Megistone's page

JiCi wrote:

Don't wizards in the Harry Potter universe fire simple quick blasts with their wands?

That sounds similar, but with a staff.

Actually, from what I remember, they are always using their wands to cast what are considered full on spells in that setting.

The Gandalf/Saruman slugfest with staves from the movies might be a closer example from media.

In WoW classic some classes would auto-attack with a wand doing chip damage when they were out of mana, which is probably the closest flavor to what I'm proposing.

Nah, beware my melee priest and his staff instead!

Free Spell Substitution for all prepared casters who have a spellbook or similar stuff.
Wizard with that thesis get to do it much quicker, quick enough to be useful in combat. One action may seem too good, but if the requirement is to be wielding your spellbook, you may have to spend an entire round to swap a spell, unless you pay the opportunity cost of keeping one hand always occupied with the book. I think that some kind of cooldown would also be required before you can do it again.

I meant a 4x4 room in the scenario where the wight doesn't Ready its actions. As long as there is a Step or Straide it has to make to reach anyone (and there is, PCs can just stride from one side of the room to the other), the basic tactic works.

If the wight uses Ready (to Stride or to Grapple), space becomes less important, unless it's slower than the party.

The Carin Wight could just use the same tactic against them. Have it Ready an Action to Stride when an enemy uses a ranged attack against it. Unless you're having people fight the wight in the open field (instead of the cramped mausoleums and cairns they're supposed to be in), they will quickly close the distance on someone outside their turn, leaving them in someone's face to use 3 actions to strike-pursue-strike again.

Alternatively, it moves into range and readies to Grapple or Trip for when the enemy moves away from the wight (or when they attack, or whichever other trigger you prefer). Once immobilised, it can just maintain grapple and wail on them with its sword. Once tripped, a PC can basically no longer do their combo.

+12 Athletics means landing the grapple or trip is super easy, as is keeping the grapple going with it's first action (or tripping a character again) is almost a given, and then it has two sword strikes at +9 and +4, which against a level 1 PC is more than enough (especially since a succesful strike is likely to make them Drained 1 and make grappling easier) when they're off-guard.

If it's facing a party of level 1s in a confined space, they'll be dead sooner rather than later if they don't adapt. Remember the thing is Int +1, it's likely smarter than many members of the party.

Sorry for the late reply.

Let me clear the cramped space issue first. There's no need for an open space, or even a big room. Being able to Stride (or Leap) two squares away from the wight is enough, so I think a 4x4 room would suffice. A simple corridor also works, if it's long enough - in that case the group doesn't run in circles, but retreats one or two squares per turn: the enemy has to stop at the foremost PC, who will Stride behind the others when attacked.

Let's analyze Readying to Stride when attacked at range. The enemy would come close to the PC, and stay there because it's not their turn. It can't make its Final Spite attack in case it gets dropped, because it's out of reactions.
What it would accomplish is that the PC wouldn't be able to employ the tactic again that turn, being left with two actions only, so I guess that the wight would be able to strike a single time next turn (as you say, as it Strikes(wasted)-pursues-Strikes). All in all, by playing like this, the wight will be able to Strike once (with -5? Does the wasted Strike apply MAP? Interesting question) every two rounds. Granted, the PCs aren't expressing their best potential either.

Readying to Grapple or Trip could work when the PC doesn't have space to Step away (another question arises - would you let a readied action with a trigger on movement apply in case of a Step?). Again, it only puts the wight in a condition to maybe do something next turn.

But I have to admit that there are, indeed, things that the wight could do. Still, I think the way I rule simultaneous actions is more consistent, and better for the game overall.

Megistone wrote:

This tactic would completely shut down a solo melee enemy: [...]

It would certainly be a valuable tactic, but Ready is mirrored, and foes are supposed to be intelligent enough to adapt.

After one Ready:Stride dodge, the foe can invalidate the action in a large number of ways. Everything from ranged attacks, to first Grapple, Trip, or anything that disables Stride, etc.

If the foes combine this with Ready themselves, a whole plethora of options open up.
Things like Ready: "as soon as they try to leave my reach, or my turn begins, I Grapple a creature" to give the scary boss a whole turn up close and personal with a freshly grabbed PC.

.

And yeah, the most "potent counterplay" of this is simply for foes to instead target the PCs that don't spend 2A to hunker down into a ready stance.

If anything, this actually swings pf2's issue / 'quirk' with action imbalance away from it's abusable norm and back toward a solo-boss's favor.

