Mistwalker's page

10' squares will be very problematic for maps on Roll20. Sigh.

So, 40' wide stairs, and all of the bunks being 10' long and wide.
Does feel a wee bit strange.

@mathmuse pretty much everyone in the group has a composite longbow - so I sympathise with the possible close quarters issues, but with 20' high ceilings and communal airwalk being used, I will feel less bad using 5' squares (if I don't go back and redo the maps in Roll20).

@erucsbo With the exception of the mithral golem, the rest seem to have plenty of room - and the trolls are specifically called out as being in the courtyard, due to it being the only place that can hold them all. I can only find a single minotaur, Grimhorn, and he seems to fit comfortably in the archery area of the citadel - have I missed anything?

Are the squares in the Onyz Citadel really supposed to be 10 feet each?
All of the artwork is geared towards 5 foot squares.
The Vault keepers and builders were all medium sized.

Last I looked the Guide still does not include the Game Master Rewards Section for GM Character credit.

While I agree that there is no GM Reward section, in the Replaying Adventures section, it does state that GMs get a chronicle for GMing a game.

Replaying Adventures
Most scenarios are designed to be played once. You can receive a Chronicle sheet for a given adventure twice: once for playing the
adventure and once for running the adventure as a GM—even if you run the adventure multiple times, though each time you GM an
adventure contributes to your GM glyph rating and rewards.

I wonder if my GM stars are travelling with Fromper's stars?

You are not the only one who worries about things like this HMM.
And I also tend to have characters who are linguists, knowing multiple languages.

I keep expecting to see this thread marked as closed.

For irony reasons only.
:)

Not to mention the fact that Whirlwind Attack was a poster example of a trap option.

Why do you say that?

I have seen it used effectively at high level as well as at low level.

It is especially effective if the character doing the whirlwind can do both reach attacks and close attacks.

pauljathome wrote:

MrAptronym wrote:

2. I think they have a different picture of what healing should be like than I do.

My biggest head/desk moment was when Jason said something like "I think there may be a healing problem but we need more data to be sure". The one thing that is screamingly obvious if you listen to just about ANY feedback is that YES, THERE IS A HEALING problem. The fact that Jason doesn't recognize this is more than a little alarming.

The fact that they are ignoring the complaints about vancian casting still being in the game as well as resonance and other things shows that they really are not informed about what their base wants in a new edition....

Those of us who hang around the forums do not represent most of their customers. Paizo gets feedback from multiple sources, and I suspect that not all of it is in agreement as to what the problem is.

If resonance stayed the same for permanent magic items (investing to activate), but consumables only worked partially unless investing in, would that work for most folks?

That is, a potion of healing, when invested, does 2d8 healing. Not invested, does half that - so what the dice roll, divided by half, round down.

If the consumable doesn't heal damage, or such effect, its duration is halved.

So a human universalist wizard could start off with 2 wizard class feats at first level.

Interesting

As Davor mentioned above:

Wizards get a wizard class feat at 2nd, and 2 levels there after.
The only exception to this is the Universalist, who gains a bonus wizard class feat at 1st level.

My comment in the post above yours David, is about the confusion that Larsenex had over the wording at the start of the wizard class feat section of the rulebook.

The wording is not very clear on Wizard class feats. The one heading says starting at 2nd lvl Wizards get a class feat. Then the first sentence of the feats for Wizards state that 'every level' you get one.

The wording could be a bit clearer.

At every level you gain a wizard feat, you can select....

Means that at every level where the Wizard Advancement table (rable 3-21, page 136) indicates that you get a wizard feat, you can select on from the wizard feats listed on page 139 to 141.

It should not be interpreted to mean that a wizard gets a wizard feat every level.

My read is that Universalists get a Wizard class feat at 1st level

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Plus "the magic stick solves our problems, the magic stick is life" is aesthetically irritating in a way "let's take a breather" is not.

If Paizo doesn't want to power up mundane healing to that extent they should just create a magical ritual ala healing circle. It wouldn't use up spell slots and would take long enough to cast that it could be disrupted if used in an hostile situation, but would provide reliable out of combat healing that isn't mundane, item based, or class locked.

I too find this rather elegant

I have allowed Leadership in my campaigns, and have used it as a player. GM permission is required.

While it can be abused (the stay at home crafting machine), it can also add in a fair bit to the game.

