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Ah, I remember that Redburrow definitely needed a map. I had copied an area of red-tinged springs from a Google Map of Yellowstone Park to represent acid pools and sketched in some walls of former houses. Your link for Siege of Stone failed for me and opened only the Imgur home page.
I would allow the spell in my current Strength of Thousands campaign because my rule is that students at the Magaambya Academy have access to all uncommon spells that do not require a particular class or feat. For example, bard Jinx Fuun learned Friendfetch and Umbral Journey. Jinx is a friend of Tzeniwe, so that one was easy to justify. Umbral Journey derailed the bandit chase in Hurricane's Howl, but I was able to salvage the plot without trouble. Common spell Marvelous Mount also derails the bandit chase, so I prepared for the chase to end quickly. Friendfetch also showed up in my Ironfang Invasion campaign, but Dispelling Globe didn't. The invading opponents in that campaign had very few spellcasters, so Dispelling Globe would have been nearly useless. As for Dispelling Globe counteracting spells already cast on a creature entering the globe, I cannot rely on the exact wording because, as Ravingdork and Castilliano pointed out, the wording is bad. My gut reaction is that a lingering spell that is entirely inside the globe, either cast before the globe or cast inside of it, would be unaffected. Instead, the counteract is triggered by entering the globe from outside the globe, such as shooting an Acid Arrow from outside the globe, casting a Fireball spell that includes the globe in its area of effect, or an enemy with Heroism already active entering the globe. It would try to counteract all those spells, though just a piece of the Fireball. If a Large enemy partially entered the globe, the counteracting would not trigger, because the Dispelling Globe cannot affect magic outside of it and I do not want the hassle of claiming, "The Heroism in your sword arm is dispelled, but the rest of your Heroism isn't."
That is because "Uncommon" has three separate meanings: 1) GMs have reason to veto it. For example, Flintlock Musket would be forbidden in pre-firearm settings.2) The mechanic is granted only by a class or feat. For example, Lay on Hands is a focus spell known to all champions. 3) The item or spell is available but much less familiar than a common item or mechanic. For example, Friendfetch was invented locally by an anadi mother Strands-Of-Glowing-Dawn Tzeniwe in Kindled Magic in order to reel in her toddler children. I would have guessed that Dispelling Globe was uncommon for the GM veto, but given gestalt's revelation about common item Staff of Providence and Squiggit's revelation about the wizard school Ars Grammatica, I would now guess that it is simply not well known. Few enemy spellcasters will know that spell unless they own a Staff of Providence or studied at the School of Ars Grammatica.
1st-level Seelah has the following trained skills:
Yes, x x 342 spotted a real mistake. At 1st level, Seelah trained in Religion and 2 other skills as a champion, also in Intimidation due to Iomedae's divine skill, Thievery and Absolom Lore from Street Urchin background, 1 more skill from Skilled Human heritage, and 2 more skills from Natural Skill human ancestry feat. Her Intelligence modifier is +0, so she has no additional training from Intelligence. Okay, 9 trained skills. The skill increase at 3rd level should have given another trained skill or boosted a trained skill to expert. Nothing changed except for the proficiency increase from level. I recommend giving 3rd-level Seelah expert proficiency in Athletics to correct the oversight. The skill increase at 5th level should have given another trained skill or boosted a trained skill to expert. And Skilled Human would have boosted a particular trained skill to expert. The skill increase is appears to have made Intimidation expert. Thievery also became expert, an unusual choice for a champion of Iomedae, but Seelah could have chosen Thievery as her Skilled Human skill, and used the redundant training from Street Urchin to train another skill. The 5th level changes were applied accurately, except for the error carried over from 3rd level.
Diamond has had a monopolistic control over the market in comic book and other distributions for decades. They have been able to use exclusive contracts to gate keep out their competition and can then demand that their customers sign onerous contracts that so heavily favor Diamond that companies like Paizo cannot get out of them even when the service is no longer being provided. I had paid attention, but my memory is fuzzy, so I looked for old news articles. The Comics Journal (Diamond Distributors is a major distributor of comic books) has a good explanation at A New Chapter (11) for Diamond.
Apparently, Diamond Distributors stopped some of its business due to market downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the revival afterwards other distribution companies managed to grab its most profitable clients away from Diamond. Diamond could not reduce its overhead for warehouses and shipping quickly after losing those clients, so it was operating in the red. And the debt accumulated. Diamond Distributors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on January 14, 2025. Chapter 11 is not liquidation; instead, it is restructuring. It wanted time to rebuild its system to have less overhead, but needed money to keep operating. A company called Universal Distribution purchased a part of Diamond called Alliance Games and JP Morgan Chase gave Diamond a secured loan. This was sad news for the industries that relied on Diamond, but no reason to expect disaster. On May 15, 2025, a company called Ad Populum purchased the rest of Diamond and created a company called Sparkle Pop to run it. Sparkle Pop had harsh ideas about the consignment inventory: it sold it but kept the money instead of paying the owners of the inventory. It also sued Alliance Entertainment, which had tried to buy Diamond but backed out. I skipped reading further details. In November 2025 JP Morgan decided to stop lending Diamond more operational money. Diamond went from Chapter 11 bankruptcy to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the kind that liquidates the company's assents. The most recent Comics Journal article about Diamond is from March 2026, The Diamond death throes continue, but comics surge ahead.
I asked my wife what she does when her player character needs to know some Golarion lore. She answered, "I ask the GM." Heh, I am the GM and I read a lot of lore. I have a nice collection of Lost Omens books and PDFs: World Guide, Character Guide, Gods & Magic, Legends, Ancestry Guide, The Mwangi Expanse, Grand Bazaar, Knights of Lastwall, Travel Guide, Impossible Lands, Tian Xia World Guide, Rival Academies, and Shinging Kingdoms. I have not read through every book; instead, some books I have read through almost entirely and some I have read only a single chapter. My collection is mostly reference. The River of Souls is important to a PC only if they or their friends die. I have been running Pathfinder 2nd Edition since October 2019 and none of the PCs in my campaigns have died. My wife and one other player are also playing in a Tyrant's Grasp campaign and that one begins with the PCs in the Boneyard in The Dead Roads, so the River of Souls would also matter there. Lost Omens Travel Guide covers how much common people know, and the River of Souls is mentioned only once under Folklore & Mythology. It is not important to most people, though it might be mentioned often at funerals. As for other lore, Golarion is a patchwork world designed to contain many separate settings. Varisia is a setting with many ancient ruins for dungeon delving. The Land of the Linnorm Kings is a Viking setting. Irrisen is Russian folklore. The Realm of the Mammoth Lords is a primitive setting, Osirion is Egyptian mythology. Qadira is an Arabic setting based on Sinbad the Sailor. The Shackles are a pirate setting. The Mwangi Expanse is African mythology, but in PF1 it had been the Dark Continent setting for folklore about European exploration of Africa, so it is a bit mixed up. Minkai is fantasy Japan. Hongal is fantasy Mongolia. Etc. Most of the time, a Paizo module sticks to one of those settings and does not cross over to another setting, because that would scramble the theme of the module. Some adventure paths, on the other hand, travel from setting to setting, a new one for each module. A typical campaign requires the GM to introduce one setting, using the material in the introduction to the 1st module. If the party travels to another setting in the next module, the GM introduces that one, too. A homebrew campaign is introduced as the GM likes. The rest of Golarion is unmentioned and unexplained. GM Raymer pointed out that some game mechanics, such as summoning spells, interact with the lore. Mechanics are designed to be recognizable and playable. A Fireball spell throws fire, which is recognizable. Strangely, the fireball deals damage to creatures but does not set the room on fire, because dealing with a burning room would make the fireball less playable. And a rogue with Evasive Reflexes can easily dodge the fire damage even when surrounded by fire in all directions, because that is the simple way to play Evasive Reflexes. Alas, the mechanics are not designed to be lore-friendly, except that the mechanics usually came first and the lore was based on them. After the publication of the Rage of Elements rulebook, a lot of spells that create objects, such as Timber dropping a tree trunk on enemies, are assumed to pull the object out of an elemental plane rather than creating matter out of magic alone. The Elemental Planes were redesigned to better explain elemental spells. In most cases, the game mechanics are assumed to be an approximation for fictional events in the game story. A rogue who evaded a fireball while standing in its center did not move away from the fire. Instead, the rogue quickly drew their fire-resistant cloak over their exposed skin so that no fire touched vulnerable spots. The players clear up a paradox by imagining details beyond the rules. Pre-remastered Animate Dead flavored itself as, "Your magic dredges up a corpse or skeleton and fills it with necromantic life, and you force the dead to fight at your command." Remastered Summon Undead simply says, "You summon a creature that has the undead trait." The Create Undead ritual says, "You transform the target [dead creature] into an undead creature." I don't know the source of GM Raymer's quote, "As you Summon Undead, essence of the void culminates into a form," but it sounds an emphasis that a dead body is not required beforehand. The pre-remaster Animate Dead has an implied requirement that a dead body is somewhere nearby, maybe buried, which would be less playable than Summon Undead if the requirement was actively followed. However, the old Animate Dead is more recognizable, because cinematic creation of undead usually starts with a body. Summon Dead is not necessarily better in the balance between recognizable and playable.
Spoken in the Song Wind. 2nd module in the Strength of Thousands adventure path, has an opportunity to learn a ritual.
Spoken in the Song Wind, page 25:
Casting a ritual to restore Amaechi’s shop [flooding is washing out its foundations] provides a more permanent solution; if the heroes don’t think to find a magical solution, a hero who’s trained in Arcana recognizes that a ritual might help. None of the most commonly-known rituals are applicable, but the Magaambya is full of secret lore.
Heroes who ask Magaambya faculty members about magic solutions to help Amaechi should attempt a DC 20 Diplomacy check to Gather Information. As many of the most knowledgeable professors require appointments during office hours or around their other duties, this task takes a day to attempt. On a success, Teacher Ot provides them with the community repair ritual (page 75). On a critical success, Teacher Lesedi also offers them the unseen underpinning ritual. Unseen underpinning is a variant of unseen custodians (Advanced Player’s Guide 245), but instead of conjuring puttering unseen servants, the ritual creates stronger, immobile unseen servants that support a building’s foundations. A success on the unseen underpinning ritual is sufficient to rescue Amaechi’s shop for the ritual’s duration (a critical success can support an even bigger building’s foundations). Heroes who perform their own research in the Magaambya’s libraries and archives should attempt a DC 20 Arcana or Occultism check. As Amaechi’s needs are fairly specific, this research takes a day to attempt. On a success, the hero discovers the unseen underpinning ritual described above (as well as the unseen custodians ritual, should they care to learn it). On a critical success, the hero also finds the community repair ritual. In Spoken on the Song Wind the player characters can learn a ritual simply by asking the right teacher or librarian at one of the best magical academies on Golarion. During the 1st module the player of the wizard Idris asked how many arcane spells Idris can add to his spellbook at the Magaambya. I checked the chance of success in Learn a Spell, averaged it out, and said 20 spells per month. All common spells are available in the libraries, free of cost, but uncommon spells require an Arcana or Library Lore check to find. Rare ones have to be arranged with me, the GM. Part of the fun of Strength of Thousands is receiving a comprehensive education in magic.
