Shirren_Human_Expert's page

I'm just going to say, this is one of my favorite books of LO behind Mwaangi Expanse (we love you Anadi!). Ill just list what I love the most about it.

1. The shops: They are memorable, unique, and best of all, can be plopped into just about any location with a quick change of ownership. This book is great for anyone looking for ready to roll NPCs and gear. From a plant that sells rings to a chic clothing boutique there's so much to play with in this book.

2. Poppets: I wasn't sure at first but really its a fun ancestry that if played correctly could lead to some seriously entertaining games. Clockwork, ghosts, and childrens wishes? Sounds like one hell of a good time.

3. The wholesomeness: While I love myself a good drama or adventure story there so many wholesome characters in this book, like the home for wayward familiars, the gnome who wants to extend the happiness to people undergoing bleaching, the half orc mechanic that wants to help fix your machine and your heart, and the ice queen with a soft spot for trans people. Most of the time in these books its like every single NPC is secretly working for a dark organization or under the thrall of vile monster and its nice to see so many people who just enjoy their jobs and owning shops in the weirdest place in the world.

4. Gear: There is great gear in this book, a lot of weird but a lot of useful stuff as well. Each shop has gear themed to what it sells. A ton of potential all around from magic food to new weapon runes. Even a decent wooden shield for those defense minded druids out there. My favorite item by far is the wig of holding and I can see myself being an alchemist chucking bombs out of my hair.

5.Inclusivity: I missed out on what I assume was a torrent of negative comments about this book but I want to say that this is by far one of my favorite parts of this book. The rules for wheelchairs, visual and audio aides, and prosthesis are amazing and implemented in a way that make it extremely accessible for adventurers. I WANT my players to be able to see themselves as heroes in PF without it being a penalty. Additionally, the LGBT content is wonderful. I never thought I would ever see someone like me represented in a mainstream TTRPG product, and in a positive light too! I was overjoyed to see that there was a lot of trans characters in this book and they weren't portrayed as weird or unnatural, just people living their lives. It was odd at first but then I thought...if you wanted to find your true self you would head to the city at the center of the world to find answers.

Overall, I highly recommend this book for any DM and if you are a player that likes flavorful gear and living toy ancestries this is for you.

PS: I almost forgot the wrestler, HOW WOULD YOU NOT WANT TO BE A LUCHADORE?

The lore.

From the outside looking in for most of 1e, Pathfinder seemed like Yet Another D&D Setting, albeit one that sometimes reveled in pushing the envelope for edginess beyond what WotC would ever touch. I finally hopped aboard with the transition to 2e, and am now a big Golarion lore nerd! The pivot to a more nuanced and inclusive house style is a huge appeal, and large swathes of the setting are actually really, really compelling - though I’m never going to like Golarion goblins.

I'll agree, they have really made the setting their own and while I really really disliked PF1 (I had a bad time DMing 3.5) this has been a complete turn around for me in terms of well....everything! Mechanics are fresh and tight while still allowing depth, lots of options, etc. The biggest thing for ME however is the act of being inclusive without making a big deal out of it (looking at you WotC), which makes me feel like I am welcome in this game. The art shows people of all colors regardless of theme and location. There are places that aren't just fantasy Africa, they have a unique identity that is respectful of the source material. The fact that when casually reading about NPCs in the beginner box and its supplements you come across gay couples and nonbinary folk is amazing, plus there was a main class character that is trans (shaman if I recall)! Im loving the openness of the game itself and its something I have NEVER encountered in an RPG product.

Shirren_Human_Expert wrote:

thank you! That makes a lot of sense now. I've never heard to them referred to as wave casters so I was very confused! I'll file them under warlock in the DnD part of my brain while I figure out how to do PF2

They're really not Warlock. Warlock is the thing that PF2 doesn't have yet, but that I (and at least a few others) are eagerly awaiting - a primary caster who's not heavily tied to daily slots. They're a lot closer to half-casters, like the Paladin or Ranger. Actually, the 5e paladin with its whole smite schtick is in many ways parallel to the magus - fightery, but not as fightery as the fighter, and makes up the difference by burning a limited pool of spell slots to buff their attacks for burst damage.