In one campaign, it didn't make sense for my main character to go adventure/fix a problem, but made a lot of sense for the cohort to do so. So the cohort headed out with the group.

In another game, a mostly ranged/mage party, the rogue wanted a flanking buddy. Roleplayed the recruitment, the cohort became the flanking buddy.

I will add my voice to those supporting Mathmuse's suggestion for the stat block.

I too would go with Standard rather than Basic

They do not have an ancestry of their own, but are offshoots of the Human Ancestry.

From what I understand, a trial/experiment. If it works, something that could allow "half" races for a lot of races, not just the two half humans ones that exist now.

Folks are missing a key point when they compare ICV2 or Amazon sales when looking at market share.

Paizo has direct sales from their website, as well as subscriptions.
Hasbro/Wizkids do not sell books from their sites, instead direct folks to local stores or online retailers like Amazon.

Changing out the gods will invalidate a lot of material about Golarion, including source books, APs, modules, etc.

I do not believe that the gods need to updated. Nor do I wish to see an update on the gods.

I'm having a hard time seeing the downside of putting DEX at 16 (Their #2 most important Stat) in order to free up several Spells Per Day Cast (Mage Armor is pointless now), increase their AC by at least 4 with a Breastplate for 1 Feat that otherwise would be spent on something like Reach Spell, a Familiar, or Hand of the Apprentice all of which have SIGNIFICANTLY fewer benefits versus increasing their sustainability and +2 to hit with all Weapons (Excluding the Wizard Prof ones, Club, Crossbow, Dagger, Heavy crossbow, Staff).

Not sure where you are getting that the dedication feat would free up several spells cast per day. Mage Armor now has a duration of 24 hours. What other spells would be freed up with the dedication feat?

Mage armor isn't useless: at higher levels, it provides you an item bonus to saving throws. At the moment, I haven't found any other items that provide an item bonus to saving throws (there likely are some in the playtest book, but I haven't stumbled across them yet).

Maybe make the feat something like "Nondescript" or "Doppelganger descended" and just expand it. Say something like, "Your features are so androgynous and/or nondescript that you have far greater ease disguising yourself as others." then just give the bonus to all other ones in the same size category. So like, a human with the feat could be really good at making themselves look convincingly male, female, orc, elf, maybe dwarf when they squat, black, SE Asian.

I like the suggested name for the feat.

Nondescript: Your features are so androgynous and/or nondescript that you have far greater ease disguising yourself as others, of either gender.

But they could always just say a few words and try to roll that DC 10 to assist. The number of times I've seen a face roll poorly, only to be saves because the rest of the party chipped in with few words and their assists. That was the beauty of a DC 10 for assists. EVERY roll could count.

Are you aware that the new DC to aid another is 15?

I also agree that wizards should have 3 skills + int modifier per level, and that they should have more signature skills (including all lore skills).

Bump

John Lynch 106 wrote:

The only reason I've heard for Wands of CLW being such a problem is because it feels stupid to sit around with a level 1 wand and heal up to full after every fight.

But why does that feel stupid?

For me, genre and aesthetics, I do not like the idea of Elric and Moonglum circle-jerking a wand of cure light wounds all night in order to continue with the adventure.

I viewed it as folks praying for healing and holding on to the wand until they were healed, the healing was expended from the wand (empty wand), or deciding to press on without being fully healed.

How you look at it in game often changes how you feel about certain game mechanics.

Mistwalker wrote:

To me Paizo has always been gamers making games for gamers.

For the record, I also believe this to be true. I just also felt that noting the business logic of Paizo's decisions (which is quite strong) was important.

I agree that Paizo does have a lot of business sense.

I was trying to point out that profit margins/logical pure business case is not the only thing that Paizo looks at when making decisions. Paizo management and employees are gamers, who want the games to be fun to play and to continue to do so for years to come.

To me Paizo has always been gamers making games for gamers.

They are not folks in business suits, looking over spreadsheet, cancelling the bottom 10% of products to try a different 10% to see if it brings in more revenue.

It is my understanding that when Hasbro acquired several RPG games and licenses, they did just that, closing down games that were making a profit (even is only a small one) to "focus" the resources on other games. To me this is a net loss to the gaming industry and players, even if it is a completely rational business decision.

