best results (though alternate concept was Lord Humungus from Road Warrior so I could grab someone and say "Be still my nufriend, I understand your pain...").
Kind of similar to my tengu exemplar idea, though mine leaned into the katana as kind of a nod to the idea of the mythical tengu sometimes being teachers of swordsmanship. Went with a lot of the same lightning ideas like you to kind of give the idea of "lightning fast strikes", though I used Tengu Weapon Familiarity to guarantee access to the katana/wakizashi, and for the ikons I swapped Unfailing Bow for Victor's Wreath, flavored as a hachimaki (those white Japanese headbands). Not entirely sure how I'd build at higher levels, but the concept of a "tengu kensei" felt like a neat one to play with as an exemplar.
I honestly get the impression literally the only reason Pharasma cares at all about good vs. evil is that it gives her a sorting mechanism to get soul energy to the right places and everything else is a very minor consideration to her. Whether undeath is "wrong" morally doesn't mean much to her because she hates them for screwing with the Cycle. So her opinion on the subject isn't really about moral judgement. I think she isn't quite as worried about life extension stuff per se (though some of her psychopomps may be) simply because those frequently aren't indefinite prolonging of life so the soul energy moves along eventually, and why worry about a few centuries when there are plenty of creatures that live that long anyway? But theoretically infinite lifespans like undeath can provide goes too far, as well as things that can divert souls from their proper place (pretty sure it's canon you can sacrifice good people to Hell and the other lower planes and their souls go there, and Pharasma opposes that too), which undeath might also do given how undead creatures tend to go quite far from their living moralities. Add in undead can often create more undead and you can see the problem it poses to her Cycle. But her ethics only focus on what's good for her work; there might actually be good necromancers out there, but she probably would still want them stopped/killed (though she'd send their soul on to Heaven if that's where it belongs).
From the wording of the heritage, it has always seemed to me that Cavern Elf is an individual adaptation to living in darkness rather than something acquired from a particular ethnicity or culture. Yeah, the Lost Omens Character Guide notes elves as slowly shifting to take on traits of their environment over enough time, the Wandering Heart feat which makes that a faster adaption process specifically calls out cavern elves as one of the heritages "based on adapting to an environment". So I figure any elf that spent enough time in darkness could be a cavern elf. At least, when I was choosing the heritage for PC elves, I tried to make it come from something logically in their history, like my former Lantern Bearer (probably worth deliberately cultivating darkvision when you were training to hunt drow) or the rogue who was such a night owl they got used to not being in daylight. So you don't need an elven culture that lives in darkness to be a cavern elf (though those cultures that do undoubtedly have more cavern elves), despite the term "heritage" elves don't necessarily have to inherit those traits.
It's gone from divine source to power source in Starfinder, but yup; it's still there. It even appears to have weathered the recent Drift Crisis intact. Not to go too much into Starfinder, but there's one god in Galactic Magic named Isvith theorized to have been raised to deity by the Starstone during the Gap; she's the patron of finding secrets/paths/hidden patterns. Her portfolio certainly seems like a logical set of interests for someone who managed to reach the Starstone after it got lifted into space and got locked behind passwords. Though there doesn't seem to be the same "would-be candidates for godhood" culture in Absalom Station as the Pathfinder city, so that might be an argument it might not raise people to godhood anymore. Personally I like the idea it doesn't weaken or run out of power just because having a Macguffin that tons of people want to steal (and destroy a city/station of innocent people to do it) is a nice plot hook to keep around in both settings.
