Master Han Del of the Web's page

I like that one Han, and yep, it *could* be reskinned a bunch of ways where dishonourable warriors die. But the Viking-coded one fits beautifully.

Reflavoring the spirit thralls as aspirant Einherjar just works so well and I'm a sucker for characters that seek to redeem others.

The knightly flavoring puts me in mind of a Godbound character I made a while back. A friend wanted all of us to theme characters around myths and legends from Earth, and mine was called "The Once and Future King."

They were a take on King Arthur who came back in England's time of greatest need, though he was, unfortunately, not very alive when he did it, nor was he in England. I had to bow out of the game but it was my eventual goal to create legions of chivalrous undead knights who fought evil for the glory of the crown and the good of the commons.

Why stop there? The 'King Under the Mountain' is a fairly common motif in mythology... Having all the 'sleeping' cultural heroes (and a few villains) return to fight, like, an alien invasion or Cthulhu or something is a hell of a visual.

A viking-themed hallowed spirit necromancer, traveling from town to town in order to collect the dishonorable dead for one last chance to sacrifice themselves in glorious battle and earn their redemption. I'm thinking a reaper merely for the image of a painted brute of a priest with rune carved knucklebones tied into his hair and advancing with a sword and shield while flanked by a wall of furious viking ghosts.

It would be very easy to do something similar with knights and need only a slight tweak to their moral code to make it work.

Might not really count since this is a character I was already running with the playtest rules but...

Street urchin turned minor gang member turned frighteningly good lawyer. He works for one of the more mercenary and amoral law firms on Absalom Station who were sitting on his necromantic talents and legal mind mostly to keep him out of the hands of their competitors without actually investing in him. He's also a father of three and more-or-less amicably divorced from someone distinctly eldritch.

A lawyer/necromancer with a gun and a worryingly broad set of skills. It's a SF/PF hybrid game so he gets access to the much more fun and interesting SF2e simple weapons so his weapon of choice is a reaction breacher. Having Osteo Armaments at a lower level and Necrotic Bomb being rolled into the base class means that in a couple of levels, he'll suddenly get a lot more flexible. Sure the Seeker Rifle doesn't have a lot of kick but it would still be hilarious to turn a thrall into one and start laying down overwatch.

Thanks for your insights!

Regarding armor specialization: I was surprised that "resilience value" appears literally nowhere else in Player Core or GM Core, and had to assume that refers to the Resilience stat that (apparently) comes only from Improvement tier Advanced and above, or from Pathfinder resilience runes. Is that correct?

Correct

As Squark noted, the overall total of AC will be higher. Both light and medium armors cap out at a total of +5 from dexterity and item bonus while heavy armors cap out at +6.

Additionally, heavy armor has an increase to armor specialization effects. For example, the armor specialization for composite armor is "You gain resistance to bludgeoning damage equal to 1 + the armor's resilience value for medium armor, or 2 + the armor's resilience value for heavy armor."

So it's mostly something for soldiers since I believe they're the only class that gets armor specialization innately.

1e witchwarper might have some mechanical overlap. Their Infinite Worlds class feature has some nifty debuffs that could be reflavored appropriately.

Is... something holding you or, more importantly, your friend back from 2e? 'Never be able to play one' is awfully strong language when there is a very clear fix for this particular problem.

Edit: Scratch that, just read through some of your post history. Clearly you have a bone to pick with 2e. Its sad that you're not willing to give 2e a try so your friend can play a class they're excited for. Hope he can find a table willing to accomodate.

I want a megadungeon. Specifically, I want a megadungeon that's an entire, colossal, derelict spaceship. An AP about a team of salvagers who found a lifeless hulk floating out in the black, and are both trying to extract value, and figure out what in the Vast happened to the place. Heck, set the whole thing on a lost dwarven Star Citadel, they're already an incredibly cool setting detail!

That would be a great opportunity to bring in some Dead Space flavor and maybe an excuse to build out more gear with the professional trait related to mining and construction. I never got a chance to use the mining laser in the last edition.

If it hasn't been mentioned yet, I really, really want to see rules for improving and customizing vehicles make a return. Wicked custom rides are a staple of sci-fi for a very good reason.

The Joros are from a vault on Salvation's End. The Simar Communion is located in the various semi-permanent ships and stations located around Absalom Station. If memory serves, they are known for their expertise in genetics and psychic magic and it's generally considered a very bad sign if one of their number is seen outside of the Communion.

I like how the a lot of the 'yes' arguments really seem to boil down to 'because, hypothetically, someone else can do this thing better, you should not bother with it at all'. It neatly ignores experience in gameplay, party composition, a few game mechanics... and a bunch of stuff our optimizationally-minded friends in this thread would immediately dismiss.

