Matthew Pittard's page

I have a Paladin who is level 10 and the issue has been gnawing at me for a while.

Ive read the Paladins code/clerical code for Iomedae over and over again and every time I do, I think something else that I dont do quite right about the way I portray my Paladin vs how they should be.

My Paladin was part of the Worldwound Paladins who were charged with protecting the people of that area against the Demonic forces. However Roland was far kinder and more compassionate than most of his fellow Paladins.

He was sent to the Pathfinder Society to be a bridge of sorts between both groups. Of course now that 'theme' is over, hes had a bit of a crisis of faith. He seems the good the Pathfinder Society can do, but as a player Im not sure Iomedae is a good fit for him anymore. He dosnt seem to be as agressive as he should be for that Deity.

Can someone suggest a different God that he might move towards? I dont mind if its someone obscure (like an Empryeal Lord) just a valid choice for a more compassionate type of Paladin.

Thanks

Its hard to believe these playtest document is actually more than a couple of months old now but it is.

I managed to get in just in time to get my Nagaji Spiritualist off the ground. He joined the Pathfinder Society because of his Spirit, which is the Spirit of a former Pathfinder Agent who died in battle (a barbarian).

However I havnt really heard all that much (or seen that much ) in here on people talking about their Occult classes in here in games. Locally Im the only person who is playing one of the playtest classes which makes it hard to talk to others about it.

Ive also noticed sadly that Ive yet to see any Scenarios with references to Psychic pheonmena or the like. No enemies either with any links to psychic activity.

I have managed to get to 3.2 from playing and dm credits. Ive had a lot of fun going between an angrier possessed character to a calmer solo Spiritualist.

How are other peoples Occult playtest classes going?

Im actually trying something a little different here.

Ive attempted to build the same Glaive Wielding character in both Core PFS and 5th Editions Adventurers League, Gertrude Van Zorn, the Human reach based Fighter.

Ill let you know how it goes

Hi,

I have a Bones Oracle who worships 'Anubis' in PFS. Hes a Pahmet Dwarf who has effectively been ostracized from his people due to his tendencies and his false beliefs.

Whilst he follows Anubis, Im not certain.. well Im pretty certain he is not following the core beliefs and employs the use of undead (something Anubis is pretty much opposed to). Is there another God in the Pantheon that is PFS legal which would more likely be the source of the characters powers. Im still trying to keep to the Osirion Pantheon if possible.

Thanks

Hi,

Like most of the people here, I have more than a few Chronicle Sheets. An ever increasing total means an ever increasing amount of paper that needs to be stored. So I use display books like this to do so:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/portfolio-folder-durable-clear-pockets/dp/B002B2EL9 G

There are many variations of such portfolion/display books. The benefits are obvious. You can not only store the current character sheet in the file with the chronicle sheets you can double side within the sleeve so you free up sleeves for spell pages or companion pages. Looking through Chronologically at the characters history is also easy and with the occasional audit or inspection by the table DM you can simply hand the file over for the gm to peruse at her leisure.

It is also a boon for players. Storing all your chronicle sheets in one file means you can easily track what adventures you have played and when as well as identify quickly where you bought the items you did. You can also add additional sleeves if needed. Plastic Sleeves also protect the life of the sheet, everyone has seen what happens to the physical life of a chronicle sheet when its not stored properly.

Of course losing the file means you lose all your chronicle sheets, but thats true of storing them all together with a bulldog clip (which I have seen many times).

Do you have other methods of storing your chronicle sheets? If so please share them.

Hi Shadow. Have tried contacting you , no response. Please call me on the number I gave you via personal message

Am in room 490 . Will leave the second room key at the front desk as I'm leaving the hotel to go for a walk

Hi,

in my tour around America Ill be in NYC during the above dates. Whilst Im there in my tourist capacity, I would love to find some PFS going down there at some point during that time.

Where is PFS held there? (Im staying in Manhattan, Lower East Side)

Thanks!

Im playing a Samurai/Fighter in a Rise of the Runelords campaign. Whilst obvious the Inner Sea Gods Hardcover only addresses the 20 Major Gods of the Inner Sea Region, there are obviously other regions with Greater Gods of equal importance.

Ideally I thought reskinning would be the way to go in regards to perhaps looking at Iomedae as an equivalent.. however as Shizuru is the god of Honor and Samurai, the Paladin enchancement offered by Iomedae does not ring true

Does anyone have any suggestions of a viable reskin I could look at?

Deadly spam

Hi,

Just a bit of background information.

In another thread currently running we have been talking about a possible new Taldor book and someone mentioned Sarenrae and was guessing she was now worshipped in Taldor (because the anti Sarenrae sentiment expressed in the original Taldor book is not replicated in Inner Sea Gods)

Whilst the lack of such information does not convince me that worship of her is still not tolerated there (I consider the omission of the Sarenrae reference for Taldor an error), it would be interesting to know if people think this has changed.

Golarion for me has always been a very interesting setting. From nations with constant revolutions, a Maltheist nation, a Gothic Horror part and so on. The fact that the Taldors equated Sarenrae with their bitter enemies Qadira (who still have border skirmishes) was very interesting. It also created great story points (which PFS has exploited over the years). If it has occured and Sarenrae is now back in the good books in Taldor, Ill be a little sad for setting continuity.

Does anyone else share my view?

I am playing a Oracle of Bones and was wanting to know if Anubis might be a good source for his powers. Having just read his description it seems he is more opposed to undead.

Am I reading something wrong?

Last weekend I was in a game with 3 out of 4 of us being Paladins playing Haunting of Hinojai.

Sadly the 4th player was playing a Bard, but it did get me to thinking. Does anyone out there try to set up a theme table? Perhaps all Dwarves, All Bards etc

I have been thinking on which character I want to take through the 'retirement arc' and then on to seekerville.

In regards to spell access (and perhaps for those who have gone before) what sorta spell access will I get should I decide to take my Fire Elementalist/Bloatmage to the higher levels? I know Level 7 spells generally are not available re learning spells for PFS but what happens should I get to the level when I can pick two level 7 spells for my book? Do I not get them?

Any advice would be beneficial as the time of no return is quickly approaching.

Hi,

Im sure someone out there has done this before

Now I understand that you cannot overlay say a Black Tentacles over a Black Tentacles. People will not get grappled twice et al.

What Im wondering about though is for spells like say Tar Pool or Sirroco which both last in rounds with each other or black tentacles or a combination of any of these spells. Are they effective?

If I trap people in with the tentacles, then use Sirroco do they get thrown up in the air then fall prone back into the tentacles? Do the tentacles stop them from being thrown up? I know the Sirocco wont damage the tentacles but I was just wondering how effective overlapping area radial effects are.

Any useful combinations would be appreciated!

This two books are nearing released or have been. I noticed in Inner Sea Combat this was listed:

Two new prestige classes—the Pure Legion enforcer and the Ulfen Guard.

Now Ive noted the Pure Legion Cavalier archetype has been negated for Society play.. Im hoping the Pure Legion Enforcer does not go the same way (although i would think they were made for each other).

Inner Sea Combat though as a name for a product just seems off.

This is a speculation thread

If everyone dosnt know there has recently been several announcements of future Pathfinder products mid/late year: There are a technology companion, a sourcebook on Numeria and several other related products.

Now PFS does not incorporate all the rules that the paizo products bring, however Id speculate at least some of this stuff might see some limited play. (if only as background ideas as people build a themed character for Season 6)

Anyone wanting to speculate on what options might open up?

Hi,

A bit of backstory,

Ive run a few scenarios in the past where I have managed to get dominate of and 'working' on characters in the group. It's not a spell Im all that comfortable with (versus say Confusion which is a lot less open to mystery).

I struggle to be able to reconcile what I can do with dominated party members (even charmed ones). Ideally Id like to turn the fighter on the lightly armored wizard hiding up the back or on the similar squishy type or on that Paladin who is really #@$%#$ me off with the whole 'double damage vs evil outsider businees'.

Sadly that sorta direct action antics requires saves as it's not something the character in question would normally do. (and lets be honest, there really is little point in dominating some characters whose saves are ridiculously high by the time you get access to the Dominate spells, then we have the 'Ioun stone crew').

*************

What I am after is advice on what to do with characters I have dominated. When the during combat actions say 'Dominated X will protect the big bad' what exactly is that. Can I sunder the persons weapon? Trip them? (To me everything sounds like a instant save for the dominated character).