Interesting observations about Iomedae and Pharisma looking "stressed" (Iomedae's entire left arm is cyber, not just the shoulder). It does seem like a lot of the good or at least neutral deities with the strongest ties to Golarion got a little messed up by the Gap, not just in artwork but some of the lore (Caydean apparently effectively "fell off the wagon" for a bit, Angradd feels like he's a poor substitute/"usurping" Torag). It's not universal obviously; Calistria apparently keeps her policy of not getting too attached pretty well, they call out Chaldira as staying focused on the present, and of course Besmara seems to be having the time of her life now that she can be a space pirate :). As for the others, they have some neat influences to show the changing of time. Desna definitely looks like she's more comfortable appearing "alien" now that travel entails meeting a lot more stranger beings (then again, elves WERE aliens to Golarion so looking like one was kind of the same thing really for Desna). I think looking at Sarenrae she's supposed to have a sort of Flash Gordon serial-style suit look going I think, which kind of fits with her as a "shiny" goddess to reflect a more shiny era of sci-fi. Urgathoa has a driftdead kind of look to her, which is kind of appropriate since I think that's one of the more evocative "sci-fi undead" ideas of Starfinder. Suit also looks like it has some Eox vibes, which fits given how much power she has there. Zon-Kuthon mixes in cyber but curiously it seems rather subtle rather than going the kind of crazy body mod style one could expect. Maybe a certain reverence for the old ways of inflicting suffering instead of going all high-tech torture? His church in Pathfinder Nidal does suggest some natural conservatism in the faith.
Eoxian scientists on looking at cloning materials. "Oh, look! They gave us a way to make snacks!" Given how many undead need to feed off the living, it actually makes a disturbing amount of sense to have a live "food" population for an undead non-FTL ship. Heck, can make it an actual generation ship if you animate useful dead living beings to replace those crew you lose to accidents or similar. Depending on circumstances a "normal" generation ship might also very well become an undead ship if some sort of undeath happens to make its way into enough crew for them to take over and enslave the living ones. Would definitely make a great adventure setting to stumble onto. Or take a page from the old movie Lifeforce (NSFW trailer) about the chaos of an undead "sleeper" ship being discovered near an inhabited world.
Heh, I like that Ezren's attitude at the end is "of course they're just going to try to attack again rather than negotiate", so he was just making sure they had somebody he could interrogate in the next group. That feels very much like a brilliant mind planning there.
Hmm, have a human with Adopted Ancestry for the catfolk stuff and you may have actually created Aragorn judging by what he does when introduced in the books.
Though there are some valid edge cases that Mad Dog Mike brought up, such as Mobile Shot Stance not effectively doing anything - you still take AoO when using a bow in melee range.Not doing anything isn't entirely true. It works just fine if you're wielding a crossbow or a firearm. Depending on how your GM is feeling, a monster with multiple reactions could AoO twice against an archer if you didn't have MSS but only once if you did, since there are two separate triggers. I kind of think the "eat two opportunity attacks" result would result in the GM receiving a ranged Attack of Opportunity dice throw in response :). At least from one creature; multiple creatures/PCs have always been able to respond to the same trigger, right? Nope. Not more powerful than intended as far as I can tell As I noted, pure AoO abilities seem to go down in availability after Bestiary 1, 2 & 3 both have a lot more conditional reactions even if there are still some AoO creatures in both. So I think there's some consideration that it shouldn't go on as many enemies as it seems to early on. Unfortunately it went on enough popular enemies since it came early on, so there's kind of a possible issue there.