Every creature on the field needing to spend 2A to create a "Dodge safeguard" to avoid a solo boss's attacks means that the more PCs outnumber the solo boss, the more actions the player side of the fight would have to spend for this tactic.

Imagine if all the martials Ready:Stride a dodge, then the boss just rotates to face the lone 6HP caster who reeeally wants that 2A chunk, lol.

There is no counterplay for a cairn wight (pre-remaster, I know, it's just the first example I found) facing a group of 1st level adventurers who exploit the ready-stride tactic.

What should be a scary monster (and a severe encounter) is going to helplessly chase those rookies as they run circles around it and whittle it down, with no chance of ever catching them. I don't like having a tactic that can be abused like that, in my game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I agree with yellowpete's answer. In case of an activity that allows you to Stride + Strike, when the gogiteth moves away and you don't have enough movement left to get it into your reach again, then you can't Strike it as part of the activity you were performing. You may be able to change course and Strike someone else, though.

This tactic would completely shut down a solo melee enemy: PCs spread out, pelt the creature with one-action range attacks, and Ready to Leap if under attack. The creature Strides to one PC, Strikes (wasted), Strides again to the same PC or another. That PC Strides while all the others Strike, and then they all Ready to Leap again. Combat solved.

How I see it: committing to an action, interruptions, and stack-based resolution of effects are things I liked in MtG. Don't get me wrong, I like having solid rules even in RPGs like Pathfinder, but this kind of games are based on a narrative that I can't completely ignore: the sword doesn't just stop mid-air until you have finished running 25ft away.
So, if you set a trigger that amount to "when an enemy has committed to attacking me, but hasn't done it yet", I will call this already cited rule:

If multiple actions would be occurring at the same time, and it's unclear in what order they happen, the GM determines the order based on the narrative.

and there will be no disruption involved unless there is (enemy incapacitated).

More class feats would be great, but even more needed are more ancestry feats (come on, many have got only a single choice in the upper brackets), and my pet peeve: alternative (or even complementary) focus spells for stuff like domain and arcane schools.

I think a book of 'meat' like this would sell well, even without having a clear theme to it.

Relevant in our latest session in AV, when fighting

The group has a kineticist and a magus, and they didn't figure out the (almost) blanket magic immunity despite trying different magical approaches and damage types to no avail, and the only Strike that landed dealing damage instead.
Eventually, the kineticist grappled the thing, and I described it as holding air that was somehow 'thicker' than normal.

Going back to the magic immunity thing, at one point the Magus tried a Thunderous Strike, hitting. I ruled that the included Strike did damage despite being part of a spell, without any additional effects of course.

Is it really still continuous if there is 43% more open space to pass through?

Rarity: extremely common :D

Hah, I called it, it's the return of Xan-Xan! :D

Most excellent, I've been craving Runelord content. Although now I'm worried about Sorshen. I hope nothing bad happens to her, she's one of my favorite characters from the setting.

Same for me. Now that I took the mantle of GM, my 'winner' character from Rise of the Runelords has got a future planned as a somewhat recurring figure in the new adventures my friends are going through. And being buddy-buddy with Sorshen is part of those plans, since they've got a lot in common.

I like it. The only part that I think isn't immediately clear is the one about standard and lesser concealment.

I understand the temptation very well - it allows you to plan your campaign better, and to show off the cool ideas you have for it. But, generally, putting your party in a fight with a predetermined outcome is something that should be avoided. Beating the enemy squarely and seeing it escape anyway, doesn't feel good.
Have a realistic plan for the BBEG to get away, but also have a backup option if it ends up being killed by the PCs.

Well human vision can see start up to 2,6 millions light years away. With Eye Slash now I can see 10,4 millions light years away.

Now the clear night sky is more brighter and beautiful for me.

Counter the red shift with one simple trick!

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Pharasma respects atheists. Per the PF1 Planar Adventures book, she will allow anybody who rejects the legitimacy of her judgement the opportunity to just wait out eternity in a quiet spot in the boneyard.

You could also just choose to be judged and become part of the foundation of some plane or another. She will respect your choice either way.

That is a strange definition of respect. If she genuinely respects these souls, then she should allow them to return home.

That would be respecting the laws of non-mortality though.

A different interpretation is that concealment works when you target, and you have to target before you can hit. The force thing you fire is unerring, but you may be aiming at the wrong mark.

Megistone wrote:

Errenor wrote:

Megistone wrote:

What's an oracle?

Oracles though are very distinct, like many of magical classes. Divine curses giving full repertoire of spellcasting abilities are rather outstanding. They could be called differently in different places though.