And I am not sure what your complaint or goal is in this thread.
Are you looking for Paizo to produce more short APs, that stop at level 10, and less that go to levels 17-20?
Are you trying to understand their business model and decisions?
Are you trying to influence their business decisions?

Some of the modules go from 1 to 7, like Dragon's Demand.
Those may be able to help for those that don't want to go all the way.

Out of curiosity, what is the issue with going to 20?

I was under the impression that one of the design goals for 2.0 was make it possible/enjoyable to play high level characters.

Ah, got it.

I am a dice nerd and have way more dice that I will ever need, and will still buy more. So I have never had the problem of having to re-roll dice because I am short of them.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

To add to this, my sister also struggled with Discalcula, although I'm not sure they made the distinction between that and dyslexia when she was in high school.

The combining to 10 method didn't really work with her. I struggle with it as well, even though I run a similar process every day at work (one of my more frequent tasks involves counting something that the computers aren't set up to automate)*. Specifically, when you're apt to confuse numbers or they blur together in either your mind or vision, I tend to either double count or lose track of how many "tens" I'd already counted. For instance, with Mistwalker's example, my first try got me to 33 beause I misplaced one of the 6+4s.

*Even making a spreadsheet is fraught with peril, since what you count is semi-arbitrary depending on context. I also just as frequently lose track when entering it into a calculator, because I'm dyslexic and things blur. I tend to just count it up by hand, which my office finds amusing considering I'll use a spreadsheet for every other task I'm able to get away with.

If you have the physical dice could you physically group them in 10's to help you keep track? or put a dice to one side for every group?

I am not familiar with discalula, so if this is stupid I apologise in advance, but are some numbers easier to process than others - so counting in 8's or 12's is easier?

I am another who finds this method speeds things up greatly.

Yes, separating the dice into net piles for each 10, usually allows for easy counting after all the groupings have been done.

Would that help AnimatedPaper?

You might also want to look at how you normally do the math for lots of dice rolled.

I count by 10s.

What I mean by that is:
A crit on longsword with sneak attack dice added could be:
2d8+7d6+6

If you roll:
3, 1, 6, 6, 4, 4, 2, 5, 6 +6

Take the 4, add it to the +6 for the first 10.
Next group the 3, the 2 and the 5 for the 2nd group of 10.
Next group add a 6 and the other 4 for the 3rd group of 10.
Leaving 6, 6 and the 1 - for the odd group of 13.
Makes it easy to get to the total of 43.

I have had 6 and 7 year olds do this quickly, with less difficulty than teens trying to do it all in their heads.

I didn't figure out how to donate to a particular Paizo team until after I donated. Oh well, put it in the comments section.

In the blood soak ability, it lists that the damage bonus lasts for 1 minute. So it would be no hat (-4), hat (0), recently soaked hat (+4).

This is some information that would be nice to have directly in the stat block, the "no hat (-4 dam), hat (+0 dam), recently soaked hat (+4 dam)"

This is starting to look like a kickstarter

Wayfinder

Dasrak wrote:

Malthraz wrote:

What is stopping a level 15 evil wizard from using scrying and teleport to kill any good aligned adventuring parties from level 5-10?

If a 15th level foe wants to kill 5th level PC's badly enough that he's willing to do it himself, protection from scry-and-die isn't going to save them. A 15th level Rogue could quietly ask around town to find out where the PC's are staying, then kill them in their sleep. A 15th level Ranger could track them while they're traveling, then pick them off with stealthy sniping.

Um, I don't mean kill one party of 5-10s. I mean kill every good party on the planet. Based on spells available, you can probably kill 3-4 parties per day.

You would need a very good intelligence network to do that, but with permanency and telepathy you might be able to pull it off. You also have mind blank, so counter strikes are much harder.

One of the questions that I had about your premise that a high level wizard could/would kill all of the good parties while they were low level, is how would that wizard even know about the good party?

To scry on someone, you have to know something about them - you can't scry on "good adventurers".

How would this "very good intelligence network" work?
While Telepathic Bond can be made permanent, it can only do so between 2 creatures per casting of Permanency. Would this wizard have thousands of creatures telepathically bonded to him/her/it? If so, then sleep/rest to recover spells may be difficult, with all those people talking to them pretty much 24/7.
How does the wizard choose and control all of those thousands of telepathically bonded in the intelligence network?
How does the wizard remember the names of all of those thousands of bonded folks, to know where to teleport to?
The telepathic bonded folks - what level are they? How do they explain to others about the magic aura that they have all the time?