Any examples of what I can do would be appreciated. The spell just seems incredibly weak to me.

Hi,

I thought Id post this here since a lot of people use their Herolab for their PFS characters.

I upgraded to the latest IOS for my Ipad yesterday and now guess what? Yeah you know it.. Herolab now crashes to the main screen (ie it dont workee no more).

So if you were thinking of upgrading that IOS... PUT IT DOWN and STEP AWAY!

If like me, its too late and you are reading this after the fact, well apparently it will be fixed in a few days.

If you have players who bring their ipad only to their sessions with no paper printouts for characters (because 'eww its paper') then you are either going to get a lot of people dropping out or lots of people using pregens until its resolved.

Im going to be making my first trip to America soon with my PFS characters coming along. Is there a likelihood there will be an Eyes of the Ten Game being run at that time?

Ive noted lately a lot of posts of people unsure of things in regards to what they can play/use in Pathfinder society.

Im also unsure if these people have read (or know) that the Guide to Organised play exists as well as the Additional Resources document.

When I first started to play my gm told me that It was mandatory to read/ own a copy of the most current guide to organised play and the Additional Resources document. If I wanted to know if something was legal to use, I needed to check in there before I asked.

Are we getting a generation of players who use herolab now exclusively and rely on that program to tell them if something is legal? What happens if Herolab isnt updated nearly enough to keep in line with Additional resources?

If you are unsure if something is legal, check the guide to organised play. Check Additional resources. Use Ctrl-F in a PDF document to search via word if you need to. (If you dont like having to read through page after page)

Try to do this before you ask here. We have no issue at all answering questions, but some questions should never need to be asked.

Anchoring Aura (Su)

At 8th level, a paladin’s aura hampers extra-dimensional travel by evil outsiders. The aura extends 20 feet from the paladin. Evil outsiders attempting to use abilities such as dimension door, plane shift, or teleport to leave or enter the aura must succeed at a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the paladin’s level + the paladin’s Charisma modifier); failure means the ability does not function, as if the outsider were affected by dimensional anchor. The aura functions only while the paladin is conscious, not if she is unconscious or dead.

Alternatively, as an immediate action, the paladin can expend one use of her smite evil ability to target an evil outsider within 30 feet with dimensional anchor. A targeted dimensional anchor persists even if the paladin is unconscious or dead.

This ability replaces aura of resolve.

I run a Paladin who has just gained the power Ive posted above.

This might be a bit of an 'airy' question. Can an evil outsider tell there is something like this active? I know the rules that you can work out a spell effect, you can however identify when a spell/spell like is cast/used. As this aura is always on, would I be right in assuming the evil outsider cannot work out what it is or does the fact it needs to make a save to use its powers means that it can sense that something is not right?

Also does the Immediate action Dimension Anchor allow for a save by the creature being targeted? No save is listed in the power above. The spell itself normally requires a ranged touch attack and requires a SR check. Again no such thing is stated above.

Thanks for any advice on this.

Quick question here. (Im asking it here because I would need the PFS version of the ruling)

I understand the rules for upgrading weapons and armor.

I have a character with a lesser version of a metamagic rod. Can I 'upgrade' this item to a metamagic rod (ie the midpoint version) if I have the fame and coin? Or does this fall into the 'cannot upgrade named items?' category?

This guys have been been mentioned for a long time but no actual domain/portfolio writeups as yet. Could we perhaps finally get to see them in this AP? Please? :)

Hi,

I like many others run a Barbarian character in PFS. It took me some time to think up a concept for the Barbarian until I saw the piece in a released product on the Shoanti. I like their backstory (in regards to their oppression by the 'colonialists' from Cheliax)and their current views

I focused on the Shade-Quah (and how do I properly pronounce that btw?) and came up with Bleeding Bear.

He is ex Shadow lodge and I came up with the fact he had been 'rescued' after falling in battle by Grandmaster Torch.

I decided to go with the Spirit Totem and envisioned that the spirits grew more numerous as he 'absorbed' the spirits of those he killed who in turn joined the others at lashing out against his foes.

My questions are:

A) Does anyone use the Shoanti as a base for their barbarian/class?
B) How common is Spirit totem barbarians (I was one of 3 on the same table recently)
C) Am I right in thinking that the Shoanti are at least partially based on the Native American culture?

Hi

I have a Barbarian rager who has the elemental rage power which lets him gain extra rage after taking elemental damage.

My question is: Can My rage rounds of 28 a day be exceeded if I gain rage rounds from this power? Thus say

I rage for a round, take 12 points of fire damage and gain 3 rounds of rage. I stop raging, becoming fatigued. I started at 28 rage rounds, lost one but gained 3.

Does this mean I am back on 28 rage or have I gained 3 more and gone to 30 rounds of rage to hold on to?

Thanks

Hi,

As part of my quest to get more high level games running locally, I have decided to run the Mantis Prey.

I will be running it at 10-11 and have a few concerns

A) How do I keep the Warriors alive longer? Im concerned they are very fragile for the Tier (Also Warriors? Should of been Fighters!)

B) In the 'Prison/cage' scene, does anyone have any tips on running this 'encounter'?

C) Ideal location for the Alcemically charged BBEG?

Any suggestions are gratefully accepted, I have major concerns that some optimised local characters are going to mincemeat my monsters

I did not see another thread for this.

Arcanacon in Melbourne, Vic (One of the oldest conventions in Victoria) is fielding a fair few PFS events.

http://www.arcanacon.org/

It is being held over the Australia Day long Weekend. Events start on the 24th and run through to the 27th at the Melbourne High School in South Yarra.

Hi,

We recently had sort of a mini convention locally (as part of a huge LAN party/event). Basically they provide us the space, we use it as a way of getting in a heap of new players.

One of the later games was The Accursed Halls. (Yeah Yeah.. that deadly mix of intrigue and wightness)

I had been running Master of the Fallen Fortress at the same time and had just finished. There was a group of players and gms from other tables who had started to congregate around the Halls table. After finishing up paper work I got up to go take a look (had played it already) and found that the party of 5 were in the throes of the battle with the Wight/Zombies.

Then a character was slammed by a wight. A Level One version. Jeremy a local gm wanting to check his facts spoke to our new VC about the exact result of that level drain. No more than a minute later though, that initial advice was overturned and the table had its first death. The guy took it in good faith.

Then the next character fell (apparently there were some amazingly bad combat attack rolls in there). So the party of 5 was down to 3. The gm had not cottoned on yet that you get new baby wights outta this deal. The realization on some of our faces were pretty visible :)

There was yet another death as another character went down and the gunslinger who was still on his feat was hitting those misfire numbers a lot. It was looking pretty dire.

One of the characters got back up. The new wight He was in turn killed again by one of the still live adventurers. Yet another wight in transition was coup de graced by the same character. The final new wight was also killed.

Now this may sound painful and nasty for new characters, but they took it in their stride! There was laughs and smiles all around that table as the new form of pvp emerged!.

The 2 still alive characters escaped and got their solitary 1 exp , but it was certainly a great experience for all of us gathered around watching.

Hi,

Im hoping to run this soon for some very new players and was wondering if some better resolution maps had been done for this by someone? Ive tried to scan the front of my copy so I can enlarge it for a decent print, but have had no luck.

Thanks

Ive created 2 other threads on topics in this vein: Character naming and Naming your items/ weapons.

In musing on the topic of personalising PFS experiences though, it got me thinking about a topic that few people pay much attention and it seems nowadays fewer actually take.

Vanities.

There is a wealth of these which are taken because

A)they make selling things more profitable
B)the make busying things cheaper
C) Coming back from being dead is a lot less financially painful.

However there are others that rarely get a look in and some which are undoubtedly ignored completely.

Thus.. and this will be a spoiler laden topic:

If you have picked up a vanity, do you have a story behind why you did? Did you find an npc in some far flung place and decided he just had to be your new porter? Join the Assassins guild because of a run in with some Mantis types?

Paint a picture if you will behind your vanity.

Random Monster encounter table.

My Wizard would love to buy these but sadly he wants something a little better than a +2 cloak. After one buys this item, can it be enhanced at all?