I thought I had nothing to contribute to this thread because my strongest skill in GMing is improvising when the players change the plot. I regularly make things up on the spot. But I can contribute my messy system of taking notes. I have a freak memory for stories. I remember mathematical theorems by envisioning them as stories, and I am even better at remembering actual stories and gameplay. But before the game starts, I need notes. And after the game ends, I sometimes chronicle their actions to post in the Paizo forums. My notes for my current Strength of Thousands campaign consist of five text files: SoT_npcs, SoT_notes, SoT_classes, RiverIntoDarkness, and gang-backgrounds. This does not include ImpossiblePlaytest and RiskAndRewardPlaytest, which were files for my Runesmith and Daredevil playtests conducted inside my Strength of Thousands campaign. SoT_npcs contains stat blocks. The adventure path includes stat blocks for unique opponents, but my players like to ally with friendly NPCs, so I stat them out. And sometimes I create a new enemy creature to fill in a gap. For example, the module Hurricane's Howl provided Abendego Brute, Abendego Jailer, Abendego Priest, and Norgorberite Spy for the unnamed Knights of Abendego bandits, but I added Abendego Trainee Trio to represent the low-level Knights of Abendego. They can't all start as creature 8. SoT_notes is mostly my outlines for changes to the adventure path, several works in progress. It also contains the Discord messages I send out to my players. SoT_classes refers to classroom instruction, not character classes. The 1st module, Kindled Magic, provided a Life in the Academy system that substitute for the PCs attending actual classes at the Magaambya Academy. My players had more fun attending classes with field trips and studying in the library (the wizard Idris is a studious grind). This meant that I had to write a curriculum. Fortunately, I am a former college professor. RiverIntoDarkness is the adventures I created by adapting GameMastery Module W2: River into Darkness and Pathfinder Society Scenario #7–24: Dead Man's Debt into class field trips. I have chronicled the River Into Darkness field trips at River Into Darkness Revisited. I am currently working on converting Pathfinder Society Scenario #38: No Plunder, No Pay into a recovery project for the gap between the 3rd and 4th modules. gang-backgrounds relates to the backstory of the PC Cara'sseth. Before reaching the Magaambya Academy, she used to run with an evil treasure-looting gang. The bard leader of the gang regularly erased Cara's memories so that the innocent young kineticist did not realize she was working with criminals. I decided that the party needs to confront that gang, so I asked Cara's player for details and I filled them out with full stat blocks. The gang is in Jula right now in easy reach of the party, but the party is dealing with the Knights of Abendego in Jula first. I hope the party does not fight the gang, because running a battle with four different NPC stat blocks working as a coordinated team would be at the limits of my abilities. If I created a new character through improvisation in the middle of a game session, and I suspected that the character could appear again, then I would jot notes in SoT_notes during the session and fill out details in SoT_npcs. That improvisation requires preparation work, too. I buy the Lost Omens lore books and read up on anything that relates to my current campaign. The Knights of Abendego are allied with two jorogumo from Absolom. I read up on jorogumo in [b]Lost Omens Tian Xia World Guide[/url] and changed their origin to Shenmen for greater roleplaying opportunities. This lead to an improvisation in which the jorogumo challenged the party to a board game contest rather than combat. The party lost, so they switched to entering the Smuggler's Caves by the back entrance rather than the front entrance guarded by the jorogumo. The jorogumo will probably leave Jula peaceably, dismissing the entire Knights of Abendego battle as quaint local unrest.
The playtest documents no longer present sketches of the iconic characters for the new classes, but this means that we receive a surprise later. And iruxi is the same choice for a necromancer that I had made during the playtest: Sobe, Iruxi Necromancer, Creature 4. The Bone Magic iruxi ancestry feat represents a connection to the dead that could grow into full necromancy.
Now the idea of slaves taken from conquest and war in Oprak has ben thinking, because Oprak is a mostly "monsterous" nation, and those they take prisoner would be Molthunian and other local humans/human-adjacent peoples. IN Rome, at least, I know it was possible for these sorts of slaves to not only be freed, but even made citizens. Makes me wonder about a human/human like minority in Oprak. In my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign, my players objected so strongly to the slave-taking in the hobgoblin culture that would become Oprak that they declared they would not make peace until all war captives were free. I created a thread, How can I remove slavery from Ironfang Invasion?, to gather ideas. Most ideas I tried were not enough. The campaign ending changed the adventure path so much that Oprak is not a nation in my campaign world. Instead, it is a province of Nirmathas subject to the no-slavery rules of Nirmathas. PossibleCabbage brought up in comment #8 of my removing-slavery thread the different degrees of enslaving:
There's probably a big enough difference between "the systematic enslavement of a bunch of people" or "a slave based economy" and "forced labor by prisoners of war". The Born of Battle article in the back of Fangs of War says,
Ravingdork's query about slave-holding nations was to find a setting for an escaped slave character akin to Morgiana from Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic. Morgiana had an abusive master in a place with legal chattel slavery, so war captive in forced labor would be a poor fit unless a particular overseer over a work gang had singled out the Morgiana character for extra suffering.
4. I've added elite templates and it isn't enough to challenge high level characters. Have you tried using higher-level monsters? This seems obvious, but the line about elite templates has me wondering whether Deriven Firelion is running a module and using the monsters suggested by the module. Sometimes, the GM needs to rewrite the module more drastically than just applying a template. In my experience the PF2 XP Budget system is accurate for 3rd through 18th level (it is too brutal at 1st and 2nd level and too easy at 19th and 20th level). Changing hit points or adding damage resistance to a monster fudges a system that does not need fudging. However, the system measures risk and resource expenditure rather than speed. A glass-cannon monster with strong offense and weak defense is going to be a quick battle and a fortress monster with weak offense and strong defense is going to be a slow battle, regardless of the risk. Since I run oversized parties through Paizo adventure paths, my two standard procedures are to either leave the encounter unchanged and make up the lower threat and experience points with an additional encounter or add more enemies to keep the threat the same. This leads to very few solo encounters that are a serious threat. The strong solo monsters are either on the additional encounters or when I rebuild a boss to a higher level (for example, Balancing a Seventeenth-Level Medusa). A month ago (real time) the party ran into a Ssumzili, creature 12 in a planned encounter in the module. A 12th-level creature against an 8-member 11th-level party is 30xp, Trivial Threat (the party temporarily had a playtest Daredevil with them). And its defeat was terribly easy and fast. A ssumzili relies on its ability to hide in rain, but the party had invested in special senses that negated that. In contrast, back at 9th level I sicced an Young Umbral Dragon, creature 12. That was 45xp, Moderate Threat, and they had to work longer at defeating the dragon because it kept to the air. The wizard Idris cleverly cast Sliding Blocks so that the athletic rogue Roshan could grapple it in the air. Besides, the party's main damage dealer is the star-span archer magus Zandre. I find that forcing the players to switch away from their usual strategy makes the combat more challenging and more interesting. On the other hand, since I do this often, my players have practice in many different tactcs.
Deriven Firelion said, "What are some of the ways you make a pure solo monster challenging to high level characters without using terrain and such?" But I see a difference between terrain that creates a challenge and terrain that the monster can exploit like any character could. Deriven Firelion later added, "I want to make a brutally tough solo monster that uses no magic, doesn't need the environment, and is just a big brutal monster that uses physical attacks to win." Okay, not needing the environment but able to use the environment works. For example, a dragon could use the air to make fly-by attacks and fly away if disabled by a spell to return one minute later after the spell wears off, right? I once threw a big brutal monster at my party. The Ironfang Invasion module Prisoners of the Blight had a CR 15 lesser bandersnatch for the 15th-level party to fight. I was converting the module to PF2 and the only PF2 bandersnatch available at the time in the Archives of Nethys was the Primal Bandersnatch, creature 19. The party had 7 members and was already at 16th level, so they coud handle it. And I asked if they were willing to fight a 19th-level creature that was not a boss in the plot. They agreed. They were attacked by a wendigo that I had rebuilt with extra dyradic abilities, and they advanced while fighting so that the wendigo might encounter other opponents (wendigos hate everything). They encountered the primal bandersnatch and hid so that the two monsters could fight. The party had already half defeated the wendigo, and the bandersnatch finished it off in one round. But that round gave the party time for Recall Knowledge checks and they learned about the bandersnatch's Confusing Gaze, a 30-foot aura that could have the party members fighting each other. They decided that their toughest member, the champion, would enter the aura to distract the bandersnatch in combat and the rest of the party would stay out of the aura and attack at range. The bandersnatch had a ranged quill Strike, but it did focus on the champion, who went down in three rounds despite Heal spells. The party cast Friendfetch to pull the champion to safety and more healing, and the rogue with sorcerous Dragon Claws stepped forward as the new distraction. It was a slugfest, but the party won before the rogue went down. The primal bandersnatch is a tane, a creature of First-World magic, but its magic was automatic abilities, such as its fast healing and its Confusing Gaze, rather than spellcasting. Its danger would be barely touched by a Slow spell. And the Monster Core provides a 17th-level regular bandersnatch, too. It sounds like that Deriven Firelion's party is good at nullifying a creature's ability to make Strikes. So a "big brutal monster that uses physical attacks to win" will be weak against them. To build a non-magical enemy that deals physical damage apply much of that damage without Strikes. Maybe a giant ooze leaks a puddle of acid. Maybe a land-based electric eel has an aura that deals electricity damage. Maybe a swarm creature deals damage to PCs within range with non-Strike actions. Maybe a crystalline creature shoots out piercing shards whenever damaged.