The Magus is cooler, and their mechanics are more interesting, but that's PF2 for you.

I have so much to learn! This game rocks

thank you! That makes a lot of sense now. I've never heard to them referred to as wave casters so I was very confused! I'll file them under warlock in the DnD part of my brain while I figure out how to do PF2

Im still new to Paizo stuff....what is a wave caster?

I really really really want to see a new setting book. Mwangi Expanse was such a cool book. My #1 hope is something about Tian Xia, its a setting ripe to get an expansion and one that could really do with cleaning up on the cultural end. Alternatively I would also love to see something with Arcadia since its such a fun and odd fantasy setting. No need for classes, just lots of fun new Heritages and lore lore lore!

Kekkres wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Drow have issues due to their backstory and history (as related via AP and PF1 lore) as a coded dog-whistle for bigots. Almost always evil, bodily horror/control issues, skin pigmentation, etc

always evil and skin aside, what on earth is mutilation and body horror a dog whistle for?

Ablism and shaming of those whose bodies don't conform to the normative standard, mostly. Also lifestyles that involve altering their bodies, such as tattoo enthusiasts, or those who have tattooing or similar bodily modification as part of their culture.

Not to mention the "traditional" idea of Drow being matriarchal and inherently bad because of it (oh noes, the men aren't allowed to be vote because they're men!) fulfilling a boogeyman role for misogynists.

As a huge fan of the Anadi I would like to see more monstrous races that just want to be friends with everyone. Its easy to be edgy and grim but something genuinely heartwarming like Spider people that want to give big hugs is something I want more of. We can still have Golarion be a perilous place full of adventure but at least we can have a happy go lucky ancestry of people that want to make it a better place.

Also I want to run a game where every player is a shapeshifter or "half-something" (ie halfelves who wear cowls or tieflings who cover up their horns) type ancestry and all of them are pretending to be humans and ALL players think that the other players do not know their secret. It would be hilarious. "why hello fellow human, I also like cheese and putting things in my mouthflaps" So we need more shapeshifter type ancestries.

Dubious Scholar wrote:

At the same time, it's entirely possible for someone to have done some big thing for a clan. Maybe you saved one of their kids, or something.

Alternatively, it's not unreasonable to say that it's a clan pistol without any clan markings - or marked in a way that it's clear it's a generic not associated with a clan.

If anything, I'd expect that the best pistols sold by the Gunworks are functionally identical to clan pistols anyways (because why wouldn't a master smith turn out their best work consistently), but maybe you need some connections to get them to sell you one. It's not like they're revolutionary weapons Alkenstar and Dongun Hold are keeping for themselves for security - they're just masterpieces created by dwarven smiths.

A versatile human can take Adopted Ancestry (Dwarf) with their heritage-granted general feat and then Clan Pistol with their Ancestry Feat, if you want to go with the "adopted by dwarves" backstory.

I'll second this being the absolute best way to ensure this is balanced across players. I'd also say that if they did NOT take this route then they would have to deal with the cultural impact of being a non dwarf with a clan weapon (ie suspicion, anger, and shame). Taking the feats would simply erase this as the person would have dwarven "looks" ie clothing, mannerisms, and acculturation that would make any dwarf look past that.

One question I have is, why only one organization? A common trope in intrigue-style stories is "wheels within wheels," where one organization is directly or indirectly doing the bidding of another. The Aspis Consortium could be funding the Golden League, for example, so that the party graduate from dealing with the League, who want their empire back and to re-establish their criminal rackets, to the Consortium, who are hoping to open up wider-reaching networks across the continent.

This can also lead to betrayals by either group, or both of them, which are helpful ways to generate dungeons because the inciting incident becomes pretty easy. Stop the bad guys from doing things to other bad guys which get innocent people caught in the middle.

Also, don't be afraid to ask your group what kind of campaign they want. If they know the style going in, and enjoy roleplaying, they are more likely to make characters who fit the campaign better and that helps you as a GM generate content, because you can play off their backstories.

