N. Jolly's page

I'm sorry if I missed it, but was there any info on your intentions about feats that scale per level? I really recommend that you take a look at New Paths Expanded by Kobold Press. Both classes and feats presented there are excellent and I really like their approach to scalable feats, as well as what they did with Leadership.

Far more feats scale than they did previously, and wherever it would make sense, we have included scaling. Some feats were just very 'immediate benefit' that couldn't really scale due to being powerful enough at base or providing some new action-like benefit that can't really scale.

What I can say is prereqs are far less stringent in this system, leading to far more variety in build. Generally, if you don't NEED a few for a second one to work (like how mechanically you don't need point blank shot to use precise shot), it won't be a prerequisite. Because of this, we're hoping that we'll see more build variety by unshackling people from long feat chains.

To this, spring attack in this system has no feat prereqs.

N. Jolly wrote:

avr wrote:

10: not me tho' I've heard N. Jolly's stuff is decent.

Me too.

I've heard N. Jolly is a scurrilous rapscallion and a no good brigand.

This is accurate.

Oh. I hope that's all in good fun.

N. Jolly, any links or tips? Or is saying people's screen names on these threads like saying Voldemort in book 7?

Honestly, the only tips I can give are just in my guide. I'm at the moment helping to design an entirely new version of 3.5 known as Corefinder, so my entire mental sphere is basically in Corefinder mode. I am mucking around with a new monk revamp though, so that's fun.

10: not me tho' I've heard N. Jolly's stuff is decent.

Me too.

Wow, this one has been a ghost town since Thanksgiving.

Are you guys still going to have traits and/or favored class bonuses?

Will we get max HP per level up instead of rolling or using average+1?

Will you change when spontaneous casters get higher level spells to match the rate that wizards, clerics, etc. do?

Will you change how many spells known that spontaneous casters get and/or how many spells a class can cast in general?

What about cantrips for 4th level casters?

I would like to see some skills that you get for free...

Maybe a rule that you pic 2-4 skills(craft, knowledge, perform, and/or, profession) that you get free ranks in.

Another idea is some skills that a class would get for free like divine casters getting knowledge religion, sorcerers getting their bloodline skill, casters getting spellcraft, cavaliers getting ride, etc.

Traits and FCBs are in rough territory due to not being as needed. I'd say we're more likely to keep traits than FCBs, but nothing's set in stone yet.

I'm a fan of max HP per level myself, so I'll probably push for that.

Yeah, they almost certainly will.

That's also something we're considering.

Considering ninja is a 4th level caster with cantrips, it's likely.

I can't wait to get to combat maneuvers and other combat options. I wonder what feats will no linger be feats.

Well I can tell you that feats to not take AOOs for combat maneuvers as well as power attack/deadly aim/combat expertise aren't around anymore. There's a few more I can't remember off the top of my head.

CorvusMask wrote:

Hopefully that does also include magic rebalancing, I'm kind of sick of the final caster boss of campaign being completely defeated by failing reflex save vs sunbeam or everything illusion based being instantly defeated by true sight :p(except for greater invisibility combined with mind blank which is another sort of cheese let's be honest)

But yeah, my venting out aside, that is good

I would strongly urge you to be quite careful when doing this. One of the major reasons that PF2 doesn't work for me as a system, is the magic "rebalancing" that basically comes down to "magic isn't special at all"...

All in a quest for "Balance", apparently in opposition to fun... Especially as they also threw out all nods to believability/immersion as well while chasing "Balance".

So this is complicated, because for one person 'fun' is landing a first round color spray and instantly winning, while for others the more drawn out encounter is more fun. Ideally, we're going to try to shut down 'I win' buttons while keeping magic interesting and unique.

N. Jolly wrote:

If we do something with a dragon race, we have our own draconic race to use since you can't really just do dragonborn

Dragonblood Human was included in the d20 Modern OGL material. Would need an extensive rework to be playable (it was so totally not worth the LA). No fluff included (or real clear idea of what they actually are) though.

I'd ultimately prefer something of a planetouched equivalent with some customization to buff kobolds with breath weapons. Pick if you want wings, claws, breath weapon and/or senses and all of them scale with level and spend feats to get more picks. That or just full blown actual (four legs, wings) dragon (hey, it worked for Fantasycraft!).

You've literally just listed what LG's draconic race does, the wrymtouched. It's a buildable race that can have tons of different draconic features and be as draconic as you want it while having heritage ranging from chromatic, to linnorm and all sorts of other things.

Do you plan to use some of Pf 3pp classes or other products? For instance, there's Kobold Press class called Theurg, that works really great. What about some fan favorites that aren't a part of PF due to Paizo's desire not to ruffle feathers, such as Warlock or Artificer - or Warforged on the racial side of things?

So we are looking through other 3p stuff, but let me say that Warlock (as of the 3.5 design) is a strong contender to make it into the core book. For our first book, CF: Fantasy, we probably won't go into a construct race, but that's absolutely an option for CF: Advanced fantasy, which is where an artificer has been heavily discussed.

If I could get a playable race from D&D, I would have to say Dragonborn.

I was never a fan of the D&D Warlock and the Kineticist fills that niche much better. Now if we had a new class called a Warlock that was a d8HD/3/4BA, hexes, 6th level caster(witch spell list), with some other cool class features then I would be good.

I would prefer a "Gadgeteer" class that uses bombs, guns, gadgets, inventions, maybe mechanical traps, etc., no magic/alchemy, 8HD/3/4BA, 6+Int skill points.

N. Jolly, are we getting new versions of all the Pathfinder classes or just some of them?

Will this just be a single rule book that you use to modify existing Pathfinder products or just a new system all together?