I looked up Morgiana at Magi-The Labyrinth Of Magic Wiki. Traditionally, the Mwangi Expanse on Garund continent has served as the Dark Continent in Paizo modules. That changed with the publication of Lost Omens The Mwangi Expanse, which sees the region through the eyes of its own inhabitants. In Golarion time, the big change was the revolt in Vidrian, formerly known as Sargava, in 4717 AR. That was only 9 years ago by the standard that Paizo material published in 20XY AD happens in Golarion in 47XY AR. So the character could be a former slave who was liberated 9 years ago. However, Morgiana is described as a white-skinned redhead. Such people would be badly sunburned in the Mwangi Expanse and not native to the region. If you wish to keep the character's original colors, she has to be from the north. You would have to look at the Ulfen people in the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and Irrisen. However, blonde hair is more common than red hair among the Ulfen. The Slavery entry in Pathfinderwiki acknowledged both the Lands of the Linnorm Kings and Irrisen as nations with slavery. The Magi wiki entry on the Fanali people says:
The Fanalis people might be based on the real-life Berber people. This is supported by the fact that the Dark Continent which they hail from is based on Africa (specifically North Africa) and that the Fanalis (like the real-life Berbers) were often kidnapped and forced into slavery or forced to become soldiers. Their "wild" nature (or at least their perceived nature by other countries) parallels the Greek and Roman view of Berbers as barbarians. In addition, the Dark Continent is referred to as Cathargo, a reference to Carthage (see Dark Continent for further details). That would correspond to the Golden Road region of northern Garund. Katapesh outlawed slavery as late as 4722 AR, only 4 years ago. Slavery is still legal and common in Rahadoum, according to Pathfinderwiki, but the editors update their entries only when Paizo releases new material about the region.
My experience with Kingmaker going sideways tells me that a lot of people who sign up for a Pathfinder campaign want to play "classic Pathfinder". Those folks can pretty easily adapt to the AP theme having to get twisted up in some way in order to make that gameplay happen, because they like that gameplay and will readily make the leap to do it. My wife once played Kingmaker. I just checked with her, and the Kingmaker she played was a homebrew conversion to GURPS by a friend. She said that she liked the kingdom building rules. She readily plays any roleplaying game system: Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Exalted, Cortex System, Iron Kingdoms, Legend of the Five Rings, etc. Right now she is playing a Fitness Adventure game that gamifies her physical exercise program. Thus, she has no concern for Pathfinder classic. If the AP theme gets in the way of that kind of gameplay for too long, then that becomes a problem. SoT in my experience as a GM does this part better than say Kingmaker does: it's more willing to bend the theme to get some dungeon crashing in. And I think that's probably why it worked better for my group ultimately: Maaganbaya school stuff is a thing that comes up to remind you of the theme now and then, but you get to spend plenty of time "playing Pathfinder". Kingmaker, OTOH, spends huge swaths of time on something that just doesn't feel like Pathfinder at all, and it was just too much. Of course, if your group actively wants the theme all the time as its top priority, then that becomes a problem in itself. Thinking of my players: Jinx's player (my wife) likes any gaming adventure not just combat; Roshan's player (elder daughter) is experimenting with a weird build and feels fine about non-combat testing; Idris's player (younger daughter) and Cara's player are in it for the roleplaying; Stargazer's player is mostly in it for the social gathering; Wilfred's player is a newbie; and only Zandre's player is a combat optimizer. I can tone down the classic Pathfinder combat for flavor and verisimilitude. In fact, this Tuesday's game session got weird. The players split the party. Due to changes caused by temporarily adding a playtest Daredevil, the party had visited Smuggler's Cove and knew about the back entrance to the Smuggler's Caves in Hurricane's Howl. They decided to split the 7-person party and enter by both the front and back entrances linked by Telepathic Bonds. Idris's group of non-athletic characters went to the front entrance and encountered jorogumo Sherris Lodd. They talked and rather than a battle to the death, they decided to resolve whether the party could enter the caves by a series of three board games: Shoji, Mancala, and Press Your Luck. The party lost, so they left and joined the others at the back entrance. No combat, just word of honor and improvised rules (an opposed skill check for each game). The players liked the encounter. I had not planned it; instead, it grew out of the conversation with Sherris Lodd, roleplayed as an aristocratic world traveler.
I once ran a crafting-heavy campaign, but it followed Pathfinder 1st Edition rules. This was Iron Gods among Scientists in which the five-member party had four characters interested in crafting the alien high technology found in Numeria. But technological crafting was not available until 7th level, so they settled for mundane crafting and magic crafting for the first two modules. They ended up with three businesses established in their hometown Torch. The non-crafter skald Kirii purchased the gambling hall after its owner died and converted it into a dance and concert hall. The fighter/investigator Kheld purchased land upstream from a waterfall and build a workshop powered by a waterwheel. And the gunslinger/technologist Boffin and the bloodrager Val Baine purchased land a few miles from town and built B&B Alchemical Smelting. That smelting business secretly used a fusion reactor ripped out of an Annihilator Robot for smelting adamantine out of glaucite (also known as Numerian steel), but the main purpose of the business was to hide their small spaceship in its warehouse. The rules for setting up a business came from the Pathfinder 1st Edition rulebook Ultimate Campaign, which can be found online at Archives of Nethys: Rules. Setting up a crafting industry would use those rules. Most of the details are in the Downtime rules, which can be adapted to Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Prices and skills are different in PF2, without a simple one-to-one conversion, so just follow real-world common sense and the balance requirements for a good game. Neither Pathfinder 1st Edition nor 2nd Edition have rules for farming or mining. Those are too slow for an adventuring game. I recommend just establishing a farm or mine, determining the labor needed to run it, and expecting regular crops or production. I did some skill conversion myself when I converted Val Baine to PF2 for a cameo appearance in a PF2 campaign: PF1 Bloodrager Val Baine Converted to PF2. Val Baine was a crafting assistant trained in seven crafting specialties: alchemy, armor, bow, clockwork, mechanical, tools, and weapons. Maintaining skill points across seven specialties was difficult, but since PF2 crafting has no specialties besides Specialty Crafting, Alchemical Crafting, and Magical Crafting, converting her to PF2 freed up a lot of her skill requirements. Note that a lot of her conversion difficulty is that at the time, PF2 lacked the Bloodrager class. And the relatively-new Bloodrager class archetype from PF2 War of Immortals does not fit Val Baine at all. And one more PF2 story. I am currently running Hurricane's Howl in the Strength of Thousands adventure path. The player characters, who are students at the Magaambya Academy recently promoted to junior teachers, were sent on archaeological field work. A nearby village Kiutu had been raided by bandits and one optional project was to help rebuild the village. The only industries mentioned were fishing and boat-building.
Most buildings in Kiutu are constructed primarily of clay brick, with woven roofs made from river reeds. Its population has declined as the trade routes gradually shifted away, but it’s nevertheless still a thriving community. Fishing and boat-building are the most common professions, and Kiutu’s boats are highly regarded across the northwest Mwangi Expanse. The village is located on the Terwa River, which flows away from the Mwangi Expanse into the Sodden Lands on the Gulf of Abendego, so they have no way of delivering boats to the Mwangi Expanse's rivers, so take the description with a grain of skepticism. I knew that my players would not only repair the burnt houses but would also work on economic recovery, so I added a third industry to Kiutu: growing flax and making linen cloth. Fast-drying linen cloth would be highly valued in the rainy Sodden lands. The bandits had stolen the processed linen threads along with the linen cloth, so the Kiutu weavers could not make more cloth until the latest flax crop was retted (retting means rotting the flax stalks in ponds to free up the fibers). The wizard Idris realized that the spell Weave Wood could magically convert flax stalks into linen fibers. In a few days he prepared enough fibers that the weavers could return to work. I had not expected that.
I checked the module. The Cathedral of Nothingness contains one creature 17, five creatures 15, one creature 14, two creatures 13, eight creatures 11, one complex hazard 15, one simple hazard 15, one complex hazard 14, and one simple hazard 12. 80xp + 5(40xp) + 30xp + 2(20xp) + 8(10xp) + 8xp + 40xp + 30xp + 3xp = 511xp. Also could earn an 80xp story award. It serves to push the PCs halfway from 15th level to 16th level for no narrative significance beyond fighting monsters. That does seem like XP padding--the writer wanted the party to reach 16th level before going to the Red Star. I originally thought that my party could handle the lich by proper forewarning to prepare against its spells. Now I am considering rewriting that entire section and adding something that relates to my party. One party member, the Ekujae elf magus Zandre, is a dragon hunter, so I like to occasionally throw in a dragon for her to fight. I could replace the undead with a cult of Whisper Dragons who hope to use the Doorway portal to contact the evil dragon god Dahak. Whisper Dragons gather information, but this evil cult exploited their information to conduct psychological warfare on the Iobane and destroy their confidence. And I would need only 250 xp of dragon cultists and their allies and let the party gain the other 350 xp on Akiton itself. I own a PDF of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Worlds, so I can generate more Akiton material myself.
I had only glanced at Doorway to the Red Star since my campaign is still in Hurricane's Howl, but the Table of Contents struck me as odd. Pages 5-18 are a semester at the Magaambya Academy. My players like events at the Magaambya, but a quarter of the module's adventure seems excessive. Pages 19-23 deal with the Iobane, the guardians of the doorway. That seems reasonable, but I would have assumed that the Magaambya would have maintained a good relationship with them rather than an unfriendly relationship. Pages 24-33 deal with the undead that Trip.H complains about. Undead do not seem the appropriate theme for a last obstacle, and 10 pages feel excessive when the Red Star is just ahead. In another thread, I saw a complaint about a ritual, DC 40 Arcana or Nature, required to open the doorway. Assuming the primary spellcaster is legendary in Arcana or Nature, their bonus would be +8(rank) + 15(level) + 5(INT) = +28. That player would have to roll 12 or higher, a 45% chance of success. The ritual is only one hour with no penalty for repeated tries, but repeating the ritual will rob the experience of opening the door of much of its excitement. In all, half the module is over before the PCs go through the Doorway to the Red Star. Shouldn't adventures on the exotic Red Star, AKA the planet Akiton, take up more of the module? I was mildly disappointed in Hurricane's Howl for similar unexpected priorities. Pages 5-11 happen at the Magaambya, which is fine since they are newly appointed to lore-speaker status. Pages 12-23 cover an archaeological expedition to the ruins of Bloodsalt, which is great. The PCs conduct real field work for the Magaambya. But then the rest of the module, pages 24-67, deal with a bandit gang called the Knights of Abedego. What does this have to do with being a Magaambya lore-speaker? Bandit fighting is what any good-hearted adventurer would do. Two-thirds of the module has no Magaambya flavor except what the players themselves bring to it. On the other hand, Strength of Thousands is highly rated among the adventure paths. I guess that sometimes losing the Magaambyan connection and becoming a standard Pathfinder campaign fighting bandits or undead is tolerable to most players.