So like many of us here, Ive been looking through the 51 paqe playtest guide. Ive never built a character with Companion up before so Im going to give this one a try. (Hunter)

Ill jot down some points

A) The Animal Focus are interesting. Im not a particular fan of the set 1 minute powers. If I had a pool of time/rounds I could use it over that might be better

B) The Animal focus might be better if it was paired with the animal companion the character selects. Also expand the choices for companions, If I select the Bull animal focus (+2 to str I believe) then it makes no sense for my animal companion choice not be a Bull (and bull is not on the list). Perhaps give the Companion a bit of a boost to the corresponding stat.

C) I have never taken a teamwork feat in my life. Can someone tell me the gist of them? Ill track down the actual text of them later on but please tell me more.

This came up in a different thread but I thought it deserved it's own topic. I also created a thread some time back on character names.

This one is all about named weapons. Weapons (or armour) that you name because it means something to you and its built up a history

To start the ball rolling Ill go first

My Galtan Musket Master Samuel has a Musket called Bearington. It was named after a fellow characters pet Bear , Bearington who died in the end of Slave Pits of Absalom. So as an ode to her Companion, thats the strange name my +1 Corrosive Holy Musket got.

My Shadde-Quah barbarian, Bleeding Bear has a +2 Adamantine Earthbreaker. I haved named it Spiritanger (He is all about the Spirits and thematically when he rages, I say the spirits emanate from him are fallen monsters/ creatures he has fought in the past and killed)

Mt Bloatmage Rahotep, has quite a few items, but his most expensive possession is his Headband of Superior Intellect +6. Ive always envisioned it as a repository for knowledge from others... otherwise the skills it grants you makes no sense). Ive yet to name it.. if anyone has any suggestions Im open

I just receieved an email concerning the new Hybrid classes for Pathfinder and their legality for PFS. Anyone else get it? I cant open it at work (damn filter!) but its there.

Im due to run this in a couple of weeks and have concerns i might hit a derail point early on.

I have noted that is possible to have a rather large scale battle with Ploog and his guards (with the likelihood of bringing in the Ettin to join in). At least 2 of the players/characters Im likely to have might try to provoke Ploog into this battle. I have noted that he will state that it would be foolish to attack him there and then, but I still think its likely that at least 2 of the pcs might drag the others into a grand melee at this point

A) Has anyone else had this happen? If so what did you do?
B) What else could I do to dissuade the group?
C) Is it possible to complete the adventure this way?

Thanks

Greetings Guvnors and Ladies of the Pathfinder Society,

Me rescuers told me I might want to put me name out there ta see if any folk would be wantin a skilled type who is good with hes hand and is able to open up the most secret of places.

They also said you might be wantin to know who I am.

Back on the Rusty Drake, people used to know me as Treasure Chest. I was often in the shore party where old Jackal and meself would quickly be able to locate the loot in question and then most of the time be able to abscond with the riches leaving the chest behind empty for all ta see. Sometimes though, the empty chest would make a goodun hiding spot .. cause nobody expect anyone to be hidin in it.

Sadly old Jackal passed away from consumption back in the Black Pearl of the tropics some time back and things were lookin dire as I made the mistake of signin on with a cursed boat.

But like a shinin beacon of the water Queen, Besmara a ship full of Pathfinders managed to rescue me ship and sadly due to a misunderstanding kill most of the crew on board. Luckily they had heard of me exploits and skills. Way I see it, society much like any ship. You got cooks and people who got skills to do different things. Lots of Captains too.

Don't feel too sad for me though. Ive had some laughs on the way, ive gambled under the watch of the sawtooth types, ive swum with the devilfish and stolen their eggs. People tend to overlook the little folk which can be good and bad.

At any rate, I found meself a cheap place of residence down in the puddles and am willing to offer me services as an explorer, investigator and society member to the society for a very small fee. Just please dont be making fun of the hook.

Garrick 'Treasure Chest' Jinx,
Former first crew of the Rusty Dragon and Society member (current).

Recently I participated in another thread on why do you like to gm?. It got me thinking on the different responses and a few people mentioned cons/conventions.

Now this is going to be probably a little stereotypical, it seems that there are some players/gms that only game at conventions. They might go to 2-3-4 a year, get in an OD of gaming and then none for another couple of months till the next con.

As a GM (and I cannot answer this for I have have never gm'd at a con), is there anything that separates a convention gm from a games day gm?

Im seeing the few obvious things

A)Overload on the gm to be able to get enough gm credit for free X( either lodging or other)
B) Being forced to accept poorly constructed parties
C) Having your game fold because of last minute no shows
D) Possibly not having a good location to store gm tools between sessions (ie having to carry everything around with you)

By the same token, are there any gms out there who only gm at Game days ? (Public/ Private). I fall into that boat because of the lack of local conventions although I think I would jump at the chance if it arose.

Greetings fellow brothers and sisters of Andoran,

My name is Samuel Revell, I am originally from Galt and now 'ply my trade' as a Pathfinder in the Pathfinder Society.

Recently I received a Missive from Major Colson Maldris, a man all of you should know and may of indeed met at points in the past. Whilst I spend little time in my adopted home, I was surprised to learn that elements of corruption and nepotism now fester within the wings of liberty.

One thing that has always separated my place of birth to my adopted homeland was that one stumbled from crisis to crisis of its own making to a country which was able to deal with any crisis through the strength of its people. I have learned that some people in Andoran thing that the right to lead is their right alone and not to be shared or passed on.

Indeed some people in power now bring their fellow family in on the deal, creating worthless positions and titles.

I did not leave Galt to end up in Taldor. We must stop this notion of entitlement here and now before things deteriorate. Do not doubt that Cheliax smiles at our corruption and that there are those who would see us fall.

This is perhaps my longest ever letter and it will be my last, for I do not see a need to ever repeat what I have said here.

Servant to the Eagle,

Knight Captain,
Samuel Revell

Bit of a heads up:

We are a group of PFS DM's who play in the same Rise of the Runelords game. The rule is each of us runs an ap in this campaign and my turn is coming up with the Hook Mountain segment.

Our last battle was in the Clock Tower with Xanesha. She survived and ran away to fight another day.

Where would be an appropriate time for her to reappear in the next segment? Would she make a deal with the Fort Rannick types or should I bring her in earlier along just before/after the Graul place?

Thanks

Hi,

Prepare for a somewhat rambling but I think needed post about the first special to be run in Perth , Western Australia.

For a bit of background. Callum Prior is the Venture Captain of the Perth branch of the PFS. Hes constantly working on expanding Pathfinder in our state /city and managed to get us a location at Good Games ( a great store with a lot of game space on a Sunday).

We like many groups have struggled somewhat with people signing up but not turning up and for a while it looked like we might struggle to get enough players for tables (in the end we had 27/30 sign up).

I started playing in August of Last year and started to run games back in January. I must admit I prefer running to playing. We have a pretty good local core of GM's and those spots were filled (so I got to play)

I had played in the previous special in Melbourne earlier this year. If I'm brutally honest I cant say it was my favorite scenario at Arcanacon and in looking back... it felt very similar to Diamond City in the city under siege feel/city under attack.

I decided to run with Nesim, my Qadiran Paladin of Neshen who had just made 3 (at the 3/4). He's not an optimised character ( I struggled to build them) and I was a little concerned (Years ago at a different special, a long time player who I had known commented that you should always try and have a character in the top of a tier or if you are just between play down.. they could be deadly). In hindsight I probably would of been better of running a different character.

Callum was walking around giving us updates on the fate of Neroysan and it appeared our table wasnt doing too badly. That is of course until a later act where we came up against a strange Minotaur Demon on the battlements. The resource push and drain wasnt too bad, we had at least 3 characters capable of using CLW. None of us could handle a Large Greataxe though. A Nasty weapon at any tier , my Paladin was Crit'd then had 3 6's roll on the first of 3 rolls. He was dead right there (ended up going from 28 to -29 in a round.

As luck (or bad luck had it) I had the only character die in the special. As Im sure anyone who reads this feels .. a little sad/ bitter to lose a character ( as a fresh level 3 he was never gonna have the prestige to come back). However he went out fighting Demons which is how it was probably always gonna go. Ive moved on (and he was mostly a gm credit character). Sadly it's pushed me to more optimised version.

Enough about me. The Special. The other tables (of which were mostly Tier 1-2) were going well. We had a lot of new players who seemed to enjoy themselves and will hopefully come back for more. Callum ran it well, the gms knew their business and everyone got a very slick Chronicle sheet.

In Essence this is just me saying a big long thankyou to Callum for the event, to Jason for killing my character (thanks :) ) and to all the other players for a great table.

