Morton Mazon's page

I know this will seem off point, but who in your party is providing the Stealth and Thievery? A Cleric with a Rogue-ish archtype might not go amiss.

Thaumaturge seems to lean into dealing out damage, which seems pretty well covered from a party-balance stand point. I don't know about the Chalice Thaumaturge... healing and party buffs/debuffs sounds like the Bard's area.

Generally I agree that the relevant skill would depend on the mechanism. Palming cards is Thievery, using marked cards and not having them noticed is Deception.

I hold what is probably an oddball opinion on the Gambling Lore skill. As a mostly PFS player, there are a zillion Lores & you generally don't get to use them much. So I'd allow someone with the Lore to use it. Now if this is a campaign/adventure path with lot's of gambling involved I'd probably be more hard-nosed abut it.

The problem I have with the "just use an attack cantrip" as an option for an investigator who rolled badly on their strategic strike is that there isn't an option to get those in the class. Sure, you can get cantrips from some ancestries, but not every ancestry gets cantrip access and the tools to make a class work should come with the class.

Like Rogues get "Minor Magic" as a level 2 feat, but Investigators don't and this might be an oversight.

All it takes is for an Investigator to get cantrips is the Archtype feat for Wizard, which is a 2nd level feat, as per the Rogue above.

Rogue was the first thing to come to mind.

To echo Gesalt... a Swashbuckler doesn't start to pull it's weight until 5th level, IMHO.

I'm joining the requests for Centaurs & Minotaurs. On the taller end of medium.

Actually, Trip is still a bad choice for _anyone_ to use with Assurance. Somebody (I don't recall the name) put out a Guide that recommended it and it was heavily discussed in the Guide commentary thread.

Allow me to quote: "...I have just randomly looked under 'G' (in the Bestiary), for all creatures from CR7 to CR11... and if your PC is level 10 & pushed Athletics to Master your Assurance - Athletics fixed total is 10 +10 (level) +6 (master) = 26. The results are that you auto-trip 8 of the 24 creatures. E_____, could you please describe how you came to the conclusion that As/Ath is auto-hit at higher levels? (I picked level 10 because PFS tops out at 11, did you sample at level 15?)"

Note that the 'auto-hit' commentators stopped posting in the thread at this point, rather than actually try to provide any proof.

I agree with the posters above that state Assurance is for basic tasks, and several of the examples. But not Trip!

I know very little of about Monks but I will say this: there was a long argument in another thread about Mountain Stance. It requires you to stand on the ground...

Some people (including myself) said that the ground was dirt, stone, grass, etc. But not the deck of a ship, a tree branch, etc. Other people said that 'the ground' meant any surface you were standing on. I suggest you either talk to your judge, or search the forums/FAQs on this before you start to use it.

My group played it some time ago. The Cleric basically did nothing but cast Shield and two-action Cures; too many party members were going down to 0 HP for him to do anything else (not everyone enjoys playing a heal-bot).

Generally, we agreed that there were too many 'severe' fights. This includes the judge, who pulled no punches. Note that the judge is the area VC/5-star judge.

2001 - Half Elf Sailor
2002 - Human Hunter
2004 - Human Laborer
2006 - Unbreakable Goblin Entertainer

Don't ask where 03 & 05 are, 'cause I don't know. I had a problem with 03 and deleted it, meaning to start over. But the system cranked out 04 as my next character. Next I time I called for a new character out came 06...

I was misled by an error on the chronicle sheet, indicating that the item was significantly cheaper than listed in the CRB.

This is just an example of someone finding an unsuitable weapon with magic that they want to transfer, when they could not afford the real thing. (My chronicle sheet appears to have an error on the listing...)

I have played in a module where the chronicle sheet includes a +1 katana, which not all classes can use. Why shouldn't a player be able to spend 3.5 gold + crafter payment (3.5 gold, presumably... 100% markup) to move the rune if said player doesn't have 35 gold yet?

Getting back to Fall of Plaguestone specific feedback, for a moment:

I am unhappy with the sanctioning of 'The Fall of Plaguestone'. It took my PFS play group the same amount of time to play through as Gallows of Madness, for 1/3 of the rewards.

If this was meant to be a one experience level adventure, why do you have characters level up and then fight opponents that are also leveled up? This is looking a whole lot like bait-and-switch.

I do not in the least understand the Keepsake section. These are commonly available items once your character is fifth level. What is the purpose of putting them on the chronicle at all? In my experience, putting a fifth level item on a third level chronicle is both infuriating and wastefull. Infuriating, because a third level character cannot afford a fifth level item. Wastefull, because a fifth level character doesn't need a chronicle to make them available. You waste space on the chronicle sheet to no purpose.

