One element of Judaism that's been in RPGs for a good bit are phylacteries, which in Hebrew are called* Tefillin (תְּפִלִּין), although the RPG varieties usually only concern themselves with the piece worn on the forehead and not the one worn on the arm.
In trying to find something Golarion-specific some months ago, the only thing I ever found were some of the descriptions of the people of Lirgen and Yamasa (The Sodden Lands) after the onset of the Eye of Abendego and their subsequent diasporas and enclaves in Jaha and Absalom. I'm not sure if those were intentional or not.
* Fun fact for reducing stress when typing Judaism-related things! Because all our words are Hebrew and then transliterated into English, you should never worry about misspelling, since it's all just about the same!
Likewise with what Jared said, thank you for this blog and L'shana tovah. It is sadly not surprising at how rare our culture (and thus our voices) appear in RPGs, so community outreach blogs like this are quite welcome.
Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:
(Though I am not sure the Conservatives and the Orthodox would agree on who was which...)
Remember, Jared, just as it's a murder of crows or a crash of rhinos, I believe the formal definition for us gathering is "an argument" :P
Out of curiosity, what do you think in Pathfinder would match up best to a Georgian KHANJLURI (main bit starts at 2:42 and best bit around the 5:00 mark) type of concept (aside from a Sarenite-ish dervish build, which almost seems too easy)?
Continue to love your work, and hope to see you at Gen Con again this year!
I must say that ya'll have much better questions than I do heh - the ones I'm unclear on are much more mundane than most of the ones I've seen on this thread:
Bloomington Indiana - about an hour South-ish of Indy, for me.
Even if it meant missing Gen Con, I think I'd rather pick Japan to southern Indiana, to be honest...
I'm not adverse to playing another PbP (I have a hard time really getting into them except in short, concentrated bursts of dramatic posts, heh), but with how much I've played and GM'd over the last few years, there's only so many I can do for-credit, yannow? :P
GM, again, thank you tons for running this, especially given all the complicated mechanics and map issues!
I'd love to do the next one, but I've actually already played it with my Oath of Vengeance Paladin (who took a little *too* much pleasure from dealing final blows to more than one named enemy in that scenario).
As far as Gen Con - there'll be a bunch of geeks in orange and red and purple and green shirts, methinks :P
You can ID me from this past Monday's PFS blog - or - failing that, I intend to fly the Jolly Roger flag at my table when I'm GMing (9/10 slots, since I am also a poor grad student and having a free hotel room and other stuff is very nice).
Hope to get to meet you there, and thank you, all, again! :)
I'm a big guy, so trust me when I say that this is difficult for me (especially with a bad knee and bad back) - but if this is the Blakros museum, I might literally jump for joy!
Granted! You invent it, but the very first time you test it, you warp yourself back to the very moment at which you invented it, creating a small ripple in the fabric of space-time, and forget how you did it the first time around.
I wish I had an easier time finding journal articles for my research.
@graystone, that gives me a thought... there aren't any telekinetic powers to let a PC control multiple objects, are there? I was about to edit my post to say "or make your character a juggler and use those both in- and out-of combat", but even if you tried to imagine three small objects as suspended in a "matrix" of telekinetic force, there's no mechanic that would allow that (something that, to a wizard, would basically be a refined version of Prestidigitation...)
@zergtitan, I thought about that too, and decided that my character carried around Baoding balls, so that if a fight started, he could simply drop them as a free action and use them if nothing else was available (and then use Light Touch to return them to him telekinetically after the fight).
Deepest condolences here as well, Mark. Real life > game, always. I am *quite* sure people will still be here arguing tons of different ideas when you're back.
It's been asked before, with no answer coming from on high yet. I've noted that Force Blast + Toppling Spell would be a neat combo for a Telekineticist...
...and, purely for my own benefit/reminder, questions I've asked on the official playtest thread that haven't been answered:
1 - Can Metamagic feats affect blasts/talents? (Force Blast + Toppling Spell would be a nice combo)
2 - Can Telekinetic Haul be used on a willing creature (other than self) as well as an object? If not, can it be used on an object that a creature is standing on top of?