Are you guys still working a class compilation book as well?

If we do something with a dragon race, we have our own draconic race to use since you can't really just do dragonborn.

Gadgetry is also more of an advanced fantasy book sort of class, but it's absolutely on the table.

After a lot of discussion, we'll probably revamping every class.

This is effectively a new system, as we're using it as a chassis for all sorts of other themes, such as sci fi, supers, modern, etc. And yeah, class compilation is still coming out regardless of Corefinder. We just need to finish off I believe...2 more classes to have all the CRB ones.

Hey all, got a quick preview to drop for y'all, this is going to be for the legendary ninja class. This is only a preview of some of the material of the class, but we are taking feedback on what is being shown, so feel free to comment on the doc or in the thread. And feel free to add yourself as a playtester. The legendary ninja is a class that takes some major departures from the base class including granting 4th level spellcasting that starts from 1st level and comes with cantrips among other unique concepts. This preview will only be for a few days, so make sure to check it out while it's up!

Legendary Ninjas preview

This document actually involves the introduction of quite a few new authors, so please be kind.

And if Jason's tweet gets to 10 or more retweets, we'll be adding the spellcasting archetypes for other classes to the preview doc.

Any chance we could see bounded accuracy in Newfinder?

At this point, Newfinder is completely up in the air as to what we have planned, so there is a chance, but really it's as much a chance as anything else.

The Spanish version of PF calls the Ranger "Explorer". It might be the word you are looking for your class.

While a cool name, we've found that people are very attached to names, so changing names probably won't happen.

We are keeping track of trends though in the game to see which ideas and classes to focus on. For example, y'all love alchemists.

I'm curious to how cantrips will be handled. Will cantrips be handled like in Pathfinder or will Corefinder Fantasy have cantrips that scale by level like in PF2e or 5e?

Let me tell you that cantrips have been getting discussed, and while we have nothing concrete at the moment, we are aware of the value of scaling cantrips.

To add to what Jason is saying, the idea here is to allow for a piecemeal system that allows you to only buy what you need rather than forcing in other stuff where it's not needed. This also gives us a lot more focus on what we need to do in each book, which is super helpful.

So are there Legendary versions of all the Pathfinder classes? Any differences with the legendary version of the Sorcerer? Shifter?

There's L. versions of a few classes. I myself penned Kineticist, Gunslinger, Shifter, Cavalier, and Alchemist. I'm working on Wizard as we speak.

Sorcerer is still cooking right now, but if you're on the LG discord, you could ask about it there.

Legendary versions were for classes that were considered badly designed. I think only Kineticist and Shifter got the treatment.

This is half true; I really like the alchemist as a class, but I think the base chassis had issues that needed to be done from the ground up, so I worked on legendary alchemist to make the kind of class that I thought people who loved it deserved.

It's over on the SoP wiki.

Maybe we should just have both? I don't mean an overlapping system, I mean have ABP in the core book and make it clear it's just as legitimate an option as bonus-granting items.

So to touch on all of this, our decision was never to just lift ABP, there was always changes planned.

The main thing we want to do is remove 'math items', like things that just increase numbers. If an item's sole purpose was to fix the math, we want to remove that so when players receive magic items, they're always unique. To me, in the contest of a +1 sword vs. a sword that can turn water into acid with a poison effect to it, I know which one seems more interesting.

There's also the idea that magic in a setting can't permanently make someone stronger without physically altering them (like permanent polymorph spells). A lot of people's perception of magic is different than others, so I don't think a lack of magic that permanently increase's someone's abilities is that odd myself.

As an entirely impartial observer, no. No it is not.

I for one don't want to get rid of magic items which provide boosts to ability scores, saving throws, or armor class. It simply isn't rational to have a high magic fantasy world which has spells and magic items which can do just about anything, but then say "nope, there's no magic items (or spells) which increase your Strength, deflect attacks away, or improve your ability to resist spells, poison, or area of effect attacks".

Now, whether those magic items simply provide a numeric bonus to ability scores, saving throws or armor class or have some other mechanical effect is something I'd be open to, but I couldn't play in a game where you can turn a human into dragon form, summon a demon, shoot lightning bolts out of you hands, but not make someone a bit stronger.

So the issue with items like this is how they influence the math.PF has issues with the math requiring these items, the math being designed with them in mind. It stifles creativity in item design since you can't make an item that conflicts with those, and they're among the most boring magic items you can get.

We can give them other effects, but the only compromise I could see is just making all of these bonuses inherent and just give different items other unique things they can do. We could just make them tattoos or something like that, so you can still 'get stronger', but don't have the mechanical baggage of it.

I would love to get rid of stat boosting items, cloaks of resistances, rings of protection, and amulets of natural armor. Well maybe not belts of giant strength(maybe as a minor artifact)

I would love to get much better stat growth like +2 to 3 stats at 4th and every 4 levels after. Stats max out at 30.

I would love to add 1/2 your level to AC(and CMD if you are still using that mechanic) maxing out at +10 at level 20.

Yeah, removing the treadmill of items was at the heart of what we wanted to do; those items don't help the game and actively diminish the slots needed for those items.

Hey, for those of you who want to ask questions directly about Corefinder, we got a thread now.

So yeah, go here for corefinder stuff or check out the discord.