Hmm, what about the gods in all of this? You don't think that some of the good gods might point their champions at this wizard?

How is the wizard getting 300,000 gp per day? You example was an exploded and destroyed inn, with the wizard leaving immediately. Searching the ruins of that inn will likely leave witnesses and take time. Then you have to find buyers for all the gear - which is another way that others might locate/identify the murderer.

Teleport has a range of 100 miles per caster level - so not world spanning at all. If the wizard uses Greater Teleport (which will likely be 3 per day), then the range limit is gone, but all of those 7th level spell slots are used up for movement.

So, in short, your premise that a 15th level wizard could kill all of the low level good parties (before they became high level) seems to not be workable, or even really possible by the current rules.

Have you looked at npc wealth my dude? you can do scry and fry at level 9 if you feel like it.

let's say the bad guy is level 11, So his total wealth is 16350 gp. I don't think 43% of your wealth is pocket change.

Also, yeah scry can fail, but then you can just try again until it works, that's not a big deal

The NPC wealth is the gear that they are wearing/carrying.

Can you point me to an adventure/AP where the full value in a base is covered off by NPC wealth? Including the cost of building the base?
:)

And for the failed scrying, well, some buffs spells have expensive components (thinking of stoneskin).

The Problem (Scry & Fry): This exploit works once the players get access to teleport and powerful divination magic. They buff up as wella s they can, the wizard scries the location of the BBEG and then teleports himself and the rest of the party into the final encounter avoiding all story progression and inevitable attrition. Obviously a GM has ways against this, chief among them stating that every dungeon/castle/cavern/war-camp/what-have-you is magically protected against scry and teleport magic (or just have the BBEG use said tactic himself... which usually ends in a TPK). This is an inelegant solution that often breaks suspension of disbelief and causes players who want to employ such tactics to "win" to feel cheated out of their "just reward" for their "cleverness".
Suggested solution: Make divination magic useful on smaller scale endeavours but not so much it easily breaks chronicle plots and easily revelas secrets supposed to be discovered during play. Make teleportation magic, slower to cast, riskier and more unreliable. Portals can bring you from point A to point B in space with little to no risks. Teleporting into an enemy lair and then out of it with pinpoint accuracy (unless you are really unlucky) is too much and risks trivializing encounters.

I am wondering how often this actually happens - I hear about it from time to time, but haven't yet really run across it.

A few questions:
Scrying:
You have to have a connections to the individual being scryied, other wise the spell does not work.
A vague name, like the Storm Tyrant is insufficient to locate said being (especially if the PCs are unsure of the race or name of that individual).
The target get's a saving throw. How many GMs make that roll (and including modifiers like +10 for no real knowledge of the subject)?

Does the GM give the bad guy a perception check to spot the scrying (DC = 20 + spell level)? Or anyone else in the room?

If the bad guy is a wizard, is there any reason why they don't cast Detect Scrying every day (24 hour duration)? Or have a spell caster minion cast it?

Teleport:
Does the GM roll the percentile dice to see if they actually teleport to the right place?

Is there any reason why the big bad hasn't invested a few thousand gold in teleportation protection for key areas? Teleport Trap can be made permanent for 7000 gp - pocket change for a big bad at those levels. If the big bad is a cleric, then the spell Forbiddance would be the spell to use - it is permanent. And both of these spells have the option to have some individuals (or items) bypass the teleport inhibition, so that the big bad can teleport away.

Malachandra wrote:

Out of curiosity, why is Bladed Dash an abomination? I haven't looked at that spell much.

It's not an abomination by itself, it's the fact that you can combine it with spell combat to essentially cast it, move 30 feet, and full attack.

Not quite correct.

Bladed Dash allows you to immediately move 30' without provoking, and do a single attack somewhere along the move.

Greater Bladed Dash (Bard 5, Magus 5, Skald 5: hence level 13 characters) allows you to make a single melee attack against every creature you pass during the 30 feet of your dash. You cannot attack an individual creature more than once with spell.

Neither spell guarantees that you will hit, you still have to make your attack roll.

I am having trouble seeing how it is an abomination.