I mean you say one is more arbitrary than the other, but who designs the pacing and rate of encounters in an adventure? The GM or adventure writer. Yeah, in milestone leveling you don't level up until you hit a specific milestone... but in an XP driven adventure you don't level up unless the GM gives you a sufficient number of encounters, which itself is essentially just an arbitrary milestone. Hurricane's Howl, the 3rd module in Strength of Thousands, is supposed to end with the PCs reaching 12th level. My PCs will probably finish it at 11th level because the 7-member party dilutes the XP. I decided that increasing the number or level of the enemies was not appropriate for the story. And this will cause zero problems for my campaign. The oversized party can handle the next module at only 11th level because they are oversized. However, the players want another semester at the Magaambya Academy, so they can experience being teachers rather than students before departing the Magaambya for the next adventure at temple-city Mzali in Secrets of the Temple-City. That semester, especially with the salvage mission I am stealing from Pathfinder Society Scenario 38 No Plunder, No Pay, might level them up to 12th level. What is the point of leveling up? It gives the players new abilities to try out and lets them handle new, tougher challenges. Thus, leveling up keeps the encounters fresh for the players despite months of playing the same characters. It is also a reward system, but reward by level-up feels personal only if accompanied by a story of character development. I had an interesting dilemma in Hurricane's Howl. The party was supposed to chase bandits call the Knights of Abendego from the village Kiutu on the edge of the Mwangi Expanse to the town Jula in the Sodden Lands. My problem is that my players mastered methods of fast travel, such as summoning Marvelous Mounts, and could have caught the bandits long before Jula. Halfway through the module, they would have finished the chase and had no reason to go through the rest of the encounters in the Sodden Land. Success rather than failure would have stopped the module. I rearranged the details of the chase to get them to Jula regardless. This is why we GMs meddle with the encounters.
Anyone else ever get kind of jealous about whatever's going on over at Mathmuse's table?They do seem to be a great GM! Thank you for the compliment. I am retired and my weekly Pathfinder game is my main hobby. I have time to add flavorful details to the modules. This also reminded me of a thread from almost 6 years ago: Becoming a great GM in PF2. I scanned through the first few comments to check for relevance before mentioning it here, and discovered that in the 10th comment Ascalaphus discussed the Fail Forward dilemma! Here is two small quotes from a larger post:
and But being able to eventually win, doesn't always make it fun. You might tell players, "statistically you'll win this skill challenge in 40 rounds" and people are going to stare at you like you're crazy.
People arguing that every roll has to matter or it shouldn’t happen are putting way too much pressure on themselves as GMs or (worse) other GMs to always know, before any dice are rolled, what new situation is going to be created by all 4 possible outcomes. GMs are supposed to know possible outcomes? My players are too creative for that. But I remember many situations where dice rolls were just for fun. In Spoken on the Song Wind, 2nd module of Strength of Thousands in which the PCs are students at the Magaambya Academy in Nantambu, I had the PCs deputized into the local police force as a work-study job. (I wanted a logical explanation why they did so much crime fighting in that module.) At the end of the semester, after the heroics of the module were over, I decided to get them involved with a speeding ticket. Nantambu lacks automobiles, but it has an extensive canal system. I needed an excuse why they were all together next to a canal. Therefore, one windy afternoon their dorm-mate Haibram Thodja took them out kite flying next to a canal. He had quite a collection of colorful kites (copied from the internet). The players had a lot of fun simply making Athletics or Sailing Lore skill checks for how well they flew their kites. The skill checks had no effect on any plot elements, but the players liked them. Later than I had planned since the kite-flying was going so well, two sailboats sped past recklessly with a police officer in another boat giving chase. The catfolk fire kineticist burned the sails off of a speeding boat and the dromaar champion of Cayden Cailean swam over and joined the drunken sailors for a beer before apprehending them. The tengu bard cast Levitate and used her kite to pull her over to a speeding boat. Etc.
I went through my memories of the Paizo adventure paths I have run and tried to remember the locked doors. Some were in hostile zones, but no-one tried the door until the fight was over. I do recall one situation in which a locked strongbox was opened under time pressure in Exploration Mode for a social encounter, but my players invented the situation themselves. During Prisoners of the Blight the players learned that each of the five pieces of a disassembled artifact called Dryad's Song could protect its bearer from the blight and that they should try to reassemble Dryad's Song. One piece was held by the ancient black dragon Naphexi. The party distracted Naphexi with praise and food while the thief-racket rogue sneaked undetected over to her strongbox, searched for traps, disabled the trap, unlocked the box, stole the piece, and then resealed the box so that Naphexi would not notice the theft. The module intended for the 14th-level party to fight Naphexi and placed the ring-shaped piece out in the open rather than locked up, "Finally, a tarnished, gold ring hangs from a simple tin chain, high above her [Naphexi's] bed. This ring comes from the corrupted Dryad’s Song." I invented the trapped strongbox to make the rogue's skills matter. I figured that if she failed, then the party could still fight the dragon and smash the strongbox. Each step--Sneak, Search, Disable, and Pick a Lock--had a single skill check well within the rogue's abilities, because flavor rather than failure was my goal. I gave the PCs full XP for defeating the dragon and the story award XP for obtaining a piece of Dryad's Song, even though they did not fight the dragon. A caper in which the lock must be opened before a guard shows up on their regular rounds makes more sense than opening a locked door during a combat encounter. A failure would mean that the party retreats to a hiding place to wait for the guard to pass and then returns to the door.
I have added some Pathfinder Society scenarios, such as Pathfinder Quest (Series 2) #18: Student Exchange, to my ongoing Strength of Thousands campaign. Yes, the formatting in the PF2 scenarios is awkward. They are written for two different levels and move the creature stat blocks to an appendix. Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, my group has played online via Roll20, and I had to keep scrolling up and down on my PDF of Student Exchange to run the encounters. The Free RPG modules, such as A Fistful of Flowers, are better formatted. I would recommend switching to them for practice, except that the new store Paizo set up last year makes them impossible to find in Paizo's own website. The Free RPG Day for this year is June 27, so Paizo ought to have one available by then. I can find Little Trouble in Big Absalom and Threshold of Knowledge at DriveThruRPG. Back when I ran game sessions in person, I would track each creature's hit points and conditions with pencil and paper. I would create a column for each creature with the name at top, such as Red Bugbear for a bugbear represented on the map with a red meeple. Under that I would write its current hit points. If it took damage or healing, I would continue the column downward with its new hit points. Any conditions I would spell out to the right of the hit points. I also tracked spells cast by spellcasters with notes on the column. As for summarizing stat blocks, I essentially need all the information in the stat block, so I don't see the benefit of summarizing. When I ran Pathfinder 1st Edition, the stat blocks were full character descriptions, feats and all, so they had a combat description paragraph to summarize their tactics. Pathfinder 2nd Edition creatures are built differently. The creatures have their weapons in hand and so few special abilities and so few trained skills that their tactics are obvious. For example, consider the Sewer Ooze, a creature battled in Student Exchange. Sewer Ooze Creature 1
Its only skill is Stealth, so it can't grab a PC but it might hide and ambush the party. Its Filth Wave is an area of effect so it will use it if it has two or more PCs within range. Otherwise, it attacks with its pseudopod. Its blindness means that it won't notice the party's light source, but its motion sense is precise, so it can detect them precisely to attack. And motion sense can see around corners, but a PC could make a Stealth check to Hide by declaring that they are holding still. That tactics are written in the abilities.
The Kung Fu Pando named Po is an interesting example for daredevil. A feature that I feel comes naturally to the daredevil beyond their everyday origin is never giving up. Though I have not watched Kung Fu Panda the Wikipedia entry says, "Refusing to believe that Po can be the Dragon Warrior, Shifu subjects Po to torturous training exercises in order to discourage him into quitting. Determined to change himself into someone he can respect, Po perseveres in his training and befriends the Furious Five, who had previously mocked Po for his lack of skill in kung fu." A daredevil perseveres. The daredevil may go down or become frightened, but they get back up and step forward. The befriending mentioned in the plot summary is interesting, too. My playtest with Kittyhawk has her rescuing people by Repositioning them away from an opponent beating on them, an unexpected use of her Athletics ability. In this week's game session at 11th level, she rescued the 7th-level sheriff from the 13th-level final boss. I stopped chronicling the game after the April 21 game session, but Kittyhawk is working with the party as their local guide until they leave her hometown. This particular daredevil cares about people and befriends them.
Oh great thought! I'll do that here in the forum soon. I'm a little hesitant to post it to the product pages because we made some relatively large changes that I think may have impacted some of my critique (overall I LOVED the AP though). For example I complained about issues I had with the final encounter, but it turns out our group was way off the intended balance. We had 5 players, which until then was pretty easy to balance for, but it's much harder with "boss" fights due to the action economy advantage. We also decided that instead of level 18 + mythic we really wanted to take out characters to level 20 to get capstones, because we had never done it before. Turns out that kind of impacts the balance lol. But I'll work on a modified version sticking to products themselves and see about posting them! Tarondor’s 2025 Guide to Pathfinder Adventure Paths begins with an explanation that all adventure paths have to be customized by the GM to become great. Some adventure paths require more work than other adventure paths to become great; hence, they can be rated. But advice on pitfalls, improvements, and customizations is a valid topic for a review. I created a thread, Paizo Plus Email Invitations for Reviews, when I began posting reviews on the product pages. I was startled by one pitfall: the text loses all formatting and ends up as an unbroken paragraph in regular text. I have written only five reviews, mostly of Lost Omens books, because I stopped when real life got busy. I should get back to writing reviews.
I totally missed the fail / crit fail text on sneak because hide doesn't have that I assumed it was formatted the same way. Alas, that rule was variance between different GMs, because it has an interaction with the hidden condition that is spelled out in the Hide action but not in the hidden condition. I put the relevant line in bold italics.