Lets just not do it on Fathers Day next time! :)

With this recent blog post :

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lf8m?Advanced-Class-Guide

looks like we can expect to see more base classes and thus options in society. I was a bit staggered to know there are 10 'new' classes. Thats a lot.

anyone getting any ideas yet about new character concepts?

Anyone know if this is still happening this year? Id need to request time off work but I havnt heard anything about it this year.

Thanks

This is a players view. There will be spoilers.

Played this on Saturday with my Level 10 Musketmaster (a first level 10 scenario). There was also a 10 Sorc, 11 Fighter, 9 Cleric and 9 Paladin. I was pretty confident. Whilst this was my first Pathfinder character, he has only died once before (level 5) and could dish out a lot of damage.

I had stocked up on things to counteract Darkness, fear effects etc. We received plenty of buffing from both the Cleric and Sorc.

The herald of Lissala died in 2 rounds. I managed to crit with a Musket in my first attack and combined with a certain feat enabled me to worry less about DR. The Paladin finished the creature off but that kill made me very cocky about our likelihood of success.

What we did wrong is spend too much time disabling the runes which in turned gave a certain Runelord time to not only buff but bring in friends.

I tried to create a List of what we fought in that last battle

1) Krune
2) Magic Staff/ Artifact?
3) Dark Naga
3) Head Clerc/Priestess
4) 2x Shadowdancers
5) Bebilith
6) Large/Huge Earth Elemental
7) Succubus
8) Babau
9) Medium Fire Elemental

Runes had been setup all along the corridor behind the door to the room next to the awakening room. Between the Cleric and Sorc, they tricked out the Fighter to absorb and heal the damage as it was metered out. We then move enmasse down the corridor only to encounter the Cleric, Dark Naga and 2 shadowdancers (thats what the gm called them.. dont know what they actually were) . The lightining Sorc used his stunning ability to 'lock' the room down while we all had resistance to the damage. Krune became active and summoned in a whole plethora of buddies (those listed above). Combined with some lucky saves and a Haste both the Fighter and myself managed to take down the Bebilth, before a Cloudkill cast after a Black Tentacles locked down one side of the room . In fact due to the Cloudkill con damage and some nasty hits.. what came next was kinda appropriate

I took 76 damage (after a successful save) from a Empowered Maximised Horrid Wilting. Game over.

The Cockyness fade and I scrapped together the prestige to get better and be recovered.

I ran my first Chase scene (courtesy of Midnight Mauler) yesterday.

I cant say I liked it at all.

It felt very artificial, the rolls were extremely difficult for some of the smaller speed characters in the party (In fact Chases seems to by nature penalize gnomes/dwarves and halflings). And what the heck is the pass both rolls , jump multiple squares thing?

In fact to provide an example, the first square there is a CMB check to open a entryway on a collapsed building. I had a player ask me after someone had gone through this doorway, why it wouldnt just be open now for the next person to simply go straight through without difficulty.

I couldnt really give them a great response.

Hopefully Ive seen the last of the Chase

Matthew,

who has found the one thing he really dislikes about PFS.

Hi,

I've seen lately some character names that well... need some work.

It's often one of the things that as players we do think of last in the creation process but I believe that the name you give the character matters.

I know PFS is never going to go the way of the names we see in mmo's. Im a Neverwinter player who is astounded at the lack of imagination people put into naming their characters (if any at all).

If you dont know what to name your character , use a name generator. I used the Baldur's Gate generator for years. Do a search in google, you will find a Plethora of generators not only tailored for race but also class.

Thank you Mark for your reply. I had a long reply in turn adressing the points you made but honestly, it's not worth my effort. Good luck with the company.

I have a few comments about this latest round of price increases, which I'm sure will go over about as well as anything that isn't overly supportive of Paizo on these boards.

1. There's going to come a point where the glossy panels, copious artwork, wide margins, etc... are going to simply be too much of a burden on the consumer. And frankly, I think you're close already. To add my voice to the others, I already only get the bare minimum in books for PF2e and this is only going to cut that amount down. Moreover, when I do buy Paizo product its either (a) on sale or (b) secondhand. And Paizo products do seem to be on sale more and more often.

2. Using inflation as a crutch is a non-starter for me. You've set up shop outside of Seattle, Washington (The Seattle Times this year listed Seattle as one of the 10 most expensive places to live in the US). Its just basic math that you have to charge Seattle prices to make a living in Seattle. You have to pay your employees, your taxes, your utilities in Seattle dollars. Which is fine, except, surprise! not everyone lives in Seattle. There's people who play in the Midwest, in Appalachia, in small towns all over the country and your "passing the cost onto us" will continue to drive them away.

As a small company, I simply cannot see how this is a successful long term strategy for you. Yes, prices are going up - but they are going up for everyone - not just Paizo. And when it comes to the choice between people paying for rent, food, school, clothes or a bloated sourcebook that costs nearly $100- because every third page is glossy splash art, most people are not going to choose the latter. Moreover, I'm sure there are people like me who are looking at the remastered editions and thinking "maybe this is a good time to try another system" - not WotC and not Paizo. Because I can get more value for my shrinking dollar by looking for games with a little more fiscal discipline.

the feat is waaay too situational for a 14th level feat. and honestly the damage is middling at best for a 14th level caster, considering the unlikelihood of it actually going off to any real effect. I expect 95+% of the players will bypass this one.

I don't understand this new design philosophy where so very little is impactful in any part of this game. It's all so underwhelming, and frankly for the amount of money we are expected to fork over for rules, modules and accessories, the game should be epic. But every step forward seems a step away from epic.

the acronyms make my head hurt.
I'm fully expecting the hybrid amalgam License framework for using only part of the ORC license next.
Yes the HALF-ORC.

I'm clearly in the minority here, but I find these edicts and anathemas to be very vague and superficial - almost to the point of racial stereotyping. Maybe we will get better ones in the Highhelm book, but reading through these give me very little sense about what makes a dwarf a dwarf.

Popular Edicts
create art with beauty and utility - how is this dwarven? If you put this down and asked me to pick an ancestry to go with that, I would have guessed elven or human.
hunt the enemies of your people - again, could be anyone. I would have guessed half-orc or lizardfolk.
keep your clan dagger close - obviously dwarven, but this still feels like something tacked on late in the process.

Popular Anathema
leave an activity or promise uncompleted - this is probably the most dwarven one out there, but it still seems like its poorly worded. Are dwarves obsessive about contracts? Would this make Asmodeous somehow appeal to them? Or is it that they toil diligently at a project? And maybe one of their shortcomings is the ability to pivot away from a process that isn't working?
forsake your family - Again, very superficial. At least, this should be clan? After all, its a clan dagger, not a family. Still, I would have worded this as "stick with your clan and kinsmen above all else" or something like that.

Also the phrase "popular anathema" sounds weird. Like its something they are jockeying for. You know, all the cool dwarves don't forsake their family. 'Common' may be a more apt description.

At this price point, this is an amazingly hard NO.

I left Hero Lab for a reason. But I fear the writing I see on the wall. This is the beginning of the end of the "free ride" for Archives of Nethys and Pathbuilder. Its also the beginning of the "math creep" to go with the "feat creep" that is already in full swing. At least in PF1, you could make fun characters that did amazing things. Sure, it was a bunch of work, but the math wasn't so absurdly limiting that it sucked all the fun out of the game.

Depends on what D&D fans you're talking about. Old grognards who cling to their OD&D copy will likely not care. But sensitive, centre-leftist anti-capitalist kids who got in the game through the Critical Role/cosplay/"I can be a trans nymph here, and nobody will judge me" pipeline? WotC might be severely underestimating how toasty and quick to self-ogranise against a corporate cash grab these rainbow folks are.

I'd love for that to be the case. I was thinking more that apathy and taking the path of least resistance seems to be the way things go these days and therefore most people wouldn't leave or be particularly perturbed by the move.

Lol. I'm jaded by life is all :P

WotC has a VERY long shot here, but it has a shot. And in American law, where business-to-business litigation is brutal and frequently more about who has the money than who is right, a long shot might be all they need to win.

Moreover, they don't necessarily need to 'win' any court case. They simply need to ruin the business model of their competitors. How long can Paizo exist, for example, if they can't sell 90-100% of their product? How about Hero Lab? Owlcat? Pathbuilder? etc. etc.