3 - Would racial alternative traits that affect elemental/ish bloodline powers/spells also apply to Wild Talents and Blasts? For example:
Advanced Race Guide wrote:
Some dwarves’ affinity for the earth grants them greater powers. Dwarves with this racial trait are treated as one level higher when casting spells with the earth descriptor or using granted powers of the Earth domain, the bloodline powers of the earth elemental bloodline, and revelations of the oracle’s stone mystery. This ability does not give them early access to level-based powers; it only affects the powers they could use without this ability. This racial trait replaces stonecunning.
So, I went through the PFS Scenario "The Beacon Below" (Tier 7-11) tonight with my playtest character... my d20s betrayed me at every turn, and even with +14 to hit sometimes (due to bonuses from blessing of fervor and prayer and point blank shot and feel the burn), I only landed 3 telekinetic blasts the entire game.
Telekinetic haul looked like it would have been useful at one point near the end of the scenario, but other PCs in the party got a rather high diplomacy check to convince a NPC to help us "do the thing" a different way instead. I kinda felt useless.
Also of note, I only took 1 point of burn during the whole scenario - that was when I first put up Force Ward at the start of the dungeon crawl part of the scenario. Every time I needed to use things that needed burn, the combination of Form Infusion specialization and making a move action to reduce Burn by 1 reduced it to 0.
The original idea was to make him useful in combat while also having some utility to help a party outside of fighting... even if more of my attack rolls had hit, though, the spear-chucker barbarian in the party was landing ~70 damage a round, and the bloodrager was doing ~25 a hit (and with blessing of fervor being up during the longer/harder battles, they got to swing a lot while my character didn't have much usefulness...)
(items in italics are things that I did not use even once during his playtest, that I might consider swapping out or, if need be, paying pfs prestige for "retraining").
His Stats:
(no I don't use HeroLab, so apologies if the formatting feels "off" to you...)
Jah-ah-Koh
Level 7 Male Human Kineticist
Str 8 Dex 16 Con 21 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 10
(Human: +2 Con, Level 4: +1 Con)
Trait - Reactionary (+2 initiative)
Trait - Ancient Historian (Scarab Seekers Faction, Linguistics becomes class skill, gain one ancient language)
Human alternative racial trait: Heart of the Slums (+2 Stealth and Sleight of Hand checks, +4 Survival checks in urban and underground environments, roll twice for saves vs disease).
Gear of note:
Elven Chainmail Armor +1 (6,150gp)
Silver Cestus (25gp)
Cold Iron Dagger (4gp)
Snapleaf (2 prestige)
Potion of Gaseous Form (2 prestige)
Handy Haversack (2,000gp)
Wayfinder (250gp)
Clear Spindle (Normal) Ioun Stone (slotted) (4,000gp)
Ioun Torch (75gp)
Deep Red Sphere (Normal) Ioun Stone (+2 Dex) (8,000gp)
Belt of Mighty Constitution +2 (+2 Con) (4,000gp)
Elemental Focus: Aether
Telekinetic Blast: 4d6+8 (P or S or B)
Force Ward: 7 temporary hp, 1 Burn for +3
Burn: Max 2 Burn per round, max Burn 7/day
Feel the Burn: Max +2 Attack/Damage to Blast
Infusion Specialization: Form -1, Substance -0
Metakinesis (Empower - 1 Burn)
Backstory overview:
Orphaned child of a Hermean "ambassador" and a potential Hermean recruit, he started to manifest strange powers - violent outbursts of energy...but, being alone, and not understanding what a medallion in the shape of a gold dragon's head he was found with means, he lived most of his young life in the slums, taking whatever he can to survive, relying on his "gift" to create distractions and cause damage to give him enough of a window to take what he needs for food and clothing.
Then, one day, he was found by Kreighton Shaine of the Pathfinder Society, who wanted to learn from Jah just as much as he wanted to teach the boy control, and patience. Five years later, Jah-ah-Koh is now a Pathfinder Field Agent going on missions for the Society and the Scarab Sages, with whom he hopes to unlock more of the mysteries behind his occult powers.
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So, yea, there he is. I have another chance to play him on Monday evening in another 7-11, but I'm starting to have second thoughts since he felt so useless earlier...any advice would be welcome. Thanks!