Can it be possible that I have misunderstood the keepsake mechanism? Is one of these items available _for free_ to the character that receives the chronicle? I have two problems with this thought: I don't read this from the chronicle or Plaguestone notes I have downloaded, & it would make the keepsakes much more valuable for second level characters than for fourth level...

Why are Plaguestone keepsakes commonly available items (regardless of level)? Why aren't they something unique? To quote Meriam-Webster “keepsake noun: something kept or given to be kept as a memento”. What about these items is worthy or a fond memory?

An effective use of keepsakes (regardless of a poorly used descriptor) would perhaps be:
- if applied to a 2nd level character, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds with 10 charges, price ___, limit 1
- if applied to a 3nd level character, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds with 15 charges, price ___, limit 1
- if applied to a 4nd level character, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds with 20 charges, price ___, limit 1
Or something of the sort. Something unique, difficult to get a hold of, or too expensive to purchase fully charged.

* * * *

To summarize:
This should be a three level adventure with three chronicle sheets.
I either don't understand the keepsake section, or if I do it is pointless. (Suggested improvement shown above.)

No, the enemies you face aren't always going to be your level... sometimes they will be higher! That certainly happened a lot in 'Fall of Plaguestone'. The point of the post was to warn people that this is not an 'auto win' button, as the guide seemed to suggest. The guide did not advise as to opponent level.

Note 1: the random sampling method was described, so if someone sampled different sections of the Bestiary (or all of it), they could certainly get different results. Frex, a recent glance at divers Undead shows that most have low Ref, so they are mostly trippable (if they are not incorporeal).

Note 2: the Trip, Shove and Grapple actions are all 'Attack' actions. They count for the multiple action penalties same as Strikes. But... assurance ignores all penalties: so an Assurance-Athletics attempt has the same value whether it comes before or after two strikes.

Note 3: I have just randomly looked under 'G', for all creatures from CR7 to CR11... and if your PC is level 10 & pushed Athletics to Master your Assurance - Athletics fixed total is 10 +10 (level) +6 (master) = 26. The results are that you auto-trip 8 of the 24 creatures. Ediwir, could you please describe how you came to the conclusion that As/Ath is auto-hit at higher levels? (I picked level 10 because PFS tops out at 11, did you sample at level 15?)

I am obliged to disagree as to the value of Assurance - Athletics to trip foes. This combination only gets you a 10 + proficiency bonus... no other modifiers apply.

So at 3rd level, with Expert proficiency... 10 +4 (Ex) +3 (lvl) = 17. Randomly checking all CR 3 creatures listed under 'D' I find that six out of six creatures have a Ref of +8 or higher, meaning their static checks are 18. So... the Assurance/Athletics Trip mechanism doesn't work.

Randomly also checking under 'M', there is only one CR 3 creature, and As/Ath/Trip fails against him too. So that going into 'M' was not a total waste, I checked the two CR 4 creatures there, and one would be tripped, the other would be missed.

One out of nine is a pretty bad deal. If you want to use Assurance / Athletics to try making climb rolls, okay. But don't waste your time on Trip.

Also consider what you tie a lightning rod to: the ground. Not the deck of a ship, and certainly not a cloud.

Dirt, stone, clay and the bottom of a creek-bed or puddle. I wouldn't complain if you stood on the grass/mosss/pressed down kelp.

If you will read the Critical Specialization Effects (starting lower down on page 283), you will see the entry for:

Club: You knock the target away from you up to 10 feet (you choose the distance). This is forced movement (page 475).

Hmmm, not called Shove as a crit effect though it produces the same forced movement. Alas! my faulty memory.

Club: a light mace is a finesse weapon. So when my Rogue gets the 5th level class ability Weapon Tricks, he can crit with it and get Shove.

Which is apparently not the same Shove as the combat maneuver, despite actually using the same name. Thanks, Paizo!

What about when you get a shove result from a Weapon Critical Specialization. You weren't planning on it happening, like when you did a Shove maneuver...

Possibly you could multiclass archtype - monk? Just a suggestion, I haven't looked at multiclass archtypes too much.

My PF2 Half-Elf with the 10 Intelligence started with Common, period. Despite the fact that he has Elven ancestries...

This could be read as 'why don't half-elves have both Common and Elvish'? But I note that the Half-Orc is in the same boat.