Court cases tend to drag on. If WotC can get make their new OGL enforceable while that goes on.. it's going to be game over. Because frankly, while the outrage among the rest of the RPG will be immense and overwhelming, the outrage among DnD fans is likely to be muted at best.

I'd be curious to see what's actually new and different with their take on dwarves here. Giving each clan a "theme" is nice and makes for good storytelling, but I feel that it hardly expands what it means to be a dwarf. If anything, this feels more like dwarven society is bounded like a caste system. How will that play in Paizo's usually diverse and opportune-rich world?

They've created a new discussion sub-forum for Kingmaker2E.

Perhaps some mod can shift this thread over to there?

Yeah, I agree. There seems to be a ton of info and I’m not even sure where to start. What are you doing for maps at the table?

For maps I bought a chessex battlemat and some dry erase markers. I'm going to use the hell out of that. I've got some artistic skill, so I'm not worried about that. Minis (pre-painted and unpainted) I've been collecting for the past decade, so I'm good there.

The kingdom map I'm using is this one that I made back before this project was announced. I have an 11x17 print out of it as a GM aid and I went to my local office copy place (Office Depot in my case) and made a 24x36ish map which they also laminated. That cost me like $40- back in 2018. But the hexes are 1" / square. I plan on hiding the unexplored hexes with round stick on labels.

Other maps I will draw as needed. There is a rumor that Kingmaker will be out for Foundry VTT and I can't recommend that VTT enough.

Lastly, I plan on making the PC stronghold out of foamboard once the party decides on a floorplan. Or maybe LEGOs. hehe. As GM I try to keep my party's interest with a fair amount of 'wow' (and also good GM Skills).

Anyway, I also haven't read all of it, so I may be missing some context of what's in the 2E version that's driving some of your comments. But they are saying that they've added content to the AP that wasn't in the CRPG, so there's that.

I did skim through the new version of the kingdom building rules, and that looks more compact, which could be a plus. Still, I can't ever really get a good feel about rules systems without playing them; just reading them isn't enough.

I agree that the pages look great, and I can't wait to get my physical copy.

Yeah, I'm a little wary of the new kingdom building rules. I've already decided to ditch the army rules for a homebrew of the old AD&D Battlesystem rules. I'm kinda shocked how easily those could be ported over.

I'm not sure what they did add that wasn't in the CRPG (which I haven't finished tbh - on the equivalent of Book 5). What I am seeing is this weird mix of stuff nearly verbatim lifted from the original AP, maps, images and all and stuff that seems to be lifted straight from the CRPG. I find it a little janky at times, but that may be me.

I am looking forward to the books, and I am looking forward to GMming this. We're doing an in-person campaign and kick off in ten days. I've been through KM as a player so I'm fine just with the updated stat blocks. But whereas the 1e KM was almost not enough info and the GM filled in the cracks, this one seems a pile of too much material and the GM will need to weed out bunches of stuff.

We'll see how it plays. That's the thing.

(Warning: I haven't really dived into the PDFs yet, but I did skim a few of them.)

Regarding the advice on awarding treasure for a PF1 game, it appears to be a matter of "look it up in the original PF1 PDFs". But how well will that scale with the added content and potentially higher-levelled characters? Apparently the PCs can end up at character level 20+ if all the encounters are used.

And, as stated above, I haven't had a chance to see how well the Kingdom Management system converts from PF2 to PF1.

Yeah, you're on your own for PF1 treasure. The skill system is a lot more compact in PF2 - there's fewer skills and the numbers don't go as high. There may be a conversion somewhere put out when PF2 came out, but I'd look at skill #s from the PF1 book as a guide and adjust by +/-5. Or, you can do what I do - listen to how the PCs decide to solve a problem and if it's good, a decent roll indicates success and a bad roll indicates failure.

One thing that stood out for me was the traps. I just glanced through the bestiary and I don't think I saw traps in them. So you may be on your own for those.

And yeah, a lot more encounters.

I haven't read through it all (the AP alone is 600+ pages) but from what I've seen I think I can come to some tentative conclusions.

1. The book is overall well done. It seems to follow the computer game fairly closely, which could be a plus or minus. There's a lot of content in there, so I feel confident any GM can mix and match material and still have plenty.

2. The map is problematic. The map is simply a reprint of the original AP map, hidden away in the back of the AP. The map is still not oriented with north and I don't think that they ever resolved the Stolen Lands / Brevoy / Iobaria map conflicts. On the plus side, I like how the Stolen Lands are divided into 20 sections - one for each level - with level appropriate wandering encounters for each.

3. Mivon appears to be completely ignored again (likely because it was more or less ignored in the CRPG). Again, this is a huge wasted opportunity IMHO.

4. There appears to be no Gazetteer at all in the product. I understand that we could use the 10+ year old materials from PF1, (I mean, we could have used the 1e AP in its entirety), but one major point was to flesh out those parts of the original that 10+ years of feedback had laid the groundwork for.

My honest appraisal at this point is that while the AP is well presented and organized, it falls short of the original intent of these hardback second endeavors, which is to not only present the material in a compilation, but also to expand and fill in those portions which were lacking in the original work. Instead, the new material seems to be taken almost exclusively from the CRPG. Where the CRPG filled in the missing parts well, these additions are welcome. But considering the promises throughout the dev cycle, the repeated missed dates for completion and the simple fact that this edition was less about new content and more about converting existing content (namely stat blocks, etc), the end result has to be disappointing to some degree.

I finished up TG with mythic PCs a couple of months ago. I should probably get around to writing a "lessons learned" thread for the benefit of anyone else who wants to try it (and run TG in general).

In short, I found the premise of the AP to be very exciting, but the execution thereof to be very flawed. These problems were only compounded by the addition of mythic tiers.

For the record, the party of 6 wound up with 5 players at MT 4 at the end and one at MT 9 (for plot reasons). I homebrewed the WT to my own specifications, making him *very* difficult to kill. In the end, there was a Thanos-like moment where the MT9 PC had to slice off the hand of the WT which held the remaining shard. Then he could activate the shard himself and double-detonate it. He learned how to do this because, as a side quest, the PCs learned how to consolidate their individual obols into one PC (the MT 9 PC). Reasonable calculations beforehand suggested to me, as GM, that that was the PCs best chance to survive and win.

Behind the scenes, Absalom and the Starstone were destroyed, the WT's ultimate fate was decided by the Starstone (which encompassed the remnant spirit of Amaznen - Azlanti god of magic). I also used the event to say goodbye to PF1 as a ruleset for our group - we have since switched over to savage worlds. PF was great, but 1.5 hours to go through a round of combat was boring.

Leading up to the final battle, there was very little that the PCs could not handle with 3-4 mythic tiers each, even though they played the whole AP at 2-3 levels below what was recommended. (the PCs were 16th level during the final battle). And yes, most encounters were bumped up 1-2 CR. There were simply too many options available. (Although I flatter myself that I have a particularly good and inventive bunch of players).

In the end, the biggest complaints was not the quality of combat or magic items, but the overall tone of the AP and the nature of the WT's plan. The tone was problematic in that, after about book 3 the horror motif became numbing and tedious (the group almost gave up after book 3). Book 4, in particular, I tossed and replaced with custom content because it was obvious that the PCs would have bypassed most of the book, anyways (really? walk to gallowspire?). I took that opportunity to allow the PCs to learn more about the WT's plan and collect more allies. Which brings me to the second point - the isolation of the PCs. Most of the AP makes it seem like the PCs are working alone against the WT, which is completely nonsensical if the WT is actually as threatening as the AP makes him out to be. Moreover, there was considerable question by both myself and the table as to why the WT would want to take on the entire world at once. In any event, I'll detail my improvement to his plan in another post. Suffice to say that the rudimentary nature of his original plan was *the* major disappointment for the party, and one that needed correction on the fly. Like many movie trilogies, the scattered clues and hints that Paizo put forward in numerous publications beforehand made the railroaded nature of TGs disappointing in the end. Of course, the alternative would have been a much more nuanced campaign that involved considerably more geopolitics and world-spanning. I don't know whether something like that was ever on the table and got pulled due to 2e being developed simultaneously, but it's unfortunate we got what we got.

In the end, you can make it mythic if you want. Your end result will be longer combats, with more OP bad guys and meaningless dungeons. The final battle will be the same regardless whether you keep it canonically in the wasteland or bring it to the starstone cathedral like I did. And, likely, at the end, you and your party will be burned out on the ruleset like we were.