But hey! Maybe they're right! After all, I stopped bothering with attack rolls since fighter and gunslinger both had the absolute best accuracy, I stopped trying to do damage since rogues, barbarians, and thaumaturges get such big bonuses, I stopped bothering to heal since...

No.

Going to add my voice to the overwhelming tide of 'No, Remaster is fine actually'. The labels, as they are, do exactly the same job as numbers and do it as functionally. I still see people regularly get confused by Starfinder 1e and Starfinder 2e despite them using the purportedly better edition naming convention. Changing now would require re-releasing all of the books and generate even more confusion of exactly the type that switching to 'Pathfinder 2.5e' would ostensibly be intended to reduce.

Might want to give the Degradation Grenade entry another pass, spotted a few spelling errors.

Also the Quantum Reaver looks sick as hell.

Oh, certainly, a sufficiently intelligent enemy can absolutely avoid a telegraphed attack without it being necessarily adversarial GMing (though I'd caution a GM from assuming every sapient combatant is automatically aware enough to recognize the false opening for what it is in the heat of combat). No, I was responding to JiCi's report that bracing reveals your plans to the GM--a take rather distinct from whether some enemies might be able to recognise a ready action.

Fools! You are all fools!

Having a properly formatted character sheet with your spells, feats, skills, class features, and ability modifiers listed out merely reveals your plans to the GM! They will know everything you plan to do with your character! You might as well surrender to them now!

Zo!'s Player Panoply!
A book of mostly player-facing options that seek to spin out existing options in new ways with class archetypes. Current thoughts include a Soldier that specializes in dual-wielding pistols to make close-range area fire attacks in unique patterns, a return of Broken Cycle Solarians and Vanguards as Solarian class archetypes, a 'Anachronistic Gladiator' archetype for Fighter.

Also, probably going to include a note somewhere saying 'Help, I'm trapped in the Paizo building and hiding in a janitor's closet'

Gotta love how often weapon complaints just boil down to 'my pet favorite weapon should do more damage'

Again, anything to steal WotC's lunch is good in my opinion. The people going for Daggerheart over Pathfinder are not going to be types to enjoy the crunch of Pathfinder but they are the sorts of people that might otherwise be drawn into the 5e event horizon and trapped there.

Okay! I've got to work a secret mocking dragon into my next campaign.

Oh no! Where are all the crypto spammers going to hang out while the site is down? Did anyone think of the crypto spammers?!

Captain Jack of the good ship Crypto Recovery will have to find a new port of call for the time being.

Yes. While perhaps somewhat harmful to the fabric of reality in some esoteric way and irritating the followers of Pharasma, undead PCs are not inherently evil. Furthermore, the old systems of alignment are not in play anymore. Ghost in particular have shown up with a wide range of motivations and ethical characters.

So long as they manage their hungers as ethically as possible, there should not be an issue with playing a ghost paladin. In fact, I'd say a paladin actively resisting their final reward to continue to right the wrongs of the world is a pretty dang compelling concept.

It comes out of their mouths, so teaching them not to bark is very important

4d6 ⇒ (3, 1, 2, 6) = 12 11
4d6 ⇒ (5, 1, 1, 5) = 12 11
4d6 ⇒ (3, 6, 6, 4) = 19 16
4d6 ⇒ (4, 5, 2, 1) = 12 11
4d6 ⇒ (1, 3, 5, 1) = 10 9
4d6 ⇒ (3, 1, 6, 2) = 12 11

Wow, okay... rerolling the 9

4d6 ⇒ (1, 3, 4, 2) = 10 9

9 again. Got it, cool... juuust gonna see myself out
Don't worry gang! I've eaten all the bad rolls!

Speaking of, I really hope we get to see tashtari return as companions. I love my silly laser wolves.

Not seeing an option to pre-order a physical copy, so it might be PDF only

Well, first and foremost, 2e.aonsrd.com has all the rules of the game available for free with the official sign-off of Paizo.

If you want physical books, I would recommend the Starfinder Player Core and Starfinder GM Core at the least. Those two books will contain all the relevant rules for playing the game, all player-facing material (classes, feats, equipment, etc), and various subsystems for throwing interesting challenges at your players.

Oooh! 'Steward'? We got a former space fed!

Alright, I am recovering from a minor surgery and need entertainment, so I am challenging you guys to grab the weird spam posts that crop up on the Paizo forums and Starfinder-ize them for me. Be they shady spellcasting services, travel agencies, drug suppliers, or 'Captain Jack's' latest attempt to get us to use his crypto recovery services, they are all rife for Starfinder parody in my estimation.

It would be fun to break some of them out on your players too! A crit fail on a computers check might bring a new tide of spam messages to harass your players with.

SF1e did not get any options to increase clip size on release, I'll bet SF2e will get something similar on their first big gear focused book.

thistledown wrote:

Really don't like Worlansi...