Yes, but what I mean is, why should all oracles in Golarion have access to an identical set of abilities and spells? If there is someone who gets unique bits of divine power from a stranger mystery, aren't they an oracle too?

Who says anything about identical sets though? And what is 'identical' when each feat is an ability and having different ones is completely normal. And identical sets of spells is kind of absurd. I probably don't understand at all what you mean at this point...

Sorry for the late reply. I mean identical sets of abilities and spells that they are able to learn, if they so choose. I don't think that it's something required for an NPC to belong to a class. A fighter NPC with some rogue 12th level feat they couldn't possibly get from the dedication if they were a PC, doesn't break my immersion at all, for example; same if they have sheer numbers unattainable by PCs of that level - they are just especially good at something. And if they happen to have access to some totally unique spell or ritual, even less.

Megistone wrote:

What is a wizard in the game world, though? Ok, wizards aren't the best example here because there are actual schools they can graduate from, but what's a rogue? What's an oracle? Is there some Golarion standard that grants you those titles when you show that you are able to learn a specific set of abilities, but not certain others?

A wizard is a savant that studied arcane magic (the "widest" magical tradition) to learn to control it. Now, the Wizard can be called a "sage" in it's culture, or a "mage", or an "adept", or they could even be called a "sorcerer", but it doesn't change the fact that the wizard is defined by "in world" characteristic, beyond the mechanic of their class. The sage, mage, adept and "sorcerer" of the four different culture could come together and would understand that beyond their title and cultural difference, they have sensibly the same job. Likewise for actual sorcerers, druid, cleric, oracle, etc etc...

No matter their skills or area of expectise, a wizard is a wizard even when we completely abstract the gameplay element, due to the fact that they all share well defined "in world" characteristic. Most classes are like this, I'd say the only classes that are mostly "gameplay abstraction" without hard in world definition are a handfull of the martial classes. Fighter, rogue, barbarian and ranger, any of those could be a mercenary in the same troop, or soldiers of the same rank in the same army, and while their way of fighting is different, that difference isn't as "hard" as the difference that exist between a wizard and a druid. "In world", I expect that a "bow ranger" that meet a "bow fighter" and a "dual weapon ranger" would think that they are closer to the fighter than the other ranger.

So indeed, if a human wizard PC meeting a human wizard NPC, there is an expectation that the NPC can't do think the player wouldn't be able to do if they had access to the NPC ressource and levels. "In world", they are the same thing, therefore they come with...

Well I completely disagree. I see little in-world reason for any two wizards (and even less for other spellcasters) having to have the ability to learn the exact same set of abilities and spells, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't break my suspension of disbelief that some wizard NPC has got a unique ability to use spells a different wizard (PC or not) can't access.

Megistone wrote:

What's an oracle?

Oracles though are very distinct, like many of magical classes. Divine curses giving full repertoire of spellcasting abilities are rather outstanding. They could be called differently in different places though.

Yes, but what I mean is, why should all oracles in Golarion have access to an identical set of abilities and spells? If there is someone who gets unique bits of divine power from a stranger mystery, aren't they an oracle too?

Because the way the developers envisioned PCs finding their path to immortality is by sticking to some kind of cause with great dedication. Just being very good at fighting or casting spells isn't enough to be a mythic character.

Back on topic now, on the subject of "NPC being allowed things the player can't have", I think the real issue here isn't the notion of them having different rules at all, and more about them not following the same rules on the few subject where they are directly comparable to the PC.

Obviously, a magical monsters can have abilities the PC never could. Obviously, the great ancient lord of greed have access for far more ressources and minion than the PC, he can possess multiple artifacts, all of that is fine. But that same lord of greed is still a human, and still a wizard, so the PC come to expect that in those regard, he work with the same rule they do, so if he suddently started doing things a player wizard couldn't do if they had access to all of his ressources (like if he was spam casting "quickenned mass heal" for exemple), then it's going to break immersion.

What is a wizard in the game world, though? Ok, wizards aren't the best example here because there are actual schools they can graduate from, but what's a rogue? What's an oracle? Is there some Golarion standard that grants you those titles when you show that you are able to learn a specific set of abilities, but not certain others?

PC rules are for PCs - who will have some abilities they probably won't ever see replicated by others. NPCs are something else, and they can also have a knack to do things in a way that is only meant for them.