Welcome all, N. Jolly here to introduce a new project from the Legendary Games team. Here's what Jason Nelson, the publisher, has to say on it:

PROJECT #2: COREFINDER - This is Pathfinder Refined. It retains the core structure of Pathfinder 1st Ed and is intended to be generally backwards compatible with it, in particular on the GM side, so that existing PFRPG monsters and adventures can be used without the need for massive revisions. It has a lot more room for innovation and redesign on the player side when it comes to classes, feats, and spells. This is an edition that distills the very best of Pathfinder 1E - it fixes the broken, clarifies the muddy, purges the chaff, condenses the redundant, reins in the OP, improves the lame, and polishes what's already good.

It also has a second purpose, which is to extract the core essence of Pathfinder 1E to its Core (hence the Corefinder name) in a way akin to the 1980s Rules Cyclopedia for the BECMI series of D&D modules, and it will present genre-free core for the rules that can be adapted to any genre, PLUS a Corefinder Fantasy module that incorporates magic, magic items, and all the trappings of a traditional PF/D&D-style game. Whether we publish these as separate books or an omnibus is more of a logistical question than anything else, but we would like to have the root Corefinder able to be adapted to different genres and styles.

This project is going to be to Pathfinder what Pathfinder was to 3.5, revised by the best of the third party scene. Considering the pedigree of our developers and designers, I can promise that this is going to be the definitive version of the game, and the base rules will be made with lots of ideas and concepts that have helped make Pathfinder great in mind.

For those who would like to stay in the loop directly, there's also the Legendary Games Discord, a place where you can speak with the designers directly about this new project, make suggestions, and use that one emote I have of myself!

Is Corefinder "free-gender"? Then it's not only for medieval fantasy, but also sci-fi, lovecratian pulp or gothic horror, is it?

Corefinder will not charge you for genders, take as many as you want, free of charge.

And yes, it'll be genre free too. We'll be doing supplements to fill out things that are only relevant for different genres, but the base product is meant to be the starting block for all kinds of adventures, with other supplements for other types of game.s

N.Jolly, is there a place where you're providing updates about this project or otherwise discussing it? Either on the Paizo forums or outside? I've very curious to hear what direction Legendary Games takes it.

Well, there is the Legendary Games discord. I'd have to ping Jason about if there's an FB group or something along those lines.

Trust me, there's no perfect 1.5, and we're not gonna attempt to do something like that. We're going to make the best 1.5 that a team of developers with an incredible pedigree and a history of excellence can do.

N. Jolly wrote:

So y'all hear about Legendary Games doing this with the codename Corefinder?

I had not, but I'm interested to see what they do with it. I tried looking for more information, but couldn't find anything official. There were just claims it was mentioned in a Discord.

Well, let me go grab the info for it:

COREFINDER - This is Pathfinder Refined. It retains the core structure of Pathfinder 1st Ed and is intended to be generally backwards compatible with it, in particular on the GM side, so that existing PFRPG monsters and adventures can be used without the need for massive revisions. It has a lot more room for innovation and redesign on the player side when it comes to classes, feats, and spells. This is an edition that distills the very best of Pathfinder 1E - it fixes the broken, clarifies the muddy, purges the chaff, condenses the redundant, reins in the OP, improves the lame, and polishes what's already good.

It also has a second purpose, which is to extract the core essence of Pathfinder 1E to its Core (hence the Corefinder name) in a way akin to the 1980s Rules Cyclopedia for the BECMI series of D&D modules, and it will present genre-free core for the rules that can be adapted to any genre, PLUS a Corefinder Fantasy module that incorporates magic, magic items, and all the trappings of a traditional PF/D&D-style game. Whether we publish these as separate books or an omnibus is more of a logistical question than anything else, but we would like to have the root Corefinder able to be adapted to different genres and styles.

So y'all hear about Legendary Games doing this with the codename Corefinder?

Been a while since I've done one of these, but I should talk about how I went into the 2e guide. I'm sure some of you will say "But you haven't even played it yet N., how could you make a guide?" For those of you who think that, I'll have you know that I had the 2e files in advance for things like this. As for other fears, like that I won't be doing public guides and that all guides like this will be private, I have good news for you there as well.

While there will be these published guides, we will also be releasing the google doc guides just like always (publicly), although we're doing a patreon to help support production and upkeep of them. That means ideally we'll be supporting them as new content comes out and be able to be compensated for keeping up with newer content, as a lot of guide writers now are also doing other projects, and this allows us to stay afloat while keeping up with the content that we want to provide to you all.

As for the guide itself, there was a lot that changed about this class, and I found it interesting how 2e went with what's easily my favorite class. The change to purely non-magical was not what I was expecting, but at the end, I wasn't expecting them to update extracts. In their place, the new alchemist focuses on either healing, bombing, or mutagens; and each has enough options to give reason to pick any of these. Me personally, I'd say I'm a big fan of bombing, but that's just me.

The guide itself is set up just like all my others, covering the basics with the same tongue in cheek humor that you all hopefully enjoy (well I enjoy it, and that's what matters to me), as well as commentary on options and ideas to help out with new ideas and concepts. Remember, guides like mine are intended to help people make their ideal characters, not simply 'break the game' as it were.

There are options for race, feats, backgrounds, and everything else needed to build a character the way you want it made. And of course, when the public guides go live, I'll be updating them with new content as it comes out. The initial guides like these are planned to be for core rulebook builds, as plenty of GMs will only allow you limited resources, and I'd rather these guides be as viable as possible for everyone.

Thanks a lot, and look forward to my next few guides!

New elements?

As this contains a compilation of both 1st and 3rd party content, the additional elements from the Kineticists of Porphyra series (time, sound, light, poison and viscera), the element from Legendary Kineticists (mind), and the element from Magitech Archetypes (Machine), are all available in this collection. Each one has a bevy of talents to make sure it has plenty of options to match any of the 1p offerings, each which differentiate themselves in unique ways.