The action differential of one "big enemy" to a party has been noted as an issue in 5E D&D too, even with legendary/lair actions. Most of the theorycrafting on encounter builds I've seen for that has suggested it's actually better to have minions or some other distraction like a hazard so there's some tactical considerations against just focusing the boss down. Do folks think that's a good philosophy for Pathfinder 2E as well? I will say it's the fact AoO can disrupt actions that makes me worry about it enough to raise this topic. Taking damage is a good discouragement that adds important tactical concerns, but disrupting actions (especially since many of the vulnerable effects are 2-3 actions) pushes up against one of the fundamental principles I think any RPG has to respect: "Make sure the players are able to play the game". Any effects that can wind up making the players not able to do anything on their turns, if overused, can get excessively frustrating very quickly for the player because all they can de facto do is sit around and watch everyone else do all the interesting things. Attack of Opportunity by its nature can become a constant "strip away major actions every turn from someone" if it comes up too often or disrupts too easily. Basic AoO has enough limitations on it (particularly needing a crit) that it can be a fair risk/reward and challenge, but the problem with it on monsters is it tends to be tied to traits that make it more powerful and potentially wreck that balance. Reach being a popular co-trait makes it a problem if the GM does the obvious trick of running them up against the person who need susceptible actions; the PC can wind up needing more actions to escape than the monster needs to keep them in range. Making it disrupt on hit instead of crit or target concentrate actions (which can disproportionately wreck certain otherwise OK melee class builds like Investigators or animal companion users or just people who Demoralize on third action) push it into dangerously effective at shutting someone down. And what works fine on a boss (who as mentioned has an action deficit to begin with so stripping actions can be fair) can become bad if it's on multiple opponents or if the encounter is designed so it's too difficult to escape the effect. Add in PCs have more actions that provoke AoOs than monsters and there's a potentially disproportionate impact on the PCs from facing AoO than vice versa. I think the other consideration is that unlike 1E there's no Concentration check mechanic to mitigate the loss of action part while keeping the damage part. Casters could build to at least get a fighting chance to pull a clutch action off at the cost of getting hit; only thing in this system is a class feat to have a 30% chance to prevent disruption, which is much worse odds. There's no AoO-proof movement beyond Step either; Acrobatics tumble isn't a thing and there's no Mobility feat or similar either. So in certain respects AoO's interrupting effects are a lot more powerful now than previously. I'm concerned a lot of design went with the previous edition philosophy of "AoO can make these actions more dangerous" and missed that it's now "AoO can make these actions downright impossible to pull off", especially all the monster designs that threw in aggravating traits. Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, but I hope I explained my concerns better. It sounds like most of you believe it's OK, and I'm willing to defer to folks who've probably had more opportunity to play 2E than me anyway. I guess maybe the real take-home lesson is to respect that AoO is rarer but a lot stronger than it used to be, and maybe to be careful you don't abuse it to over-shut down certain PCs like spellcasters who used to have more options to deal with it.
The Mummy Pharaoh, for example, is gaining its improved AoO around the same time a Fighter can (9th vs. 10th), so even that's within the same range as Fighter PCs. And lots of monsters mirror the Fighter. Oh, heh, you're right, didn't even see the fighter had a "punish concentrate actions" ability, though as a feat it is a choice among several other powerful options, and as a stance it might interfere with other choices. Honestly even with those limitations I'm not sure that's terribly good idea to allow even PCs to have AoO on concentrate actions though considering how silly it can get (another amusing one in Intimidating Glare - you can literally cut somebody for looking at you funny!). I would rather concentrate stay a "you can't use this while your brain isn't working right" type trait rather than opening up a bigger can of worms. Though I think the real concern for me balance-wise when it comes to PC AoO vs. monster is PCs have more actions that are vulnerable to the AoO. I haven't been able to do a thorough survey obviously, but there aren't a lot of abilities in most monster stat blocks I see that would be unusually vulnerable to a PC AoO. There aren't a lot of Interact actions to mess with; even with that anti-concentrate fighter feat I've only seen one ability thus far in a monster stat block that's likely to be