How about having healing wands cure a fixed amount, the average of the spell? Base the cost of healing wands on the number of HP healed per charge.

This way, the PCs will be buying the highest level wand, as the price point HP healed is the same, but the amount of time is drastically reduced to heal up to full (or close to full).

Mistwalker wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

Well, I know we're getting a skills blog later, but I'm hoping PF2 is a little kinder to former 2+Int classes in the same way that more hp from your class means a given Con bonus doesn't make up as large a percentage of overall health.

In this case, the smaller number of overall skills also means you will have a higher percentage of all skills trained even if it didn't increase, but...Let's save the number of base starting skills that, say, the fighter gets for the fighter preview blog! It's soon!

I may have missed it, but I didn't see any mention of base starting skills in the fighter blog. Could you provide that information here?

That hasn't been revealed yet. It will definitely be more than 2 trained skills at 1st level for pretty much any fighter you build, potentially quite a few more, and we have fewer overall skills (with Athletics covering Climb, Swim, Jumping, combat maneuvers, and more, for example) so that's worth even more than it seems.

Excellent.

QuidEst wrote:

Well, I know we're getting a skills blog later, but I'm hoping PF2 is a little kinder to former 2+Int classes in the same way that more hp from your class means a given Con bonus doesn't make up as large a percentage of overall health.

In this case, the smaller number of overall skills also means you will have a higher percentage of all skills trained even if it didn't increase, but...Let's save the number of base starting skills that, say, the fighter gets for the fighter preview blog! It's soon!

I may have missed it, but I didn't see any mention of base starting skills in the fighter blog. Could you provide that information here?

How about make wands like staves, but with 20 charges.

You can only add a single charge per day, so if you burn through them after a single fight, it will take you 20 days to recharge the wand.

And if they are priced a fair bit higher, then you will likely see less sacks of CLW wands.

There is a translator in the Starfinder Society RPG Guild guide, page 31.

TETRAD CERTIFIED TRANSLATOR LEVEL 2
ITEM PRICE BULK
TECHNOLOGICAL 500 L

This elaborate datapad has several additional audio receptors
to capture nearby sounds. If you don’t share a language with
creatures you encounter, you can activate this device to collect
basic linguistic information. The device requires 10 minutes of
observed conversation to gain enough information to operate.
The device then acts as a rudimentary translator. It does not
allow you to converse with creatures with whom you don’t share
a language, but it can relate very basic information. Examples
of statements the device could interpret would be: “come with
us,” “lower your weapons,” or “leave immediately.” The device
cannot parse proper names, including personal designations or
the names of items and places. Some extraordinary complex or
obscure languages might not translate clearly with this device.
A Tetrad certified translator has 10 capacity and 1/hour usage.

For those that do not want to use a weapon other than magic, see if your GM will allow you to use weapon specialization on your damaging cantrips (for the cost of a feat perhaps) - either full specialization or half level (like small arms).

I wouldn't have a problem with a player making a melee Shobhab.

Most of the opponents are going to have ranged weapons - a large, menacing, multi-armed creature with multiple weapons is going to often be at the top of the shoot first list. And shoot them before the close to melee range.

As well, identifying the players, tracking them, will be quite a bit easier with a Shobhab in the party.

I am sure that there are other interesting, and fun, ways to adjust to a melee Shobhab PC.

"By spending 3 BP, the crew can fit a new light weapon mount in any of the aft, forward, port, or starboard arcs with enough free space. By spending 5 BP, the crew can fit a new light weapon mount on a turret that has enough free space." which implies the frame must already have a turret listed in order to add a new mount onto it; it doesn't have enough free space if it doesn't exist in the first...

This is why I stated that there is no way to add a turret to a frame.

As for the shuttle in the the first AP, I view that simply as a different frame. The frames listed in the Core book are not the only frames that exist/can be used. One of the Starfinder scenarios has a fighter with a turret in it - a different frame from the one in the Core book.

It is not hard for a GM to approve new frames, or state that their interpretation of the above (or house rule) is that 5 BP will get you a turret.

dump the BPs into getting three heavy turrets onto your frame and not worry about any Speed or Turn factors?

You can only have a single turret.

You can upgrade the weapon mount in the turret.

If the frame does not have a turret, there are no rules for adding a turret to the frame.