Light plays around with illusions, sound works with manipulating perception, time allows for some action manipulation, poison is great at debuffing, viscera is perfect for natural attack builds, mind is another good debuffer with unique mechanics, and machine works for more futuristic games, allowing the kineticist to play in more of a starfinder-like setting.

Actually a book like this for Shifters would be interesting as well.

Anyone have this book/PDF and would like to share what they thought of it?

I got my copy the day it came out, and let me tell you, Onxy did SO MUCH to try and make the patchwork chimera of content from these books flow together seamlessly. A lot of this content was never intended to work together (by word of god), and yet he made the effort to make sure that it would work together.

Even if the new elements don't interest you, the additions to the old ones are definitely worth checking out, as they all thematically expand the concepts within. I feel like you'll get a much larger scope of what is possible with each element due to the care given to everything here. The Paizo and 3p material has been given special care to work together and to balance to the same standard to make sure that you can play the original content from the class's creator and Paizo's wonderful staff along with the more out there and risky content from the 3p publishers who wanted to give the class more options that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

For those expecting a dev post, don't. This is Onyx's book, and I ain't here to do anything but give opinions of it.

Completely deserved, glad to see you there Lyz! You've always been an amazing person, and one of my fave in the industry!

Welcome to the Legendary Games open playtest for the Legendary Alchemist! We’ve been working on this class for quite a long time, and we’re happy to share it with you. Unlike other playtests, this one will only be a week long, as we’re anxious to finish this class. But we will be listening to any and all feedback during that time, doing our best to improve the class and make it as Legendary as possible! Please feel free to comment or leave feedback here, and we hope that you’ll enjoy our newest offering!

Haven't had to do this in a bit, but back to my dev post talking about things.

Legendary Samurai
For this class, I wanted to help give it more of an identity. It was just an echo fighter of the cavalier, but with some honor bound things tied in, and so I wanted to give it something unique. To do this, I borrowed mechanics from my old mecurial duelist archetype for the vigilante, because if I wanted to rebuild a samurai, that was how I wanted to do it. It involved bringing back iaijutsu, which is probably my favorite representation of samurai lore, giving the legendary samurai a more interesting niche in the world. Along with this, I wanted to include some of the more mystic aspects of samurai lore, which is where my co-writer, Siobhan, filled in the gaps with Kiai arts. Along with the new spirit mechanic which allowed it to have a rechargeable resource, the new legendary samurai has a far more unique combat style which made them more unique.

Along with this, I wanted to include class features that not only played them up as warriors, but as noble warriors, which is why this class shares in built renown like the legendary cavalier (I also wanted the two to share some class features because of their shared heritage), as well as being able to incorporate some social talents to further help their standing as a more social warrior. The total package was something that I think came together really well, and I'm happy to see it finally coming out.

Iaijutsu techniques were also fun to right, helping to make the iaijutsu slash something more than just a quickdraw. Allowing the attacks to be varied with things like disarming opponents, attacking from a range, and even undetectable strikes was very enjoyable, helping to vary combat even more from their end. We all did our best to make sure to use as much of the action economy as possible, with kiai arts and strikes generally sharing different ability types.

Favored Class Bonuses
Yeah, had to rewrite all of these, but they're not race locked, because I'm not a huge fan of that.

Feats
The new feats have become my standard deviation of allowing alternative abilities to be used as a key ability score, as well as making sure that people could get as many of a talent as they wanted, although I loved legacy weapon so much that I have to show it off here:

Archetypes
As always, archetypes were an interesting set of design challenges that had to work around a pretty complex class feature engine, but Siobhan was certainly up to the task. As per normal, I'll be discussing the ones I wrote, leaving the others for my co-authors to talk about.

Ancestral Inheritor
Now this was one I always really liked (and had clear shaman king influences in), being able to actually summon the spirit of your sword as an eidolon. Sure, you lose challenge and kiai arts, but having the spirit of your sword as an in combat ally was just an awesome concept to me, and one that I personally adore.

Gunblade Duelist
As someone who loves firearms, I take every chance I can to make them fun and cool. Because of this, I have to make the sword pistol cane as sick as possible. Being able to fire when you draw as well as increasing the range and lowering its misfire rate really allows you to play a unique style of character that I don't think has been possible before.

Oni Warrior
Of course this is the kind of archetype that was needed, as we all love us a berserker. Aside from just tossing in rage, while raging, the oni warrior eventually starts becoming an oni, really helping to push the concept forward while also making them far more adept with a tetsubo (increasing its crit range and such).

Master Striker
Of course there's a punching archetype. This one is more basic to avoid changing things up too much, but it allows for a more monk-like character with mystical offense and unarmored talent.

Ronin
Probably the most low impact archetype, this is one for people who'd rather be a wanderer and don't care as much for the social aspect. Allowing for characters who want to be more under the radar, ronin is a simple archetype that lets people play how they want.

Soul Blade
We all love black blades, and this is the archetype that makes it possible for samurai to have a strong bond with their weapons and not summon it. With synergy involving kiai arts, soul blade was an archetype I knew people would appreciate to have an actual ancestral spirit in their blade, as well as having a weapon that's very easy to enchant.

Steed Lord
I felt like people would me mad if they couldn't play traditionally mounted samurai, so I wanted to let it be an option. There's a lot of content here that's shared with the legendary cavalier, mostly because we did a lot of work there to make sure your horse wouldn't be cannon fodder. Being able to actually make attacks with your horse without always missing, ignore difficult terrain, and other buffs help make your horse an ally rather than a hindrance.