You are quite the genius, I love this idea. Use different groups at different levels (ie golden league will be more local, Aspis will be more regional, etc). Thankfully my players are pretty open to just about anything, they want an opportunity to roleplay first and foremost. Backstory wise I think I at least have some hooks to start. One character is a pyromantic Monk that was exiled from a Quain monastery over some fires, I have a Kitsune witch that gained powers from being experimented on by a villain from Tianjing, and an Elven Storm Druid from Jinin who likes to wander a bit too much. To make sure they live ill put in a fighter NPC to take some blows.

Are you looking for something completely homebrew, or something to reskin to fit your campaign?

Fall of Plaguestone could fit in terms of a shadow organization looking to undermine a town, and adventurers with only loose ties to the town working to save it. You'd have to do a lot of renaming, but it seems like that's something you've done in the past.

Im fine with either homebrew or reskinning. Im at least adept enough to be able to repopulate encounters to make them fit the proper level. Im just short on getting my ideas to go from point A to point B at the moment plot wise. How have you done intrigue kind of games?

Hi! Im a long time DM (for DnD) but my groups typically consisted of powergaming murder hobos so making a story was usually something that was.....secondary. Needless to say my skills have greatly atrophied in the intervening years and I FINALLY have some real role players in my new group.

As such I need to make a REAL campaign with plot and story. I've started on the beginner box since I'm new to Pathfinder and I have Troubles in Otari to help me branch out. I've plopped Otari into Tian Xia, specifically Shokuro. My players are all native Tian characters but have no real loyalty to Shokuro outside of it being a sort of home for outcasts (they all are refugees of some sort). The plan so far is to play through the beginner box and sprinkle in Troubles in Otari depending on how they react to the different kinds of adventuring (they are all new to table top RPGs) and I want to seed in references to a shadow organization that will be scheming to undermine Shokuro. The problem is I haven't quite decided where to go from there or who will be doing it! Ideally it would have the party heading to the capital looking to uncover the mystery and help save the kingdom.

I was wondering if you had any suggestions on things you might have done, or what sounds the most interesting. Currently some ideas are...

The Aspis Consortium wants to regain their foothold in Tian Xia and are bypassing Goka and heading to Amanandar. Their actions are intended cause the colony to invade Shokuro and come to them to be exclusive suppliers.

The spider people, ghosts, and other outer god creepiness of Shenmen is wanting to gain a foothold in Shokuro by slowly infiltrating the area. Kind of a dracula meets spiders meets invasion of the body snatchers creepiness campaign

The golden league wants revenge for losing out on their previously secret control of the country prior to it being freed. This would likely be full of ninjas.

The family of the corrupt lord that Shouro Toriaka killed and was banished for wants revenge after finding out that the samurai has been doing well for himself. Probably more ninjas, maybe even a combined Oni plot involving the same group that established the Jade Regent.

More straightforward, Lingshen, who didn't seem too mad about losing the country really wants it back so they can feed their armies of conquest. This would be a lot less of a shadowly plot because nothing about Lingshen strikes me as "subtle".

What do you think? And I have never done an intrigue style campaign before, what premade adventures or sources would you suggest for helping me flesh this out?

please do some PDFs on sale (Crazy right?) I have a cart with like 14 old 1E pathfinder society adventures I need for "research" ie idea stealing purposes.

I'd love to see a return in some form of my favorite class from 4th edition DnD, the Avenger! It was essentially a holy rogue. Basically its a lightly armored 2h wielder that had some nifty holy tricks up their sleeves and light healing. Its very close to the monk but I can see it really differentiated with spells.

AoN

I'll assume they're a newbie (like me!) so they may not know the shorthand for the Archive of Nethys, which has tons of monster stats, feats, and info but lacking the....finesse of a book (Im a librarian so I'm biased).

Follow this link, its a great resource for starting GMs and veterans alike. https://2e.aonprd.com/

If you're new to the setting like me I've found the World Guide to be a great introduction to the "feel" of Golarion. Its by no means overly detailed like the FANTASTIC Mwangi Expanse but it will show you the basics of what the Inner sea region is about and its political and cultural dynamics.