used in combat with that tag (Focused Gaze on the Shemhazian demon, maybe the creatures with Intimidate also if the GM remembers to have them do Demoralize). It doesn't seem like many spell-like abilities have any special tags beyond some that affect type of damage as a rule, so for most monsters the only time they're subject to AoO is if they move far, cast spells, or use ranged attacks, and quite a few can get around even those thanks to Reach or special abilities. Whereas PCs seem to be getting an ever-increasing number of abilities that can trigger an AoO, and I'm concerned some are doing so unintentionally because somebody forgot what traits would be included in a "you can do these actions in a way that is more action friendly" feat write-up. Honestly for me, more so than somehow limiting monster AoOs (which I'm willing to accept you guys are right about being OK), I'm much more interested in making it clearer which actions are subject to one for PCs. If I know I'm likely to eat an attack, I can try to play with the monster's reactions or at minimum know I'm gambling when I do something. The current "have to remember which subactions have traits that get an AoO" setup makes it a little too easy to gotcha yourself if you aren't paying attention. If all these little "oddities" really are supposed to be subject to AoO, so be it, but I do want it easier to realize it, which I think having the manipulate trait or whatnot on the main ability would help with remembering rather than having to recall which subactions have which traits. And I do think some support for parties running without ranged heal casters would be nice, even if it's additional feats or something, and there's room for things below "immune to AoO" like improved AC against one or similar that would keep the gamble there but don't make the odds as terrible. Oh, and a pure rules question since I swore there was language somewhere that prevented it but I couldn't find it while I was researching this topic; is there something specifically that prevent Attack of Opportunity from going off on a creature that's unnoticed to you? I'm positive there's something RAW to prevent the fighter or monster from suddenly tagging an invisible silent person they don't even know exists, but beyond common sense my reading couldn't locate the reason. Otherwise Steal gets really, REALLY funny if the rogue decides to mess with the fighter - "Why did I just randomly stab behind me just now? And how come there's blood on my sword?" :).
The more I look over how Attack of Opportunity works in this system, the more I feel like it starts having unforeseen issues with monsters that have it just because of how many actions wind up interacting with it. One big source of trouble is the number of actions and feats that, thanks to using certain "subactions" as part of them, bring in a manipulate tag that makes it more dangerous/subject to interruption than it probably should be. Magus Spellstrike was the first thing to bring the issue to my attention with its Cast a Spell subaction, but while I've seen plenty of discussion with good points both ways on that being intentional, things get a lot crazier when you bring all the feats that allow Interact actions as part of them that suddenly become terrible ideas if you happen to face an enemy with AoO. Quick Draw any sort of melee weapon? Your iaijutsu samurai who draws his blade fast as thought... will always eat a blade to the face first from the level 1 orc warrior. Rogue with Mug, who can cleverly lift an item when they attack? Get pounded by an enemy who doesn't even know WHY they did that if you succeed on the Steal check. And Reload is an Interact, pretty good argument by RAW Reload 0 would still have that manipulate trait even if it doesn't cost an action. Mobile Shot Stance becomes kind of pointless against AoO monsters if the ranged Strikes don't eat an AoO but every reload does. Most of the magic items at least seem smart about using Command instead of Interact but there are a couple of screwy exceptions like Dagger of Venom (free action to poison? Not so free now!). And it kind of sabotages groups who don't want to rely on healbot casters since Battle Medicine and champion Lay on Hands suddenly have issues once AoO enters the scene. Worsening the issue is how many monsters have additional traits that compound the danger Attack of Opportunity brings. A large percentage of them have it with Reach attacks; you can ask all the fighters adopted by gnomes and trained in the flickmace just how valuable Reach can be for AoO. A fair number with 15 foot Reach to boot which gets pretty obnoxious with approaching them. The fact it's frequently "boss monsters" who have it causes problems because they're most likely fielded as above-level enemies for a party, so the increased likelihood of a crit on AoO increases the chance of a PC wasting actions. Don't get me started on the ones with "improved" versions of Attack of Opportunity. The monsters who can do multiple reactions for it can be bad enough, but the few who can interrupt on hit instead of crit can really mess up the action economy for