Yojimbo
The traditional bodyguard archetype, this was designed to let you pick out a party member and start taking damage for them, becoming the target of attacks and getting powered up for doing so. Not only that, but yojimbo also gain temporary hit points per round to make sure that they won't drop, making it a great defensive choice.

Yumi Sniper
Another archetype of character I knew people wanted to play, the yumi sniper has its own form of iaijutsu, making it just as versatile as a normal samurai, but at a range. Combined with Steed Lord, you could run a traditional samurai just as easily as the base version, and that's not even counting all the alternative class features.

Sample Character
So I love my sample characters, but this one was special, as it uses the likeness of WWE NXT superstar Brennan Williams, who's just an overall great guy. We talked it out, and he was pumped to be in the book, and I was pumped to have him. All details of the character went through him, and in the end, I think having him on board made this project so much more fun.

Closing
As you can see by the list of authors, this project has quite a few new faces on the scene, people who have talent that I wanted to help get out there. The infusion of new blood has lead to new ideas that I couldn't have come up with on my own, and I believe you'll be seeing Adam and Wren in the future on their own projects. I greatly enjoyed this project, and I can't wait to show off my next class rebuild. Hope you all enjoyed this look into the design process.

Or “This is 5th level?”

So at this most recent gencon, I was able to run the playtest module for Pathfinder 2nd edition. The adventure itself was serviceable, pretty standard for a con module, no real problems aside from things being pretty abrupt (even for said con standards).

I started the adventure as a Barbarian, Amiri. When I looked over the sheet, I saw a lot of information, but almost none of it factored into what I could do in the adventure. I’m 5th level, and by this point in PF 1e, you basically have hit your stride as far as your concept goes, especially build wise (complain if you want that I say build, not gonna stop me). Because we were 5th level, I felt like I was going to really get the chance to get into the system, to pull things apart, and get a great idea of how a 5th level character could play.

This was not the situation.

Amiri had 2 combat options aside from rage (and rage was just spend an action to get some benefits); sudden charge (move up to 2x your speed and attack, so effectively a bonus move action) and Wolf’s Bite (deal strength mod on a trip attack). There was no information on how to trip, so I didn’t have the necessary tools to even know how to use my only other unique option, so that was fun. So much information just felt superfluous on the sheet, to the point that my eyes were starting to glaze over it. This felt weird, since with how many new mechanics needed to be included, I had none.

There was also some ability that if I shook off influence of mind control, it was a critical success. There was one instance of mind control in the module, so I didn’t have a chance to try it out, but it felt very limiting. Rage itself felt fine enough, like it did what it said on the tin, but without an accuracy boost, which was annoying. I was accurate enough, felt as though I had the same accuracy as everyone else at the table, which for a barbarian felt unsatisfying considering I was using an action to buff myself.

Enemy damage made sense, they were doing 5%-20% a hit, combat felt like it was trying to last longer due to how many enemies there were, but in combat? I was bored. Like legit “what am I supposed to do?” bored. I had 2 combat options, and to make me feel even less special, the fighter in the group also had sudden charge, so my one unique thing felt all the more boring. The entire first combat consisted of me activating rage, walking up with sudden charge (assuming they weren’t in my normal movement range) and attacking twice after I’d activated rage. This was the exact same thing I assumed would happen with the new action economy, and I’m not happy to be right here.

I had nothing else to do, I tried tripping once, succeeded, but didn’t really feel like I’d gained an advantage. Tripping has effectively become “-2 AC until your round (+1 to ranged), and -1 action” rather than how it felt before. Flanking wasn’t satisfying, movement felt entirely without value without AOOs, and positioning was effectively worthless for melee as all we did was move into position to attack…and attack twice. There were quite a few times I saw people 3x attack because they had nothing else to do, despite the fact that this 3rd attack is virtually worthless.

As expected, the +10 to crit caused bosses (of which there was 3 in the adventure; a golem, a sniper and mage) to crit more often, skewing the balance of combat in their favor at times, but a friend of mine was running a healing paladin, so it wasn’t really a huge issue. I had absolutely nothing to do with my reaction (to the point that it might as well have not existed), and my offensive routine was painfully stale. At 1st level, this would have made sense, I didn’t have the abilities to do anything, so of course I’m only doing one simple thing (despite other systems such as Path of War or Spheres of Might giving unique options at 1st level).

The golem battle had some vaguely interesting mechanics, but its offense was straightforward and lacking in polish, to the point where I actually almost forgot about it while writing this.

But this was 5th level, I should have had options, I should have had exciting things to do. The fighter had one ability where they could attack two people if they missed one, but only if they were being flanked, so an ability that at best puts you into a bad situation to use. And they had sudden charge, like me, so that was basically most rounds.

The only interesting part of combat was the second boss’s spells, which managed to actually give value to positioning and make combat feel more unique than ‘trade full attacks’. Our own caster had some fun spells in that respect too, again feeling like a fleshed out character rather than my full attack machine. I deeply regret not playing a caster for this, because just like in 1e, they had unique options that actually felt like they changed the flow of combat rather than a DPS race like what we already had.

Positively, I did like how the ‘slow’ mechanic interacted with the action economy. As a whole, I did enjoy the new statuses, as they kept up a varied combat situation without being as overwhelming as the 1e statuses, which was a solid step forward. Being able to stack them is almost certainly something I’d like to do in the future, but those were out of my reach, as I was a humble martial, and not a world changing caster.

I also like how hardness worked for constructs, it was a nice way of giving them more durability without going with straight up resistance. I’d say that was one of the things I liked most about the entire session, which was a depressingly low bar.