Not really? Paizo isn’t making you use all those options.

Yup. And Paizo is not making me buy their books. Which is why I stopped. But see, they'd like me to buy their books. It helps them to stay in business.

So yeah, your dismissive comment is true... to a point. As is the presumed comment of "If you don't want to buy them, why are you making a fuss and commenting here?" The answer to that is equally simple and obvious (to some). And it is this: By having forums, they are implicitly seeking out reactions to their products and services. If all they get is reactions from people who knee-jerk like everything they produce, that's not really helpful or constructive. And since it's statistically unlikely that they will appeal to everyone with every product, listening only to those who agree with everything they do will only result in a smaller and smaller market base. Which, as I've already pointed out, is detrimental to their continued existence as a company.

Paizo used to innovate, not replicate. I miss those days. *shrug* but i guess I'm just the dismissible minority now.

We live in a world where a statement like this is not only a serious statement, but an all-too commonplace one.

"Plus by connecting your Paizo account with Pathfinder Nexus, you get a significant discount on purchasing books you already own!"

ooh, I get to BUY what I already HAVE? Well, lets see.. I have physical books, I have pdfs of physical books, I have them on Hero Lab, I have them on AoN and now I can have them on Nexus?

You see where people are starting to get a little peeved? Oh, you don't see? Well, see ya.

Whenever people rush to the boards to try and pressure Paizo into action over something, I cannot help be reminded of the lesson Paizo devs told me again and again during PF2s playtest. I'll paraphrase that here:

The message board community represents only a small percentage of Paizo's overall demographic. Moreover, the message board community almost invariably does not represent the feelings of the larger pathfinder/starfinder base.

This was said repeatedly when people on these boards were nearly unanimous in disagreeing with the devs over rules mechanics and direction. Essentially their response was "you aren't important".

I've seen nothing in the months and years since then to dissuade me from that as Paizo's official stance, regardless of my likes and/or personal interactions with individual Paizo staff.

Basically, temper your expectations. In the long run the likeliest outcome is that nothing will happen.

So, running through book 5 and I've noticed along with others that the level names are switched in the Blue Gardens of Tlil. Also, on the map pack, the top 2-4 rows of the map have been cropped out.

The module is more than two years old. I presume Paizo has no interest in fixing either of these errors?

I see that Paizo is moving towards 3 book APs which cover only half the level range. I think this is a great direction to head in, but I also think that this needs to be further subdivided. Let me explain why.

The one long standing criticism about APs (which many of you are already intuitively aware of) is that there is a very difficult transition around the end of book 3 and into book 4. For whatever reason keeping the same plot with the same characters and the same BBEG is really hard to do consistently (basically twice a year). Paizo does it better than most, but even their efforts are problematic at best.
So I like to look back to the old Mystara campaign setting for guidance (really, basic D&D did SO much correctly). The "official campaign" had four distinct stages (pre-Immortals)
1. Karameikos dungeon crawls and later city crawls.
2. The Master of the Desert Nomads invasion and the Known World
3. Norworld, and understand the relationship between the empires of Thaytis and Alphatia.
4. Fighting the immortal Alphaks' plans.

Each one of those things was a campaign in itself, and you could play each one individually. They didn't really wrap into one another, either, which makes sense. It doesn't always have to be one world-ending threat (in part, because you eventually run out of threats). If anything, a single campaign like Tyrant's Grasp or Jade Regent or Strange Aeons taking place over several weeks or months feels unnaturally forced, narratively. Its great marketing, but its terrible storytelling. Think of how much better Tyrant's Grasp would have been if the party started at Level 10 with the destruction of Vigil.

The only exception really is Kingmaker, because there are appropriate natural pauses built into that campaign. Ruins of Azlant has similar, but fewer and shorter pauses.

What is forgotten by people who didn't grow up with 1e AD&D, etc.. is that you're not supposed to be able to jump from level 1-20 over the course of a year (real time or game time). Back in the day, if you gained three levels a year playing at typical frequency, it was considered a fast campaign. And things slowed down even more at higher levels (9th level and higher). I power-leveled my ranger-illusionist in my last AD&D campaign (10th level ranger / 10th level illusionist at the start) and he gained a total of 2 levels, 1 in each class, both of which he was partway to at the start. Plus an additional level from a magic item. That was over 2 years of regular playing and 7 modules. Clearly, we weren't playing the modules to level- we played them because we enjoyed the story.

I think APs need to move to 3 volume sets which cover approximately 6 levels of experience. At the beginning and end of each AP, there should be suggestions to which modules these APs can connect to thematically. Then the players can mix and match themes based on their tastes as well as swap out GMs to avoid GM burnout. When a group gets close to the end of AP 1, the GM for AP 2 can already be prepping their turn. In the end, by making the modules more focused and taking up a lesser percentage of the PCs' career, I think Paizo will win out financially as the sale of older modules and APs will be able to better keep up with newer ones. Having those older works continue to bring in $$$ (especially digitally) helps everyone including the developers who aren't feeling the pressure as much for the current fare to be a "hit".

We are about done with book 3.. The party is set to tackle Yosiduin in the next session and Vigil is going to blow up at the same time. This will bequeath the party with their second mythic tier.

Yosiduin will have two mythic tiers and be 15th level. I figure that ought to put him about par with 6 L9 Tier 1 mythic characters.

I've found that I have to up the CR between 3-4 for the party at this point. I'm pretty much rewriting every meaningful encounter now. It's not terrible, hero lab makes it easier. It'll probably jump to a 4-5 CR change after the party reaches Tier 2.

I should also add that my goal is for the party to start Book 6 at Level 20, so I'm deliberately compressing books 1-5 as well as adding additional content.

I will also add that with the party of 6 as L8 Tier 1 mythic characters, I altered the Erstwhile Kilibrant ambush encounter, turning EK into a mesmerist and the two slayers into stalkers. Properly prepared and outfitted with potions, etc.. the three nearly TPKed the party. The paladin and cleric went down in the first round before they could attack.
(The point was to put a little bit of the fear of god into the party again).

I'm going to stick my neck out a little here and voice a concern. The last printed thing I think which has been posted to the internet was a brief update at the start of July by Legendary Press which stated the first draft of the AP had been turned over to Paizo at some point previous. The update before that, at the start of April, lent the impression that from Legendary Press' perspective they were almost complete. April link

As of April, from an outsider's perspective, things seemed ok. Skimming back through the PaizoCon Q&A there's a reply by Lisa Stephens which, in retrospect, sounds very cautious about release dates (about 1:07 in) . But I think the impression I got from her response is that it sounds like this is an undertaking that James is doing almost single-handedly? Moreover, it sounds like there's a lot of rewriting going on, and that the subsystems are only being put together now?

So, I think from a backer, and an end-user's perspective, you can understand the confusion and concern going on. We have almost zero insight into the day to day activities at Paizo and I think, for the most part, we assume that things are fine unless we hear otherwise. I don't think any of us mind the increased delay if we have some understanding of where the project stands. These are difficult days, after all. Its just from our end, things looked on track for a Nov-Dec 2020 release date and now that timeline has doubled, at least. Its concerning. And as much as we appreciate the new art, to be honest, I have to concur - we love paizo for it's content, not its pretty pictures.

So if you could speak to these concerns I know I (and probably others) would appreciate the effort, even if the information conveyed is disappointing.

Thanks, and stay safe.

Wow. that's quite the delay!

When it raised it up, the two may have been connected. In the intervening time, erosion may have separated them. Happens in the real world with new islands.

Ooof I just saw some photos of how the actual paint jobs look and this is now a hard pass.

Paizo really needs to convince wizkids to make as much of these sets available as primed, unpainted minis. Some great sculpts in here, but the paint jobs ruin them. I want to give paizo my money, but I gotta have standards too.

One thing i would love to see is unpainted (or well pre-painted) sculpts of the inner sea pantheon. they could be released as a boxed set, like the iconics.

You can find the map here . Comments welcome, particularly on whether I got the old hordelines, etc... correct.

If anyone's interested, I redid the map of Lastwall to add in a lot of the small things that weren't in the AP map. You can find the link here .

A couple notes:

-The border forts on the western edge of Lastwall are alluded to, but never explicitly mentioned.
- The ferry to the NE just seems logical.
- the roads are also logical inferences and are the main roads within the kingdom.
- the purple dashed lines are former Hordelines. Lastwall lost a lot of land.

Enjoy.