Just throwing this out there, but I think it would help the class in combat if Blasts could be used multiple times in a round when under the effects of Haste or Blessing of Fervor (at the very least), and/or when the kineticist has a BAB high enough to qualify for iterative attacks (Level 8, off the top of my head?)
I decided not to re-state any of my other questions that have gone unremarked on... I'm also thinking about not continuing to playtest with the level 7 I built after yesterday's horrendous performance.
So, my idea was to make him useful in combat while also having some utility to help a party outside of fighting... even if more of my attack rolls had hit, though, the spear-chucker barbarian in the party was landing ~70 damage a round, and the bloodrager was doing ~25 a hit (and with blessing of fervor being up during the longer/harder battles, they got to swing a lot while my character didn't have much usefulness...)
Jah-ah-Koh Level 7 Kineticist
(items in italics are things that I did not use even once during his playtest, that I might consider swapping out or, if need be, paying pfs prestige for "retraining").
Stats:
(no I don't use HeroLab, so apologies if the formatting feels "off" to you...)
Jah-ah-Koh
Level 7 Male Human Kineticist
Str 8 Dex 16 Con 21 Int 14 Wis 12 Cha 10
(Human: +2 Con, Level 4: +1 Con)
Trait - Reactionary (+2 initiative)
Trait - Ancient Historian (Scarab Seekers Faction, Linguistics becomes class skill, gain one ancient language)
Human alternative racial trait: Heart of the Slums (+2 Stealth and Sleight of Hand checks, +4 Survival checks in urban and underground environments, roll twice for saves vs disease).
Gear of note:
Elven Chainmail Armor +1 (6,150gp)
Silver Cestus (25gp)
Cold Iron Dagger (4gp)
Snapleaf (2 prestige)
Potion of Gaseous Form (2 prestige)
Handy Haversack (2,000gp)
Wayfinder (250gp)
Clear Spindle (Normal) Ioun Stone (slotted) (4,000gp)
Ioun Torch (75gp)
Deep Red Sphere (Normal) Ioun Stone (+2 Dex) (8,000gp)
Belt of Mighty Constitution +2 (+2 Con) (4,000gp)
Elemental Focus: Aether
Telekinetic Blast: 4d6+8 (P or S or B)
Force Ward: 7 temporary hp, 1 Burn for +3
Burn: Max 2 Burn per round, max Burn 7/day
Feel the Burn: Max +2 Attack/Damage to Blast
Infusion Specialization: Form -1, Substance -0
Metakinesis (Empower - 1 Burn)
Backstory overview:
Orphaned child of a Hermean "ambassador" and a potential Hermean recruit, he started to manifest strange powers - violent outbursts of energy...but, being alone, and not understanding what a medallion in the shape of a gold dragon's head he was found with means, he lived most of his young life in the slums, taking whatever he can to survive, relying on his "gift" to create distractions and cause damage to give him enough of a window to take what he needs for food and clothing.
Then, one day, he was found by Kreighton Shaine of the Pathfinder Society, who wanted to learn from Jah just as much as he wanted to teach the boy control, and patience. Five years later, Jah-ah-Koh is now a Pathfinder Field Agent going on missions for the Society and the Scarab Sages, with whom he hopes to unlock more of the mysteries behind his occult powers.
-----
So, yea, there he is. I have another chance to play him on Monday evening in another 7-11, but I'm starting to have second thoughts since he felt so useless earlier today...any advice would be welcome. Thanks!
Edit: Also of note, I only took 1 point of burn during the whole scenario - that was when I first put up Force Ward at the start of the dungeon crawl part of the scenario. Every time I needed to use things that needed burn, the combination of Form Infusion specialization and making a move action to reduce Burn by 1 reduced it to 0.
So, I went through the PFS Scenario "The Beacon Below" (Tier 7-11) tonight with my playtest character... my d20s betrayed me at every turn, and even with +14 to hit sometimes (due to bonuses from blessing of fervor and prayer and point blank shot and feel the burn), I only landed 3 telekinetic blasts the entire game.
Telekinetic haul looked like it would have been useful at one point near the end of the scenario, but other PCs in the party got a rather high diplomacy check to convince a NPC to help us "do the thing" a different way instead. I kinda felt useless.