Hi! Im a long time DM, albeit a rusty one, of games like DnD and I am just DYING to play some sort of game of PF2 set in Tian Xia (I've recently discovered a love of Xianxia and Wuxia content). The setting seems so rich and varied with a ton of untapped potential (please give it the Mwangi Expanse treatment!).

I've gotten hold of the Dragon Empires Primer and Gazetteer (the primer is sadly redundant) and I was wondering which of the adventure paths would be a good place to mine for information about making adventures in the Dragon Empires? I have no interest in actually playing the adventures themselves I just want a decent amount of information to help me make the setting work and have some life to it. It seems like Jade Regent 4-6 would be a good start as well as Fist of the Ruby Phoenix but I'm not quite ready to drop money on books that aren't going to give me setting information. Im new to the AP system so I am not sure how much content is in any given book.

What would you suggest?

Book 2 of Fists of the Ruby Phoenix will give you a lot of material on Goka, one of the major cities of the continent.

Also, shouldn’t this be in the Lost Omens forum?

As far as I know no information on Tian Xia is in any lost Omens books outside of Fists so I put it here. Is that sub more specific to settings?

I've never seen an AP where at least one of the books didn't have some backmatter devoted to lore for the region... But I don't know which books within the AP you'd want. Haven't read those two specifically.

Im new to how APs work so I wasn't sure how in depth the titles go and if its worth a purchase just for a few paragraphs of info vs a deep dive of locations and people

Hi! Im a long time DM, albeit a rusty one, of games like DnD and I am just DYING to play some sort of game of PF2 set in Tian Xia (I've recently discovered a love of Xianxia and Wuxia content). The setting seems so rich and varied with a ton of untapped potential (please give it the Mwangi Expanse treatment!).

I've gotten hold of the Dragon Empires Primer and Gazetteer (the primer is sadly redundant) and I was wondering which of the adventure paths would be a good place to mine for information about making adventures in the Dragon Empires? I have no interest in actually playing the adventures themselves I just want a decent amount of information to help me make the setting work and have some life to it. It seems like Jade Regent 4-6 would be a good start as well as Fist of the Ruby Phoenix but I'm not quite ready to drop money on books that aren't going to give me setting information.

What would you suggest?

Minkai now has baseball in my new headcanon. Theres nothing at all in any official publication about it but I'm making this mine.

Each daimyo can have his personal team and instead of engaging in battle when someone is slighted they have baseball games. Winner retains his honor. This is a relic of the Dragon Empire when it would have been disruptive to have factions fighting each other for no particular reason. Each team captain can be a retired Samurai. This would also provide a welcome diversion to the populace who are unhappy with the state of politics in their nation.

Ah, see, I'm from Texas. 11 million fewer people with an extra 100k square miles to spread them out in. Just have a hard time reconciling 55k with the term 'podunk' when I've worked in towns that struggle to break 4 digits in their population.

But yeah I agree that the given population numbers for Starfinder are just whatever a given writer thought sounded good in their heads & not a whole lot of thought was put into it after that. I tend to ignore the numbers wholesale.

I agree and think that the numbers they throw out are really off in general.

This argument really makes me thing of the idea of "scale" as we see it in general in comparison to our own view of things and where we live. In pathfinder you can expect to find small villages with maybe a few hundred people being the norm and thats the scale that maybe the writers see (and if they live in Washington thats wholly common to have a sprinkling of tiny towns everywhere) whereas for me the scale is skewed much much higher. I consider a town of a few hundred people to be microscopic because of the population density I'm used to (and central California is widely considered to be a condensed version of Texas). This makes me wonder how people in extremely populated places like Japan see even my "small town" in terms of scale when major cities run in the 10+ million residents.

maybe after Ravagog escaped golarion and the gods had to create the universe where his nomming left off space time they could only think of so many backgrounds for people

I can get behind that. Maybe they took who was left and spread them around and did their best to seed in a previous "life" with the illusion that life had moved on. Since there was no more Golarion they spread those races around the solar system and reinvented a few more just to make sure there was balance (ie an undead race, a good race, a militaristic race, etc). Its like Rovagug smashed their toy and they had to glue it back together the best they could.