When I read the description of the two necromancers in room L7, I was immediately struck by how atypical it was.

these half-elven sisters orchestrate the activities of other lesser cultists in the area. Oradi and Savenna joined the Whispering Way when they turned 18, looking for a drastic way to reject their tradition-bound family. The sisters look nearly identical; each is tall with red hair and freckles. They even prefer to dress similarly, wearing matching robes of bones. One of the pair wears small, round spectacles, which is the only way some of the cultists can tell them apart

To me, this sounded like a couple of rich kids in their early-mid 20s rebelling against mommy and daddy, and I played them up as such - a combination of the stereotypical 'valley girl' and 'greenpeace activist' with more than a touch of emo-goth thrown in. In other words, they were in it because of the excitement and because it was so distasteful. Life in their manor home (I put their homeland on the border of Kyonin) as upper aristocrats was stifling.

They were also a more than a little cruel and crazy. But even though they came off as alternately cunning and ditzy, they weren't stupid. In my campaign, the PCs rested between levels 1 and 2 of the Bastion and overnight VQ discovered that someone ransacked the lower level and set a trap for the PCs upstairs. The PCs cleared the whole floor before they reached the two girls. As such, the girls realized they were completely outclassed and surrendered immediately.

Want to confuse a party? Have the bad guys immediately surrender. The PCs spent an HOUR trying to figure out what to do next. They even used the candle of truth on them. I thought for awhile that the party was going to come to blows over the decision.

The cleric of Iomedae and the paladin have been talking non-stop about killing the prisoners (which I'm keeping track of, as GM - we'll see what happens there) while the Neutral mage is willing to let them go. And the bard is a local so she lost her family in the town and wants to slit their throats. Meanwhile the inquisitor of pharasma is stoic about the whole thing.
As for the two girls? They're pretty certain mom and dad can come and "pick them up at the station" and everything will be ok. Ah, to be young and privileged. lol. Meanwhile, the one with the glasses has taken to swooning at the paladin (who is a tiefling).

As GM I look forward to seeing how this resolves itself.

Serisan wrote:

.

At this point, my players were all very tired and we agreed to skip the last two encounters. I had been planning on skipping the Rotgrub Swarm (they have no means to kill it) and I didn't mind skipping the Living Walls.

Agree the Rot Grub Swarm is an egregious monster to put in this book. There are no area damage treasure in the mod (we've found one scroll of fireball), and no opportunity to get them.

Any time an AP puts you on low resources, it needs to avoid obstacles for which there is a single solution (as you're not likely to have it). Only hope a party has is an AOE arcane caster, and that might not be enough for an 85hp swarm at this level.

I am also skipping this encounter.

I am skipping the Living Walls as that encounter just strikes me as dumb. I am adding an encounter, however. One of the PCs has a family relation who was buried in the cemetery.

Guess who is coming for dinner!!

Hear me out...

There's a strong argument that casters have been nerfed too much. Having played a bunch of 2e, I tend to agree. But at the same level I don't want the linear-quadratic problem.

When we first got 2e, I get the impression that cantrips were going to be the workhorses of the caster's arsenal. That would have made a ton of sense. Cantrips were the utility spells that casters knew so well they could do them at will. The spell slots were the "game changing" things that a caster would pull out during those dramatic moments. And so it makes sense to limit those and turn some into rituals, etc..

But cantrips are watered down compared to what martials can do at the equivalent level. Moreover, a caster can only have 5 cantrips up at any time. (Granted you could choose spell substitution - but any option that becomes mandatory is a terrible design choice).

But I think that a lot of the above problems can be solved with a couple small rule tweaks.

First - make all cantrips 1 action. I know they have multiple tags - usually verbal and somatic. But.. seriously? You can't talk and wave your arms at the same time? I know why they did it, but I maintain its a terrible design choice. Cantrips are supposed to be those really short bits of magic that are literally at your fingertips.

Reducing a cantrip to one action would also make them subject to the -5, -10 multiple attack tax. Thats fine. I don't expect the third attack to hit anyways (unless you're hitting a stationary object or something). But it allows you a reasonable chance to double your damage and that puts you on par with the martials.

Second, I'd add a couple more cantrip slots. Or, failing that, to relearn a cantrip with a minute of review in your spellbook. This makes cantrips a little more versatile.

That would be a good first pass at restoring the balance. It gives casters something to do. Ideally, you'd also rebalance your Level 1-9 spells and spell slots so that they would packa little more punch and be available a little less frequently. And we'd also have a few more cantrips to cover the everyday things you could do with magic.

An update -

Beyond the much appreciated thanks I received was the repeated request to have a 'blank canvas' (i.e. just the terrain) version of the map. So I spent some time tonight and put together just that kind of map. Note: this map is also slightly larger, with a little more land to the north and the east than the original map. Enjoy :)

Iruxi sound great! Eagerly anticipating rolling up one as soon as I get my hands on the material.

Small quibble.. you mention geologic timescales here of millions and then billions of years. I'm with you on the millions *thumbs up*. But the billions? Macroscopic life on this planet has been around for a tad over a half billion years. Are we officially saying that geologically speaking Golarion is much older than the Earth? That is certainly possible and could have interesting ramifications moving forward *cough* Absalom station *cough*. Or is that just a moment of exaggeration that got out of hand?

does she turn good before she dies or is she still evil and just happens to hate the Tyrant like the PCs do?

I believe that is also intentionally left ambiguous. Though I suspect actual "good" may strain credulity past the breaking point. Less evil? I can see that. Neutral? That'd be a hard sell. My roadmap for her is to still be a bitter, old lich who is moderately surprised that doing the good thing worked out for her. Because remember, it was in 'doing the good thing' that she got into this mess in the first place. There are serious trust issues.

I'd say, from what we know, that she's not going to suddenly be altruistic and benevolent. It's too much at once. Maybe there's an AP somewhere in the future which will address that, once she makes her presence known to the world again.

Not actually an encounter - but the overall map. It would be great if you could (a) resolve it with respect to the rest of the world (b) orient it so that north is "up" and (c) include a little more of the borderlands so that players have a much better idea as to where they are with respect to Brevoy, Mivon and Pitax. This last in particular as the stolen lands map actually overlaps Mivon when you orient it onto a regional map.

Many people worked on this problem in the past decade. My solution is here and you are free to use it, whole or in part. That would be sufficient for adventures in the Stolen Lands

A larger, regional map might look something like this. In our campaign, I added an extra book (Book 5.5?) in the area to the east as the PCs explored a lost Taldan colony with a sinister secret. It also gave the PCs an interestting alternative to trading west - trading east to Casmaron! And you can see how a larger map works and helps out the GM by quantifying the landscape. It would also be useful for narrating a Brevic civil war or trips to Iobaria.

So in the weird moment of the evening, the paladin in our party took pity on Berthold (I really played up the craven aspect of the ratling) and adopted him as a minion. He promised Berthold he would get him out of the Boneyard without him having to resort to the contract, but that in exchange, Berthold has to do what he says and be 'good' (as good as he can be - its a work in progress). I was having so much fun playing this craven, yorkie-sized, absolutely hideous looking cretin. And now he gets to ride on the paladin's shoulders and be the tallest. Berthold is having a blast.

Lets see how long the party can keep him alive. lol. If they can level up with him, I'll add a level of rogue to Berthold to keep pace. Who knows, there might be a ratling facing off against the Whispering Tyrant by the end.

It's these completely left field occurrences that make me love this game so much.

@Dracovar

Yeah, we have a similar decision to make. Our campaign has been running for 7 years in PF. Moreover, I had a 1e campaign (which actually started as a basic D&D campaign) that I converted to 3e. With that older campaign I eventually gave up on hard conversions and did it more by "feel". Yeah, an 18 strength might equal a 23, but the feats, etc... made the character feel completely different.

My solution to this problem was to try to pare down each character to it's 'concept' - i.e. what was he/she really known for. Then try and replicate that in the new system and see what was left over. It didn't always work, but it usually came pretty close. It was a bunch of work, but about the same as trying to convert it using a formula.

The question is, as always, is it worth the effort? Like many people I have a ton invested in 1e and it's now "complete". I can rest, knowing that there won't be anything official added to it going forward. It's still a bloated, unintuitive system. Is it worth changing?

My feeling is that we'll migrate as a group if 2e is fun. And since we are only in book 1 of Tyrant's Grasp, we have a while to defer that decision. We're thinking of running a few short sessions of 2e in between books to see how it plays. As said before - fingers crossed it's good.