PCs. My personal favorite, Mummy Pharaoh, who interrupts on hit AND can do it against concentrate actions, is so utterly, utterly broken. Want to activate ANY magic item, Hunt Prey, Devise a Stratagem, command an animal companion, Demoralize, or use a monk ki spell (or ANY spell even verbal only)? Get dunked on! Recall Knowledge? "I just remembered this is a bad idea!" *SMACK* "Damn it, what was I saying?!". Reach 10ft and mummy rot to boot. About the only limit is they at least don't have the "make multiple AoO" ability, otherwise everybody would stay the Abyss out of Osirion if they know what's good for them. Now thankfully, especially with more recently released monsters, there seems to be some recognition of how AoO can have unintentional effects because I see a lot more specific reactions that only come up for particular actions and generally if they allow attacks don't allow interruption of actions too. But it still pops up often enough that it might not be a bad idea to make a few changes to prevent screwball interactions. At minimum I'm thinking maybe we need a blanket rule that any action that covers subactions should either have the traits of those subactions listed as part of it and/or be treated as overriding any traits of those subactions with its own. I have a sneaking suspicion part of the reason we have actions with unexpected vulnerability to AoO is the writers can't always remember which traits are included in those subactions, so this rule would prevent oopsies and confusion down the road. It would also help a bunch at the table, because I guarantee no group is remembering every single thing that should be subject to AoO, intended vulnerability or not, and this would at least make figuring that out easier if not perfect. I also think Battle Medicine and Lay on Hands should have some changes (or maybe feats at least, though they might become a feat tax) to support using them in an AoO environment, because I think moving group composition away from always needing a heal caster is a good change in Pathfinder 2E that should be encouraged, not undercut. Maybe Battle Medicine could get no AoO or at least increased AC against one at higher levels of Medicine skill? Attack of Opportunity is one of those things that has a lot more twists to it than most people consider, because of how it can mess with Pathfinder 2E's fundamental action economy (not just extra attacks, but a chance to force an enemy to waste a precious action). And since PCs are far more likely than monsters to have actions beyond move/ranged attack/cast a spell that trigger it, use of it on monsters needs some consideration because it can get twisty surprisingly fast.
I don’t believe elf-orcs or dwarf-orcs exist in canon. Though at least an elf or a dwarf or other race raised by the Matanji (and maybe using Adopted Ancestry) makes very logical sense; if they fight demons so much, finding a child of another race orphaned by said demons and adopting them probably happens, if not frequently, then enough to not stand out TOO much.
Since the barbarian animal instinct attacks don't have the language a lot of monk styles have saying "you can only use this attack", I would say you would be able to use either attack you wanted to. Normally you would want to do the Wolf Bite thanks to the better damage and trip trait, but you might want the natural attack in cases where you can't rage or for use with goblin ancestry feats like Fang Sharpener (for persistent bleed damage) or Ankle Bite, which I presume have to use the normal racial bite rather than the Wolf Bite attack. And honestly, it's just so appropriate to the theme, who could resist a fangy Animal Instinct barbarian goblin even if it isn't "optimized"?
Every class is trained in unarmed attacks at level 1. Yeah, they even rank up when your simple weapon proficiency does automatically.
Heck, considering the basic unarmed attack is finesse and a lot of wizards put something into Dex, they can be surprisingly good at tagging people in the face even if it hurts less than the barbarian doing it. Bonus points if you do it a high level; even with your relatively pathetic AC, attacks, and HP the wizard will absolutely own most if not all of the low level NPCs in the world. I'm suddenly visualizing an archmage who likes to go into random bars and start brawls for sport by screaming "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!". Now THERE'S an interesting backstory for how your wizard PC met their master :).
XDNo you can't walk through the room filled with poison gas. THROUGH the room might be a little optimistic though. Though now I'm visualizing a very bored automaton trapped behind a gas trap since the age of Jistka wondering; if you die going across the room but your body makes it all the way, does it count as you making it through or does dying halfway mean you cannot be said to have gone through? Something for a Pathfinder team to stumble into, a crazy trapped being who's just so HAPPY they can finally ask all these philosophical questions they've thought up over the centuries to somebody besides the occasional unspeaking monster :). |
