Interesting. So curses are only tied to specific mysteries? I loved being able to mix and match my curses in PF1. It made for greater variety! Maybe that is how people played at your table, but I always felt that picking the appropriate curse was an integral aspect of developing the character's backstory.
Oops, you're right. I don't know how I missed that. Thanks. Anyway, she's a great excuse to use Ewok minis for Grippli, since Paizo has not given us the latter.
I really hope Uskyerial, the Saintly Slumberer, Empyreal Lord of Hunting, Prudence, and Slumber is covered. In my personal cannon I have a village of Grippli that worship this great bear, and wear appropriate costumes in reverence to him.
Bob, might be worth sending an email out to all the GM volunteers. I'm sure there are a fair number who don't look at the forums as a matter of course.Actually, it was posted in the forums as a courtesy, the official outlet for volunteer communication is the Slack channels. I posted it there first so all volunteers have access to it. Oh... it would never have occurred to me to return to the Slack channel after the con was over. Thanks for posting it here.
I hope when they write up Lao Shu Po they still allow for neutral clerics. The lore says that most wayangs recognize she is a cruel mistress, but they worship her anyway because she helps them hide in the dark. I would assume that is true for many of the ratfolk that worship her as well. I think that is in part my response to Bob's statement above: that whether we are dealing with wayangs and Lau Shu Po, or Nidalese humans and Zon-Kuthon, the setting has established that there are people that are less evil than the gods they serve out of cultural tradition or ancient pacts.
I hope the "Speak Local Language" spell from Heroes of the Streets returns soon. That was a favorite on mine in 1E. Alternatively, the return of "Voluminous Vocabulary" from Ultimate Intrigue would be welcome. The fact that both of these spells existed in 1E indicated an understanding by the designers that communication needed to be made easier, I wonder what happened to make them take it in the opposite direction.
And it should be emphasized that if a race is playable, there is also a good chance that bad guys of that race will appear, and minis will be needed by the GM. For example, there is a PFS scenario wherein most of your opponents are wayangs.
So many bugs, still so few wayangs, vine leshies, kitsune, nagaji and other playable races.
Yikes! What a horrible thought. Removing the Player Companion info would ruin the function Nethys has served.
Spiritual Weapon is now on the Occult spell list, which means that it is intended for Bards to use as well as Clerics. However, the spell still says that the weapon is your deity's favored weapon and seems to presume that the caster will be trained in their deity's favored weapon. "Attacks with the weapon use your attack modifier with that type of weapon....". Is it really the designers' intent to make this a spell that half of Bards can't use effectively without gaining additional weapon training? Perhaps the spell could be reworded to say that the caster is considered trained in the weapon for the purposes of the spell if they are untrained. Or that the caster may select a default simple weapon (like dagger) if they are untrained in their deity's favored weapon. Should your deity's preference even matter if you are casting from Occult powers rather than Divine powers?
This is the most uncomfortable I have been about any of the changes so far. I really liked playing bards as competent melee fighters after they spent some time buffing the team. Won't making them full casters necessitate balancing them in a way that makes them less effective in hand-to-hand?
If Divine Sorcerers replace Oracles, can they still wear armor and cast? I have really liked having melee combat Oracles.
*Giving this a bump now that PaizoCon is over.* Gen Con tickets went live three weeks ago, but there are still no Paizo seminars listed.
It sounds like the weapons will be generating more minor bonuses and penalties for the poor GM to keep track of, though. Will there be new conventions in the stat-blocks to make it easier for the GM to remember, without having to open the equipment chart in the book for every NPC?
I'm so glad I've played and run Race for the Runecarved Key at smaller cons where the stakes weren't so high. I've seen a lot of people really enjoy it. It is still my favorite special and I'm so sorry that it's initial implementation ruined our chances to have another like it.
We are getting Tanuki before we get any Wayangs? Come on Paizo, help us play our playable characters. Please.