One other player at the table has been looking over kineticist, and posed a question that I don't know the answer to. For Force Ward (Aether Defense) -
"By accepting 1 point of burn, you can increase the strength of your force ward by a number of temporary hit points equal to half your kineticist level until the next time you recover burn; this increase stacks with multiple uses."
Is there a cap to this, or could a character theoretically just keep boosting their Force Ward hp total for the day? I was under the impression that you could only do it once, but I was pointed out that last bit which threw it into more of an open question again.
I'll post the stats for my character in a bit... see if maybe I just built it wrong or something...
^ maybe a way of using Feel the Burn to "burn off" burn by focusing it outward? surrounded by a nimbus of light/sound/energy/element that gives off noise/light (i.e. no sneaking around for that PC), but with a limited duration of damage-bonus-to-blasts in exchange for "burning off" burn?
Too many kineticists being built, not enough of the other classes imo.
Locally we're sort of divvying up playtest characters - me and one other person are doing kineticists, a couple of people are building occultists, there's at least one (each) mesmerist and medium being worked on too.
I think that class is getting a bit more "press", though, yes.
Here's one more I just thought up as I'm prepping a character to start playtesting it later today at PFS...
Telekinetic Haul - can this be used on a willing creature as well as an object? If not, I perhaps forsee my PC saying "sit on top of that block of stone and hold on tight" before lifting it up (with another PC on top of it) and telekinetically moving it (plus passenger) wherever desired.
(I've got my PC almost 100% figured out including a fun RP/backstory - just trying to debate on Telekinetic Haul vs Foe Throw, 1-2 feats, traits, and then he's done!)
Here's another interesting one - would racial alternative traits that affect elemental/ish bloodline powers/spells also apply to Wild Talents and Blasts?
Examples: Oreads and Dwarves for Earth, Undines for water, etc?
Dwarves: Stonesinger (ARG):
Some dwarves’ affinity for the earth grants them greater powers. Dwarves with this racial trait are treated as one level higher when casting spells with the earth descriptor or using granted powers of the Earth domain, the bloodline powers of the earth elemental bloodline, and revelations of the oracle’s stone mystery. This ability does not give them early access to level-based powers; it only affects the powers they could use without this ability. This racial trait replaces stonecunning.
I also think of things like picking up my allies and launching them through the air and controlling their flight safely. Or things like an AoE wave that knocks everything backwards (see this trailer of Chronicle), though I guess this one could be mimic'd by Many Throw and Pushing Infusion. What about item-less blasts? Kind of just raw telekinetic force delivering an attack that deals bludgeoning damage? I imagine this should be the basic attack for the TK, but the ability to hurl objects should add damage on top of it, but not be effectively meaningless in the amount of damage it deals.
** spoiler omitted **...
I really like that idea - a variation on "self telekinesis" solely for moving allies - maybe having everyone stand together and moving everyone (self included?) as a group?
Also, an item-less blast, sort of like a telekinetic bull rush, would be kinda neat too, yea.
I like Force Blast for the composite with aether, but I'm kinda bummed that there is no combo with aether and any other element in those higher level blasts.
I could see neat combos out there, like Earth+Aether to basically form little metal bullets and then "shoot" them with telekinesis, gunslinger-like... same with ice shards really. Fire could be some sort of flamethrower/cone-like thing... create the flame and then telekinetically "blow" on it like using a spray can and a lighter, etc.
Just a gentle bump to This post that I think got lost in the shuffle.
Also, would I be correct in that Expanded Defense is pretty useless if you double down on your original element?
Lastly, am I reading correctly that you get composite blasts for free once you take Expanded Element?
Thanks!
Expanded Defense can't be taken if you select your element for expanded.
And yes you get composites blast as long as you have the correct elements/prerequisites.
Edit: We have not been told if metamagic feats affect the blast. at least not that I have seen but because of us getting metamagc abilities built into the class I would say no plus as they are Spell like abilities you would have to use the metamagics for them i.e. quicken spell like ability
Thank you on that... I hope we hear back about the metamagics before too long - I managed to get myself into two upcoming 7-11 PFS games in the next 3 days to run a playtest on a level 7 kineticist (still debating Aether or Earth...Semi-Jedi vs Geologist-getting-to-geek-out-in-my-own-element builds), so I want to make sure I'm able to give it a good run through as well as not put the rest of the party at risk heh.