My Thaumaturge player decided to go with starknife as his main weapon, but we are still at the other end of 'endgame'. I'll let you know in a few years :)

I didn't want to use Free Archetype (or any other optional rules) for my first PF2e campaign, but the potential fourth player backed out and I thought FA was a good way to compensate in part.

It makes no narrative sense to say that the rogue is incapable of not striking a weak spot - or, in general, that a character is incapable of turning off an ability they have.

The rules leave all these corner cases out because there is a limited page count, and since you are generally striking enemies and trying to do as much damage as possible, that's what is covered by the rules. And being a slave to RAW is pointless, because in an open game like this, you will always have to adjudicate things that are not covered by it.
What is useful is considering how your players could abuse the leeway you are granting them. In these case, I don't think they can.

The idea that minions are actually controlled by the GM dates way back; I remember similar discussions about animal companions in PF1.
It does make sense. It's just a playstyle that many don't like.

I for sure don't want to repeat the burnout I had when I started to write down my PF1 campaign, and had to stat a long series of NPCs. I got really bored really quickly.
To each their own I guess, but I'm glad that I have a way to do it differently now.

Shazam! (the superhero, not the genie).

Music Lore is an obligatory pick.

I agree too. A 3 PCs party doesn't only lack in 'power', but also in versatility; being one level higher than expected covers the power gap and can also give back some breadth of options; free archetype does the rest.

Megistone wrote:

Most people here agree that alignment was more useful as a loose guideline for monsters and NPCs behavior than the PCs' one.

An idea could be having a set of general behavioral traits intended to be associated with creatures; stuff like 'honorable', 'liar', 'cruel', etc..
Keeping the number relatively low, say around 20 keywords, could help sorting creatures by them if you are looking for a specific kind. Anything more complex goes into the extended description.
What do you think?

Honestly, I like mechanical traits more than such type of traits. Also, saying that "Red dragons are liars." is a bit weird. It looks like essentialism dialed up to 11.

If you intend on using creatures without reading the extended description then chances are high you don't really expect to roleplay them.

I mean, red dragons were tagged as Chaotic Evil beofre the remaster, which was always a guideline and never meant that one of them couldn't have a different behavior. If we extrapolate the behavioral traits "Arrogant", "Brutal" and "Greedy" from their description, we get quick suggestions about their typical behavior that could be useful to a GM to roleplay them, especially in case of a random encounter with "generic red dragon #14" or something like that.

Besides, such a system of non-mechanical traits could also be used for other things. Terrains, for example: I have seen people asking for a way to sort creatures by habitat multiple times.

Show up as Popeye the Sailor and say you misunderstood.

Slingslinger confirmed for future book!

But no slingunner.

Most people here agree that alignment was more useful as a loose guideline for monsters and NPCs behavior than the PCs' one.
An idea could be having a set of general behavioral traits intended to be associated with creatures; stuff like 'honorable', 'liar', 'cruel', etc..
Keeping the number relatively low, say around 20 keywords, could help sorting creatures by them if you are looking for a specific kind. Anything more complex goes into the extended description.
What do you think?

That's why when a powerful cleric comes to town, everyone goes to give their welcome and reaches out to touch them as the cleric passes by.

Yeah, I'm running this in foundry too. If I can figure out a way to blow up the dimensions of the rooms, maybe it can work...

I don't know if it works well with the premade module, but in general you can try editing the scene settings and halving the grid size.

I also second the idea of keeping the witch at level 4. If you don't want to add minions because you envisione the encounter as something with a lone enemy, you can still increase the challenge with one or more appropriate hazards.

As far as I know, spell attack rolls aren't ranged attack rolls. Tempest Oracle should be ok in that regard.

Megistone wrote:

Oh and I hope to hear something about the Battle Oracle, that's too bad to be true.

The removal of Martial Proficiency?

Having your weapon proficiency come and go is a problem rather than a boon. What happens if you miss your Strikes? You have to recast the spell (hard to do at lower levels, when your focus pool is likely just 1 point) or switch to a simple weapon, because your martial one has become deadweight.

Saying: "You have the option to do this, but it doesn't work and you die" isn't good ruling.

Oh and I hope to hear something about the Battle Oracle, that's too bad to be true.

There's the thing about the number of Oracle spell slots, too.

base on how cosmos curse are read it could mean -4 debuff against any damage effect that also include force movement

flame seem to have the weakest curse

4 persistent fire damage is not even noticeable at level 17 when cursebound can progress to 4

It's also the only one that becomes a bigger problem if you can't stop and refocus immediately after the encounter. It's still probably manageable in most situations, but unique in its way of hurting you.