Shirren_Human_Expert wrote:

Peg'giz wrote:

Shirren_Human_Expert wrote:

I see what you're going at and I can also see what you mean by the math. HOWEVER it is also implied in these that there is plenty of open space in these vessels for either green space, traffic, or food, which skews that idea.

I'm looking at this from the perspective...

I totally understand your point of view.

Open/green spaces are already counted for in cities (also infrastructure, health care etc.) and I also added 30% additional space (in the case of the Idari I even doubled the space).
So I think my estimations are not that far off.

I think the biggest issue with station/ship size is, that doubling it's size didn't mean doubling it's volume, but instead increase it by a factor of 8.
So if you take a aircraft carrier and double it in size (to 2000 ft x 2000 ft x 2000 ft), you don't have (cramped) space for 6000 people but instead for 48.000 people.
If do this again two times, you are at a station with roughly 2,5 km (8000 ft.) side length which has space for 3 Million people (and space for 43.520 fighter jets^^).

As said, scaling sizes (and especially volumens) are something which can be tricky.

Because of this I normally model my players ships in 3D (sometimes just as a rough blockout) and it always amazes me how many (or with small ships how less) space there is. :)

Darn kids and your actual understanding of math and physics!

On to my next point......48,000 seems like not a lot of people. I live in a "podunk small town" and that has 55,000 people. I'd like to think that the Idari came with a lot more people to at least, I'll assume many left when they pulled in but it seems like in the span of a generation or 2 you have millions of Kastathas roaming around the pact worlds having come from such a small sample size.

Where do you live that 55k is considered "podunk small town"? Where I'm from, a small town is less than 20k & a podunk is less than 2k.

California. "Small" cities run in the 500,000+ range. There's 40 million people in this state so I'm familiar with population density. For as many densely populated places such as LA there are vast stretches of NOTHING in-between. The populations of these planets should be much higher. IE with modern medicine, communication, and food production methods populations should be MUCH bigger all around. Some of these planets should have numbers in the Billions, instead they are barely inhabited with maybe a few million people. Earth isn't even all that densely populated when it comes to being able to sustain a large population, we just suck at resource management, which is something that Starfinder universe has done a pretty good job. I get newly colonized planets having small populations but homeworlds should be at least reasonably inhabited in order to sustain their basic populations and promote some level of genetic diversity. Even on the Idari it states that there are reclusive traditionalists that live in "the plains" and manage populations of grazing animals in what can only be described as a vast sprawling wilderness but is in reality less than a few dozen hectares. That's why I was having trouble seeing these numbers as sustainable for the amount of productivity thats supposed to be happening (even barring robots). Its almost like during the gap every planet in the universe minus Vesk lost 90% of its population. This is indeed possible but it seems weird that there wasn't a huge population boom after things stabilized.

I like to think of the idea of the "good" and "evil" god in a wider context of them trying to garner a following and worshippers. The 'pure" deities who were never mortals want to expand their influence and need mortal's to follow them so they are probably a lot less likely to be picky about WHO worships them as long as they do and they are more or less doing the what their god demands. Plus gods are busy doing whatever it is that they do so they aren't going to be looking into small details like that. Thats Pharasma's job. They have some bigger picture in mind. What that is is beyond our mortal comprehension. Maybe its a great game of back and forth with no clear winner? The cosmos must be in balance and only the outergods and Rovagug seem to want to completely annihilate creation. They do however need to stay relevant and have worshippers to advance these goals, however nebulous they may be. In another thread they talked about Saerenae and Slavery, she probably tolerates it because they are getting her name out there and increasing her power. With more power she is able to DO more to further her cause and she will do something about the slavery later, probably, maybe, gods are busy after all.

I think the once mortal gods are the ones more likely to be strict on their worshippers because they still remember what it was like to be mortal and know how easy it is to fail. They also will be more focussed on a particular goal and worshippers be damned they want to accomplish it. Like in the case of Arazni she doesn't even want worshippers because she doesn't want to deal with their nonsense.