Speaking from what I saw from the other players, our alchemist felt like their bombs were lacking, and requiring resonance to use them was a draining and unfun experience, leading to them being tapped on bombs after a single encounter (there were only 3 encounters, but in a standard game, this would be an issue). The fighter’s only unique ability was available while poorly positioning themselves, and both the fighter as well as the paladin were often full attacking due to other options being nonexistent. Our fighter raised his shield maybe twice, feeling like using it wasn’t really worth it due to how fragile it was.

As a whole, I was disappointed. This was how 1st level should have played (and as stated above, other systems manage to break up that monotony), not 5th level. We all had fun at the table, cracking jokes and playing up goofy situations, but the actual game was far less engaging that I would have hoped, and lead to me zoning out at times. I informed my friend that at times, I was on auto-pilot, and this was no exaggeration.

Pathfinder 2e has not done nearly enough to make martials feel fun or interesting. While one can claim other abilities would have done this, I was given a character sheet that they had created, designed to show off the system. If this was their way of introducing me to a 5th level character, I am not impressed, and cannot say I would play a martial character again. I’d consider a caster, but that puts us right back to where we started in 1e, and that was supposedly something that was going to be fixed.

In summation, while there are some mechanics which I really do enjoy, the majority of it felt like not enough effort was put into advancing it as a system, the action economy did not encourage anything but repetition, and I can’t say I enjoyed combat, at least anymore than I enjoy 1st level 1e combat.

Brian Perlis wrote:

I hope this is ok to post here. I didn't know of any other location or thread to find the writers.

I'm trying to start an RPG writers group for anyone with a like-minded interest. Ideally, 3-4 more people but we are using Google suite. We can host as many as want to join. We'll subdivide into writing groups of five. There will be a $20 quarterly fee to pay Google (as a heads up).

If you are committed to a writers group you can send an email to brian@rpgscribesguild.com

We even have a cool sounding url.

- Brian

If I may, I suggest you check out Freelance Forge

Or there's the Devcord on discord, which is an invite only group for developers (PM for more details).

Ah, time for the dev post about this project:

The beginning
So I'm actually starting slightly before the book because an interesting note here was that this was a book that I had a poll on deciding. I'd asked the community what class they most thought required a rebuild, and cavalier was the clear winner. Let it never be said that Legendary Games and I don't listen to what you want and work to create content that's in demand :D

Legendary Cavaliers basics
So in a lot of ways, the legendary cavalier is a large departure from the base class. In legendary class rebuilds, I generally attempt to keep a class close to its base form, accentuating the positive while filling in gaps to help create a more fulfilling experience. With Legendary Cavalier though...

...that wasn't how things played out. Cavalier has an identity crisis in that it's like the fighter that the fluff just does not match the reality of playing the class. It didn't do what it said it did, and the majority of the class features didn't even play into the idea of nobility, instead possessing mostly combat focused class features and some paltry social ones. So I decided to rebuild far more than others.

This is also the first project on which I've taken an apprentice writer to help me out, which was David Nelson. Their help was very much needed to fill in class gaps and give a better sense of what we both wanted to accomplish here.

Legendary Cavaliers specifics
As stated, there was a lot under the hood that was changed, and quite a bit of it had to do with making the mount more viable. Now there's class features which buff its attack roles, make it able to travel across far more terrain than before, and even squeeze into smaller spaces so that tight dungeon corridors are no longer the wall that they once were. Making a mount that felt vital was a large goal here, and one the team and I worked on a lot.

On the social side of things, cavaliers didn't have a lot going for themselves. That's where things like skilled diplomat, knight's renown, and courtly skill come into play. These new class features work towards not only making a Legendary Cavalier a beast on the field of battle, but also a powerful player in the games of courtly intrigue. Charisma is an important stat for the class, and we wanted to make things play out more fluidly for those who wanted to play a refined knight.

Speaking of fulfilling a leadership role, the Legendary Cavalier introduces powerful commander's auras which allow them to take on a far more dedicated leadership role in combat. Allowing for them to grant bonuses like additional damage, skills, movement speed, and other benefits, a Legendary Cavalier is going to feel like someone who is meant to be followed, to be respected, and to be feared.

The remaining class features are ones you would expect, including returning ways to make charging more powerful and everything else that you would expect from the class. Orders and banners make a return, but in a more background role considering everything else that's given.

Favored Class Bonuses
With a new class comes new favored class bonuses, and Legendary Cavalier has tons. Not only that, but none of them are race locked, presenting even more ways for players to customize their experience. The idea of racially gating off content was always something the team felt iffy on, so we just threw it out!

Alternative Class Features
Since some people wanted more customization in the class, the Legendary Cavalier also comes with an idea borrowed from Legendary Barbarians (spoiler alert), alternative class features. These are like smaller archetypes which allow single or related class features to be traded out for other listed class features, further allowing players to design the Legendary Cavalier in their own way. From swapping commander's aura for weapon training and even regaining the old cavalier's challenge mechanic, the Legendary Cavalier ends up being versatile in a way unique to the Legendary Classes line.

Draconic Avenger
Keeping with the spirit of alteration, the draconic avenger archetype allows a player to gain a drake companion, while also fixing many of the issues of the original drake. By 5th level it can be ridden by a medium sized character, possessing even more natural attacks, and other small tweaks, it's designed to play in a way that will make the thrill of riding a dragon easily reached even at early levels.

Firearm Soldier
If you know me, you know I love guns, and a firearm based cavalier was always going to happen. Replacing charge features for firearm proficiency and skill, the firearm soldier plays differently enough to make it a unique experience (and even more so if you use the firearm modifications from Legendary Gunslingers).