As I read the guide the overwhelming message I get is that 2e is a completely new game from 1e, sharing only some superficial nomenclature with the older edition. And for me, that's fine. 1e was increasingly becoming an unwieldy beast.

It reminds me of trying to covert from 1e (or 2e) to 3e in DnD. You could hand-wave it, but a mathematical conversion was nigh impossible.

Here's hoping to the success of this new game :)

So.. serious, science-y question:

Will Near Space have information on the size and luminosity of stars as well as their distance and direction from Golari- I mean Absalom Station?

I want to know what the night sky looks like.

The number of repetitive complaints about the ending is bordering on trolling at this point. We get it. Some people don't like the ending. You know what? It's an RPG you can change it. No one is going to come to your house in the middle of the night and change it back.

I imagine these people knocking on Tolkien's door in the 1960s demanding that Isildur destroy the ring because otherwise the whole story is stupid.

So in my game where the PCs are mythic as well, the cost to saving their souls is to trap some of their essence in the kumaru tree. That costs them at least one mythic tier to do so - permanently reducing their tier as well as their potential maximum tier.

With the WT, I'm going to have it work the same way.. if he survives, he will lose at least one and probably several mythic tiers. As such, he will have to lay low for quite some time before threatening the world so directly. That is, once he reforms, which itself could take a considerable amount of time due to the nature of the damage.

Tyrant's Grasp is the Rogue One AP for pathfinder. Jyn and Cassian are on death missions, and neither of them knows it until the end. Moreover, the PCs death isn't meaningless, nor a time-out that only gives the world a brief respite. The feedback loop at the end destroys the Radiant Fire as a usable weapon by Tar Baphon

'Unlike the Whispering Tyrant, whose death marks his failure and loss of the greatest weapon he’s ever known..."

Want the PCs to survive? that's perfectly acceptable. Your party comes up with an imaginative way to escape. Adventure Paths are frameworks around which to construct a campaign. While you can run them *exactly* as intended, likely your experience would be much improved by modifying, adding to and increasing the depth of the story.

Hi all,

So I thought it might be useful for people to see how I'm running my non-vanilla iteration of TG. Who should read this? GMs interested in running this AP. Who should absolutely not read this? Anyone thinking of playing in this AP. You have been warned. Also, let me know if this thread is inappropriate to this forum.

As a reminder, I'm running a 25 pt, mythic version of it where most of the players are not from Lastwall. If it's ok with everyone, I'll post a wrap-up of where we are after each session. If there are questions, I'll try to answer them as best as I can. To give a sense of how fast we proceed, we play weekly for 3-4 hour sessions. We are a pretty heavy RP group.

The party: We have a party of 5, with a 6th joining in the fall. They are:
Rina - a paladin of Aroden's teachings.
Nico - a cleric of Iomedae from Vigil.
Cole - a wizard with arcanist leanings.
Rava - a Garundi ranger.
Deci - a bard from Roslar's Coffer.

We started our campaign in the kingdom of Veridia (this kingdom was created at the close of the Kingmaker campaign we ran from 2012-2018). I ran a short adventure beforehand, heavily adapting the Night March of Kalkamedes and ending with the party coming into possession of the amulet called the "Grace of the Last Azlanti". The reasons for that and the GM plan for the AP can be found in this thread. The short adventure took 3 sessions and was very light hearted. But it solved the initial problem of getting the party working cohesively and gave them a reason and macguffin to travel to Lastwall. They also had a meeting with a withered old crone (Arazni). At the end, I let them level up to Level 2, which means they started the AP at level 2. Having seen what was coming up, I thought that a 25 pt buy and level 2 were appropriate.

Session 4 was spent travelling from the River Kingdoms to Lastwall and getting some immersion into its culture. The party had a chance to spend their reward from the little adventure and get some nice new shiny objects. They spent a lot of time on this. We ended in Roslar's Coffer where the party met up with Deci's extended family (who owned the inn). Everyone else in the party made friends in town. Then the town got nuked.

Session 5 everyone woke up in the Boneyard. They had none of their equipment. I honestly felt it was more appropriate to the feeling of detachment for that to happen - also it explains a certain encounter in book 2 better. They only cleared the initial room and the next room. They were very resourceful in using whatever they had as improvised weapons.

Session 6 saw the party cutting through the lower part of Roslar's Tomb rather quickly. The paladin with power attack was very effective even with less than ideal weapons. They got all the way up to the mites in the room with the animated hair. I should point out that I amended the treasure here to have loot that the party could use as weapons and armor- for example, craftsman's hammers that could double as light hammers. Daggers. A few first level scrolls that could be used for cleaning and moving things. Things that a clever party could use to their advantage. And they also had the advantage of being 2nd level. All in all, they did very well getting to this point.

So I made my first character using these sheets. Specifically, I used the "printer-friendly" b/w ones. Two thumbs up on the layout. Two thumbs down on the stark contrast. What I write (in pencil) gets lost in the sea of black ink on the form. Writing it in blue ink doesn't help much. Green ink shows up a little better. I'm considering red or orange.. but honestly, I shouldn't have to.

I would recommend releasing a greyscale pdf with the black at 50% darkness to make it easier to pick out handwriting.

looking at the color one printed in greyscale, it looks better but could still use a whole bunch of improvement with respect to color.

Added: I toned down the black significantly via photoshop. Obviously, this is a matter of taste. Regardless, here's the alternative. . PM me if this breaks some sort of rule and I'll take it down.

What was your primer for gaining mythic power? I've been contemplating using mythic for my campaign as well

The first 'nuke' in RC. Prior to the AP, the PCs find an artifact called the Grace of the Last Azlanti, which I think has some cool synergy with the obols.

Anyway, I write about it (ad nauseam) in this thread.

Well, as my Core Rulebook arrived yesterday, this is quite timely. Thank you!

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm running my campaign with a twist, so YMMV.

I wasn't happy with a lot of the hand-waving that occurs throughout the AP. In this respect, it is a lot like Kingmaker. But that's also a good thing because it allows the GM to customize the AP to their party's liking.

Zi Mishkal wrote:

You know, it seems there may be a logical flaw in all this. If the radiant fire sends Tar Baphon back to his phylactery and he reforms there and his phylactery isn't in Gallowspire, then why couldn't he have killed himself at any time in the past and escaped his prison then?

That...is a very good question...

Isn't it though? The main problem being that if his phylactery was in Gallowspire, then it had to be very deep in Gallowspire to avoid the Radiant Fire blast above it. And even then, it would be problematic.. would you, as a lich, risk your phylactery?

Regardless, you now know *exactly* where the phylactery is - moreover, the WT is relatively defenseless. The goal at that point is to not capture or subdue the WT, it's to destroy the rest of Gallowspire before the WT can reform.

The alternative is that the phylactery can be moved away from Gallowspire, in which case, the original question is relevant. Why didn't he physically move it beforehand and avoid all the trouble?

Honestly, I see an ending where the PCs tweak the obols in their bodies so that one PC could be at Gallowspire and have that place go up a second time. The average party is going to realize that if the phylactery is still intact, then this is all for naught. A really good party will likely deduce where said phylactery ought to be.

(Edited to add below)

I took a long walk and thought about how to resolve this. the simplest solution is that the seal acted to prevent physical, magical and planar movement outside of its influence. At least that's my impression from the "Dungeons of Golarion" book.

The phylactery would likely be stored deep in that area. And with the detonation of the Radiant Fire, the phylactery could at last be moved. It would need to as even though the radiant fire didn't destroy the phylactery, it would have likely weakened the structural integrity of all the dungeons, making collapse and burial a distinct possibility. So the WT would have wanted to move his phylactery ASAP afterwards.

You know, it seems there may be a logical flaw in all this. If the radiant fire sends Tar Baphon back to his phylactery and he reforms there and his phylactery isn't in Gallowspire, then why couldn't he have killed himself at any time in the past and escaped his prison then?

Weird. This was supposed to go up after the Impossible Lands overview. Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Clearly you need to give us TWO updates in a day.

also pdfs of the core rulebook, please ;)

I AM MAD THAT I DIDN'T THINK OF THE ROGUE ONE COMPARISON FIRST. I AM HERE FOR THAT.

I pitched this AP to my group as PF's version of Infinity War / Endgame. And guess what? You ALL get to be TONY! *squeee* lol.