This is all my personal speculation of course and how I try to cope with the idea of having evil worshippers of a good god and good worshippers of an evil god because they are mortals trying to interpret the divine through a lens not capable of understanding beyond their own limited experiences. IE you can have perfectly good people in service of Cheliax because its just the place they live and work just as much as you can have evil woshippers of a good deity who twist the words of their faith to gain personal power. As for the gods themselves....they're too busy to deal with this mortal stuff

I'll take the Mwangi Expanse treatment for Tian Xia please! Ive been dying to get a fleshing out of that regions thats also culturally appropriate. Theres so much potential in that setting to do so much! Wuxia, Xianxia, and splash of Kurasawa would be so much fun.

Shirren_Human_Expert wrote:

I see what you're going at and I can also see what you mean by the math. HOWEVER it is also implied in these that there is plenty of open space in these vessels for either green space, traffic, or food, which skews that idea.

I'm looking at this from the perspective...

I totally understand your point of view.

Open/green spaces are already counted for in cities (also infrastructure, health care etc.) and I also added 30% additional space (in the case of the Idari I even doubled the space).
So I think my estimations are not that far off.

I think the biggest issue with station/ship size is, that doubling it's size didn't mean doubling it's volume, but instead increase it by a factor of 8.
So if you take a aircraft carrier and double it in size (to 2000 ft x 2000 ft x 2000 ft), you don't have (cramped) space for 6000 people but instead for 48.000 people.
If do this again two times, you are at a station with roughly 2,5 km (8000 ft.) side length which has space for 3 Million people (and space for 43.520 fighter jets^^).

As said, scaling sizes (and especially volumens) are something which can be tricky.

Because of this I normally model my players ships in 3D (sometimes just as a rough blockout) and it always amazes me how many (or with small ships how less) space there is. :)

Darn kids and your actual understanding of math and physics!

On to my next point......48,000 seems like not a lot of people. I live in a "podunk small town" and that has 55,000 people. I'd like to think that the Idari came with a lot more people to at least, I'll assume many left when they pulled in but it seems like in the span of a generation or 2 you have millions of Kastathas roaming around the pact worlds having come from such a small sample size.

I want as much information on spider friends as I can get.

More spider friends is best.

I'd love to run a game where everyone is Anadi but thinks everyone else is human, leading to some very awkward and fun roleplaying full of friendship and caring (also if there was ONE human they would probably just be freaking out the whole time)

Temperans wrote:

Yep clarify things, give an update on the situation, or change the description to be more fitting. I have never seen a retcon, even for the really jarring stuff.

Example of typical changes: Goblins.

So there you go. It's been a few years.

Maybe the place closed.

If the closing in question was in some way adventurer-related, it might have been closed so thoroughly that it wasn't worth rebuilding the structure, and they cleared it to make space (and possibly grabbed the still-usable building materials for use elsewhere).

Sure, it might be nice to have that in something like an explicit update, but this apparently wasn't all that significant an institution overall. Some stuff is bound to slip through the cracks.

In my games an "adventurer related closure" typically meant that the place was burned down by my players. OFTEN. After a while my regular group of players called themselves The Bar Burners Guild and now its quite the tradition that I hate. Its already been addressed what happened to the Wench but I think "an adventurer group trashed it" is going to have to become a new go to after "a wizard did it"

The problem with sizes, especially in space is, that humans are very bad in realizing sizes and especially volumes.

I always try to compare station sizes to real world cities.

Let's take a look at Absalom station (Population: 2 mio)
2 mio people are roughly the population of the Paris city area.
Paris urban area is given with 105 km^2 resulting in a density of 21,000 people/km2.

So if Absalom only had one deck it has to be a size of 10km x 10km.

Let say it has 20 decks (not much or?) => 100.000 people per deck => ~ 5km^2 per deck => 2,2 km x 2,2 km

Lets say one deck has a height of 50 meters (~a 12 story house), then we are at 2km x 2km x 1km. Adding 30% for life support, power generation etc. and we are still smaller then Absalom in the game (8 km diameter ~4 km height).