If a character starts hidden while in a hiding spot that provides cover or concealment, then they can Sneak over to another hiding spot with cover or concealment. On a success, the enemies do not notice the movement, so they think that the character is still in the first hiding spot. Therefore, the character is undetected. On a failure, they had a glimpse of the character during the Sneak, so they realize the character moved to the second hiding spot. The character is merely hidden because the enemies know the new location. On a critical failure, the character is not even hidden in the new hiding spot. Perhaps they have a foot sticking out in plain sight. However, what happens when a hidden rogue wants to Sneak to adjacent to their target for a shortsword Strike with sneak attack damage? Regardless of whether the rogue succeeds or fails, the rogue is no longer behind cover or concealment at the end of the Sneak. They are standing in plain sight. Therefore, they become observed. My own interpretation is a successful Sneak means that the enemy is not looking in the rogue's direction and has not noticed that the rogue is standing next to them. But for a failure? That has the explanation, "A telltale sound or other sign gives your position away, though you still remain unseen." The enemy knows that the rogue is standing next to them. Does that give the enemy an opportunity to immediately look directly at the rogue and see them? GMs have to make that decision themselves. Of course, a sneaking character with invisibility or Legendary Sneak doesn't need cover or concealment to stay hidden. My choice would that the rogue would become observed. However, I have a houserule about making the same skill check in the same turn: the player can copy the previous roll instead of rolling again. I created this rule to make Climb easier, because three Climb checks in one turn increased the chance of falling or not moving more than I liked. But it works for Sneak, too. My player could roll a Stealth check for a Sneak without moving while still behind cover. Then if the roll is good, the player can Sneak over to the target, and copy the previous good roll. If the roll is bad, they could stay behind cover and remain hidden or risk making a fresh roll on the Sneak over to the enemy. With that houserule I can afford to take a hard line about a failure during Sneak. As for Avoid Notice, by my houserule the player can use the Stealth roll for initiative to also determine their success at Sneaking over to an enemy during the first turn.
Hello, welcome to the Paizo forums.
I personally am a fan of XP and even of running APs on the slow XP Track so I can add a lot of side quests and story awards without jumping my party ahead too much. I even try to keep throwing treasure at them at the same rate per encounter even if they hit 3 to 5 more encounters (or 1 to 2 collapsed mega encounters) just to make sure I am not shorting them out on resources. I often run oversized parties; for example, my current campaign has 7 players. This dilutes the XP earned by my players in combat (unless I add more enemies), so I add side quests. Most of the side quests are invented by my players, whose characters express a desire to help in a crisis not directly in the main plot. In contrast, I give full story awards to the party, without shrinking it due to party size, so they are better rewarded for finishing missions that for defeating enemies. The side quests make milestones difficult to identify, so I use XP rather than milestone leveling. As for treasure, my players dislike looting and often give treasure to villagers who need it. For example, in Ironfang Invasion whenever they defeated an Ironfang patrol, they would give the weapons and armor to the villagers they protected, saying, "You need to be equipped to protect yourselves after we move on." I am experimenting in Strength of Thousands by having the Magaambya Academy that employs them equip them for free.
She would Hide behind a crate or a bush and make one shortbow ranged Strike from hiding. That shot caught the target off-guard, but it also revealed her position so that she became observed. (It says that in the Hide action.) Binny's 3rd action was typically to attempt to Hide again. I have been applying the Special Circumstances rules for Cover:
I treat rising to full height from behind a crate as part of the shortbow Strike, which in real life has some body movement to draw an arrow and to aim. The Hide action includes ducking back down behind the crate. The mathematics seemed balanced. Binny got one shortbow Strike with extra precision damage per turn with the added benefit of hidden condition (if successful at Stealth) between turns. That was reasonable damage and safety for a turn. My goal as a GM is to provide opportunities for the players to demonstrate that their characters are awesome. Being reasonably competent between moments of awesomeness is part of that opportunity. My current Strength of Thousands campaign has a Starlit-Span magus who likes to shoot from hiding so that the target has the -2 penalty to AC from off-guard. She uses Spellstrike to Cast a Spell and have her longbow Strike deliver that spell to the target. Technically, the Cast a Spell part of Spellstrike would make her observed so that the Strike part of the Spellstrike would not have the target off-guard. But I bend the rules so that Hiding and Spellstrike work together, because it is more fun for the player yet does not overpower the already powerful Starlit Span hybrid study.
This part is what is tripping us up. My understanding was that you could hide, sneak, strike before anything was "checked" again. If what you are saying is how it works, then hiding seems more balanced, only good for not getting hit or shooting at range. It seems you'd only get to melee if you were hiding and an enemy walked past you. Not quite right. Hide has a Stealth check. Sneak has its own Stealth check and failure means the character is not hidden anymore. Step does not have a Stealth check, so the character stays hidden, but Step is only 5 feet. The Strike immediately reveals the character to everyone. Ordinarily that would make Hide and Sneak useless for Striking an opponent off-guard, so those two abilities have a special clause that even though the Striking character is observed, the character still catches the opponent off-guard. And a successful Stealth check while Sneaking upgrades the character from hidden to undetected. Opponents can know where a hidden creature is, "He ducked behind that pillar. Fireball that area!" Undetected means hidden and the opponent doesn't know the location. The Point Out action lets one character who spotted the location share the location with everyone else, but the formerly undetected creature is still hidden. Avoiding Notice seems to be not that much of an opportunity cost if the rest of the party is doing similar activities where everyone is moving half speed. I'm not exactly sure how you'd even track this sort of thing if you "split the party" - the best I can think of is putting the rogue way in the back (at least enough to spend one stride more than the other players?) if initiative is rolled? Exploration Mode is for travel where time is tracked in hours or situations where time is tracked in minutes such as social conversation or Treat Wounds. Individual locations usually don't matter on that time scale, so no-one has their character token in the precisely correct spot. They might even not be on the maps yet. When I say to roll initiative for Encounter Mode, I also ask my players to move their tokens to a plausible square, such as "You entered the clearing from the west, so your characters should be near the left edge of the battlemap," or "You are about to be surprised while Treating Wounds. Put your characters in their places before I reveal what appeared." A character wanting to roll Stealth for initiative will place their token behind some cover or concealment, such as a tree, because otherwise their Stealth check for Hiding will fail. As for splitting the party, one piece of the party goes into Encounter Mode on a battlemap and the other piece of the party is elsewhere and still in Exploration Mode. If they are close enough, I might say, "You hear a fight where you had left the other half of the party. You can roll initiative, too, to rush back, but it will take you two rounds to return to the room."
I have 11 years as a GM and have been playing Pathfinder 2nd Edition since its public playtest in 2018. But my GMing style has added many house rules to prevent awkwardness in gameplay. For example, I don't bother with secret rolls. I let the players always roll of their characters, and I tell them when they succeeded at a Stealth check to hide so that I do not have to track their hidden condition all by myself. Because they hid, I roll a stealth check in secret and they roll a 10 (creature perception DC is 17, in this example) - the creature is not off-guard to the attack, and therefor does not trigger sneak attack. The rogue might still catch the creature off-guard due to their Surprise Attack ability.
Narration is the best warning, "As you Sneak out from your cover, the creature's head turns and it looks directly at you. You are not hidden from it." Stealth in general has been difficult to rule in the moment, I understand the basics but it does feel very strong to Avoid Notice all the time if you are the rogue - as it's basically a free "hide" at the start of combat and a boost to your initiative. What are the best practices to prevent players from always choosing to hide and sneak and play very defensively? AOE? My first campaign under PF2 rules was converting the PF1 Ironfang Invasion adventure path to PF2 rules. (The only PF2 adventure path available at that time was Age of Ashes and that adventure did not fit my players' tastes.) The campaign had two rogues, the gnome thief-racket rogue Binny and the halfling scoundrel-racket rogue Sam. I got a lot of practice judging hidden and concealed condition. Binny's player was new and she played defensively. She was a sniper, an unusual style. She would Hide behind a crate or a bush and make one shortbow ranged Strike from hiding. That shot caught the target off-guard, but it also revealed her position so that she became observed. (It says that in the Hide action.) Binny's 3rd action was typically to attempt to Hide again. The enemies knew her location and could circle around the crate to observe her, but if they stayed in front of the crate, then Binny counted as hidden and required a DC 11 flat check to target her. The party worked with Binny and made sure that the enemy was busy with them and did not have time to close in on Binny's hiding spot. Without the party's aid, some enemies would have treated Binny as a sitting duck. For Binny to deal damage, she had to expose herself every turn. A character (does not have to be a rogue) who stays hidden all combat would not make Strikes nor Cast Spells, so they would be useless in combat and might as well wait in the previous room. Sam, in contrast, was played by my wife, who has decades of experience with over a dozen tabletop roleplaying systems. At 1st level, Sam fought as a sniper like Binny; in fact, Binny learned that style from Sam. At 2nd level, Sam took Sorcerer Multiclass Dedication and learned two attack cantrips. He cast ranged cantrips without hiding or flanking. At 4th level, Sam learned Magical Trickster and would use Surprise Attack to gain one sneak attack per encounter with his cantrips. At 6th level, Sam learned Dragon Claws and would flank for both sneak attach and draconic fire damage with his claws. At 10th level, Binny (not Sam) learned Precise Debilitations and almost every turn she made one enemy off-guard to everyone, so Sam had one easy opportunity to deal sneak attack damage at range with spells. My wife likes characters who change and develop. The exploration activity Avoid Notice is not a guarantee that the character using it will be able to roll Stealth as initiative. The party could have rounded a bend on the road through the forest and stepped into fields in plain sight of the city wall. Or the Stealth check for the Avoid Notice was a failure, so the enemy has already spotted the character and the GM can rule that Stealth for initiative does not fit the situation. I typically give my players a choice of initiative rolls, "You see a strange animal in front of you. You could roll Perception for initiative, or roll Nature if you plan to try to identify the animal with Recall Knowledge, or Stealth if you want to immediately hide from the animal." The creatures from the Bestiaries have higher Perception than PCs of the same level (monsters get a higher stats to make up for having fewer abilities), so letting a player roll their favorite skill occasionally levels the odds.
How was the party able to keep tabs on each other while operating invisibly? You'd think they'd be bumping into each other and making noise and the like, unless they all also had something like see the unseen active. The Onyx Citadel is on an island with a well-defended bridge. The party came in on a boat manned by friendly locals. They turned invisible on the boat most in an Invisibilty Sphere but the elf ranger had his own Cloak of Elvenkind and I think another had turned into a hard-to-notice small bird. They flew to the Onyx Citadel by many different means, too. Since they flew, everyone except the cluster in the Invisibility Sphere was spread out and did not bump into each other. They had decided in advance which 3rd-floor window they would enter by, so they had the same goal. The rogues planned to open it with their skills. However, the Ironfang Legion soldiers opened the windows themselves because they had two ballistas in that room and were taking shots at the boat. Several of those soldiers ended up defenestrated. That did give away to the soldiers on the ground that something was happening in that 3rd-floor room, but the party figured they had time before those people could get inside and climb the stairs.