Houndmaster
An old favorite of mine, the houndmaster trades in a horse for a pair of loyal hunting hounds which share an attack and magic item slots. Increasing in level allows for cool team up attacks from them, eventually allowing the pair to literally rip a creature limb from limb (with associated rules for dismemberment).

Iron General
In the topic of things I like, punching is on them. If you're looking to play a General Armstrong style character, Iron General is the one. An archetype that focuses on hard punches, charges, dashes, and blowing things away with a single blow, this is definitely what you'd want.

Masked Traveler
A smaller archetype for those with a more dramatic flair, the masked traveler further embraces the vigilante feel of the class at the cost of charging based offense, allowing them to act in a daring fashion while still maintaining a courtly facade.

Mounted Champion
And this is a first for Legendary Games, as it is the first time that a Spheres of Might compatible archetype has been included. The Mounted Champion gives an adept's progression of sphere talents, integrating it into the normal progression at the cost of commander's aura. It's definitely an archetype which will help new players dip into this unique system, and give experienced players an entirely new resource to explore.

Pegasus Knight
So horses are boring, dragons are aggressive, but pegasi? Those are some regal creatures! An archetype intended to take to the sky, the Pegasus Knight gives unique rules for a non-magical pegasus which can be obtained at 1st level as well as giving all the tools needed for aerial combat to be a key point in their offensive routine.

New Feats
A few new feats are provided to help with archetypes which lost commander's aura and others which simply want a few new tricks.

New Magic Items
And of course, there's easier ways to ride your mount, bringing it back to life, and even sharing its damage. Obviously, there's lots of new magic stuff to bolt to your horse.

Sample Character
Asra Verain is our newest member to the cannon, a young hot shot with few friends but his horse and his unrequited love. Search the Free City of Goldhaven, he's easily a friend or foe, but probably insufferable regardless.

Final Thoughts
Legendary Cavaliers was not a project on which I thought I'd be working, and there were some rough spots in the middle (like moving during the playtest), but as a whole, I think it's a bold step in how class rebuilds could take shape in the future. With the recently announced new classes, I can tell you that at least one of them will also break the mold in this fashion. Thanks to everyone who assisted on this project, and hope everyone reading this enjoys it as much as I do.

In honor of Spheres of Might being nominated for an Ennie, I've decided to talk about my time freelancing.

N. Jolly: Journey of a Freelancer

You're a good person, Crystal. I always respected what you wrote, and how you conducted yourself. You'll be sorely missed.

Welcome to the Legendary Cavalier open playtest!

As you’ll see, unlike other legendary class rebuilds, the legendary cavalier is far different than its base form. The design goals here were to make a class that could work as a battlefield leader, one who could enhance allies while still focusing on mounted combat and out of combat situations. With new abilities to enhance diplomacy and its uses, the legendary cavalier is far more capable of engaging NPCs, and with the new abilities added to the legendary cavalier’s mount, it serves a far more consistent role in combat.

The playtest will be lasting for 2 weeks, and comments are open, so please let us know what you think. In addition, threads will be posted over at Paizo.com for any feedback, so let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see in this project!

Waiting on another batch of Shifter fixes, Paizo.

Wish I could offer something more official, but I did write up the Legendary Shifter for people who were looking for different options here. It's a complete rebuild of the class which removes the limitations of wildshape, adds new abilities each level, tosses in some bonus feats, and even gives new options that the druid's wildshape doesn't to help separate them thematically.

Again, if 3p isn't your thing, disregard it, but it's an option for groups who were looking for different concepts for the shifter class.

Can't have been in a hardcover, eh?

(Hides copy of Spheres of Might)

Seriously though, I can't wait to see who comes out of this. We've got a few people in the devcord who are already talking about the adventure they're gonna write once they win. We've just included a channel in our discord about it, so if anyone's interested in joining and discussing your entry, PM me here or email me at ehnjaminjolly@gmail.com to discuss it.

I really want to like this, but it really does seem overpowered. At level 1 a Legendary Shifter has 3 natural attacks each doing 1d6 + Str mod damage, all at full attack bonus (so 3d6 + 3 Str mod total).

Compare this to a fighter with a greatsword doing 2d6 + 1.5 Str mod damage. The shifter is easily out-fighting the fighter, without even needing a weapon! And this is before even considering the cool array of shapeshifting powers the shifter gets.
I prefer the way the shapeshifting works in this version, but unless I'm overlooking something I don't see why anyone would ever play a fighter next to these guys.

This is a reasonable concern, but the thing is, that's just natural attacks in general. It's not even a little difficult for any build to gain 3 natural attacks to start. There's plenty of races (such as catfolk, tiefling, ratfolk with a feat, a large swath of skinwalkers) that can gain claws very easily, along with taking traits to gain a bite attack. The idea of gaining this many natural attacks can be done without limits rather than how the legendary shifter is limited to only being able to get them in specific forms and for limited amounts of time per day.

Races that can do that don't even require class levels to do this, allowing them to be fighters and do the same thing you're stating here. You also have to consider that these natural attacks need 3 different attack rolls to connect to put out that kind of damage; this skewes them closer to average damage rather than the greatsword, which is far more swingy.

This is also considering that manufactured weapons are far more easily enhanced and can benefit from special materials. Single weapons also benefit more from power attack and deal more damage with attacks of opportunity, as well as being easier to augment with feats (taking weapon focus: greatsword is easier than taking two different weapon focuses for claws and bite, as well as feats like improved critical and such, benefiting a singular weapon more than natural attacks).