The 10 minutes after a fight has pretty much always been there. The old red box d&d assumed that a fight always lasted a whole "turn" (10 minutes), because it included catching your breath, ensuring that the enemies were really down, checking their possessions, doing a basic search of the dungeon room, and other stuff like that.

Now, of course there are situations where that doesn't make sense - if you have to run away, for example, or if you are in some kind of gauntlet where more enemies are coming or you have to press on quickly. That's part of the game, but you are still measuring time in rounds in that case, and damage shouldn't accrue up to unmanageable levels.

I will try to expand on the idea I mentioned before.

The goal of this thread is brainstorming ideas to give casters more longevity and avoiding them getting starved (and less impactful) when the adventuring day drags on - which is also the strongest incentive to reduce the adventuring day length, often a narrative problem.
While the thread is about a theoretical PF3, and thus open to more groundbreaking changes, I wouldn't like to alter the system too much: I think that vancian casting should stay, at least for certain classes like Wizard, as one of different options - like it is now. Especially because no different ideas (this kind of discussion is hardly new) ever managed to to convince me that they would be actually play better.

So, I'll try to apply my idea to the current PF2e rules, and to prepared casters specifically (but it's easy enough to extend it to spontaneous ones). What are my goals here? The main one is extending the durability of spellcasters throughout the adventuring day, of course, while not giving them more power then they currently have. And also keeping things simple, without too much bookkeeping.

As we know, casters are intended to have roughly one spell per rank, for each non-trivial encounter - in addition to focus spells, cantrips and consumables. This is what the developers consider balanced, and it probably is; the problems can come from two directions: going nova, by expending more high-rank slots during the same combat; or the opposite, not having/using enough of them and thus having subpar efficiency and probably a bad experience. We are mostly interested in solving the second problem, which we can further break down with three possible causes: having gone nova earlier, being too stingy with those slots in fear of not having enough later, or the adventuring day stretching longer than expected.

So, what if we ensure that our caster will always have at least one usable slot of the highest ranks? We should be good: the PC won't ever have more spells than they already do (max power doesn't increase), and they will be able to contribute to every encounter enough, no matter how many of them the adventure requires.

Here is a possible implementation (probably not the best):

Conserve Preparation (Free Action)
Spellshape
If your next action is to cast a spell from a spell slot, you keep that spell in your memory even though the spell slot used to cast it is still expended.
The next time you Refocus, you gain that spell slot again, with the same spell.
Special: Until you Refocus, this can only be used once for each different spell rank.

Just giving this ability to Wizards, or to other prepared classes, would make them able to go on adventuring further, without touching any other thing in the game. The cost is some bookkeeping, as you have to flag which expended spells you will be able to get back.

A possible alternative based on the same idea: changing the ability into "Recall Spell", which you use to simply get an expended spell back (still one per rank, per Refocus) - that would give more versatility, and should probably cost actions (or maybe a focus point) so that you can't just spam more top-rank spells when going nova.

Does this address the problems I described? I think it does.
Going nova is still an option - those who like resource management are covered. This wasn't really the issue we wanted to solve, except that now the caster who threw everything at one enemy has got less options left, but is not completely dry.
Stingy players will probably be more generous with their slots, knowing that they can get back the first spell they cast with 10 minutes of rest.
And when the adventuring day drags on, the caster will likely still have something big to use, no matter how many other fights they had before.

If the expectation is to cast a top-rank spell for every (non-trivial) encounter, then a solution could be exactly that: you have a top-rank spell that you can recharge between encounters, like you do with focus points. Or more likely, one spell per rank. But if you want to cast more than one, you start eating into a limited and non-rechargeable resource that is then gone for the day.
There, you have both resource management and durability (if you can rest for a bit). And this still offers room for some distinction between prepared and spontaneous spellcasting.

Rather, the problem is that though the character Stargazer was supposed to be 3rd level like the rest of the party, the player had no time to figure out what feats and spells Stargazer would take at 3rd level. And she likes to read and reread all the feats before picking one. She had not touched her character sheet.

I'd suggest something that helps with the construction of giant towers of stone, or avoids crashing down into the desert sand.

Souls At War wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

So Goku instead of Worf?

Goku would literally wish for beings like Gorum and Rovagug to show up at his doorstep.

TBH Goku would go and free Rovagug and wait for him to be fully recovered and at full strength.

More like Vegeta (who actually did that with Cell), but I guess Goku would too.

The next edition will have the classes named C1, C2, C3...

2.5 feet forth, and 2.5 feet back.