I have a level 7 GM credit / campaign mode character I've been waiting/debating what to build, so hopefully I can get in enough games during the playtest to see how a kineticist functions at the 7-11 tier (still debating between Aether and Earth though...even though I only have ~13 hours left to decide lol).
Forgive me if I missed this in the .pdf (I didn't see it asked anywhere in the thread so either the playtest covers it and I missed it or it just hasn't come up yet...) - but can Metamagic feats affect blasts/talents?
For example, Force Blast + Toppling Spell would be a nice combo...
I'm confused by the burn entry for wild talents. The burn ability says "Some of her wild talents offer her the option to accept burn in exchange for a greater effect", but all of the wild talents I've read so far list a burn amount, but don't describe a greater effect if you accept burn.
Is it intended that you have to accept burn to use the wild talent at all, and the description of the wild talent is the greater effect? Or is burn supposed to enhance the wild talent, similar to augmenting a mythic spell?
Consider the defense talents like flesh of stone.
About that - since Flesh of Stone states that you can accept one burn to increase the DR by 1 to a maximum of your kineticist level, does that mean you can apply burn multiple times to Flesh of Stone if you wanted to "max" it out?
Would you have to accept the burn all at once (i.e. you can only do it to the maximum burn you can accept in a single round), or could you "layer" it one burn at a time to reach your "max" defense with Flesh of Stone?
Example - Level 8 Geokineticist/Terrakineticist (you'll win a lot of my fellow geologists over with that name too, btw) can activate Flesh of Stone for DR 4/Adamantine (1 + 1 per 2 levels beyond 2). To "max" out at DR 8/Adamantine, it would take 2-4 rounds of activation (since at level 6 you could only accept 2 burn in a single round), right?
To +1 Fromper - we had (pre-Eyes of the Ten) a transmutation specialist wizard locally who would, at briefing, advise other characters to buy scrolls of things (he even had a handy "checklist" of common requests). He also offered to memorize some things for our use, but only if we bought the spell components (one of my characters has purchased, as a result, "spell components for Stoneskin", in case that ever comes up in the future).
Brace: If you use a readied action to set a brace weapon against a charge, you deal double damage on a successful hit against a charging character (see Combat).
"GM, I'm going to ready an action to brace *if* the enemy charges in my direction."
As a GM, to me, that means the PC isn't in "brace" position yet, but isn't going to do anything else that round except if the enemy charges. I might give an intelligent enemy a perception check to notice the person moving but not attacking, watching with a polearm in hand, but if that PC is a prime target, I'm still going to have any other enemies continue to charge if that's what they would be doing.
If a character uses their standard action to "ready to receive a charge", to me, that means they're brandishing their weapon and are already point-down before their turn ends, which an intelligent enemy is more likely to avoid, IMHO.
A few of my friends and I started up our own PFS at school, and we decided to all make characters based off of our majors, and I'm an aspiring geologist! I thought it would be terribly fun to play an elemental earth oread sorcerer. I bought the Advanced Race Guide but only now found out that I need the boon to play one in PFS. As I only just got into PFS and haven't been to any conventions I don't have any boons to offer you in exchange.
In exchange for an oread boon, I would be more than happy to make a $20 charitable donation to a charity of your choosing in your or one of your character's name.
As a fellow geologist/geophysicist, I know *exactly* how you feel. I don't have any on me currently (minus the one I'm playing already), but if I come across one, young rockling, I'll be sure to let you know :)
Having played in a module with other players who do have this boon (but not me or a few others at the table), I'm less convinced that "once ever" fits. Using a move action in combat for these effects isn't that great on action economy, and while out-of-combat benefits are still good... for me as a GM, "once/scenario" or "always" seems to work okay.
Yea, thank you too, guy...hmm...I should remember your name from...somewhere, right? :P
PS - Let me restate huge thanks to both Tracy W. and Chris B. for being the "Goliath" VCs of "Indiana" for so long. They were both doing single-handedly that four people are now doing!
Fun hint - if you hit "preview" after you roll dice, you'll see the result, so you can then continue writing your post with how you handle the results of said roll (which won't change - whatever is there when you hit preview will still be there when you hit "post" too).