As to why anyone would ever play a fighter against this, the same question could be brought up against the majority of full BAB classes, especially things like barbarian, paladin, ranger, slayer, bloodrager, and avenger vigilante. I recognize that you may have a standard for the fighter in the sense of its power and importance, but the game design as a whole has passed it by (and yes, I am considering advanced weapon training in this statement), and having this class be held back by the fighter's power level would have resulted in a project that wasn't up to my standards or legendary game's standards.

Natural attacks are a powerful style of combat, and early they may seem overpowered, but for the most part, the numbers even out more and more as you go later into things. I won't say that the legendary shifter isn't more powerful than a fighter, as I do believe it is, but the primary selling point of the class isn't intended to be damage, it's versatility (another thing at which it beats the fighter). It's the legendary games way to try and bring others up to par rather than lowering something to a point where it's less fun to play, as seen by the rebuild of the fighter class, a class which is very much closer in line with the legendary shifter.

Sure, you can consider this power creep, but at a certain point, older content needs to be boosted to reach the standard that new content has reached (vigilante basically being rogue+++) in order to keep those older concepts as viable as they were when the game started. That's always been my intended goal, but as always, it's up to others to decide if that goal has been reached.

I appreciate your feedback here though, as it does let me know the concerns of building things like this and the possible issues that may occur because of it.

I know it's been a long time since I've been able to update the blog, and for this, I'm sorry, but today is me starting in on building my own setting, and I'll be helping this with rules supplements, starting with the tale of Rosa Dorado.

I'm just now getting to the Sentinel archetypes, and upon reading the description of the Darkness Defender being a "combat masochist" I have to ask:

Is this based off a main character in a certain fantasy comedy anime of the "normal Japanese male transported to a fantasy world" genre?

Yes.

Yes it is.

My Spheres of Might book came in today and got me thinking. Pathfinder is a pretty complete game.with what's out there I can spend a lot of time before I get bored so I don't need a new game that's more of the same. Out of all the third party stuff, Spheres of Power/Might have been the most well received items in terms of straight replacement options. I haven't had enough time with Might but Power has been more fun and more flexible than most magic systems in Pathfinder and the only book where I bought multiple copies for myself to support it at my table and copies for strangers just to convince them that it's good.

I would fully support a sphere based RPG built on an altered Pathfinder chassis. Not even all the martial and magic spheres need to make it, or even the classes. Just enough to build a core rulebook recreate the Fighter as a full practitioner and the wizard as a flexible high caster and fill in grids from there.

Don't think we haven't thought about this.

Something I just noticed: the Legendary Shifter doesn't get an increasing uses of shifter shape per day, unlike the UW Shifter who gets more uses starting at level 6 and increasing every two levels from then (2 uses at 6th level, 3 at 8th, etc.). Was this intentional or did I just notice an error?

That's actually correct; the L Shifter gets an increasing duration rather than additional uses. As written it the class feature, it's 1/2 level + Wis mod hours per day. Funny how the revised shifter also when to hours per day just as this was being released.

Glad to see you liked this one, EZG. Jade did a lot of amazing design on this, and I was lucky he poked his head in to ask me to contribute a bit to it.

Don't you have to buy the PDF on Drivethru to be able to post a review there?

On drivethru, yeah. It's honestly why I pick up all my stuff over there, since I can cross post the review everywhere. It might be worth asking if you can get a copy through there, since I know reviews there are really helpful.

Review is up!

EDIT: Realized I accidentally wrote "ass" instead of "all" and "S%++er" instead of "Shifter" in places, so that's fixed now. This is why you don't write reviews when sleep-deprived, it makes you seem more foulmouthed than you intend to.

Very much appreciated, and yeah, I ended up doing the latter of those two typos a lot when doing the first draft. It's just so close together. I'm seriously glad that people are enjoying this redesign as much as they are, as I did my best to see what issues people had with the class and work to make something that better encapsulated what people wanted from this concept. I went pouring over threads from people who wanted changes, seeing what they wanted, reading over other people's rebuilds, and discussing it with quite a few of them to make sure that what I put out was going to be what the concept deserved. This project involved a lot of research, as I looked up Master of Many Forms as well as Master Transmogrist (?) from 3.5 and anything else I could find that had the same concept. The original class in playtest wasn't that different from the base class, but the playtest helped push things along (totally don't use those to mine for ideas, not even a little), as it was the suggestion of others that lead to the hour duration for the class's shifting (it appears Paizo thought it was a good idea too).

In the end, Siobhan and I decided on a lot of things to make the class more unique, and the archetypes were some of the most fun design I've done in a while, especially the mimickin. It feel like there's still a lot of space to explore with this version of the shifter, and if the demand is great enough, I'll certainly be interested in making a sequel to this with a few friends who I didn't get to include initially.

I'd be willing to help with this, I always like doing my part to help new people into the industry.

Hmm... not as bad as I feared. The flat bonus to damage will help a lot against energy resistance(and DR if my memory of non-true dragon options is correct).

Disappointment alleviated.

This breath weapon was actually the source of contention during the playtest. I realized the 1d4 thing, while a staple, didn't really help the archetype, so I removed it. The damage should scale well enough that it remains useful, and it can be used as a primary attack if one wishes, which I figured would be something most people with a breath weapon would want.

Very much appreciate the review, and as for Legendary Shifters II, it'll depend on how well this one sells. I did try to include as many legendary versions of archetypes as I could, but for this project, I wanted to use new ideas to make sure that people who were already familiar with the shifter would have some new things with which to play. For me, I just wanted to have some cool stuff, like mimickin.