I was thinking about Justnobodyfqwl's comment at NEW BLOG! - Risks & Rewards: Red Line Overload, comment #25:
Daredevil seems perfect for any of the Zo! Media show scenarios.I think you easily could have sold people on the Daredevil easier as an SF2E class. Lean into the public performance, live streamed extreme entertainment, daring-do parkour Jackass of the class theme. It would be able to take advantage of unique speeds like climb and fly for daring stunts, and it would have a unique niche as a non-Solarian melee-focused class in SF2E. In the real world, daredevils are mostly entertainers who take risks in front of an audience. A daredevil performer would fit both PF2 and SF2. They could take Acrobatic Performer skill feat 1 or invest in Charisma bonus and Perform skill, so nothing needs to change in the daredevil class itself. On the other hand, Starfinder operates with less magic than Pathfinder. Its focus spells are mostly restricted to the Mystic and Witchwarper classes. I gave Kittyhawk the Thrilling Life focus spell for self-healing. For hit-point balance healing needs to be time managed, either requiring a limited times per day restriction, ten-minute duration, or ten-minute cooldown. Focus points enforce the ten-minute cooldown, so I set up Thrilling Life as a focus spell. Could I rewrite Thrilling Life as a non-spell ability? Yes, but the effects have to be balanced and plausible. Direct healing is out, because a non-magical cooldown is hard to envision. Instead, I will have to switch to temporary hit points, like the barbarian uses. Diehard Risk (replaces Adrenaline and Daredevil's Endurance, but splits off Daring Stunt)
This version is shorter than the focus-spell version, which has merit. Unlike barbarian's Rage Diehard Risk regularly renews the temporary hit points during combat, so I cut the temporary hit points down to half level so that enemy damage will almost always exceed them. This should simplify the bookkeeping because the temporary hit points will almost always be all or nothing, with intermediate values seldom showing up. I would need playtesting to determine whether half the level is the right amount or needs to be adjusted upward or downward. A daredevil with temporary hit points who triggers a Reactive Strike by Daring Stunt to Stride away could lose their temporary hit points in the enemy hit and then gain fresh temporary hit points at the end of the movement. I would need playtesting to determine whether half the level is the right amount or needs to be adjusted upward or downward. By adding actions that triggered a Reactive Strike to the effects that generate the temporary hit points, the daredevil gains a little extra defense against their weakness to Reactive Strike. A daredevil with Diehard Risk could possibly have Wounded 5 and be standing only due to their temporary hit points and have only one minute after combat to heal themselves with a spell, potion, or Battle Medicine before they drop dead. But that would be rare, because a non-triggered Strike by an enemy would cut through those temporary hit points and outright kill the daredevil without invoking the safety clause about immediate temporary hit points.
I remember playing in a Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition campaign in which our party would run from room to room to defeat as many enemies as possible before our buff spells ran out. After the spells expired we would return to search and loot the rooms we cleared. That was a different game system with no benefit to taking a short break for healing. This was 20 years ago, before I started running campaigns myself. In Vault of the Onyx Citadel in my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign, the party acquired a map of the Onyx Citadel and learned exactly which room they had to go to. They entered invisibly through a 3rd-floor window and then proceeded hastily from room to room heading directly to their goal. They did not dare stop because they knew reinforcements from the 1st and 2nd floors would show up as soon as they learned of a fight on the 3rd floor. The party did stop when they entered the final chain of rooms and locked the single entry door behind them. A high-level villain Dimension Doored in, but they were high level, too, and defeated him. In Kindled Magic, 1st module of Strength of Thousands, the wizard Idris prepared buff spells with one-hour duration before a long exploration of the Infested Caverns. At 4th level he had only 6 spell slots and he wanted to make the most of them. The party took so much damage in those caverns that they retreated back to the entrance three times for Treat Wounds and Refocus, but the one-hour spells endured even over those rest breaks. My players understand pacing. Therefore, I can throw different paces of encounters at them and they will adapt. Some dungeons will have rooms that do not listen to each other. Other dungeons will have alerts and organized responses. In Ironfang Invasion they had fights against armies so large and spread out that the party defeated the front of the army before the rear could rush forward to reach them. The variety makes the campaigns more fun.
What is the core fantasy concept of the daredevil? I have trouble identifying it. The fantasy concept of some classes are based on legendary or fictional characters. The champion was inspired by legendary Roland and by a fictional gunslinger named Paladin in the TV show Have Gun – Will Travel, the ranger was inspired by Aragorn from the book Lord of the Rings, the monk class was inspired by Bruce Lee martial arts movies and the Kung Fu TV show, and the exemplar class resembles the character Maui from the Disney movie Moana. Other classes are tied more to a fictional trope rather than a definite character; for example, the PF1 iconic alchemist Damien had a strong steampunk motif. Other classes grew out of tactical considerations. For example, in original Dungeons & Dragons, the man-at-arms (fighter) represented the infantry, the magic-user (wizard) represented the artillery, and the cleric represented the medics. The thief (rogue) came later to fill the tactical scout and engineer niches. The slayer is a monster hunter, and we can find many good examples of monster hunters in books and movies, such as Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher series. But my examples of daredevils in real life are old, such as escape artist Harry Houdini (1874 – 1926) and motorcycle stunt driver Evel Knievel (1938 – 2007). Perhaps Indiana Jones from Raiders of the Lost Ark can be viewed as a daredevil archaeologist. The mechanics of the daredevil reminded me of the characters Jackie Chan played in his martial arts comedy movies, with frequent use of objects and environment in combat. I asked my players about the core fantasy concept of the daredevil. My wife said that the daredevil took risks to move faster or make more effort to do what is needed. My elder daughter wrote, "For me, it's going all in, then coming out the other side successful. Someone who turns the punishment of overextending on its head." I like the daredevil as an everyman character, someone who took up adventuring for the thrill rather than because of special training or innate magic. It is a good roleplaying niche. But it does not explain the fantasy.
However, it doesn't need to be that way. It's just harder to write and balance. You can have enemies that show up in waves. This thread is growing into a full discussion of encounter design. I had started a thread about that, Encounter Balance: The Math and the Monsters, about 3 years ago, but only thread necromancers dig that deep to read old threads. Having two encounters back to back with no rest between throws off standard XP Budget rules. In an encounter, a party uses actions with no resource cost, such as Strikes; actions with renewable resource costs, such as focus spells; and actions whose daily resources cannot be renewed that day, such as uses of Battle Medicine. The standard assumption in encounter design is that between encounters the party will have at least ten minutes for Treat Wounds and Refocus to renew their renewable resources. If two Moderate-Threat encounters occur with only 1 minute between them, then the party will be short on renewable resources for the 2nd encounter. Some parties might have lots only a few hit points and still have focus points left after the 1st encounter, so to them the 2nd encounter is just another Moderate-Threat encounter but they will need a longer renewal time after it to get back to full readiness. Other parties will be have lost half their hit points, perhaps with one party member especially low on HP, and have no focus spells left, so they will have to dig into their daily resources, such as Heal spells. They will still win, but expending daily resources will leave them less able to handle for a Severe-Threat encounter later. If the two Moderate-Threat encounters overlap, then the threat increases drastically. If the two encounters fully combine in the 1st or 2nd round of combat, then the party will take twice as much damage per round, the enemies will take longer to defeat, and battlefield control becomes more difficult. The threat level becomes Extreme. Likewise, combining two Low-Threat encounters makes a Severe-Threat encounter. Inbetween is harder to judge. Re-enforcements from the next room showing up in the 3rd round falls into this category. The 1st encounter is partially defeated, so those enemies are dealing less damage as some lie bleeding on the floor. But the 2nd encounter is fresh. For a quick estimate, add half the XP Budget of the 1st encounter to the full XP Budget of the 2nd encounter to judge the threat level. Two 80-xp Moderate Threats would be (1/2)(80 xp) + 80 xp = 120 xp, a Severe Threat. (No, the PCs do not receive more XP due to the extra challenge of an overlap. This is not fair, but XP is an inexact reward.) Having Severe-Threat re-enforcements show up in the middle of a Moderate-Threat encounter would be (1/2)(80 xp) + 120 xp = 160 xp, an Extreme Threat. A new threat arriving is easier to control by a party ready for battlefield control. A wall spell across the door can interrupt their arrival and delay them until the 1st encounter is finished. That would cost a spell. Or a heavy-armored tank could stand in the doorway to block their progress, but that tank will pay for the effort by taking lots of damage.
My players often scout the enemy and approach from an unexpected direction, so they encounter the groups of enemies out of order. Both they and I prefer that, because it puts the players in control for a better story. For that matter, the Hurricane's Howl module wrote that the 11th-level party would encounter the Big Bad Evil Guy, 13th-level Ajbal Kimon, and his 11th-level compatriot (80 xp + 40 xp means Severe Threat) in the final room of the Smuggler Caves. But the gazeteer page on Ajbal Kimon shows that he is not the kind of person to sit out the battles, so I am sending him out early, while the party is still rallying the townsfolk against him, along with a bunch of his 8th-level Abendego Brutes. This might result in the BBEG dying early, if he does not succeed at escaping, but it will be more dramatic and he does have two 13th-level lieutenants to replace him in a final battle. The enemies not have to grow tougher with each successive encounter.
In Hurricane's Howl the Prison of the Vacant Eye is a former monastery for cyclopses converted into a human prison. The text says, "Doors are stone slabs 15 feet high and 10 feet wide unless otherwise noted. The doors are good at blocking noise, which was a boon to meditation when the site was used for contemplation and introspection, but also advantageous when used to isolate or torture dissidents. ... Doors pivot on clever, if ancient, hinges that swing back to a closed position when left alone." Thus, that dungeon provided an excuse why the enemies would not hear the battle in an adjacent room. Nevertheless, I had one enemy sent into an adjacent room by their leader to fetch reenforcements. My party is oversized and can handle twice as many enemies than a typical party can handle. That encounter was during a playtest, so I chronicled it at Kittyhawk, Playtest Daredevil, comment #51. And that chronicle reminded me that my players do roleplay stealth to avoid combining encounters:
The party found themselves on a hallway with the stairs and two doors that bent into a large room. They could hear voices from the large room. They opened one door and found a prison cell. They talked to the prisoners and learned the general layout and occupants of the upper level. A second prisoner cell was on the opposite, mostly-mirror-image east side of the level, so the two most stealthy party members, Roshan and Cara, slipped past the two Abendego Jailers and another Trainee Trio in the large room to discover that the other cell was empty. Before returning, they investigated another room and deduced it was the bedroom of the Abendego Priest of Norgorber, which meant that the priest was in the altar room, and peeked in the last room that contained sleeping Abebdego Brutes. And they use other methods: Meanwhile, the wizard Idris conjured Sliding Blocks and arranged blocks so that the doors to the head warden's room and the altar room were blocked and the stairway was impeded. Enemies in adjacent rooms not hearing the battle is a convention for convenience. I have many such conventions that I told my players; for example, I say that an enemy knocked out or dying but stablized by successful recovery checks will stay unconscious for at least ten minutes merely so that the party does not have to worry about downed foes getting up to rejoin the battle. I seldom bother with the adjacent-room-cannot-hear convention because my players can handle that tactical situation and enjoy a bit more challenge.