The Idari has a population of 40.000, lets double this to count for all the people who left the Idari since it's arrival and double this again to count for lifestock, plants etc. => 160.000 people => 7,6 km^2.
Now keep in mind that it's a hollow cylinder (Basically a O'Neil Cylinder).

The Idari is 4km long and has a radius of 0,4 km.
So 3km long, radius of 0,4km => cylinder surface (2 x pi x r x height) => 10 km^2
So more there is more then enough space for all people (and lifestock) on board. (Keep in mind that you also have most of the volume of the cylinder for life support etc.)

Tldr: Absalom Station has roughly enough space to fit 8x Paris in it and the Idari could hold ~200.000 peoples without problems.

The problem is the "bigger is better" trend in Scifi. Some IPs really go to ridiculous large sizes without thinking about what these numbers really mean. (Yes I'm looking at you Warhammer & Star Wars).

I see what you're going at and I can also see what you mean by the math. HOWEVER it is also implied in these that there is plenty of open space in these vessels for either green space, traffic, or food, which skews that idea.

I'm looking at this from the perspective of someone who has spent lots of time on Navy vessels and even though those ships are big and we are cramming 6000 people onto an aircraft carrier (1000 ft long) those people are mostly sleeping 3 to a bunk space instead of being in regular apartments as is implied in the lore. Yeah a lot of space is devoted to tools of war but I imagine a similar percentage of space is being devoted to hanger bays, commerce space, warehouses, junk yards, recycling plants, and food production on these stations, not to mention the excess of spaces being devoted to the rich and powerful.

It still feels pretty small to me, and I can agree with your argument that Warhammer has skewed my brain on size

Is it just me or does the Idari feel kind of.....small? Its supposed to me a galaxy spanning mega ship with the population of a dying world and its the size of the national mall which in retrospect wouldn't feel very spacious if it was stuffed with people, let alone have enough room to cram plants and trees and wild spaces on. For me at least I see it being EASILY 10 times that size in order to feel a lot more in line with its description. Additionally Absalom station should be much bigger as well. My mind is seeing the Citadel from Mass effect as a baseline and even that dosen't seem big enough for what they want in their descriptions.

Am I thinking about this too hard?

Wheeled and non-wheeled models.

I concur, it seems more like a brand name or descriptor than a specific item (which is a common theme in the game) so likely "enercycle" is just one of many different models you can fix by applying the appropriate graft

And here I thought someone was referring to me with this title *ba dum tiss*

I can easily see them trying to give the players a cleaner baseline to work with and then if you so choose you can add in such things yourself (really you can ALWAYS do this, no one at Paizo is forcing you to play it like this). It integrates well into their focus on consent based gaming. They provide you with the clean family friendly version and based on your group you are allowed to Saucy it up to your liking.

Shirren_Human_Expert wrote:

Sooooo, whats the point of a subscription then if you're getting railed on the Shipping price?

It means you never miss one basically and have the convenience of not having to order things. They just turn up.

It’s not a cheap option - the high shipping is partly offset by the free PDF if that’s of value, but it may well be cheaper to buy the book through another avenue and just get the PDF on release.

Also, if you have multiple subscriptions you get a 15% discount and a free subscription to PFS and/or SFS scenarios (at that point the benefits probably outweigh the costs, at least if you’re in the US).

Ahhhh that makes a lot more sense! if you're willing to get a couple of subs then the value will definitely be there (plus reduced cost on shipping). It kinda felt like the PDF was just there to slightly diminish the pain of shipping costs. Not that I particularly like PDFs (Im an old fashioned librarian with groaning shelves). Their description of the discount was not worded in the best way possible.

Sooooo, whats the point of a subscription then if you're getting railed on the Shipping price?

. . . I remain baffled. Mystic *is* the "occult/psychic" class, just like Technomancer is the "sufficiently advanced" class, and Witchwarper is the "parallel realities/quantum" class. Yes, these are different flavor variations than how spellcasting is split up in Pathfinder. Its a different setting separated from Pathfinder by millenia. Why would the primary ways of organizing magic *not* be different by that point? Pathfinder uses a high fantasy "gods vs nature vs arcane lore" split. Pathfinder uses a "psychic forces vs clarkes law vs quantum" split.