Does that mean that this year we should be trying extra hard to play things soon after they come out? (Usually, my lodge tries to schedule things a few/several months after they publish so that our people have more flexibility when they go to cons, and our GMs have opportunities to play elsewhere to avoid constantly taking spoilers.)
Well, where does this leave us: The Grand Lodge is as boring as dirt without the Shadow Lodge to serve as its foil. The Dark Archive's leader has lost her teeth and flavor since her disassociation from Cheliax. Liberty's Edge has been less than inspiring for a while due to questionable leadership, so hopefully that will improve soon. The Exchange is now a two-headed beast with muddled flavor and focus. The Silver Crusade continues in general, vague goodness. The Sovereign Court has semi-noble goals, depending on one's perspective, but lacks the decadence or intrigue of its prior incarnations. Honestly, I'm starting to miss the original nationalist factions.
Good heavens, how many Grippli must be sacrificed for your mad schemes?
I'm thinking I may still make an Oracle of Whimsy, but using my samsaran boon instead. I'll say that in a previous life he was an Inquisitor of Picoperi (Empyreal Lord of Jokes, Pranks and Surprises), but wished to come back even zanier. This will allow me to add Greater Invisibility, Disguise Other and See Invisibility to the spell list. (Sorry, I know that's a bit off topic. Back to Naiads...)
Given how much players can rest, the difficulty should be ramped up overall, or some of the resting sequences suppressed as I found there isn't the same level pressure of playing a special. Personally I loved the rest periods, which made this one of the most enjoyable specials in which to play a caster. It was such a refreshing change from most of the other specials, where I've often seen people regret their decision to play a full caster by the time they reached the end.
This is a quest for information. In another thread, I had commented that in my local lodge that it's been getting harder for the veteran players to keep up their enthusiasm for playing as many Tier 1-5 scenarios as are being published. John Compton was nice enough to answer as follows:
As I remember, the push for a-level-1-accessible-adventure-per-month came about in season 5, after season 4 had only 6 Tier 1-5 scenarios. As I recall, the plan for season 5 was modified partway through so that we ended up with 8 Tier 1-5 scenarios that year. Since then we have gotten 10 tier 1-5 scenarios, plus other level-1-accessible-adventures. Of course, that means we are spending less of our time in mid- and high-level play. So, how is your local lodge responding to the current ratios? Are you still finding this number of low level scenarios necessary? Are you having experienced players drop out and only come back for high level games? What would happen in your lodge if we had another season like season 4 with only 6 Tier 1-5 scenarios but an epic subplot with 6 Tier 7-11 scenarios?
I've run this one 3 times already and definitely found time for the counterspell when I had a full table with two priestesses. Perhaps the saddest thing is that these NPCs were copied from page 183 of the Villain Codex, which means someone made the mistake there and someone else then copied it into the scenario that should have been playtested, and still no one caught it.
You can certainly play such a character, but you must have the character realize that the success of the party is an extension of their own success. Making them cooperative is not optional, but their self-centeredness and desire for glory can certainly be played up comically for the enjoyment of the whole table. If you don't think you can play it in a way that is entertaining for those around you, then it is best to pick something else.
My copy arrived before Gen Con and I just got to flip through it last night. This is a really excellent, huge product. I look forward to getting some modules in this setting to make it easier to tempt other players in my area to give it a try. I love the fact that you get to keep almost all the fun toys you have in Pathfinder (except for clerics and warpriests), rather than starting from scratch with a new game hoping that more options will eventually become available.
Add me to the list of people that are annoyed that The Powers That Be are making participation in the card game a condition for success. I was already disappointed when I heard at PaizoCon that certain faction plotlines could only be found out through the card game, and now making a condition on our RPG characters for the player's activity outside the RPG just really feels like the card game is getting shoved down our throats. No thank you.
I'm with Fromper. I bring everything except my two seekers and their chronicles. I think it is very important for experienced players to bring options to the table, to help balance out groups and what tier is being played. And to have flexibly to play at other tables if needed.
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