Good news, there's 20 non Worlansi options included in the book. It's 95.2% not Worlansi!

If you believe in homeopathy that's like... 100% Worlansi

People continuing to undervalue Lore categories is even more disheartening.

An adventure centered around Hellpunks pulling a massive raid on an infernal prison or something would rock so hard.

This sounds more like a question for Demiplane. They have their own forums and are, in fact, a separate entity from Paizo.

Just going to swap a letter here and...

A H A B

This was always going to be the fate of the Hellknights. They willingly associated themselves with entities that specialize in corrupting systems of power and institutions. The thought that they would be the ones to turn Hell's tools to their own ends was simple hubris the entire time. They even tipped their hand by choosing Hell as their model.

Sure they can claim that they wanted to leave aside Hell's evil aspects to pursue a more perfect order and that Heaven's goodness was a similar weakness but... like... there already are outsiders of perfect order that are not aligned to good or evil but no one is going around calling themselves the Axisknights.

What Hell always offered was power and that's at the core of what the Hellknights have always wanted too. Given a galaxy to play with, the mask has simply come off as they grow beyond the previous bounds to become the perfect minions of Hell. They aren't directly controlled by Hell from what I've seen but they don't need to be. They are a perfectly refined machine crafted over centuries by subtle diabolic influence to operate autonomously in the galaxy at large.

Narratively unsatisfying in some aspects? Sure. A well observed truism about what power and authoritarian tendencies do in the long run? Definitely.

(Ironically, this is the first time I've actually been interested in playing a Hellknight. The idea of breaking from the current paradigm and trying to reclaim some of the earlier goals of the orders, even if it is a deeply futile exercise is appealing to me.)

This sounds like a complaint better directed at Demiplane. They've got a full forum primed for making your voice heard.

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

exequiel759 wrote:

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Being able to auto-crit on aid actions at 9th level has some nice perks.

Assurance (Diplomacy) for a character with the One For All feat.

Damn, that is a really good combo.

It really isn't.

Hey bud, you're right. I missed the more semantic read you pointed out in your previous post. Saying it twice and once with a specifically snarkily named alias sucks.

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Being able to auto-crit on aid actions at 9th level has some nice perks.

Assurance (Diplomacy) for a character with the One For All feat.

Damn, that is a really good combo.

Being able to auto-crit on aid actions at 9th level has some nice perks.

A) While they share a lot of DNA, PF1e and PF2e are two fairly different games with different priorities. There's not going to be a 1-to-1 translation for some things.

2) Summoner, specifically, was one of the more busted PF1e classes. It had the absolute best pet in the game, 6th level spellcasting full of buffs, and additional free spells for further summoning. It snapped the action economy over its knee. If that's what you're looking for in PF2e, you're going to be disappointed as PF2e is considerably more balanced.

-) It's fine to bounce off PF2e, a lot of the old guard did and that's fine. That said, try some of the other classes. I bet the swashbuckler you mentioned is having a great time not being completely overshadowed in combat by spellcasters.

Slings deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that. I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine sling in the Baleares for 2,400,000 Pesetas (that's about €20,000 today) and have been practicing with it for almost 25 years now. I can even break slabs of solid steel with my sling.

Balearic slingbuilders spend years working on a single sling and braid the cord up to a million times to produce the finest slings known to mankind.

Slings hit thrice as far as English longbows and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything an arrow can pierce through, a sling bullet can crack through better. I'm pretty sure a sling could easily punch a hole in a knight wearing full plate with a simple direct hit.

Ever wonder why ancient Rome never bothered conquering the Balearic Islands? That's right, they were too scared to fight the funditores and their slings of destruction. Even in the Napoleonic Wars, French soldiers targeted the men with the slings first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Slings are simply the best ranged weapon that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in the 2th Edition Pathfinder system. Here is the stat block I propose for slings:

Traits Concealable, Deadly 1d12, Propulsive
Favored Weapon Khepri, Lalaci, Pulura
Price 200gp; Damage 1d12 B; Bulk L
Hands 1; Range 300 ft.; Reload 1
Type Ranged; Category Simple; Group Sling
Ammunition Sling Bullets

Special: does half damage on a failed Strike (non critical).

Critical Specialization Effect for Sling group: The target must succeed at a Fortitude save against your class DC or be stunned 3 (automatically killed on a critical failure).

Now that seems a lot more representative of the crushing power of slings in real life, don't you think?

Not gonna lie, you got me at first.

Planning a horror one-shot for spooky season at my FLGS and I need a good horror monster to build the adventure around for a party of around 4-6 level 3 PCs. I'm shooting for a pretty severe encounter to really drive home the scariness. Bonus points for if it has some abilities I can use to make red herrings for them as they try to investigate the monster before fighting it.