Is the sticking point that Mystics have a connection, which implicitly ties them to some higher force than themselves, and you want to play a psychic with no "strings" attached? Because "psychics are linked to higher powers" is not exactly a rare thing in science fiction, going back at *least* to Doc Smith.

I think if they introduced a straight "divine" class it would go a long way to keep people from making this complaint about the mystic. I'm not sure how it would look but I'd like to see something that can, with options be a utility fighter or a utility healer of some kind. Call them a "Herald" and they would have an association to a church or organization and gain either spells or holy weapons from that connection as long as they are furthering their gods wishes. I like that Starfinder has these highly versatile classes that aren't pigeonholed into old concepts. Really any flavor of divine would help if only because they push the churches and gods a lot in lore but they don't have much in the way of class representation.

Im a brand new customer here and I recently started buying A LOT of products this summer (like....all the Starfinder books and a chunk of PF2e) when I heard all the good things about this company "appearing" to be this extra inclusive and queer friendly place well before it was popular. Honestly it seemed like a dream come true for my little queer trans heart to have an RPG that wanted ME as a customer and represented it in their content. I used to have an indifferent attitude to pathfinder because of my bad experiences GMing 3.5 DnD (I was one of the weirdos that liked 4th, don't judge me!) but the content and inclusivity of the writers seemed like a pretty solid choice to me, plus they were high quality to boot! I've been playing TTRPGs since my adolescence in the early 90s and I wanted a company that was looking forward in its development instead of being locked into nostalgia and cultural stagnation and Paizo fit the bill.

For example...

Pathfinder 2e decided to take evil out of races, talks about pronouns and even preventing triggering people during game play! Starfinder's starter characters are gay and NPCs use they/them! Heck even their official starfinder game on youtube had pronouns listed! Their art features lots of people of color! It was co-founded by a woman! So how can this company be....like this?

I only found out about this last week. I don't know what to think really and I am highly dismayed. It looks like the majority of the people who work there are pretty cool and its a management problem and I can see why a lot of people are crushed by this (me included), especially after investing hundreds of dollars into products. I don't want to reward a company that is doing bad things to their employees. But I also don't want to punish those amazing inclusive and queer friendly employees either, as I thoroughly enjoy their products. So what now? I haven't had a single game in yet and theres so much I want to do despite the sour taste in my mouth.

Could you please stop being evil Paizo? I want you to have my money.

Same for me. Im getting nothing and Im REALLY excited to read this Jade Kingdoms pdf I bought last night

GameDesignerDM wrote:

I would absolutely love an Adventure Path set entirely in Tian Xia that is a full 1-10 (or 1-13, or whatever) that has big wuxia adventure vibes and maybe hits places like Quain, the Wall of Heaven, Shokoro, and Goka. Maybe something dealing with stuff related to Lung Wa? Something cool like that.

And, of course, I'm one of the many clamoring for a Jalmeray or Impossible Kingdoms AP.

We have two Impossible Lands APs coming! One in Alkenstar, one in Geb.

I'm loudly seconding another AP in Tian Xia... not just because it would probably mean we have playable Samsarans.

Im going to second this, I/m new to pathfinder and Tian Xia seems like such a cool location and I demand more of it!

It seems something has gone wrong with the downloads and right now all the digital assets page is making is 22 byte size zip files with no content.

Same for me too!

Really theres nothing stopping you from just saying when you upgrade your weapon lets say from a Lvl 1 laser pistol to a Lvl 6 one, that you aren't just taking it to the shop and having it overhauled and parts replaced? instead of buying a new one you are just having your old one retooled. Hell this can work with even different weapon types. Going from laser to plasma? You tried out a new capacitor and barrel. Obviously theres limitations but there is nothing really stopping you from doing this game wise. The weapons list is just stats after all! As long as you splash the creds I do see why anyone would say no. Additionally if a weapon is found as a reward you could just scavenge the parts to upgrade your own weapon to make the "same" weapon statwise. The skys the limit!