My elder daughter pointed out one in our Strength of Thousands campaign. She built Roshan, a rogue with two spellcasting archetypes. She gained Sorcerer Multiclass Dedication from the rogue's Eldritch Trickster racket and Gelid Shard archetype from the free archetype option. I was willing to waive the rule about two archetypes, "Once you take a dedication feat, you can’t select a different dedication feat until you complete your dedication by taking two other feats from your current archetype." She pointed out that that was not necessary. Gelid Shard is an artifact archetype, and artifact archetypes don't have a dedication feat. Instead, the character gains the archetype by binding with the artifact. Therefore, Roshan never took a second dedication feat.
... I wouldn't be surprised if Slayer got a total overhaul. Its class features read more like an adventure subsystem than a chassis for a player character. Very little actual meat on its bones. I would love the Prop mechanic becoming a well-defined subsystem. Then we could have all PCs kicking over tables and swinging from chandeliers because they understand exactly what would happen. Currently, I just improvise circumstance bonuses for followup actions. Yesterday one of my players compared my playtest daredevil to a video from 3 years ago called the Waffle House Chair Catch, in which a server at Waffle House calmly deflected a plastic chair tossed in her direction. The Prop mechanic, which I had emphasized in an experiment in which any feature on the map besides empty floor counted as a prop, is what had caught my players' attention as the exciting part of playing a daredevil. (In contract, the adrenaline mechanic is invisible to other players.) I remember when I purchased the Pathfinder 1st Edition's Advanced Player's Guide in 2010. The Pathfinder (1st Edition) Core Rulebook had introduced a few alchemical items with splash damage, such as Alchemist's Fire, but splash damage was a fringe case. I joined a new campaign playing an alchemist and became an expert in the rules for alchemical bombs. I viewed alchemist as a class designed to teach players about alchemical bombs and alchemical consumables. Other classes interact strongly with subsystems for all players. For example, the rogue frequently interacts with the rules for flanking and hiding. I have not played a thaumaturge in combat yet (just two thaumaturge NPCs in social situations), but they interact with the Weakness mechanic. I would be delighted if Risks & Rewards presented better rules for pulling a rug out from under an opponent and then made those rules the key ability of the daredevil.
There must be other ways besides simply increasing HP. I have a long discussion on this, because I was analyzing it with experiments during the final weeks of the playtest. But that discussion does not belong here. Instead, I posted my response at Kittyhawk, Playtest Daredevil, comment #81. That playtest thread has been archived, but it is still receptive to new comments.
Risks & Rewards: Red Line Overload came out yesterday and so did its discussion thread. I posted my own comment, largely responding to other people, and Titanium Dragon responded with a rebuttal. I don't want to crowd the discussion with design thoughts, yet I like design thoughts. So I will post them here. More HP on the daredevil was a very easy and obvious fix, so I'm glad to see it out of the way early.Easy, obvious, and possibly weakening the daredevil's theme. I had to look up "dive tank" and found a few descriptions from the Overwatch game. Overwatch Compositions Explained: Dive says, Among the oldest of Overwatch compositions is Dive, a fast-paced, highly aggressive style of play that relies on coordination, mobility, and burst damage. Dive excels at picking off isolated targets and punishing uncoordinated play from the enemy team. However, by no means is Dive an easy composition to play as the six heroes typically utilized in it all have relatively high skill caps. This is a team strategy rather than an individual strategy, but the team includes a tank. The article explains that the tank should be at the front of each engagement to create a zone of engagement for your team. I am not familiar with Overwatch so I do not understand "zone of engagement." My guess is that the dive tank should preoccupy the enemy to enable their teammates to fulfill their roles. I am familiar with tanks in Elder Scrolls Online whose job is to get the enemy to focus on them so that the rest of the party avoids lethal damage. The Athletics-based rogue Roshan in my party does that. She is the PC whom I pointed out as an example of daredevil tactics on a non-daredevil character. My playtest daredevil Kittyhawk was not as good at that strategy as Roshan. Kittyhawk has more mobility but less ability to disable opponents. Nevertheless, dive tank is a tactical role. I was talking about theme meaning a roleplaying role. Daredevil is supposed to be daring. It is supposed to give the sense of winning by taking risks. The risk of being knocked prone or the risk of gaining clumsy 1 are not as exciting as the risk of taking damage. And 10th-level Kittyhawk with 108 hit points taking 30 damage is more dramatic than 10th-level Kittyhawk with 128 hp taking 30 damage. In order to seem daring, the daredevil needs to seem vulnerable. A high-HP class does not ragdoll. High-hit-point characters are known to be durable and survive things others cannot survive because they have hit points to spare. They do not get up after being knocked out because they don't get knocked out. I have heard Roshan say, "I am down 25 hit points, but I still have more hit points that Idris." Roshan was willing and able to stay in melee combat to prevent the enemy from closing in on our squishy wizard. In contrast, if Evel Knevel breaks five bones in a daredevil stunt, he is out of the game for a while as he recovers in a hospital bed. The playtest Daredevil's Endurance with Diehard to make Dying condition less fatal and extra healing from Treat Wounds fits the image of ragdolling and getting up afterwards better than more hit points would. Nevertheless, Daredevil's Endurance adds little to the daredevil's effectiveness in combat. A lot of their theme is that they get knocked around a lot and somehow still keep going despite having sustained career-ending injuries, which would suggest a high-HP class. I actually straight up suggested 12 hp/level.There must be other ways besides simply increasing HP. For example, adding resistance through effects like Adrenaline, or allowing potions and healing spells to provide the additional healing granted by Daredevil's Endurance. I have suggested several ideas about letting the daredevil's hit points drop, possibly even to dying, and then recovering. This lets the daredevil get knocked down and get back up again. Of course, being knocked unconscious loses many actions during combat, so a daredevil will want to revive their hit points before going unconscious, but critical hits happen unexpected. I said in the other thread, "In order to seem daring, the daredevil needs to seem vulnerable." I was qualifying my sentence with the word "seem." The daredevil needs to seem vulnerable, but the daredevil should not be any more vulnerable than any other melee combatant. Seeming vulnerable would be an impression, an interpretation of events. Each form of protection on a character gives a different impression: High AC makes a character feel untouchable.
Resilient came closest to the never-give-up theme I would like on the daredevil, so my first suggestion of making the daredevil seem vulnerable without being especially vulnerable was based on fast healing. But intermittent fast healing is a too complicated for a class that should live in the moment. I found that an occasional block of self healing, costing an action and a focus point, was easier to manage.
Im a little dissapointed so little was said compared to previous blogs considering how controversial this playtest was. I was interested to hear more about their plans for the classes. Its cool daredevil is getting more hp though I guess, thats neat. Yes, for example, the Impossible Playtest Debrief last year had five paragraphs about the necromancer and four paragraphs about the runesmith. The Risks & Rewards: Red Line Overload had only one paragraph each about the daredevil and the slayer. Hard for them to provide details when they're still figuring out what changes to make with the classes. I agree here, too. That is a good explanation why the report is so short. For example, I had suggested radical changes in the daredevil, such as dropping the adrenaline mechanics entirely. But the developers cannot promise changes in adrenaline, because balancing the class without adrenaline will take many weeks of internal playtesting. More HP on the daredevil was a very easy and obvious fix, so I'm glad to see it out of the way early. Easy, obvious, and possibly weakening the daredevil's theme. In order to seem daring, the daredevil needs to seem vulnerable. We discussed in the thread Daredevil defenses (other than AC) seem very, very bad many ways to made the daredevil better at surviving combat besides piling on enough hit points that they can soak up damage like a barbarian. On the other hand, to soak up damage like a barbarian, the daredevil would need 12 hit points per level like the barbarian, so the daredevil still is vulnerable at 10 hit points per level. In addition, Teridax's report, Notes from the playtest: Daredevil made me realize that if the daredevil's only defense beyond light armor was hit points, then the party's medic would have to perform a lot of healing on the daredevil after combat. That would work with Treat Wounds enhanced via Daredevil's Endurance, but what about parties that heal via spells such as Heal, potions such as Elixir of Life, focus spells such as Lay on Hands, or impulses such as Torrent in the Blood?
The Archetype rules say:
I presume that this is to prevent some classes from doubling up on their class abilities. For example, a 4th-level rogue with Rogue Multiclass Dedication could take 4th-level archetype feat Sneak Attacker for 1d4 sneak attack damage in addition to the rogue's 1d6 sneak attack damage.
2. Deviant Feats are not available, as they are not a part of the default archetype progression without GM opt-in.I have never heard of "deviant feats" so I cannot comment on this one. I looked up the rules on Deviant Feats found in Dark Archives. They have nothing to do with archetypes. Instead, one rule about giving deviant feats to players says, "If everyone in your party wishes to make deviant abilities a part of their character, or for a setting where these abilities are more common, consider using a variant similar to the free archetype variant rule to grant each character an extra class feat at 2nd level and every even-numbered level thereafter that they can use only to take deviant feats." In other words, mimicking the free archetype rules with deviant feats instead of archetype feats would let the GM offer lots of deviant feats.
I have run four Paizo adventure paths and an currently running a fifth: Rise of the Runelords, Jade Regent, and Iron Gods under PF1 and Ironfang Invasion and Strength of Thousands under PF2. For the first two, Rise of the Runelords and Jade Regent, none of us consulted a Player's Guide because we did not know about them. We made a mistake in Rise of the Runelords in choosing the medium level progression for XP rather than the fast progression. The Player's Guide probably would have pointed out the proper progression. The Iron Gods Player's Guide had character traits (a PF1 thing rather like mini-backgrounds) that my players liked a lot. For converting Ironfang Invasion from PF1 to PF2 I converted the character traits to full backgrounds and two players took them. The Strength of Thousands Player's Guide recommended Free Archetypes so we used that option.