I just hope we see something like the arrangements come back as a class archetype. Broken Cycle Solarians were one of by favorite options back in SF1e

That's very much been how I've been playing Solarian to great effect. It works pretty darn well and I was able to completely shut down a very high damage sniper in the last fight by yanking him off his perch with black hole and then proceed to clown on him in melee and running circles around him with stellar rush when he tried to reposition.

Eh... sort of?

Enhance Weapon temporarily boosts the weapon's grade and requires casting from a higher spell slot to boost the weapon even higher. Casting a 1st rank Enhance Weapon on an advanced weapon, a 6th rank Enhance Weapon on an elite weapon, or a 9th rank Enhance Weapon on a paragon weapon will do nothing.

Supercharge Weapon is just a flat damage boost to your next attack. It does not require higher rank spell slots to affect higher level weapons.

Enhance Weapon is more powerful but it also requires you to keep a higher and higher rank spell slot dedicated to it to stay relevant as your party's gear advances. Supercharge Weapon needs no such thing as it just increases damage. Higher rank spells slots do give more damage but it still increases damage not matter what rank it is cast at making it a nice thing to spam and burn through lower rank spell slots with.

The use case in my mind is as follows. You slap Enhance Weapon on the best martial in your party so they deal more damage throughout the fight while you Supercharge Weapon when you really need something dead now. Heck, you could even apply both at once to the same character to really hit hard.

I'd say Enhance Weapon is a more vital spell, especially for low level parties where that extra +1 to hit and damage dice can make your heaviest hitter into a 1-hit kill machine. Supercharge Weapon on the other hand is more tactically useful and more flexible.

My beloved apocalypse beam and singularity cannon. I would love to see them come back in some capacity, they were such fun weapon ideas that were on the outer edge of what the system was built to do.

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

They have fighter weapon proficiency and sniper weapons all have kickback often with backstabber as well and frequently either deadly or fatal. These are weapons with very high damage potential and operative is specifically able to get those crits fairly often.

The design intent and trade-offs feel fairly obvious to me. Sniper operatives are clearly intended to make fewer attacks but have the ones they do hit much harder. Their typical turn is very action heavy, yes, but reload is not the only point of action compression for the class. There is nothing stopping a sniper from taking mobile aim, for instance.

I understand the design intent, it just doesn't work. Sniper Operative exchanges flexibility for damage, except it actually does less damage. It loses second attacks, it loses reaction attacks.

None of what you have said refutes what I have said.

They have fighter weapon proficiency and sniper weapons all have kickback often with backstabber as well and frequently either deadly or fatal. These are weapons with very high damage potential and operative is specifically able to get those crits fairly often.

The design intent and trade-offs feel fairly obvious to me. Sniper operatives are clearly intended to make fewer attacks but have the ones they do hit much harder. Their typical turn is very action heavy, yes, but reload is not the only point of action compression for the class. There is nothing stopping a sniper from taking mobile aim, for instance.

Hey, so this cropped up over on the Reddit and with all the grief I give WotC and their flagship product, it felt hypocritical to not try and get a formal response on this.

There's this saying... I'm pretty sure it involves mountains or maybe it was molehills, not sure. It might have been relevant here and explained why you're getting so much 'pushback'.

It's a niche ability so it gets to be more potent than normal within its niche. That's how these things are balanced. Compared to, say, darkvision or flight I frankly find it too niche to be a primary driving factor for building a character around.

Anyway, I'm done here, you're clearly not interested in the opposing side and I'm not interested in giving you ground.

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Because it is one trope of many and not every party will have a prismeri in it. Different parties inherently negate different tropes. Also the capacity to negate trouble with drift engines is a fairly niche ability that only comes up in a specific context.

And when it does, it will invalidate the entire adventure/scenario hook. That is just dumb. For no good reason. And is trivially fixed (see below).

Then refer to the other half of my response which you cut off. If a malfunctioning Drift engine is important to whatever scenario you are running, ask the players not to take Prismeri. Again, this is no different from disallowing a caster from taking Create Water and Goodberry in a wilderness survival focused adventure. If you cannot have an adult conversation with your players then that is on you. Personally, I never encountered this trope in my entire career playing SF1e from release to today. It is not as pervasive or important as you seem to think.

It is not 'dumb'. It is not present for 'no good reason'. It is a niche but flavorful ability that follows in the footsteps of the other planar-touched ancestries that make traveling to their planet easier, such as Fetchling.

Yep, it’s just as Pastor Niemoller said:

“And then they came for me, but by then all my roleplaying buddies had been interned, so nobody spoke up for me.”

Considering the number of communists, socialists, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and religious minorities in the gaming space these days, this is just depressingly accurate.