In this week's game session on Tuesday, April 21, the party earned 11th level. I am going to level up Kittyhawk, and I noticed something odd at 11th level. The game session had a lot of planning. Kittyhawk served as a native guide to the Jula area but her daredevil abilities mattered very little except for her speed and Athletics. The head warden Yonsuu had escaped and released the three Abendego Brutes in the eastern jail cell while the party was on the lower level negotiating with the cyclopses. The party decided to not chase him down. They figured that they would run into him in Jula. Instead, they had to deal with the 22 civilians they had released from the Prison of the Vacant Eye, plus the five civilians from Kiutu they had rescued earlier, including Magaambya student I'boko. Bernie the Trader, secretly a Norgorberite Spy, offered to safely guide them to the nearest town on the Terwa River. No-one in the party rolled Sense Motive high enough to see past Bernie's Deception DC, but he was telling the truth. He wanted to avoid the upcoming conflict, which might kill him. I'boko would go along and give nightly reports on his behavior by Dream Message, so the party went along with Bernie's plan. Six of the releasees, including Councilman Jeremy Dunite, wanted to go back to their hometown Jula. This left a transportation problem, because their folding cutter and folding rowboat could carry only 13 people. Wilfred's elephant bird animal companion Alephant was Large, and took up room for 4 passengers. The other familiars and Jinx's heron animal companion took up no space (the hero flew alongside the boats), but the humaniods would be 14 other passengers. They decided that Wilfred would take the coastal road riding Alephant with Kittyhawk using her fleet speed alongside. Um, how does Propelling Strides work for overland travel? Since I rewrote that into Props ability, I decided that the road itself was a Prop, so her travel speed was 40 feet, 4 miles per hour, same as Alephant. Kittyhawk, Wilfred, and Alephant ran into the 12th-level fey on the road, RAIN SPIRIT Low 11. Rather than having only one player involved, I had them spot the dead bodies of two Abedego Brutes who had escaped along with Yonsuu. They waved to the boats and reunited the party to investigate, with Idris left behind to man the boats because his player was absent. Jinx used her Medicine skill to perform forensic medicine on the bodies as the Ssumzili sneaked up on them using the rain (this is the Sodden Lands, so rain is more common than clear skies). Unfortunately for the Ssumzili, magus Zandre is a dragon disciple trained by a cloud dragon. I had let him take Mist Vision (Fog and mist don't impair a cloud dragon's vision; they ignore the concealed condition from fog and mist.) as a homebrew archetype feat. He could see the Ssumzili clearly despite its Precipitation Camouflage (A ssumzili can Hide and Sneak in rainfall, even if it doesn't have cover). He Pointed it Out, and they went to talk to it. The Ssumzili realized it was outmatched, so it suggested a contest. They compromised on a dance contest between it and Stargazer. It used its Acrobatics +23 with a -2 penalty for lacking Acrobatic Performer feat and Stargazer used her Performance +19 with other party members aiding via Performance. They both rolled low the first time and tied. Stargazer briefly considered rerolling via a hero point, but instead they had a tiebreaker dance and Stargazer won. The Ssumzili promised to leave the area and stop killing travelers near Jula. The map I used for the encounter, Big Creek Beach in Oregon, had a side road that Kittyhawk said led to a farm. The party decided that traveling split up was too dangerous, so they went to the farm and put up four releasees there, so that the rest could squeeze into the two boats. They sailed up to Smuggler's Cove in Jula. That cove was a haven for pirates and smugglers and under the control of the Knights of Abendego, but the Knights had left only an Abendego Trainee Trio there on watch. The Trio was easily fooled. After that was sneaking into town to talk to Councilman Wren Buckleberry and Father Heveril for plot-related planning. That session gave them enough experience points to reach 11th level. At 11th level a daredevil gets Daredevil Expertise, a general feat, and a skill increase. Daredevil Expertise increases the daredevil class DC to expert. The general feat and skill increase are useful, but the gains seemed quite lackluster. So I compared it to 11th level in other classes. I am leaving the general feat and skill increase off the list because everyone gets them.
Okay, the daredevil's shortage of exciting new features at 11th level is not the bottom of the barrel. That status goes to the examplar, who gains only the general feat and skill increase. But daredevil is 2nd lowest. The only playtest daredevil ability that uses its class DC is the Headsmash feat. The spellcaster classes are always excited to get a new rank of spells. Most other martial classes get one of their defenses, such as armor proficiency, Reflex save or Will save, increased to expert. Gunslinger's Blast Dodger says, "Your proficiency rank for Reflex saves increases to master. When you roll a success on a Reflex save, you get a critical success instead." Barbarian's Mighty Rage says, "Your proficiency rank for your barbarian class DC increases to expert. In addition, when you use Quick-Tempered, the first Strike you make during your first turn deals additional damage equal to your Rage damage." Kittyhawk is not a playtest daredevil anymore, and I want to give her more than an expert class DC that she uses only with her Prop Critical Specialization. The most interesting 11th-level class features are the ones that build off a 1st-level class feature, such as champion's exalted reaction and rogue's sneak attack 3d6. Thus, I am going to improve her Daring Stunt to be able to act like the Sudden Leap class feat 8 that I want daredevils to have access to. Daring Run-by Feature 11
Kittyhawk also receives Daredevil Expertise. As for her skill increase and general feat, she will train in Medicine and learn Battle Medicine. Her mobility on the battlefield should make her a good emergency medic. I was tempted by Risky Surgery due to the name, but it does not count as her daredevil kind of risky (the action helps the party and could damage you or reduce your defenses) unless she applies it to herself.
My Jade Regent campaign took 2 years of weekly 3-hour game sessions. We finished the Rise of the Runelords adventure path in summer 2012. I decided to continue the campaign to 20th level by adding the Witchwar Legacy module and some homebrew adventures, but to give myself time to prepare and to have fun with the new Advanced Race Guide book, I ran The Brinewall Legacy as a single module during fall 2012. After we finished the extended Rise of the Runelords campaign in summer 2013, some of the players from The Brinewall Legacy wanted to return to the Jade Regent adventure path, so we did in September 2013. We ended in March 2015. I chronicled those last 5 modules at Amaya of Westcrown. I had added the Ruby Phoenix Tournament module. I had considered adding Under Frozen Stars but never purchased it. In contrast, these days I run 7-player campaigns rather than 5-player campaigns, though they are still 3 hours weekly. The larger groups in combat and the extra quests I add to generate more experience points extend the campaigns to 3 years.
Is it though? I said it was the default and that to me sounds like the definition of default, same as "unless otherwise stated". Neither mean the statement always holds true or that exceptions don't appear but if a spell is printed with no components you would have a pretty good idea since the quoted text has already explained the norm. Pre-Remaster spells always list their spell components and their casting time. Thus, "unless otherwise stated" is meaningless, because both were always stated and any exception from the typical pattern was there in black and white. A pre-Remaster spell printed with no components might be a typographical error, but aside from that, it would simply be a spell with no components.
I was thinking about backgrounds. In PF2 each background typically grants two attribute boosts, a skill feat, and the trained proficiency rank in two skills, one of which is a Lore skill. In non-attribute PF2 the background would have to change, since attribute boost would no longer be meaningful. That would be a great place to provide the feats that mimic the effects of attribute bonuses. For example, Hefty Hauler Athletics feat increases the encumbrance limit, which mimics the Strength bonus to bulk limits. The backgrounds Cannoneer, Junker, and Laborer grant Hefty Hauler. Cannoneer background grants Strength or Dexterity plus one other, Athletics training, Warfare Lore training, and Hefty Hauler feat. I imagine that non-attribute Cannoneer background could offer Acrobatics training, Athletics training, Warfare Lore training, Hefty Hauler feat, and a feat that boosts ranged attack bonus. Junker background grants Strength or Wisdom plus one other, Athletics training, training in a terrain Lore, and Hefty Hauler feat. I imagine that non-attribute Junker background could offer Athletics training, Crafting training, training in a terrain Lore, Hefty Hauler feat, and Canny Acumen feat. Laborer background grants Strength or Constitution plus one other, Athletics training, Labor Lore training, and Hefty Hauler feat. I imagine that non-attribute Laborer background could offer Athletics training, Survival training, Labor Lore training, Hefty Hauler feat, and Toughness feat.
I regularly construct creatures and NPCs with the GM Core's Bulding Creatures rules which uses 12 tables and a few paragraphs of suggestions. I barely pay any attention to Table 2–1: Attribute Modifier Scales, because those attribute modifiers are purely cosmetic. They do not effect the numbers from the other tables. Thus, we already have a character-building system that does not use attribute modifiers. But it relies on a lot of judgment by the builder about which other choices go together. The full set of tables is Table 2–1: Attribute Modifier Scales, Table 2–2: Perception, Table 2–3: Skills, Table 2–4: Safe Items, Table 2–5: Armor Class, Table 2–6: Saving Throws, Table 2–7: Hit Points, Table 2–8: Resistances and Weaknesses, Table 2–9: Strike Attack Bonus, Table 2–10: Strike Damage, Table 2–11: Spell DC and Spell Attack Bonus, and Table 2–12: Area Damage. Items, Resistances and Weaknesses, and Area Damage do not depend on attribute modifiers, so that leaves 8 categories that are effected by the attribute modifiers. And the tables left out carrying capacity and INT bonus to initial trained skills. Skills category splits into 17 skills. Armor Class splits into unarmored, light, medium, and heavy. Saving throws splits into fortitude, reflex, and will. Strike Attack Bonus splits into simple, martial, and advanced weapons and unarmed strikes and is further split by melee versus ranged. And Spell Attack Bonus is constant across all traditions after the Remaster, but which attribute applies varies by tradition. That is 38 numbers that are modified by attributes, not counting special class abilities. Strength (6) Simple, martial, and advanced melee weapon attack bonus, Strike damage, Carrying capacity, Athletics
To remove attribute modifiers without altering the final numbers, we would need to replace them. For example, fighters could have a +2 melee attack bonus, a +2 ranged attack bonus, and a +2 boost to one of those two bonuses. Finesse melee weapons can use the ranged bonus. And you could bring back the class skill bonus from Pathfinder 1st Edition to give a fighter a bonus to Athletics and Intimidation.
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